US Mayors Call For Nukes Disarmed, War Dollars Home

The US Conference of Mayors holds an annual meeting to guide federal policy decisions that affect people living in the nation's cities. Mayors know firsthand the effects of sequestration and other budget cuts to essential services and programs that result from obscenely high levels of military spending. If you count all the nuclear programs funded under the Dept. of Energy rather than through the Pentagon, the share of federal discretionary spending on military is even higher than 57%.

If only Congress and the Obama administration listened to constituents instead of campaign contributors. 

Proud to see Michael Brennan, mayor of Maine's largest city, among the co-sponsors! Here is the text of the great Mayors for Peace resolution that was unanimously adopted at the conference (PDF). 

CALLING FOR U.S. LEADERSHIP IN GLOBAL ELIMINATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND REDIRECTION OF MILITARY SPENDING TO DOMESTIC NEEDS

WHEREAS, in April 2009, President Barack Obama declared in Prague, “as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it. So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons” and

WHEREAS, in November 2012, the United Nations General Assembly established a working group open to all member states “to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons,” and scheduled for September 26, 2013, the first ever summit-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly devoted to nuclear disarmament; and

WHEREAS, adherence to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons commits each State Party “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament”; and the U.S. Conference of Mayors has regularly adopted resolutions since 2004 calling for the commencement of comprehensive nuclear disarmament negotiations, as put forth by the UN Secretary General in his “Five Point Proposal,” to be concluded and implemented by 2020, as proposed by Mayors for Peace; and

WHEREAS, an historic conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, hosted in Oslo in March 2013 by the government of Norway and attended by representatives of 127 states, the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and civil society, including Mayors for Peace, highlighted three key points relevant to mayors as first responders:

“It is unlikely that any state or international body could address the immediate humanitarian emergency caused by a nuclear weapon detonation in an adequate manner and provide sufficient assistance to those affected.

The historical experience from the use and testing of nuclear weapons has demonstrated their devastating immediate and long-term effects. While political circumstances have changed, the destructive potential of nuclear weapons remains.

The effects of a nuclear weapon detonation, irrespective of cause, will not be constrained by national borders, and will affect states and people in significant ways, regionally as well as globally”; and

WHEREAS, the U.S. Conference of Mayors expresses its deep concern that both the May session of the new UN disarmament working group and the Oslo Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons took place without the participation of the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, including the United States; and WHEREAS, nearly a quarter of a century has passed since the end of the Cold War, yet an estimated 17,300 nuclear weapons, 94% of them in the possession of the United States and Russia, continue to pose an intolerable threat to humanity; and

WHEREAS, the threatened first use of nuclear weapons remains at the heart of U.S. and Russian national security policies, and nuclear tensions in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and on the Korean peninsula remind us that the potential for nuclear war is ever present; and

WHEREAS, the Administration’s FY 2014 budget request of $7.87 billion for Department of Energy Nuclear Weapons Activities represents an increase of nine percent above the 2012 enacted level – in inflation-adjusted dollars, the highest amount ever, and funds increases for nuclear weapon life extension programs that will result in upgrades to missile and bomber-based warheads, construction of a new uranium processing facility, tritium production and plutonium manufacturing and experimentation, and other programs to sustain the existing stockpile; and

WHEREAS, the Department of Defense has requested an additional $12 billion in FY 2014 to maintain and modernize nuclear weapons delivery systems including a new nuclear–capable heavy bomber, development of a replacement Ohio class submarine by 2031, and extension of the service life of the nation’s 450 Minuteman 3 ICBMs or their replacement in coming decades with new nuclear-armed ballistic missiles; and

WHEREAS, the Air Force plans to spend more than $1 billion over the next six years to develop a guided tail kit to increase the accuracy of the B61 nuclear bomb, and the Pentagon plans to spend a total estimated at more than $336 billion on the new F-35 joint strike fighter, a variant of which will be mated with the more accurate guided B61 bomb based at NATO bases in Europe,
significantly increasing the capability of the non-strategic U.S. nuclear force, and making it more difficult for the Russian military to accept reductions of its own inventory of non-strategic nuclear weapons; and

WHEREAS, the Administration’s budget request calls for a 23 percent increase for nuclear weapons research, manufacturing and maintenance over the next five years; and

