LITERATURE TO BE TAKEN DOOR-TO-DOOR ACROSS MAINE THIS WEEKEND

The Maine Campaign to Bring Our War $$ Home will distribute thousands of pieces of literature door-to-door this weekend (April 10-11) in 16 communities across the state calling on Congresspersons Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud to lead the effort in Congress to stop war funding.

The pizza-style door hanger literature spells out how taxpayers in Maine have already paid more than $2.5 billion since 2001 for wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Maine is now one of 45 states in fiscal crisis and the campaign makes the case that taxpayers and all elected officials must begin making the links between endless war and declining social progress in America.

“Since the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in January, the Maine Campaign to Bring Our War $$ Home has been working across the state to increase debate and consciousness about the detrimental effects of war spending. There will be no economic recovery in the U.S. as long as we continue to waste massive amounts of money on these quagmires. Our goal is to get citizens and local elected officials to begin to speak out about war spending as they face budget chaos in their communities,” said Bruce Gagnon from the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space – one of 18 organizations in Maine that are part of the campaign.

On April 5 the Portland City Council voted 7-1 in favor of a Bring Our Wars $$ Home resolution. The Deer Isle town meeting recently passed a similar resolution and 22 members of the Maine State Legislature have signed a letter to Representatives Pingree and Michaud urging them to work harder to end war spending.

The statewide literature distribution will be done in the following communities: Skowhegan, Arrowsic, Hollis Center, Farmington, Portland, Freeport, Georgetown, Windham, Bath, South Portland, Brunswick, Belfast, Brooksville, Bangor, Deer Isle, and Ogunquit.

See the Bring Our War $$ Home campaign web site here

WAR $$ HOME EFFORT IN BATH

This photo from the January 14 campaign kick-off news conference at the state capital

Last night thirteen residents from the city of Bath attended the weekly city council meeting in order to present the Bring Our War $$ Home resolution to our elected officials.

Led by Karen Wainberg, four local residents made short testimonies to the council regarding the importance of ending war spending. Karen told the council, "As our country faces ever-mounting deficits, government at every level is finding it harder and harder to meet the basic needs of people and the environment. We come to you, the city council, because we believe that war funding is a local issue."

She concluded her remarks with the following, "Real homeland security has nothing to do with our military interventions into Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Our security depends on good jobs, health care, child care, a sound infrastructure, and good education for our children and our grandchildren that teaches them to think for themselves. Homeland security is about addressing climate change by building public transit, alternative energy systems, and weatherizing every home in the U.S. Then we wouldn't need to fight for control of oil in the Middle East and Central Asia."

After Karen spoke a local minister talked about how he and other Bath parents have been working hard to raise money to pay a $30,000 debt they incurred when their children won a local education contest and went to Iowa for the national competition. The parents have paid the school board back half the amount and he said the remaining $15,000 is what is spend on war every eight seconds.

The other two speakers talked about the severe effects climate change will have on our local community and the results of cutbacks in social spending on local populations. They both made the case that war spending cuts are immediately needed to order to deal with these real crisis situations here at home.

The city council refused to take any action on the proposed resolution or to schedule a public hearing on it as Karen had requested in her opening remarks. When she got home last night she got a phone call from one of the city councillors who told her he was saddened by the chilly reception by the council and that he felt a public hearing should be held. We plan to continue to press for such a public hearing.

This morning I got an email from Herb Hoffman who lives in Ogunquit (southern Maine) saying that two letters to the editor were in his local paper today about his successful effort to put the war $$ home resolution on their Town Hall Meeting agenda for this June.

We also heard yesterday that efforts are underway in other Maine communities to address the resolution. We also learned that two more members of the Maine State Legislature have signed onto a letter to Congress demanding that they become leaders to Bring Our War $$ Home. There are now 22 members of the State Legislature that have signed onto the letter.

Last night's Bath City Council meeting will be aired on local public access TV so many residents in the community will have the opportunity to see the presentations. This weekend activists all over the state will be dropping 8,000 pizza-style door hangers in their communities that call on our elected officials to Bring Our War $$ Home.

Maine activists have been working hard, and in unison, all over the state to create more consciousness about the need to link war spending and our state's fiscal crisis. Our hope is that activists in other states will organize similar efforts.

MORE CIVILIANS KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN

When will the Democrats pull the plug on this war? When will the Democrats stop wasting our war $$$?

Will the base of the Democrats stay home in the next election figuring that they have been betrayed by Obama and those war mongers who control the Congress?

How can anyone claim that the Democrats have been much different from the Republicans on endless wars? Or on off-shore oil drilling.....or corporate health care bills.....or continuing endless detentions in Guantanamo or assassinations overseas......or expanding U.S. military bases in Italy, Guam, South Korea, Okinawa........or increasing military spending to record levels......

