BUSH - PUTIN MEETING IN MAINE

George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin will be meeting in Maine on July 1-2. A New England regional protest will be held on July 1 in Kennebunkport and the planned march will take folks right up to the Bush family compound.

The protesters will be calling for impeachment of Bush for the many obvious reasons that most of us are familiar with. They should do so. They will call for an end of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. And they should.

Sadly I won't be able to be there as Mary Beth and I will be down in Atlanta for the U.S. Social Forum during that same time. We will be doing presentations about Star Wars and economic conversion of the military industrial complex in two different workshops being organized by WILPF. While in Atlanta we will be staying at a Buddhist temple run by a monk and nun who we have been friends with for many years. Mary Beth walked with them from El Salvador to Washington on a peace walk in the 90's and I organized many peace walks in Florida years ago that they always led - chanting and drumming at the front of the walk. Their order, called Nipponzan Myohoji, is best known for organizing peace walks all over the world. It will be good to spend time with our dear friends again.

If I was at the July 1 Kennebunkport protest I'd be carrying signs and banners about Bush's plan to deploy so-called "missile defense" systems in Poland and the Czech Republic as part of the U.S. plan to "control and dominate" the Earth and space. This topic is likely to be the chief point of contention at the Bush-Putin meeting here in Maine. Unfortunately, not enough people in the peace movement are aware of the issue and do not see how the Bush deployments are a key trigger to the start of a new and severe arms race between the U.S. and Russia.