In response to (the Bangor Daily News) article on the Mills along the Penobscot River. (The) quotes by James McMcnutt and McFarland; some will get my drift when I say they won't be happy till we all work for McDonald. In Millinocket, we award millions (of dollars) of tax relief while the company plans to keep our mill down for years? Its unfettered dominance over the state's legislature and town councils. The companies with their festons of powerful lawyers, well connected politicians, and public relations men have become a law onto themselves. They decide which laws to enact, which laws to disregard, and which laws to perforate with comfortable loopholes. (The companies) decide the amount of taxes to pay, (as well as) who should get elected and remain in office. They were and continue to be a private government without accountability. All of these words could be said today about bankruptcies and lay-offs. However, they were said in 1974 by Ralph Nader in the introduction of the book "The Paper Plantation." It seems now with these two thousand lost jobs we have reached the same doom the companies were claiming thirty years ago. They still claim (that) if we co-operate there is another 15 or twenty years to go in the paper business. My question is, considering how many C.E.O.'s and public relations men and lawyers have retired with billions (of dollars) in the past thirty years "Can we afford more of the same?" We need to demand that they become good corporate citizens, or we need to tax them right out of the state.

Charlie Cirame
Millinocket