Chapter 6, The Passion of Matt Patrick

It’s a rough game, underneath the backslaps and the handshakes and the big noble speeches . . . Allen Drury, ADVISE AND CONSENT

The Community Counseling Service–generated letter to “John Q. Prospect” claimed that the Alliance had “gained support from all the local politicians” and had “developed a strong base of influential republican and democratic supporters in the State House and in Congress.” Politically, it did look as though project opponents had everything sewn up.

Even Mitt Romney, close to Republican financier Richard J. Egan, had signed on to the cause. In early 2002, Romney announced he would stand for the fall gubernatorial election. Gordon sent Romney a campaign donation and attended a fund-raiser. When he approached Romney to talk about the project, the candidate openly admitted that he’d already made a campaign promise to oppose Gordon’s project.

“I never go back on my promises,” Romney told Gordon.

Read the rest by going to my website at www.mattpatrick.org . Then look for "On the Issues" in the column on the left and scroll down to Chapter 6 of Cape Wind, The Passion of Matt Patrick.  The book is now out in paperback for $15.00 and I encourage you to read it.

The St. Petersburg Times said, "...enough political intribue to keep a John Grisham fan happy..."  The Boston Globe chimed in, "yes, this book is lots of fun..."  Boston Magazine called it a, "a page turner..." and the New York Times Sunday Book Review made it an "Editors Choice."

The Wall Street Journal said of the book it is, "a ripe subject, populated with the sort of people who would be among the first to count themselves as friends of the earth but the last to accept an environmentally friendly energy source if it meant the slightest cloud on their ocean views."

One of the best reviews came from Robert Sullivan of the New York Times Sunday Book Review who said, "A great summer beach read about longtime summer beach communities, "Cape Wind" describes ho the alliance managed to raise $4 million in one ballroom meeting at the Wianno Club, where the 'grass-roots' campaign against the 'industrial complex' of offshore 'Cuisinarts' was kicked off by Douglas Yearley, a copper minin executive whose company was fined for killing birds in an acid runoff mishap in 2000, among other infractions."

You can also find out about the ongoing exploits of the people in the book at author Wendy Williams' website www.capewindbook.com

Boston: Representative Patrick’s office (D-Falmouth) announced today that he successfully established funding in the State’s Environmental and Capital Bond Bills for the 3rd Barnstable District.

Rep. Patrick secured funding for an alternative sewage treatment demonstration project. The project will evaluate the potential use of urine diverting toilets and composting toilets as a means of cost effectively reducing nitrogen loading. Rep Patrick stated, “This project has far reaching implications for Cape Cod towns that are exploring expensive options for conventional sewage treatment. This project will hopefully demonstrate an appropriate technology for sewage treatment that is less expensive by at least a factor of ten and just as effective as conventional sewage treatment.” Patrick continued, “If this proves viable we will be able to clean up our salt ponds and estuaries much more quickly than currently anticipated which for for conventional sewage treatment is 20-30 years.”

The Falmouth Board of Selectmen voted to support Representative Patrick's amendment to the Environmental Bond Bill by a 3 to 2 margin with chairman Mustafa breaking the tie vote. Two Murphys objected but Pat Flynn and Brent Putnam remained unconvinced by their argument. Flynn spoke forcefully for the need to be open to new technologies that could save taxpayers money.

Two conservation Commission members who happened to be in the audience also spoke strongly in favor. Maureen Harlow Hawkes and Courtney Bird Jr. expressed their approval of the concepts and displeasure with the arguments against supporting the amendment offered by Carey Murphy and Kevin Murphy.

The Enterprise stepped to the plate by strongly editorializing in favor of the amendment last Friday (July 11, 2008) in a piece entitled "Closed-Minded On Alternatives". The editorial led off by saying, "It is discouraging that two of Falmouth's selectmen voted no to Representative Patrick's request that the board support a study of the use of urine separating toilets in Barnstable County."

If that weren't enought, Sunday's Globe (July 13, 2008) in the Ideas Section an article on the new technologies appeared entitled "Waste? Not." The lead paragraph in that article said, "In a World of rapidly diminishing resources, there's one we tend to overlook. It's easy to produce and extremely abundant. But instead of viewing it as an embarassment of riches, we're more likely to see it as just an embarrassment." Here is the link to the article.

In a brief paper Representative Patrick outlined his reasons for seeking the funding which can be seen below.

Dear Mr. Chairman,

The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country. Robert F. Kennedy

I had a thought provoking experience yesterday at Flag Day ceremony in Mashpee. I was reminded about how my father, a combat veteran of WWII, felt about war. A colleague read a poem about the flag that talked. It talked almost exclusively about the blood and glory of war. It spoke of being in every battle in the last 200 years and using its torn pieces to staunch the bleeding of the wounded on the battle field. It is a moving piece appealing to our nationalistic instincts. It never asks us to examine what the flag represents.

I spoke next and reminded people it’s not the flag itself but what it represents that is important. It’s the Constitution. Without our Constitution, the flag just represents a place. It could be a flag from any nation. What makes our flag special is that it represents our Nation that is backed up by our Constitution. The Constitution protects our democratic way of life. It protects us from the tyranny of the government and the tyranny of the majority. All of our officers in the armed services swear to up hold the Constitution as do all of our state and federal legislators. My dad warned me never to forget that it is the Constitution that makes this Nation great.

As a youngster, I was always curious about the war. He discouraged me but I couldn’t help admiring soldiers and loved to watch all the old WWII movies that, for the most part, glorified war. Those movies never showed the awful and unavoidable brutality of war that deeply affected my dad and every other combat veteran. In his later years, at my urging, my father was able to relate more of his war experiences. They were truly gut wrenching. The one movie my father said came close to a realistic picture of the brutality of war was in the opening scenes of D-Day in “Saving Private Ryan.” He said they were very accurate and he couldn’t watch much of it. My dad has passed on now but I can tell you that the war deeply and negatively impacted his life.

I wanted to know more about war so I read many books about it. To me the most important of the books were written by combat veterans. “With the Old Breed, From Peleliu to Okinawa” by E.B. Sledge gave the most realistic accounts of what it is like to be in battle. I also read the official history of my father’s outfit the 27th New York National Guard Division by Edmund Love which gives a heart rending account of how horribly wrong war can go and how mistakes by our own side destroyed many American lives on the Island of Saipan. It’s a story that should get more publicity someday.

This is a giant step forward for the Commonwealth towards tax fairness for everyone. Many corporate executives and their lobbyists told us there are no corporate tax loopholes in Massachusetts. They want you to think that the Governor proposed new taxes that will burden businesses and stunt our economic recovery. John Regan of AIM says, “…references to loophole closings are an insult to business taxpayers and betray a lack of understanding…”

Like Grover Norquist, the head of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, who says, “The so-called “loopholes” the governor seeks to close look more like a noose around the neck of the Bay State’s economy.” Grover is the same guy who said, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” Corporate executives don’t want you to know the facts.

For example, according to Massachusetts Department of Revenue, in 2006 there were about eleven hundred (1,100) corporations in the Commonwealth that grossed more than one hundred million dollars annually and paid the minimum corporate tax of $456.00. That’s less tax than a family earning $50,000 a year will pay in state taxes. How do they do it? How is that possible? Maybe some of them don’t earn a profit on revenues of one hundred million but how is it possible that 1,100 corporations don’t earn any money? There are another 113 corporations with over a billion dollars in sales that pay no taxes. How do they do it? The corporations create subsidiaries in other states that charge no corporate taxes and assign all their profits to those places.