CORPORATE MINING CEO ALSO TEABAGGER FUNDER

Meet Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Company. Blankenship is also on the Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce. In this speech above, he denies climate change and says that “the greeniacs are taking over the world.”

Massey Energy Company, Blankenship’s highly successful strip-mining and mountaintop removal operation is the parent company of Performance Coal Co, where a tragic explosion occurred on April 5th. As of this writing, 25 miners have died and 4 more are still missing.

Here’s something else about Don Blankenship and Massey Energy Company: Blankenship spent over $1 million dollars along with other US Chamber buddies like Verizon to sponsor last year’s Labor Day Tea Party, also known as the “Friends of America Rally.”

On Monday, 25 miners were killed and left four others trapped underground at the Upper Big Branch Mine. It is the worst mining disaster in the United States since 1984 and, if the four trapped miners are not rescued, would become the worst since 1970. The Washington Post reports, “[t]he cause of Monday’s explosion has not been determined, but a buildup of methane or coal dust was considered the likeliest culprit.”

The Upper Big Branch mine received 39 violations in 2009 citing a failure to plan for ventilation to extract methane and other chemicals. Fifteen of these were considered “significant and substantial.” In July of 2009, the mine received its largest monetary fine of the year ($66,142) for allowing the accumulation of combustible materials in working spaces. Upper Big Branch received 34 similar violations citing accumulation of combustible materials, 20 of which were determined to be “significant and substantial.”

Massey Energy has contested nearly all major citations issued against the Upper Big Branch Mine in 2009 and has paid less than 20% of the fines levied against them. Of the top 100 fines levied against the Upper Big Branch Mine in 2009, Massey Energy has contested or are delinquent in paying 85% of them. Upper Big Branch was also cited for 202 violations that were considered “significant and substantial.” Seventy-six percent of those have either been contested or Massey Energy is delinquent in paying them.

- Reprinted in part from article called CEO of Mine Where 25 Workers Were Killed Is a Teabagger

ON HEARING BECK

On the way back to Maine today we listened to a couple of hours of Glenn Beck on the radio spewing his lies and deception. Beck was complaining about several groups (Jewish, Christian, and unions) who are calling for boycotts of his show and its sponsors. As usual he was name-calling anyone who disagrees with him - Marxists and Communists and the like.

He denied ever having said that people should go to their church web site and if they saw the words "social justice" they should run away fast from that church. MB and I had a good laugh over that one because we had both heard him on TV make that very statement on several occasions. It is obvious that when people stand up to Mr. Beck he squirms like a worm.

Last night we met peace walkers who had just arrived in North Andover, Massachusetts. We joined them for a pot luck supper and then afterward I spoke to the folks who had gathered. It was really a great chance for me to link with activists in that community. The weapons corporation Raytheon has a production facility nearby where the Patriot (PAC-3) "missile defense" system is built. I told them about the peace movement efforts in Japan and South Korea to protest against the PAC-3 deployments there that are being aimed at China.

Obama has recently approved a deal where Raytheon will sell Taiwan these same PAC-3 missile defense systems. It's a Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse as the U.S. continues to arm Taiwan and to essentially use that country as our own military base right off the Chinese mainland. If Obama was truly serious about reducing nuclear stockpiles he would not be selling Taiwan weapon systems that are integral to the U.S. first-strike attack program. China has only one possible response to the U.S.-Taiwan deployments of PAC-3 in their backyard - build more nuclear weapons as the real job of PAC-3 is to take out China's nuclear retaliatory capability after a U.S. first-strike attack.

PORTLAND CITY COUNCIL PASSES WAR $$ HOME RESOLUTION

Last evening the Portland (Maine) City Council voted 7-1 to pass the Bring Our War $$ Home resolution. Portland is the biggest city in Maine.


CITY OF PORTLAND

IN THE CITY COUNCIL

RESOLUTION ASKING THE U.S. CONGRESS TO END THE EXPENDITURE OF OUR CITIZENS’ TAX DOLLARS FOR EXCESSIVE AND UNAFFORDABLE WAR FUNDING


WHEREAS, the financial resources available for use by governments at the local, county, state and federal levels in the United States are and must be limited; and

WHEREAS, the people of Portland, Maine are collectively paying or becoming indebted for approximately 15 million dollars per year of their limited financial resources for warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan; and

WHEREAS, such expenditure is inordinate to the identified public benefits to Maine and the nation; and

WHEREAS, this warfare too often creates great and unnecessary harm to U.S. military personnel and their families, and to the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan; and

WHEREAS, essential public services such as education, infrastructure repair, family and small-business financing, and community policing in Portland and throughout the State of Maine have been substantially reduced while an excessive portion of available financial resources is diverted from the constructive economy to largely unnecessary warfare.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

THAT the City of Portland, Maine respectfully requests that the U.S. Representative from the First Maine Congressional District and both of Maine's U.S. Senators oppose all legislation brought before the 111th U.S. Congress that provides further funding of the U.S. warfare and U.S. military occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan; and that the City of Portland, Maine also urges these members of Congress to take strong and forceful action to influence the U.S. Congress to terminate funding of these military operations.

