When it comes to power, it’s not really all that difficult to understand why humanity is stuck with privately owned power companies: profits, right? Easy. They have a LOT of control over how and when power is delivered and that control allows them to manipulate the market – always to their own advantage, of course. That “always to their own advantage” part isn’t a complaint. That’s just business in America these days.

It’s ALSO easy to know what would be best for humanity: A non-centralized, renewable power grid. Think, for example, solar panels on every rooftop everywhere. The advantages are legion – and obvious. Any disadvantage is usually just blather pressed into the dialogue by people with financial interests in maintaining centralized control. I fully understand why these power moguls want to keep control. Money, money, money, money – MONEY!

I live in an area of California where we have a main power provider, Pacific Gas and Electric or PG&E. PG&E owns and commonly fails to maintain the lines of delivery. PG&E has been implicated in several of the fires California has suffered over the last several years and too many times the explanation has been some variation of “deferred maintenance.” For the uninitiated, “deferred maintenance” means, “we didn’t maintain it ’cause it was cheaper.”

They do things like this: There was a time when natural gas lines in San Bruno were so old and leaky, people regularly called in to the company complaining about smelling natural gas. The corporation knew they needed to upgrade the lines and received permission for a rate hike to pay for the work (they should have been doing as a cost of doing business all along in the first place.) The parentheses are the part no official would say out loud but everyone knew. THEN, they used the money on a political campaign in an attempt to secure a state-wide monopoly on power production/distribution.

Fortunately, PG&E lost their attempt to corner the market. UNFORTUNATELY, a segment of San Bruno blew up when a spark ignited some of the seeping gas, killing at least 8 people. PG&E then sought – and received – another rate hike to pay for the work they had already received a rate hike to pay for and fixed the lines. TWO rate hikes to fix one problem they should never have allowed in the first place? Sweet – if you’re PG&E. It’s a sorry commentary on Capitalism that every time they burn down or blow up some town as a direct result of their feckless corporate “leadership,” they get another rate hike to address the problem. It explains their new slogan, “PG&E. We’ll burn your whole city down for a dollar!”

But it led to a competing local power company, Sonoma Clean Power. Sonoma Clean Power is customer-owned but still, basically, private – and “for profit.” Their thing is, they provide cleaner power at “competitive rates.” It IS cheaper. I signed up right away and the production portion of my power bill dropped. The thing is, PG&E still owns (and fails to maintain) the distribution grid and PG&E, separately, gets to charge for power distribution. And, boy, do they! They continue to charge on a tiered rate basis – and the tiers are still ridiculously low. Turn on one 40 watt bulb for an hour, you’ve busted through tier one and are now into the more expensive tier two. (Okay, hyperbole alert but the main point is still correct.)

It bugs me and it has ever since I realized the scam. I buy power from SCP but PG&E still gets to gouge on the delivery of the power? How does it make one iota of difference to PG&E if they deliver one kilowatt or three? Answer? It doesn’t. That was just the price for PG&E to “share” their power grid. This is only one example. There are many but I’m tired of typing and you’re, likely, tired of reading about it. Besides, it’s not really what I want to write about.

There’s a movement afoot. In Maine, the state is trying to wrest control over the stranglehold on power from private companies and take the entire grid public with a non-profit replacement. As you can imagine, the power companies are pushing back – HARD! The private power companies have already outspent the non-profit backers 17 to one. The companies have contributed $18.4 million dollars to three different ballot committees fighting the proposal. That represents 100% of the funding those committees have received. That, alone, ought to tell you something.

Just to make sure the situation is as confusing as possible, the pushback committees have names like ‘Maine Affordable Energy,’ the most affluent of the three. Corporations aren’t stupid. They know they’ll have a tough sell with “Hey, why don’t you pay more than you have to so I can buy another Maserati?” Instead, they’ll focus on confusion and, well, trumpery. Oh, you know what else they’re doing – and successfully? They’re enlisting the aid of state DEMOCRATS to help sell the idea that private, for-profit power must be the way forward! Yes, Democrats, the so-called party of the people in cahoots with corporations against the best interests of, you know, the people.

One of them, a former Democratic legislature named Charlotte Warren received $266,000 from Maine Affordable Energy to co-sign an op-ed against the ballot measure. Then, the committee paid Facebook to run the op-ed over and over directed at thousands of Mainers, creating the (false) impression there was widespread opposition. They’ve also kicked down some $5 million dollars to a Democratic group called ‘Left Hook’ that works with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and is staffed by a bunch of Obama campaign alumni.

In short, millions of dollars are being spent to maintain a system that benefits very few but works directly against the best interests of ALL Mainers, Americans, and humanity in general. I doubt anyone would be surprised to hear Republicans were working so hard to support corporations, literally until the end, but Democrats? In my opinion, Mainers should support the Pine Tree Power initiative and simultaneously work to remove any/every Democrat who gets anywhere near the stink of what might be termed “Anti-Humanity Capitalism.” Then, we need to repeat the process, state by state, until private power is no longer a thing in our quickly submerging nation. Assuming, that is, we can wrest control from them in time to address the climate crisis effectively.

I’ll tell you this: The world’s temperature is already heading directly, and inexorably at this point, toward “bake” and if we don’t act soon, it will reach “broil” and I can guarantee you, that’s not going to be good for humanity. Is it really worth it to maximize share holder value if the end result is destruction of the biosphere?