Beyond Labels

A 360° Discussion of Foreign, National and Local Policy Issues

Scott Miller

October 20: The Bucksport Mill Closure

The recent closure announcement has triggered a lot of local discussion about what happened, what can (or should) be done to mitigate the impact on the mill’s employees, families and local community, and lessons we can learn and should apply going forward.

We’ll discuss this topic at our next Beyond Labels meeting on October 20.

September 15 Topic: The South China Sea

In last week’s discussion of Isolationism (as it relates to US policy), we spent some time comparing the geographic “land grab” of portions of Ukraine by Russia as distinct from the ideologically centered ISIS activities (even though they’re also grabbing some land). In that context, the question arose about whether the geopolitical, Cold War “chessboard” was becoming less of a factor / threat in our foreign relations.

As a possible counterpoint to this theory, we’ll re-visit the recent developments in Southeast Asia next week, in particular, China’s activities in the South China Sea.

Dick Jacoby has offered the following notes:

For the topic “South China Sea” an excellent reference is “Asia’s Cauldron” by Robert Kaplan. Unfortunately, it is not available at the library.  Google “South China Sea Disputes” in Wikipedia and others.

See you on Monday!