Getting organized in Maine

I get to organize with the most amazing people!  At the mural rally yesterday about 400 people raised the roof of the state house and shared hopes, fears, and a bit of good news: the feds want their share of the cost of the mural refunded. Great speeches by many; here's one, Rob Shetterly in Common Dreams today: Return Our Mural, Restore the Names.

Check out this most beautiful re-display of the mural since it was sneakily, illegally and expensively removed from the Maine Department of Labor (here you see one side of the State House, our capitol building):

And in this video many of my favorite people help get the BOW$H message out. Especially great song at the end: Bring our war dollars home ballad written by webmaster Dan Ellis and sung beautifully by everyone -- it always helps to have the Raging Grannies on hand!


Artist Natasha Mayers was a strong presence at both rallies, and shared some Maine art and activism history in an email she sent around today.


The role that artists are playing: a little bit about our Drawathons, Draw-ins, and Printathons
April 4, 2011

The amazing Kenny Cole and I met with Lisa Savage, Bruce Gagnon, and others back in 2009 to see what the Union of Maine Visual Artists could do to promote the Bring Our War $ $ Home campaign. Kenny suggested a Drawathon.

We put out a call for artists to come and draw all day, working side by side, exchanging ideas. A way for us to stretch our imaginations and, in doing that, help other people envision how they would want their tax dollars spent.

You can be deadly serious or seriously silly, we told them, at the UCC Church in Bath. I sketched a "free range chicken in every pot" and more school field trips . Others drew solar panels, school vegetable gardens, and a missile launcher that launched paint brushes.

I think, as artists, we have ways to capture/captivate people's attention that are creative and non-threatening. To catch it in a way that won't put them off. As artists, I also don't think we're just talking about money or politics. We're talking about what military spending does to our souls and spirits.

More than 40 artists made images that day. Some of the participating artists were: Robert Shetterly, Abby Shahn, Diane Dahlke, Barb Sullivan, Brian Reeves, and five students from Unity College. Lisa, Bruce, and others organized the kitchen, and made sure the artists were fed. Lisa, Peter, and Kenny scanned/photographed images and put them on a website, for later production of booklets (zines) to distribute to our state and national representatives.

The art was hung on the wall for all to see. The community arrived for a potluck and evening of poetry with Betsy Sholl, Maine’s Poet Laureate, Martin Steingesser, Henry Braun, Chris Crittenden, and others. The event was attended by about 140 people. It was grand!

We had a Draw-In at the State House in Augusta, and CODEPINK messengers delivered the 4 'zines (booklets) to all state legislators. We were not just calling attention to harmful priorities in spending, but also using our art to thaw the hearts and minds of legislators frozen by fear, budget freezes, and draconian cuts.

"We offer these drawings as suggestions for wiser and healthier uses of our tax dollars," said Shetterly, speaking on behalf of Union of Maine Visual Artists. "We believe that the primary functions of government are to enhance community, protect the environment, care for the unfortunate, provide education..."

We parked ourselves in the rotunda of the State House and waited for the public to pass by. We solicited from them any ideas they had on how to better spend our war dollars. People are disarmed when it comes to live artists! They get very excited to see their ideas visualized before them and then to be able to take their drawing away with them. For the artists it’s great camaraderie and that feeling of using their skills for a noble cause.Singer/songwriter Hana Maris performed and Martin Steingesser recited his poetry.

Next we held a second Draw-A-Thon at Space Gallery in Portland on Veterans Day. Some artists drew portraits of veterans and others, and others drew how they wanted their war dollars spent.

Then we held a Print-A-thon: at the Portland Public Library. An all day gathering of artists to work collaboratively to create silk-screen or other print editions of some of the imagery.

We held a second Printathon at Circle the Square Print Studio in Gardiner with Karen Adrienne’s generous instruction and hosting and Nora Tryon’s experience with silkscreening.

What’s next? We plan to have Steve Burke help us in the spring, spread our posters around the country, maybe wheat paste a few on available city walls, maybe turn our artistic eye to some other pressing problems in the state, too.

We hope you’ll join us.
Thank you.

Draw-in, Hall of Flags, Augusta  April 4, 2011-- Nora Tryon's newest poster design in foreground

Maine capital hears hundreds roar "Bring our war $$ home!"