LICENSE TO KILL

Our collective American heart is cold as we allow this murder and then repeatedly call the soldiers who do these things "brave heroes" which only gives them further license to keep killing.

It's been happening by the U.S. military since the Native American carnage. And it continues today in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

When will it end? Only when the American people come alive and speak out in utter outrage against this murder of innocent human beings.

MLK'S OWN WORDS ON WAR

MLK was killed, I believe, because he had crossed the line to speak out against U.S. imperial wars. He was also rumored to be considering at the time running for president with Dr. Benjamin Spock (a key leader of the peace movement) as his vice-presidential running mate.

A King-Spock team would have united the black and white activist movements that were so strong during the late 60's. It was then that the decision was made to take King out.

I highly recommend the book called Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr by William Pepper. I read it some years ago and it was a life-changer for me.

See it here

I am convinced that in America the oligarchy lets you speak out (it helps maintain the illusion of democracy) until you become a real threat to their power. In the case of MLK, the decision was made that he was going to seriously challenge the power of those who run the show.

ON THE CAPE

MB and I are on Cape Cod in Massachusetts for a few days. Her brother has a condo here on the bay and gave us the key to the place. We both need a rest after months of a feverish pace. On Tuesday we will head to North Andover (north of Boston) where I will speak at a supper program for the walkers who I have just left.

The sun is shining here and we are in the Provincetown library checking our emails. Last night we went out for dinner and then watched the Tavis Smiley show on PBS as he took the big step forward and did a program about Martin Luther King Jr.'s courageous 1967 anti-war speech at Riverside Church in New York City. Smiley explored the severe criticism that King took for stepping outside his "civil rights box" when he leaped into the debate over the Vietnam War. King make the link between funding the imperial Asian war with cutbacks in the poverty programs at that time. He asked if America's soul was dead.

Dr. Vincent Harding, who is co-credited with writing the "Beyond Vietnam" speech, tells Smiley that King's inner circle worried about the ramifications of the speech, both before and after he gave it.

"We were concerned, he was concerned, but he had really come to the point, as the speech is trying to say, where if he was to be a man of conscience, a man of compassion, he had to speak," said Dr. Harding.

He added, "But it was precisely one year to the day after this speech that that bullet which had been chasing him for a long time finally caught up with him. And I am convinced that that bullet had something to do with that speech."

Smiley then boldly showed bits of Obama's recent Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech where he tried to justify his war in Afghanistan by saying that non-violence had its place but that he as president had the responsibility to protect against "terrorism".

Smiley asked Harry Belafonte (who was a close friend and confidant to MLK) about this and Belafonte blistered Obama's thinking as did Cornel West who called Obama an agent of Pharaoh.

This was a very significant show because it opened the door for the black leadership class to begin to publicly critique Obama in ways that prior to now have been verboten.

You could sense that Smiley was himself struggling with how much to begin challenging Obama but it was crystal clear that the example of MLK was the model that he and others were using to guide them on road to truth.

The good folks at Black Agenda Report have not been timid to take on Obama and have been pressuring the likes of Smiley and West to become more vocal. It appears now that they have done so.

They are now free of the chains that can bind conscience.

You can watch the show here

WE ARE THE PEOPLE OF GANGJEONG

Four hundred years ago, our ancestors founded their place here where water is clean and the landscape is beautiful.

The sea is the indigo blue as to make my eyes cool.

The row stone walls are that I depended upon when I learned my first walking

The alleys are where I played with my friends not knowing the sun’s already setting.

On the way to school, I used to see the Beom Island beyond the row walls. And my grandfather's tomb.

Until the day becomes dark, I used to rise on the bank and played with my younger brother, waited for my father’s fishing boat returning back.

During the day of hot sun-rays, my mother used to work in the farms.

I can not forget the shining sun-rays on my mother's back whenever she returned home.
Unnoticed, I grew up and met my lover.

Became to have the children whom I will not feel the pain even though I put in my two yeses.

I raised them with love, here in Gangjeong.

We are the Gangjeong people.

We have never sold Gangjeong. We have never given up Gangjeong.

Until the hot blood in our bodies become cold, we cannot stop fighting.

We are the Gangjeong people.