WHEREAS, nuclear weapons spending is emblematic of Pentagon spending, which has grown by 50% in real dollars in the last 12 years, not including war spending, and nearly all of the “cuts” up for debate are only reductions in the growth rate; and

WHEREAS, in 2012, during a time of continuing domestic financial hardship, the U.S. spent $682 billion on its military, as much as the next 11 top spenders combined, accounting for nearly two-fifths of the world total; and

WHEREAS, our nation’s deep economic crisis can only be addressed by adopting new priorities to create a sustainable economy for the 21st century; and

WHEREAS, as the country was coming out of a long recession, the budget sequester enacted in March is imperiling the economic recovery in cities, with cuts to federal programs such as Community Block Development Grants, Section 8 Housing Vouchers, and Head Start forcing cities, local agencies and non-profits to lay off staff, reduce or eliminate services, delay infrastructure projects and reduce program benefits to low and moderate income families; and

WHEREAS, Mayors for Peace membership has surpassed 5,600 member cities in 156 countries, speaking on behalf of more than one billion citizens, and is approaching 200 U.S. members; and

WHEREAS, the U.S. Conference of Mayors adopted resolutions in 2010, 2011 and 2012 calling for deep cuts in nuclear weapons spending and redirection of those funds to meet the needs of cities, and adopted an additional resolution in 2011, “Calling on Congress to Redirect Military Spending to Domestic Needs”;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on President Obama to reaffirm his determination, expressed in Prague, to achieve the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons by speaking at the High-Level Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament on September 26, 2013 and endorsing the UN Secretary-General’s Five Point Proposal on Nuclear Disarmament; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on the U.S. government to demonstrate good faith by participating in the August session of the UN disarmament working group by helping “to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons,” and by supporting extension of the working group’s mandate beyond 2013; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on the U.S. government to demonstrate good faith by participating in the follow-on conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons to be hosted by Mexico in early 2014; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on the President and Congress to reduce funding for modernization of nuclear weapons systems, to reduce nuclear weapons spending to the minimum necessary to assure the safety and security of the existing weapons as they await disablement and dismantlement, and redirect those funds to meet the urgent needs of cities; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on the President and Congress to reduce military spending and to reinvest those funds in programs to address the dramatic increase in poverty and inequality in our country; take emergency measures to repair the social safety net and protect Social Security and Medicare; create jobs, retrain displaced workers, including military contractors, rebuild deteriorating physical infrastructure, invest in new technologies for a sustainable energy future, and aid local government to restore and maintain vital public services, reemploying teachers, police, firefighters and other workers; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors expresses its continuing support for and cooperation with Mayors for Peace

SPONSORS
Resolution No. 56, Submitted by: The Honorable Donald L. Plusquellic, Mayor of Akron (OH); The Honorable Ed Pawlowski, Mayor of Allentown (PA); The Honorable John Hieftje, Mayor of Ann Arbor (MI); The Honorable Tom Bates, Mayor of Berkeley (CA); The Honorable Matthew T. Ryan, Mayor of Binghamton (NY); The Honorable Henrietta Davis, Mayor of Cambridge (MA); The Honorable Mark Kleinschmidt, Mayor of Chapel Hill (NC); The Honorable Satyendra Singh Huja, Mayor of Charlottesville (VA); The Honorable Franklin T. Cownie, Mayor of Des Moines (IA); The Honorable Michael A. Tautznik, Mayor of Easthampton (MA); The Honorable Kitty Piercy, Mayor of Eugene (OR); The Honorable Ed Malloy, Mayor of Fairfield (IA); The Honorable Joy Cooper, Mayor of Hallandale Beach (FL); The Honorable Alex Morse, Mayor of Holyoke (MA); The Honorable Mark Stodola, Mayor of Little Rock, (AR); The Honorable Paul Soglin, Mayor of Madison (WI); The Honorable John Stefano, Mayor of New Haven (CT); The Honorable David J. Narkewicz, Mayor of Northampton, MA; The Honorable Chris Koos, Mayor of Normal (IL); The Honorable Frank Ortis, Mayor of Pembroke Pines (FL); The Honorable Michael Brennan, Mayor of Portland (ME); The Honorable Gayle McLaughlin, Mayor of Richmond (CA); The Honorable Ardell Brede, Mayor of Rochester (MN); The Honorable Stephen Cassidy, Mayor of San Leandro (CA); The Honorable Helene Schneider, Mayor of Santa Barbara (CA); The Honorable Bruce R Williams, Mayor, Takoma Park (MD); The Honorable Neal King, Mayor of Taos Ski Valley (NM); The Honorable Richard D. Schneider, Mayor of South Pasadena (CA); The Honorable Laurel Lunt Prussing, Mayor of Urbana (IL); The Honorable Geraldine Muoio, Mayor of West Palm Beach (FL).