The Draw-in component of today almost got overshadowed by the rally that packed the Hall of Flags in Maine's State House in Augusta today -- until you saw the art. Here four year-old Lily shows what she would have spent $3.4 billion Maine has contributed to wars since 2001. I love how she worked the awesome Codepink Bring Our War $$ Home sticker into the design! Most people love to wear a sticker, and if you look at the crowd you'll see Pink popping up everywhere.

Just don't try to pop any pink parasols in the State House. Grumpy security officers said I couldn't bring them into the building because there is a rule against "sticks."

There was plenty of signage, so the debut of the Pink Parasol Peace Brigade in August will have to wait. Maybe "Whole Hog" should be in the audience (our governor was vacationing in Jamaica after three months on the job).

Nicole Moreau of UMaine Farmington did an outstanding job in her remarks connecting the dots between student debt loads and discouraging the attainment of higher education. Earlier the audience gasped when I shared National Priorities Project data showing that Maine could have put 21 incoming classes at U Maine through four years of in-state tuition for the money instead wasted on wars.

My speech about the need to BOW$H -- Hall of Flags, Augusta April 4, 2011

We're here in the state capital today to offer a real solution to the budget crisis that our lawmakers say forces their hands to cut, cut, and cut again.

We're here because our representatives and senators in the Maine legislature tell us they have no choice but to slash spending on social programs, no choice but to raid pension funds, no choice but to reduce health benefits and eliminate cost of living increases for retirees.

I sent a letter to my representative in the Maine House, Philip Curtis of Madison.  I told him I was opposed to the governor's budget proposal, and I offered him, not just a critique, but a solution: Bring Our War Dollars Home! I also asked him to meet with those of us working on the campaign.

Tax payers in the state of Maine have reached into their pockets to the tune of 3.4 BILLION dollars to fund wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some of this was funded with our federal income taxes, and some of it was borrowed against our future income taxes.

This figure does not even include the annual budget for the Department of Defense, or most of the cost for operating more than 800 military bases around the globe. Spending on active military – not even counting the price tag for much needed care for veterans – has climbed to well over 50% of discretionary spending by Congress.

How can this steadily accelerating drain on our resources not affect the fiscal health of the people of Maine?

Rep. Curtis wrote back on March 30: “ Your request is a noble one  but I believe it is aimed in the wrong direction. We in the Maine legislature have little if any impact on federal fiscal issues such as yours. I would suggest a meeting with Sen Snowe or Sen Collins would be more appropriate...”

Here's why my representative is wrong. He's wrong because the wishes of the people should have an impact on federal fiscal issues. When my school district passed a Bring our war $$ home resolution last year, they had a letter right back from Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. She wrote saying that she knew about their budget problems, and she knew that the U.S. should stop pouring money into costly, ineffective wars.

Then she went on to vote no on the war funding supplemental bill, and she spoke out as a leader in Congress on several occasions. I am happy to say that Rep. Mike Michaud also heard us and voted the same.

The campaign to bring our war dollars home is now spreading nationally. Hartford CT passed a resolution a week ago today. Northampton and Amerst Mass also joined Portland and Deer Isle Maine in passing resolutions. The campaign to pass resolutions is on in  California, Maryland, Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

According the National Priorities Project, Maine's $3.4 billion share of total war spending would fund an in-state four year education for every incoming freshman class for the next 21 years.

Education is the path out of poverty. That's why I gave up a good paying job in the private sector to become a public school teacher in Maine. That's also why I used a personal day to be here in Augusta with you. I didn't become a teacher for time off in summer, or to retire and live comfortably on a pension. In fact, I gave up years of big contributions to Social Security when I entered the Maine State Retirement system.

I'm here because I'm idealistic. In Maine 17% of our children – nearly 50,000 – live in poverty. This is everyone's problem. Poverty affects a child's intellectual development by the age of 2! By failing to invest in our young people, we are failing to invest in our collective future.

And we're doing this –  apparently – so a few CEOs that manaufacture weapons systems can be obscenely rich, using their wealth to fund campaigns to elect those who will serve THEM rather than serve the people of Maine.

We at the local community level must take matters into our hands and demand that the madness stop. That is why we call on our town coucilors, our city mayors, our state legislators and yet, even, our governor to send the message loud and clear to Washington DC: Bring our war $$ home!
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Mayor Joanne Twomey of Biddeford (right) was an exciting addition to the news conference when she stepped to the podium and called on Washington to bring our war dollars home so that her town does not have to make huge cuts to education.

Maine Public Radio covered her remarks at the rally here.