ACTION NEEDED: If you have not yet called or emailed to support the villagers of Gangjeong who are fighting against the building of the Navy base, please do so right away. Call the South Korean Embassy at 202-939-5692 (Admiral Choi) or 202-939-5600 or email at consular_usa@mofat.go.kr

WALK OVER FOR ME BUT MEMORIES REMAIN

This is a photo from last Friday when we walked from Lewiston to Brunswick and had lunch at Graziano's Italian restaurant in Lisbon.

I am home and my legs are sore. I almost fell asleep driving back from Kennebunk. It was sad to say good-bye to my fellow walkers who are continuing on to New York City for the big May 2 international anti-nuclear peace rally. I'll see them there and have been invited to re-join them on April 6 in Andover, Mass. to speak about space issues at their evening program and will be happy to see them all again.

We had a great send-off lunch today in Kennebunk as we completed the Maine portion of the Walk for a Nuclear-Free Future. Our friend Hana Maris, who lives there, hosted us along with a few other peace folks. A local Thai restaurant donated the lunch for us and we had a birthday cake with a peace sign on it to celebrate Maggie Finch's 89th birthday later this month.

As we were walking southward this morning on U.S. Highway 1 I was thinking of the walks I organized in Florida years ago that went from Cape Canaveral up to the Kings Bay nuclear submarine base just over the Florida-Georgia line. We walked that route in both direction on two different occasions and each time we followed U.S. Hwy 1 - so I was thinking of that long stretch of road and what it has meant to me over the years.

Another thing I was thinking about today as we walked that last 9.8 miles to Kennebunk was the different kind of facial and hand signals people buzzing by in cars gave to me as I was holding my sign that read "Human Needs Not Endless War". Thousands of people got to read my sign as I walked thru Maine. Some would give me a thumbs up, others thumbs down. Some the middle "missile launcher" finger, others a dismissive wave of their hand. Some, with their hands on the car steering wheel would just lift their hand a bit in a mini-wave and others would give a full wave of the hand. Most, as you can imagine, would just stare blindly ahead not wanting to give any clue that they had even noticed our bright crew of peace folks walking down the highway.

Obama came to Portland, Maine today and it appears that several thousand folks turned out to cheer him after the corporate health insurance bill became law. Two of the youngest people on our walk stood in line the other day in the rain to get tickets. So a couple of the walkers were going to go hear his speech today after we finished. They wanted to give him information about the purpose of the walk. While standing in line they met our Congresswoman Chellie Pingree and talked to her about our Bring Our War $$ Home campaign. Pingree told them she had heard of it.

I heard just a couple minutes of Obama's speech on the car radio on my way home. He was saying that it is a "middle of the road" bill, not socialism, and spelled out some of the things in the bill. I don't know why he chose to come to Maine - we are not a swing state. It will be interesting to see what else he talked about in his speech.

This morning we walked from Saco over the river to the working class (former mill town) called Biddeford. There it had been arranged by our host Tom Kircher that we would meet with the mayor of Biddeford Joanne Twomey who is a renegade Democrat. She served in the Maine House of Representatives for eight years and refused to be a party follower. Today she greeted us and said she had no interest in seeing Obama. Twomey told us she was furious about the corporate health care bill (she has no health care even though she is mayor) and fears getting cancer, which killed her husband. She said she really appreciated Tom recently bringing the war $$ home message to their local school board meeting and was blown-away by what their city taxpayers had paid toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ($67.1 million) since 2001. She said not to expect much from our two Maine members of Congress (Pingree and Mike Michaud) when it comes to leadership on this issue. Sadly I know she is right.

I told the mayor that we need people like her, local elected officials, to speak out more and make the connections between war spending and cut backs in jobs and local services.

For me the walk was a great opportunity to bring our message about the war $$ home campaign to lots of new people in communities we rarely work with across the state. So in the end the sore legs and mindless tiredness I feel was all worth it. The new friendships and working with old friends, who served as our local hosts during the journey, was a real gift.

I often tell people that we need to get outside our normal organizing boxes and find ways to reach out to new folks. This walk proved to be just such a vehicle.

IS AMERICA YEARNING FOR FASCISM?

By Chris Hedges

The language of violence always presages violence. I watched it in war after war from Latin America to the Balkans. The impoverishment of a working class and the snuffing out of hope and opportunity always produce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed. A bankrupt, liberal elite, which proves ineffectual against the rich and the criminal, always gets swept aside, in times of economic collapse, before thugs and demagogues emerge to play to the passions of the crowd. I have seen this drama. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in other tongues in other lands. I recognize the same stock characters, the buffoons, charlatans and fools, the same confused crowds and the same impotent and despised liberal class that deserves the hatred it engenders.

“We are ruled not by two parties but one party,” Cynthia McKinney, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket, told me. “It is the party of money and war. Our country has been hijacked. And we have to take the country away from those who have hijacked it. The only question now is whose revolution gets funded.”