Source: Homeless Voices for Justice, Preble Street Center, Portland, Maine

Will your mayor join the call to fund human needs instead of wars?

Did you see this recent news from Augusta?

Maine mayors team up   March 23 by Keith Edwards

Coalition includes Waterville's Karen Heck, who takes issue with 'this war 

on poor people'

AUGUSTA -- The mayors of 10 major Maine cities, including Augusta and Waterville, have formed a coalition to push back against what they see as a continuing shift of the costs to municipalities and taxpayers.

Staff photo by Joe Phelan -- Augusta Mayor William Stokes, left, and Westbrook Mayor Colleen Hilton listen as Waterville Mayor Karen Heck, right, answers a question during a news conference at the State House on Thursday in Augusta. A group of mayors from the state's largest cities announced the formation of a Mayors Coalition on Jobs and Economic Development, they said their top priority is fighting the general assistance cuts...

Mayor Karen Heck of Waterville had already spoken that week  at the State House in favor of redirecting military spending to human needs at home. And she has invited me to send her the resolution passed at the US Conference of Mayors last June in Baltimore so that she can sign it (it's the res that became part of the mayors' advocacy platform to the federal government for the needs of urban citizens (more info here).

Wouldn't it be super if more mayors joined Karen in endorsing the resolution as a solution to budget cuts? Consider asking your mayor, or otherwise getting the word out!

Wording of the resolution can always be modified by signers. This what big city mayors passed:

CALLING ON CONGRESS TO REDIRECT MILITARY SPENDING TO DOMESTIC PRIORITIES

WHEREAS, every member of the US Conference of Mayors and the Americans they represent, support our brave men and women in uniform and their families;

WHEREAS, the drawdown of troops should be done in a measured way that does not destabilize the region and that can accelerate the transfer of responsibility to regional authorities; 
 
WHEREAS, the severity of the ongoing economic crisis has created budget shortfalls at all levels of government and requires us to re-examine our national spending priorities; and 

WHEREAS, the people of the United States are collectively paying approximately $126 billion dollars per year to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan; and 

WHEREAS, 6,024 members of the US armed forces have died in these wars; and at least 120,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the coalition attacks began. 

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the United States Conference of Mayors supports efforts to speed up the ending of these wars; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the United States Conference of Mayors calls on the President and U.S. Congress to end the wars as soon as strategically possible and bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs, promote job creation, rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, and develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy and reduce the federal debt.

Adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors in June, 2011.

CODEPINK's suggested Next Steps:

1. Email a copy of the resolution to your congressional delegation and the president.
2. Share the online campaign with your Facebook community.
3. Tweet about the campaign: @whitehouse: Mayors endorse @CODEPINKalert resolution to end #wars & bring $$ home to needs of our #cities http://j.mp/jsmmYc #p2
4. Schedule a meeting with your mayor to discuss the resolution passed and ask your mayor to personally use the resolution to advance the needs of your community in Washington.
5. Take a copy of the Mayors' War Dollars Home Resolution (pdf) to your members of Congress. The pdf includes the full text of the resolution, talking points, and a copy of the press release from the mayors' conference.
6. Write letters to the editor congratulating the mayors for following the advice of their constituents and passing the resolution. Consider mentioning your personal involvement in the campaign and/or CODEPINK's leadership.

Mayor Kitty Piercy of Eugene, OR was the lead sponsor for the war dollars home resolution, Ironically, she felt unable to travel to Baltimore for the conference where it was voted on due to budget shortfalls in Eugene.

