BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME

I will be speaking at an event in Boston on Saturday called Bring Our War $$ Home. It will be a New England regional event and is to be held at 1:00 - 3:00 pm in the Boston Public Library Mezzanine Conference Room, 700 Boylston St., Copley Square.

MB is going along and after the meeting we will have dinner with her brother and one of her aunts. Sunday is MB's birthday and she has lots of family in Boston so it was great timing to be invited to talk at this event.

A growing number of mayors will join Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (Los Angeles, California) when he introduces the Bring Our War $$ Home resolution at the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual event that will be held in Baltimore in June. So far the following mayors have agreed to sign-on as co-sponsors. Please try to get the mayor of your city to sign on as well. For more info go here

Kitty Piercy (Eugene, Oregon)
Carolyn Peterson (Ithaca, New York)
Dave Norris (Charlottesville, Virginia)
David Coss (Santa Fe, New Mexico)
John Heilman (West Hollywood, California)
Gayle McLaughlin (Richmond, California)
Bob Kiss (Burlington, Vermont)
R.T. Rybak (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Frank Ortis (Pembroke Pines, Florida)
Matthew Ryan (Binghamton, New York)
Paul Wiehl (Athens, Ohio)
Brenda Lawrence (Southfield, Michigan)
Joy Cooper (Hallandale Beach, Florida)
Joseph C. O'Brien (Worcester, Massachusetts)
Paul Soglin (Madison, Wisconsin)
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (Baltimore, Maryland)
David L. Konick (Rock Mills, Virginia)
Joanne Twomey (Biddeford, Maine)

This campaign, which I can proudly say began here in Maine, is now moving rapidly across the country as activists are seeing that it is imperative to connect endless war spending to the economic crisis in 46 states. While some in the progressive movement, for whatever reason, don't want to deal with the wars they can't escape the reality that war spending negates solving the jobs issue, social spending cut-backs, environmental crisis, public transit, health care, and a whole lot more.

We've always said that peace groups don't have to drop what they are already doing to pick up this campaign. But a good organizing strategy for local organizing would integrate the Bring Our War $$ Home theme into existing organizing. Fortunately more folks are beginning to do just this.

Build it and they will come.