The Democrats and their liberal apologists are so oblivious to the profound personal and economic despair sweeping through this country that they think offering unemployed people the right to keep their unemployed children on their nonexistent health care policies is a step forward. They think that passing a jobs bill that will give tax credits to corporations is a rational response to an unemployment rate that is, in real terms, close to 20 percent. They think that making ordinary Americans, one in eight of whom depends on food stamps to eat, fork over trillions in taxpayer dollars to pay for the crimes of Wall Street and war is acceptable. They think that the refusal to save the estimated 2.4 million people who will be forced out of their homes by foreclosure this year is justified by the bloodless language of fiscal austerity. The message is clear. Laws do not apply to the power elite. Our government does not work. And the longer we stand by and do nothing, the longer we refuse to embrace and recognize the legitimate rage of the working class, the faster we will see our anemic democracy die.

The unraveling of America mirrors the unraveling of Yugoslavia. The Balkan war was not caused by ancient ethnic hatreds. It was caused by the economic collapse of Yugoslavia. The petty criminals and goons who took power harnessed the anger and despair of the unemployed and the desperate. They singled out convenient scapegoats from ethnic Croats to Muslims to Albanians to Gypsies. They set in motion movements that unleashed a feeding frenzy leading to war and self-immolation. There is little difference between the ludicrous would-be poet Radovan Karadzic, who was a figure of ridicule in Sarajevo before the war, and the moronic Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. There is little difference between the Oath Keepers and the Serbian militias. We can laugh at these people, but they are not the fools. We are.

The longer we appeal to the Democrats, who are servants of corporate interests, the more stupid and ineffectual we become. Sixty-one percent of Americans believe the country is in decline, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, and they are right. Only 25 percent of those polled said the government can be trusted to protect the interests of the American people. If we do not embrace this outrage and distrust as our own it will be expressed through a terrifying right-wing backlash.

“It is time for us to stop talking about right and left,” McKinney told me. “The old political paradigm that serves the interests of the people who put us in this predicament will not be the paradigm that gets us out of this. I am a child of the South. Janet Napolitano tells me I need to be afraid of people who are labeled white supremacists but I was raised around white supremacists. I am not afraid of white supremacists. I am concerned about my own government. The Patriot Act did not come from the white supremacists, it came from the White House and Congress. Citizens United did not come from white supremacists, it came from the Supreme Court. Our problem is a problem of governance. I am willing to reach across traditional barriers that have been skillfully constructed by people who benefit from the way the system is organized.”

We are bound to a party that has betrayed every principle we claim to espouse, from universal health care to an end to our permanent war economy, to a demand for quality and affordable public education, to a concern for the jobs of the working class. And the hatred expressed within right-wing movements for the college-educated elite, who created or at least did nothing to halt the financial debacle, is not misplaced. Our educated elite, wallowing in self-righteousness, wasted its time in the boutique activism of political correctness as tens of millions of workers lost their jobs. The shouting of racist and bigoted words at black and gay members of Congress, the spitting on a black member of the House, the tossing of bricks through the windows of legislators’ offices, are part of the language of rebellion. It is as much a revolt against the educated elite as it is against the government. The blame lies with us. We created the monster.

When someone like Palin posts a map with cross hairs on the districts of Democrats, when she says “Don’t Retreat, Instead—RELOAD!” there are desperate people cleaning their weapons who listen. When Christian fascists stand in the pulpits of megachurches and denounce Barack Obama as the Antichrist, there are messianic believers who listen. When a Republican lawmaker shouts “baby killer” at Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, there are violent extremists who see the mission of saving the unborn as a sacred duty. They have little left to lose. We made sure of that. And the violence they inflict is an expression of the violence they endure.

These movements are not yet full-blown fascist movements. They do not openly call for the extermination of ethnic or religious groups. They do not openly advocate violence. But, as I was told by Fritz Stern, a scholar of fascism who has written about the origins of Nazism, “In Germany there was a yearning for fascism before fascism was invented.” It is the yearning that we now see, and it is dangerous. If we do not immediately reincorporate the unemployed and the poor back into the economy, giving them jobs and relief from crippling debt, then the nascent racism and violence that are leaping up around the edges of American society will become a full-blown conflagration.

Left unchecked, the hatred for radical Islam will transform itself into a hatred for Muslims. The hatred for undocumented workers will become a hatred for Mexicans and Central Americans. The hatred for those not defined by this largely white movement as American patriots will become a hatred for African-Americans. The hatred for liberals will morph into a hatred for all democratic institutions, from universities to government agencies to the press. Our continued impotence and cowardice, our refusal to articulate this anger and stand up in open defiance to the Democrats and the Republicans, will see us swept aside for an age of terror and blood.