Published on Monday, June 20, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

US Mayors Tell Congress: Bring War Dollars Home

by Lisa Savage

BALTIMORE, June 20 – Mayors from around the US met in Baltimore this week to set public policy for the millions of people living in big cities, depending on municipal services to stay safe. While Congress considered allocating another $118 billion to conduct wars next year – and President Obama absurdly maintained that the costly bombing of Libya is not an act of war, and thus not subject to Congressional oversight – mayors listened to the people.
Anti-war activists rallied in Austin, Texas earlier this year carrying the 'Bring Our War Dollars Home' message. Today, the US Conference of Mayors passed a resolution calling for the same. Following a lively debate about adding stronger language supporting troops and their families, and adding President Obama as a recipient, mayors voted in their June 20 plenary session to call on the federal government to stop funding wars, and bring the money home.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors' Resolution Number 59 was only a twinkle in the eye two years ago when a coalition of citizens alarmed at endless wars and catastrophic budget shortfalls coined the slogan “Bring Our War Dollars Home” at activist Sally Breen's kitchen table in Windham, Maine.
 That state's campaign took off on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2010, and soon spread nationally with adoption by the women-led peace group CODEPINK. Locations across Maine soon adopted war dollars home resolutions, including Deer Isle, Portland, and School Administrative District #74, followed by Northampton and Amherst, Massachusetts and, most recently, by Hartford, Connecticut.

Meanwhile, Congress continued to pass war funding supplemental bills, but without the support of Maine's two representatives in the House. Rep. Mike Michaud (D-2nd) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-1st) defied Democrat party leadership to repeatedly vote no on the measures. Pingree began speaking out in Congress and in the press about the need to listen to her constituents' demands to end the wars as Maine's economy unraveled, and local budgets for education, health care, housing and job training were slashed.

In March CODEPINK brought on board national campaign manager C.J. Minster, who wrote the text of the mayors' resolution at another kitchen table, that of co-founder Medea Benjamin. The idea to bring a resolution to the annual conference of mayors had been proposed to co-founder Jodie Evans by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the incoming president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The conference first convened in 1932, as big city mayors came together in Detroit to consider what could be done to pull their troubled cities out of the depths of the Great Depression. The New Deal incorporated many of their ideas, and mayors have met annually ever since.

"The United States Conference of Mayors calls on the U.S. Congress to bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs, promote job creation, rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, and develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy," the resolution reads, citing the $126 billion a year cost of U.S. wars and the deaths of more than 6,000 troops.

Mayor Joanne Twomey of Biddeford, Maine spoke out about the current recession last April when her city council was forced to drastically reduce spending on K-12 education. At a rally at the State House in Augusta, Maine Public Radio reported: "As mayor of the city of Biddeford – we are cutting $1.6 million in our education budget, and last week I had had it – I'm starting to say it from the podium," said Twomey. "It's my responsibility as mayor of the city of Biddeford to start saying if our priorities were straight, if we could bring these war dollars home, I wouldn't have to be doing this, and neither would the Biddeford school board."

Kitty Piercy, Mayor of Eugene, Oregon, took the lead by introducing Resolution 59 stating: “Mayors call on our country to begin the journey of turning war dollars back into peace dollars, of bringing our loved ones home and of focusing our national resources on building security and prosperity here at home. Our children and families long for and call for a real investment in the future of America. It is past due.”

Piercy was joined in supporting the measure by mayors from Worcester, Hartford, Baltimore, and a score of other cities. States represented on the endorsement list included Virginia, Florida, Ohio, New York, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. The resolution flew through the Metro Economies Committee on the opening day of the mayors' conference, and the news was picked up by media outlets all over the world. On Sunday, June 19, Mayor Villaraigosa spoke in favor of the resolution on television current affairs program Meet The Press – and the rest is history.

As for who will enforce the non-binding resolution, that is up to the people. Grassroots pressure to end funding for wars eventually produced an end to U.S. military presence in Vietnam, presaged by the last time the mayors considered a war dollars home resolution in 1971. Mayors may very well be closer to the will of the people than are senators or presidents. The framers of our Constitution seemed to recognize this when they put the power of the purse in the hands of the branch of government supposed to be closest to the people, the House of Representatives.

Immense profits by weapons manufacturers – and the jobs that depend upon war funding – are compelling reasons for wars with vague goals and shifting targets to continue indefinitely. Corporations spend millions lobbying Congress while contriving to pay no income taxes. Many citizens are questioning who the federal government really represents.

President Obama said while campaigning that he was not against all wars, just stupid wars. Bankrupting the country to maintain 800+ military bases abroad, and drop bombs costing $1 million apiece – the equivalent of 25 teachers' annual salaries – could be the definition of stupid in the 21st Century. Fellow Democrat Rep. John Garamedi of California warned this week, “If the president doesn’t move…he will face a revolution in Congress…It’s coming to that.”

