Bangor activists sentenced to jail

Snowe, Collins not moderate on Iraq


Sign at Olympia Snowe's office in Bangor, 9/21/2006 (Eric T. Olson photo)

Let me be very clear about so-called Maine ``moderate'' Republican Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins: Up to now they have been absolutely terrible leaders on Iraq. They have both been part and parcel in helping President Bush lead America in the disastrous war in Iraq. Archive postings making the cases against our war-loving senators are here, here, and here.

Today, several Maine activists finished a 24-hour sentence for the September 21, 2006 protest that Doug Allen described in his piece, reproduced in the previous post. The Bangor Daily News reported some details in this story:

Six anti-war activists got their wish Tuesday when a district court judge sentenced them to 24 hours in the Penobscot County Jail rather than ordering them to pay a $200 fine as prosecutors originally recommended.

Judge David B. Griffiths also ordered the six to reimburse the county $80, the maximum allowed by law, toward the more than $90 per day cost of housing them at the jail.

The jailed protesters, along with five others, were arrested in September at U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s Bangor office. Four of the 11 agreed to pay the $200 fine, while one woman served her 24-hour jail sentence in December.

"We chose to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, who felt civil disobedience was necessary when elected representatives fail to act to stop extreme injustice," Douglas Allen, 65, of Orono told the court. "We are willing to face the consequences of our action with the hope that others will take whatever steps they can to put an end to the occupation of Iraq and bring our troops home safely."

Allen and the others were arrested on Sept. 21 and charged with criminal trespass for refusing to leave Snowe’s third-floor offices and hallway at One Cumberland Place when asked to do so by the building’s owner and the police.

There is no greater gift we could give our troops, and the Iraqi people, than to bring our troops home. That's why the protesters at Sen. Snowe's office are so important -- to let her know that her policies and those of her president are wrong -- and in a way that calls attention to her failures after she has ignored this majority position for so many years, and after the loss of so many lives.