OBAMANATION

TIRED FEET BUT STILL WALKING

Walk arrives in Freeport
From Brunswick to Freeport, Maggie Finch (third person) walking more than half way each day

Bath to Brunswick

Today I have a day off from the peace walk. I think we all needed it, my feet had become so sore that when I stopped walking I got stiff within minutes and could barely move. We walked six days in a row from Bethel to Portland and pick it up again in the morning when we move from Portland to Saco. From there we finish in Kennebunk and the walk will continue without us Mainers south to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

There is so much to write about. The walking community, usually about 10-15 at a time, swells and shrinks each day as people come and go. On Saturday we had 35 walk from Bath to Brunswick and we got kicked out of a gas station parking lot by the state police after the owner of the station complained about us taking a rest break there. He didn't like our politics.

On Sunday, Brunswick to Freeport, we had about 20 folks and needed a place to take a break from the cold. One of our folks stopped at a country bed and breakfast Inn and knocked on the door and asked if we could rest there. They said yes and a 10-year old girl lives there who had a peace sign on her t-shirt. She asked her mother if she could walk with us and her mom ended up joining as well so they both walked more than five miles to our final destination that day.

Yesterday we walked 17 miles through a hard rain and wind to Portland. We were down to about 13 folks. By the time we got to Portland I was soaked from my waist to the insides of my shoes. Once we got to the pot luck supper I took off my socks and had to wring the water out of them.

I write this while laying in bed with my laptop on my knees. I feel like staying in bed all day.

I'm not complaining though. It is such a great experience and the people are wonderful. And the human connections we are making along the way are just very magical.

Maggie Finch, 89 years old next week, keeps telling everyone that all along the way the dogs are showing their support for the walk. She says they keep barking and pulling on their chains in order to try to join with us. Maggie is walking more than half of the mileage each day. And we all have fallen totally in love with her. She read two of her poems the other night at our pot luck supper in Brunswick. One of them, written just after the bombing of Hiroshima, has a line about the dragon with its fire lighting the way to hell.

While walking in that rain yesterday I got a call on my cell phone from John Richardson who is a candidate for governor in Maine. He is a Democrat and the former Speaker of the House in the state legislature. He is one of many in a crowded field of candidates competing for the Democratic party nomination.

In Maine we have public financing of elections so candidates are required to secure $5 donations from some number of citizens (I am not sure how many but something like 1,000 or so) in order to "qualify" for the state campaign funds.

So anyway, Richardson calls me and asks for a $5 donation. I told him I am not a Democrat and don't support the party because they won't demand that their president stop these wars. He told me I don't have to be a Dem in order to give him $5, plus he insisted that I remember that in 2003 he was one of those in the Maine legislature that voted in favor of a resolution opposing the war.

I responded by saying that was great in 2003, but that was when the Republican Bush was in power, and we are now in 2010 and the Democrats are not willing to speak out against their own president who is expanding wars.

Richardson was working real hard to convince me to send him $5 (I figured he must be pretty desperate to call me in the first place - I had to fight hard just to get a word in during the phone call....)

I finally told him, look I am out here walking in the rain, my feet hurt and my shoes are wet, and I am trying to stop these wars and want our war $$ home. I'll tell you this, I told him, let me hear you on TV or the radio or read a quote from you in the newspaper calling on Obama to end these wars and bring our war $$ home. Once I hear such a statement from you I will be happy to send you $5. That was the end of the conversation.

I doubt I will ever have to write the check. I'll let you know if I do.

In the meantime, I notice Obama has gone to Afghanistan to pump up the war. My guess is that he is trying to take the "goodwill" he is feeling inside his party after passage of the corporate health care bill and wants to translate that into more support for the soon to be requested $33 billion war spending supplemental. I note that Obama trotted out the Bush talking points of 9-11 to justify the continuation of the Afghanistan war. He also wore the leather bomber jacket Bush always wore in similar situations. Why would anyone believe any of this?

The other thing in the news has been the agreement between Russia and Obama to cut nuclear weapons to about 1,500 each. The Russians wanted to add an agreement on "missile defense" systems but the U.S. refused. It is always good to reduce nukes by any amount but this agreement obviously fails to achieve the demands of the United Nations Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that calls on all nuclear powers to get rid of all their nukes if they expect other nations like Iran or North Korea not to build any.

So the hypocrisy continues and that is why in the morning I will drag my tired feet back out onto the road to continue in the Walk for a Nuclear-Free Future.

DOWN IT FALLS

Message from peace activists in Vicenza, Italy who have long been protesting the expansion of U.S. military base in their community. The base will be used to give the Pentagon greater ability to intervene in the African continent.

"Good afternoon, from a sunny Vicenza.

Here is the latest news with the work done today to clear the riverbank from the recent fence built by the constructors of the base, without any permission from the Local Authorities.

The workers of the 'Independent Municipality No Dal Molin' have brought a state of free transit on the public land by the river."

