Regardless of how we vote on the Pine Tree Power proposal, there’s one unavoidable fact: if you’ve got plenty of money and power, you can almost always find a way to get your way.

CMP and Versant have spent over $37 million trying to scare us into voting against the proposal, while the bipartisan Pine Tree Power campaign comes mostly from individual Mainers. We’re in an age where people seem comfortable lying right to our faces. Solid data from Maine’s PUC reveals that five of the six largest consumer-owned utilities in Maine have a significantly lower rate than CMP and Versant. The one exception serves some of Maine’s island communities.

Pine Tree Power would be consumer-owned utility, not a government entity. Currently 97 Maine towns are served by consumer-owned utilities. This overwhelming imbalance of spending is just business as usual, unless we have the courage to say no, enough is enough. Enough bad service; enough hiked electric rates; enough of our essential services being run by those with no interest in the communities they serve; enough fear-mongering by those only interested in their profits. A lot of people talk about freedom. How about being free from the obscene way in which big money runs almost everything in our world.

It’s not all that complicated, but it’ll take some courage to resist the fear tactics that we’re receiving on a daily basis from our TVs, cellphones, computers, mailboxes and newspapers: $37 million worth of fear tactics.

Christopher Wright

Belfast