MAINE ANTI-WAR ORGANIZING PRESSES ON

 We had a networking meeting in Portland, Maine today of our ad-hoc group that organized the successful town hall meeting last April that drew over 400 folks. We've met twice now following that event to make future plans for anti-war work across the state.

We had good attendance again today with people coming down to Portland from around the state. Also showing up today was Maine State Senator Ethan Strimling who has organized 26 Maine state legislators in a group they are calling "Legislators for ending the war." They are emphasizing how much the war has cost Maine (our share is now over $800 million)and talking about how social services and infrastructure in our state are suffering as a result of endless war spending.

We thanked Sen. Strimling for taking the leadership and challenged him to ask our Maine Congressional Delegation (Snowe, Collins, Allen & Michaud) to vote against all future war funding requests in Washington. We also suggested that the 26 state elected officials talk with the governor about refusing to send the National Guard to Iraq anymore. We also suggested that they might begin to call for conversion of the military industrial complex rather than continually begging for more federal money to keep building weapons. Strimling asked us to help get other Maine state legislators to join their coalition and we agreed to do that.

We are also planning Teach-Ins at colleges and universities around the state this fall and can already report that the University of Southern Maine (Portland) and the University of Maine (Orono) now have people working on these events.

On July 7 we read the names again of dead American GI's and innocent Iraqi civilians - this time it will be done outside in a downtown Portland park. Then on September 20 there will be a town hall meeting in Portland on the topic of impeachment of Bush.

Our next meeting to plan the anti-war movement in Maine will be August 26 in Portland.