Make do with what you got BY AL DIAMON

Both the far left and the far right have proposed the same economic development plan for Maine.

That’s strong evidence the thing will never work.

In recent months, the ultra-conservative Christian Civic League of Maine (motto: Gays! Arrrgh! Gambling! Arrrgh! Did We Mention Gays? Arrrgh!) has occasionally interrupted its predictable rants (Homosexuals! Arrrgh!) to carp about Governor John Baldacci’s economic development program. The religious right is appalled because Baldacci wants to create a genetic-research facility in Maine. Apparently, the reactionaries fear that would lead to stem-cell experiments, human cloning, and the discovery that civic-league members have screwy DNA.

Whatever the reason, the league prefers the state concentrate on encouraging rural development, specifically family farms (assuming the families in question don’t include same-sex couples).

The state already has lots of policies encouraging small agricultural enterprises, policies that would work just fine if it weren’t for economic reality. Maine Department of Agriculture statistics show the number of small farms has grown over the last seven years, but income from those operations still averages less than $2500 a year. That probably doesn’t cover property taxes, let alone tithing the church.

Which brings us to the far left, in the form of Nancy Oden of Jonesboro, a former organic farmer, current environmental activist, and newly announced independent candidate for governor. Oden and the Christian Civic League disagree on just about everything. She’s pro-choice, pro-gay, an exponent of Ralph Nader and the secular humanism he symbolizes, and not particularly concerned about casinos.

What Oden is concerned about is pesticides (she once organized an unsuccessful petition drive to ban aerial spraying), solid waste (particularly large landfills accepting out-of-state trash), and corporate greed (which she blames for everything from global warming to the loss of Pedro Martinez to the Mets).

Just about the only issue on which Oden and the civic league agree is that the state should encourage more folks to start plowing the soil. The league has never been specific about what form that encouragement should take, but being conservative, it’s unlikely the group wants to spend taxpayer dollars to increase the amount of sowing and reaping. Oden has no such qualms.

"We should subsidize young people on small, diverse, organic farms," she said. "We need to grow more of our own food."

Oden is a 66-year-old New Jersey native, who grew up in northern Michigan and moved to Maine in 1979. She’s now living on Social Security and devoting her time to environmental issues and her campaign. Although she’s associated with a faction of the Green Party, she’s running as an independent because she’s angry at the Greens for saying it was okay to vote for Democrat John Kerry for president last year. She’s even angrier at Democrat Baldacci for proposing (but never introducing) a bill to lower Maine’s top income-tax rate, which she labels "welfare for the rich." The governor, she said, is "tired and out of touch."

Oden and the civic league share an approach to public policy. They both favor extreme measures. While the league wants to make it a crime to engage in sodomy (Queers! Arrrgh!), she wants to make it illegal to throw anything away (Dumps! Arrrgh!). Oden would close all incinerators, ban the importing of out-of-state trash, and mandate recycling. She’d hire dozens of new state employees (possibly the people who used to work at incinerators and landfills) to inspect every truck entering Maine for hazardous materials.

Oden figures the paper companies are nearly out of business, so she’d have the state buy all the forest land, and, after a few years of letting it regenerate, she’d allow "regular people" to cut trees for firewood and lumber for homes. In the meantime, we’d sustain ourselves by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants to eat.

"The corporate mentality of use it all up . . . is destroying not only Maine, but the entire world," she said. "This state needs to prepare for hard financial times by becoming more self-sufficient."

Self-sufficient people who make more than $35,000 a year would be taxed "up to the limit of their incomes," said Oden, while those who make less would pay nothing.

"Industry is turning our beautiful blue and green Earth into a huge poison gas chamber," she wrote in a Bangor Daily News op-ed piece in 1992. "I’m not going quietly. How about you?"

"What I believe is that the Earth will not be saved by incremental, mealy-mouthed nothings," she told the Portland Press Herald in 2001. "What we need are principles."

And in a phone interview last week, she said, "The wrath of the citizenry is what I hope to organize to make some changes."

One more similarity between Oden and the civic league: She can evoke fire and brimstone as surely as any Bible thumper.

Send me solid ideas (but no solid waste) by emailing ishmaelia@gwi.net