THE AMERICAN TALIBAN

A French documentary about the right-wing Christian fundamentalists who are preparing to wage war on behalf of Jesus.

The difference between these folks and the Taliban? Not much as I see it. Where I come from they call this brainwashing.

Watch it and tell me what you think.

WALKING IS A JOY

We arrived in Bath tonight after a 19 mile day from Lewiston. Very cold and windy but dry. Yesterday (Norway to Lewiston) was warm and sunny the entire day. The weather is bouncing back and forth from one extreme to the other. Our first day (Bethel to Norway in the photos above) was snow the first half of the day.

Not only did we experience the weather fluctuations but we also got a good look at rural and urban Maine the last three days. The roads are falling apart, there are legions of people without work, and many of the homes and buildings along the way are in disrepair. The cost of paying for war is hitting home.

Each day we've had different people come and go from the walk but we've maintained a steady group of about 15 throughout. Maggie Finch, our oldest walker who turns 89 next week, is doing very well and is a joy to have along with us.

Folks in Norway turned out in big numbers and gave us a feast the first night. Last night we stayed at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Lewiston and the mayor, Laurent Gilbert, joined us for supper after spending one and a half hours meeting with our group of walkers at City Hall. I'll write more another time about some of the great stories he told us. He is a member of Mayors for Peace.

Today fellow Maine Veterans for Peace member Doug Rawlings, who teaches at University of Maine-Farmington, brought eight of his students and they spent the day with us. They walked the whole way and helped carry the banners and really helped make it a special day for all of us.

Because it was so cold we needed a place to eat our lunch inside so we asked an Italian restaurant in Lisbon called Graziano's if we could sit in-doors. They were so nice to us that we ordered a bunch of pizzas rather than eat our leftover food and when we were leaving our waitress come outside with her coat on and told us she asked the owner of the restaurant if it was OK if she walked with us for awhile. He told her go ahead so she walked for three-miles and then we had our blister van drive her back to work. She said she wants to walk with us on Monday as well.

These walks are special like that - magical things just keep happening. One of the walkers said tonight at supper that an energy flows out of the walk and gets inside people along the way. I think he is exactly right. These walks are more spiritual than most peace "marches" and create a different dynamic.

We have a brunch at our house in the morning and then we will join the weekly Lenten peace vigil at Bath Iron Works where the Aegis destroyers are built. Then we'll walk on to Brunswick with a stop along the way at the Naval Air Station that is closing next year. We want to send some good vibes toward the base in hopes of ensuring that the "redevelopment" process does not turn it into a drone flight test center.

My knee is holding up very well, one of my ankles hurts and is stiff as a board, I need a bath very badly and am going to go sit and soak in the tub.

I'm having a great time.

UNRAVELING THE TIGHT KNOT

Activists draw attention to nuclear disarmament treaty
Lewiston Sun Journal
March 25, 2010

NORWAY — Hoping their long trek will help raise support and awareness for nuclear disarmament, a group of peace activists made their way from Bethel to Norway on Wednesday.

The walk, which is put on by the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist order of Leverett, Mass., aims to arrive in New York City on the eve of a United Nations session on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Its next stop will be the Trinity Episcopal Church in Lewiston, where a supper and program will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday.

“This walk is about how to get people in New England to join us in the march for nuclear disarmament,” said Tim Bullock, coordinator of the walk and a member of the Nipponzan Myohoji order.

Sister Claire Carter, a Buddhist nun with the order since 1981, said the order was founded in 1917 by Japanese monk Nichidatsu Fujii. While it has always had a strong focus on peace, it began to target nuclear weapons after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The “Walk For a Nuclear-Free Future” aims to promote the goal of ridding the world of such armaments.

“Nuclear weapons are so horrific that it's unimaginable by anyone to use one, yet there are over 23,000 in existence,” Carter said.

She said organizers hope to inspire some residents in the communities the walk passes through to make the trip to New York City, where an international conference on nuclear disarmament will begin April 30. Three days later, the United Nations is scheduled to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

First established in 1970, the goal of the agreement is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the world. It has been signed by about 190 nations, including the United States and four other nuclear powers. The United Nations has held a review conference of the treaty every five years.

Carter said the Nipponzan Myohoji also hopes to eliminate the use of nuclear technology as well as stockpiles of nuclear weapons. She said nuclear technology presents several problems, such as the disposal of radioactive waste and the use of depleted uranium in conventional weapons.

“We believe the whole nuclear cycle should be put to rest, because there's just too much danger in it,” she said.

The walkers have made significant progress in their six days on the road, assisted in some places by vehicle shuttles. The walk began in Burlington, Vt., and progressed across that state and New Hampshire before entering Maine. Along the way, participants have met U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Danish Ambassador Friis Arne Petersen, and three Burmese monks living in exile.

