FULL DAY OF GOOD WORK

MB and I went to Augusta yesterday for our Bring Our War $$ Home planning meeting. We had 14 folks present from around the state and we got some good work done in that three-hour meeting.

We did a bunch of brainstorming about the next steps for the campaign. Lisa Savage recorded three full pages of ideas on paper as we each threw our thinking up onto the wall. We took a poll to see how each person felt about the various ideas that we had posted. We were looking for common themes that might help direct us toward some unified activities.

One action that really resonated with me was a recent California caravan through the state that ended up with a week long teachers union occupation of their state capital. I proposed that we do something similar here in Maine. Calling it, for now, the Pilgrimage from Poverty, I suggested we start at Kittery Naval shipyard on the Maine-New Hampshire border and work our way north stopping along the way to leaflet about student tuition increases at colleges, meeting with local elected officials and poor peoples organizations, leafletting at BIW, bannering at highway overpasses, and a whole lot more. People seemed to like the idea since it would incorporate virtually every idea on our comprehensive list. I suggested the event could take place between September 11 - October 6 making it a focused 27 days of intense anti-war activity up and down the state. Local people and groups could plug in what worked best for them.

We decided to meet again soon and to invite every peace group in the state to send a representative to to help flesh this idea out. So we set the date of June 25 to meet in Waterville from 9:30-12:30.

After we finished the meeting in Augusta MB and I jumped in the car and drove south to York, Maine where members of the Massachusetts Veterans for Peace were having a BBQ at the summer house of one of their leaders. We arrived just in time to eat and I was able to have five minutes to talk about the Global Network's upcoming space organizing conference in Andover, Ma. on June 17-19. We've got leaders coming from eight countries and people are now starting to register in greater numbers which is a relief to me since I have the impossible task of ordering three meals during the event.

We've got some great speakers and musicians going to be at this event. Of particular interest to people will be the discussions about current U.S. global military strategy and the new trends in robotic, nanotechnology, and cyber warfare. Also going to have an exciting workshop where three women student leaders are going to speak about space technology developments impact on social progress. One of the young women is from India.