Domestic Terrorism From The Right: Homemade Chemical Bomb Tossed Into An OccupyMaine Encampment

Maine seems like such a "moderate" place, doesn't it-- even with that aberration of a bizarre teabagger governor Paul LePage? Even when the two Republican senators vote as far to the right as extremist crackpots like Jim DeMint, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul-- basically on all but the smallest handful of votes-- everyone is so used to calling Maine "moderate," that no one considers that, for example, Collins' and Snowe's votes against Obama's jobs bill last week cost the economically hard-pressed state $138,700,000 (and 1,800 construction jobs) dealing with infrastructure projects, $117,300,000 (and another 1,800 teaching jobs) and $90,700,000 in funding to support as many as 1,200 jobs in rebuilding and repairing Maine's schools. But {{Olympia Snowe}}, the tenth richest member of Congress, is worth something like $45 million and she objected to the .05% tax increase for people making over $1,000,000 annually (i.e., herself, her criminal husband and her 373 best friends back in the state.) Very moderate.

My best pal Roland is a Mainer. I mean, he's not just from Maine, he's a Mainer. He's been living in California over half his life and he still reads the Maine newspapers everyday. And he spends part of every summer back in Lewiston and driving through the state. A couple months ago he came back and told me something I haven't been able to get out of my head. We'd long discussed how Maine in general and Lewiston-Auburn in particular, had attracted an outsized Somali diaspora. Many of Roland's friends blamed the Somali refugees for _________ (fill in the blank, though Somali welfare queens figured into everything. Roland also told me how, despite Somali merchants helping to resuscitate the city's long-dying downtown, there was some KKK-type hostility, particularly aimed at the refugees' Muslim faith. He told me about how a storefront mosque was vandalized and desecrated by hoodlums rolling pigs' heads into it. But the latest story chilled me more deeply.

He told me when he got back to Los Angeles that few people talk with the Somalis... ever. They occupy-- if at times uneasily-- the same space, but don't interact. The native Mainers, he says, excuse it by saying the Somalis don't want anything to do with them. I haven't gotten that idea out of my mind.

Apparently, though, that's not the only manifestation of immoderate behavior in Maine. Sunday at 4am, someone-- perhaps the pigs' heads rollers?-- tossed a chemical bomb into the OccupyMaine encampment in Portland.

Occupy Maine protesters say Sunday morning's attack with a chemical explosive has left them with a mixture of anxiety and resolve.

"We are more motivated to keep doing what we're doing," said Stephanie Wilburn, of Portland, who was sitting near where the chemical mixture in a Gatorade bottle was tossed at 4 a.m. Sunday. "They have heard us and we're making a difference."

Witnesses said a silver car had been circling before the attack, its occupants shouting things like "Get a job" and "You communist." They believe someone from that car threw the device, according to a statement from Occupy Maine.

The demonstrators are protesting what they describe as unfairly favorable treatment given banks and other corporate interests at the expense of working people and those trying to find a job.

Shane Blodgett of Augusta was sleeping in his tent in the middle of the park when the explosion woke him up.
"I heard a sound which I thought was a gunshot," he said, gesturing at the collection of three dozen tents that cover the south side of the park at Congress and Pearl streets.

"I was in fear for my life. I thought someone was walking around with a gun. I didn't dare poke my head out," Blodgett said. He eventually went back to sleep.

OccupyMaine has been thriving in Portland for a full month-- and there's also an OccupyAugusta in the state's capital-- and their self-imposed rules look very much like the self-imposed Occupy rules elsewhere across the country:

[A] handwritten sign articulates rules:

“Welcome to the occupation. This is a safe space. We are all leaders here.”

Clean up after yourself and help others, it says. No drunkenness. No drugs. Quiet time at midnight.

Since rejecting the occupants’ attempt to pitch tents in Monument Square, city officials have allowed the camp to exist in the park. Police have received few complaints, and on a recent night no officers were seen patrolling the grounds.

The city also gave permission for Occupy Maine to set up a portable toilet, said John Branson, the group’s lawyer. The group just needs money to pay for it.

Portland’s accommodating spirit is being noticed worldwide by a movement that in some places has had violent run-ins with police, Branson says, and organizers are grateful.

But Occupy Maine, a movement without direct leaders or clear authority, is testing the boundaries of its principles. The camp has a zero-tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol. But as he looks around the park, Branson knows that people with substance abuse issues are part of the scene.

“The movement has given voice to wanderers and homeless people,” he says. “They feel they have a place to come. Some have become part of the movement, but they can’t just stay here and eat.”

It’s a difficult dance. At night, volunteers act as a security detail, watching possessions and steering intoxicated men away from the sleeping camp, though they can’t keep a group of men from sitting on lawn chairs outside a tent and chatting until dawn.

Still, there is an energy and a feeling of community in the park for participants who have embraced the message of the evolving, worldwide occupy movement.

Mainers... fighting back in defense of their liberty and their children's liberty: