PeaceWorks Presents is confronting a micro-cosmic experience, the very infrastructure that functionally carved space for it to exist is being crushed and silenced within its own community. This parallels the slow-motion tragedy that public space and services are confronting broadly — communities are tightening their belts and prioritizing infrastructure funding, then pruning pieces from public education, safety, health, transportation and public media — those very functions that maintain community vitality and inclusivity. Over time the existing structure is disintegrating before our eyes, crumbling those bridges to other communities and bridges of communication within communities.

PeaceWorks Presents originated 10 years ago. Produced for public cable access and airing on BrunswickTV3, it is an offshoot from PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick, a local organization that educates its members and community on issues of peace and justice. It has produced more than 115 programs on an eclectic series of topics which have included bottled water, solar power, wind power, impact of dams on migratory fish, Monsanto’s nemesis (Percy Schmeiser), Kathy Kelly-Voices for Creative Non-Violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Freedom Flotilla for Gaza, Louis Gibbs-Toxics Action and the Love Canal, slave ships, Adolph Reed on the disappearing Left, Nike and sweatshops, Maine mountain top mining, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the impact of “free” trade agreements on Maine, the Asia- Pacific pivot, and the Zumwalt destroyer christening protest in Bath and highlighting voices that advocate for non-violent solutions to conflict.

During the early years of production, you could drive up to the old school where TV3 was housed, walk into the office, drop off a program, chat with John Goran, NCE Cable Television Coordinator and ask for technical help about just about anything, specific software, how to reformat video, audio issues, or how to fix the camera’s white balance. In 2012, the Brunswick town council cut its budget for the cable coordinator position to part time, forcing the full-time professional to leave. Concerned folks showed up during town council meetings to protest the cut, “the revenue the town takes in from the franchise tax will be used for other purposes… while the council will, over time, slowly starve the cable channel” noted a former Town Council chairperson. But the proposal had certain inevitability about it. Next, the office door was locked. Our program experienced the “squeeze.” The posted schedule disappeared. Scheduled times changed, then disappeared altogether. Over time, a series of parttime, overworked, underpaid staff tried to salvage a jettisoned system that had evolved over a period of 13 years into a complex, smooth custom-made-to-fit-thecommunity TV3. The legacy and historic memory that had kept all of the “gears” working smoothly, disintegrated and was lost.

Each community in Maine has a contract and franchise agreement with one cable company (Comcast or Time Warner). The corporation is allowed use of taxdollar funded public throughways/ roads for their cable infrastructure and in exchange, each town negotiates the services that the corporation shall provide the community. Each community has its Cable/Franchise Board-some communities have a vibrant Public Access which forwards localism, diversity and participation that promotes dialogue, discussion and community media literacy as well as providing non-commercial “green space.” Some have Education TV, as well as the Government channel. Some provide merely a bulletin board. Peace- Works encourages you to contact your town councilors, request continued and increased support for Brunswick’s public access. They negotiate that contract with the cable corporation and vote the town budget.

Recently, three foreign students confided their interpretation: Democracy is capitalism. The conflation clarified for me that the current system driving our local economy and policy is actually failing democracy, even within our microcosm of “place.” It is a system that holds no value for public space and as surely as the plastic cable ties used now as handcuffs, it only has the capacity to tighten — to reduce access to and the size of public space.

PeaceWorks Presents plans to continue featuring voices for peace. Our next program will highlight PeaceWorks 10thAnnual Peace Fair, themed “Building a world in which ALL children can thrive,” scheduled from10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 2, on the Brunswick Mall. The Peace Fair will include activities and discussions beneath 6 tents, an opening welcome with several youth activists, a theater production and a tribute to Pete Seeger. A Peace Fair dedicated to the generation tasked to preserve earth, that microcosm of place in space!

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Martha Spiess is a member of PeaceWorks. She lives in Freeport.