If the President has forgotten that Afghanistan is called “the graveyard of empires,” the people have not. Their mayors now join the chorus calling on the federal government to end endless wars, and bring the war dollars home.

Militarized Budgets + Toys For Boys = War Without End

Sen. John McCain introduced a bill this week to block the automatic cuts to military spending that were part of the deficit compromise by Congress. There's a similar bill in the House.  ==>Take action against the madness, or get talking points and letter to editor tips and Abby Shahn's great example here.

Who'll make up the $$ difference? Federal workers -- if McCain gets his way. Hey, wasn't he running to be the top federal worker awhile back? I suppose there are things a senator can say that a candidate for POTUS can't.

Lincoln famously said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." Presidents with one foot out the door of the Oval Office sometimes experience a burst of candor, and stop trying to fool anybody: in 1960 Dwight D. Eisenhower calledl out the “military-industrial complex,” warning his fellow taxpayers about the threat it posed to both their solvency and their sovereignty.

President Obama, nearing the end of his first term, and hoping for a second, can afford no such truth telling. Instead, Obama used the bully pulpit to deliver a stump speech disguised as a State of the Union address, the theme of which was rah rah military.

The military-industrial complex could be the poster child for people's disgust with the best government corporate lobbyists can buy. Turn over the rock of $669 billion that Congress and the President just authorized for next year's military expenses, and what comes scurrying out? Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman and General Dynamics campaign contributions, that's what. CEOs of those companies command such obscene levels of wealth that they aren't even the 1%, they're the 0.01%.

The fact is that the union is in a dreadful state, with millions of citizens unemployed, foreclosed, and in debt up to their eyebrows for college degrees that only lead to part-time McJobs. Tens of thousands nationwide have taken to the streets calling for an end to corporate control of government and the politics of unbridled greed. Since September 17 on Wall Street – and as recently as last month during the New Hampshire Primary – Occupy crowds have chanted: “How do we fix the deficit? End the wars and tax the rich!”

Pandering to as many voters as possible, Obama delivered a flag waving, chest thumping paean to U.S. military might and global dominance that included a tiny call to reduce military funding in favor of debt service and generating jobs via housing starts: “In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.”

The fact that Secretary of Defense Panetta immediately followed the SOTU address by promising to reduce the proposed Pentagon budget over the next decade is not the point. Neither is the fact that they're cutting back on troops, not the uber expensive drones which cost a minimum of $2 million per crash. (And yes, they crash quite often.) The point is that the Obama and Panetta feel compelled to claim to be reducing military spending in order to ward off regime change.

It's a sign of the times. Ron Paul is spooking both Democrats and Republicans by calling to reduce spending on foreign military adventures, a position he took long before he was officially in campaign mode. On his website currently we find: “Acting as the world’s policeman and nation-building weakens our country, puts our troops in harm’s way, and sends precious resources to other nations in the midst of an historic economic crisis.Taxpayers are forced to spend billions of dollars each year to protect the borders of other countries...”

Don't get me wrong, I have no fondness for Ron Paul. His anti-immigrant stance would have us spending plenty on military measures to “protect” our own border. But some people are on the verge of letting themselves be fooled into thinking he's a peace candidate rather than an old-fashion fiscal conservative.

From the other end of the spectrum Rep. Chellie Pingree toots her horn for voting “no” on so-called defense spending. (Never mind that she voted “ought to pass” when the National Defense Authorization Act was still in the committee. Her website explains: "The situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate with no end in site(sic)... It's time to stop funding the war ...As we struggle to get budget deficits under control, we have to come to grips with the fact that nearly one-quarter of the deficits that have been run up since 2003 are the result of war spending.”

Is this what the U.S. public understands about the connection between the endless war on terror and ongoing economic distress? The U.S. Conference of Mayors voted last June to send a resolution to Washington calling for reductions in military spending in order to fund the critical needs of big cities. A lively floor debate in advance of the vote became the focus of media coverage of the entire conference, which is an annual effort to influence federal policies impacting urban areas.