Wednesday saw a late-season snowfall, but marchers did not find the weather an issue. Bullock said the snow proved more agreeable than Tuesday's rain, and spirits were further buoyed by scenic views along the way.

“Actually, it was quite pleasant,” he said. “We felt yesterday it was rougher.”

Some of the participants are no strangers to long walks. Carter took part in a trek retracing a portion of the transatlantic slave trade that included the United States, the Caribbean, and western Africa. It lasted more than a year.

Maggie Finch, an 86-year-old Bath resident, said she thought that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have convinced the world to move in the direction of peace, but that they seemed to have the opposite effect. She said she took part in a peace march aiming to make it across the country in 1986, but she and most of the other activists had to drop out after some key sponsors pulled out. She intends to stay with the march throughout the Maine stops.

“I always had the feeling of unfinished business, and I think that's probably why I'm here now,” Finch said.

The route is one of three walks initiated by the Nipponzan Myohoji order that will converge on New York City. Another walk began in Steamburg, N.Y., with the route passing a nuclear waste disposal site in Springville, a nuclear power plant in Highland Falls, and several Indian nations. The third march began at Oak Ridge, Tenn., where a research laboratory was instrumental in the creation of an atomic bomb during World War II. Bullock said a fourth walk, organized by the Washington Peace Center, will also go to New York City from the nation's capital.

The Bethel-to-Norway leg of the journey was capped by a supper and service at the First Universalist Church of Norway. Along with chants and music, participants discussed the walk and other efforts they are involved in. Bruce Gagnon, a coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, said federal money spent on the military could be put to better use addressing domestic needs.

“Unless we deal with military spending in America, there will be no recovery in America,” he said.

MY COMMENT: Lucky to find a computer this morning at the church. Fifteen of us walked yesterday about 13 miles from Bethel to Norway. Today on to Lewiston. Nice coverage in the local paper as we walk into their community. Great potluck here last night attended by about 60 folks who brought great food. During first half of the day we walked through snow yesterday, with mountains in the distance, and Brother Kato (in photo above) says these walks are about unraveling the tight knot of militarism. Very well said. Slept on the floor last night, not the most comfortable bed in the world but did sleep well considering. Our oldest walker is 89 year old Maggie Finch, also lives in Bath, who is a poet, good spirit, and a strong walker.

DEADLY BOTTLES

YOUR CALLS ON JEJU ISLAND ARE WORKING ALREADY- KEEP MAKING THEM

Proposed Navy base on Jeju Island - note the Aegis destroyers that are outfitted with "missile defense" systems
Jeju is the island inside the red circle above. To the left is mainland China. To the right is Japan. China imports 80% of its oil along the seaway beside Jeju Island. The U.S. Navy obviously relishes the idea of one more Navy base in the region that would enable it to choke off China's importation of oil thus giving the U.S. the "keys" to China's economic engine. You can see that this Navy base will dramatically widen already dangerous tensions in the region.


Since my earlier email this morning asking people to call the South Korean Embassy in Washington DC I've already heard from two different people who both told me the person they spoke to at the embassy said it was the U.S. Navy that wants the base.

One of our supporters emailed me the following message after her call to the embassy:

I just spoke with the aide to the attaché at the Korean Embassy (202-939-5600) and she asked that we contact the U.S. Navy to complain. She understood our motivation is to support the resistance of the people on Jeju but she said "you have to talk to your government because they are the ones who want to do this." She asked me to relay this message to others.

This is very important information and confirms the worst suspicions of many of us that the U.S. has been pushing the South Korean government to build the Navy base on Jeju Island in order for the U.S. Navy to deploy Aegis destroyers at the base. But we never had confirmation of that theory until now!

We need to keep calling the South Korean Embassy and tell them not to do what the U.S. Pentagon tells them. South Korea is a sovereign nation and should not allow the U.S. to push them into building a provocative Navy base on what is known as the "Peace Island".

This proposed Navy base, and other U.S. military deployments in the Asian-Pacific region, will contribute to a new and wider arms race in that part of the world. We must act now to do all we can to create a global call to stop this dangerous military escalation.

So if you have not yet called or emailed please do so right away. Call the South Korean Embassy at 202-939-5692 (Admiral Choi) or 202-939-5600 or email at consular_usa@mofat.go.kr

And please be sure to let me know if they tell you anything else about the U.S. pressuring South Korea to build this Navy base. This information will be vitally important to the villagers on Jeju Island as they can now alert their media and inform them that this base is indeed going to be a key part of the aggressive U.S. military strategy to surround and provoke China.

Our next steps will be to organize pressure on the U.S. government. But first let's continue building pressure on South Korea - especially now that we see them giving us vital information as a result of your calls!

Thanks for your help.