Apparently spending more than half of the discretionary budget (i.e. income tax revenues) each year on what the Pentagon wants -- while failing to fund essential services – was enough to make big city mayors take an unusual stand. It's the first time they have even debated military spending since the war in Vietnam even though the choice is ever guns or butter, so you'd think mayors would talk about it every year. Who do mayors work for?

Oakland Police at work for Mayor Jean Quan, who traveled to Wash DC to confer with the federal govt and other big city officials about OWS and affiliates. Occupy Oakland is shown being evicted October 2011, probably the event that sparked all the ensuing big strikes and port shutdowns.

The man who swept into office last time around on the promise of hope and change will deliver campaign speeches with a little bit of something for everybody: the continued glory of the mighty U.S. military, with maybe a little funding shaved off to keep construction workers from rioting in the streets. And the man who didn't get the job will keep working on behalf of the Pentagon, too. 

Meanwhile, people who have to choose between rent, food, or health care – and who may have loved ones on deployment, or just back from combat – are getting harder to fool even some of the time.

GOOD READ:

 The Military-Industrial Complex at 50, based on the national conference of the same title held October, 2011 in Virginia.

Waking Up to the 99%

9_27_11 First General Assembly of the #OccupyBoston Movement at the Boston Common Bandstand-4 / Photo by Jason Pramas for Open Media Boston. Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2011 Jason Pramas.

Here is what I woke up to today:
1) The photo above, which speaks for itself as captioned. The nurses are with the 99%!
2) The news from CODEPINK that we had received this awesome letter below. The Canadian postal workers are with the 99%!

 3) This beautiful blog post about bringing our war $$ home from "the Peace Couple", which was linked to a post on another blog reporting the elegant, poetic response of Occupy Wall St.'s General Assembly to the corporate media snarking that they lack "one demand." So the Duke & Duchess of Peace are with the 99%.

I am so happy about all this solidarity that I have tears in my eyes before the sun is even over the horizon this morning. And I went to bed happy that the 99% begin to assemble on Saturday at 11am in Portland. They have a facebook event up and their twitter handle is #OccupyMaine.

Baltimore sez bring our war $$ home!

CODEPINK's national manager for the Bring Our War $$ Home campaign, C.J. Minster, speaking in Baltimore at teach-in organized by Fund Our Communities coalition. Busloads of big city mayors saw the event as they headed out to dinner.

The 79th annual meeting of the U.S. Council of Mayors convened in Baltimore this weekend. Under consideration: Resolution No. 59, calling on Congress to hurry up and end the wars in order to redirect funding to critical needs in the cities around the country. Initiated by CODEPINK, the war $$ home resolution received endorsements from more than twenty mayors before being approved by the Metro Economies Committee on June 18, sent on to the full plenary of mayors on Monday, June 20.

Among the resolution's sponsors was Joe O’Brien, the Mayor of Worcester, MA who said, “We are spending a billion a month after Osama bin Laden has been killed. And while I appreciate the effort to rebuild nations around the world, we have tremendous needs in communities like mine." Mayor O'Brien will speak on behalf of the resolution during the conference, while City Council member James Kraft spoke about war funding draining resources from Baltimore in McKeldin Square last night.

News coverage of the mayors conference yesterday focused on the war dollars home resolution among many others under consideration: the New York Times, the Baltimore Sun, WERU Community Radio in Maine, as well as blogs like People's World all featured it. As candidates and incumbents alike seem to realize, the public has grown weary of austerity measures at home while pouring billions every month into wars abroad. Interesting that this is the first time since Vietnam that the U.S. Council of Mayors has considered a specifically anti-war resolution. (Mayors for Peace sponsors a yearly resolution against funding nuclear weapons, and promoting international cooperation for nuclear disarmament.)

What the mayors saw

Citizens in Baltimore call for funding for jobs, housing, education and transportation.

Perhaps the history of the mayors' conference is a harbinger of things to come. The U.S. Council convened for the first time in 1932 in Detroit, with big city mayors coming together to craft policies that would lead their citizens out of dire economic straits of the Great Depression. FDR's New Deal legislation reportedly drew on many of their ideas.

Another resolution under consideration this year addresses cuts to funding for Community Development Block Grants, a huge source of federal funding to cities in the past.

A Congress that does what corporations want while ignoring its citizens' basic needs does so at its own peril. How can cities with legions of unemployed, under-educated, homeless people lacking health care be secure? Let's all hope the Beltway is close enough to hear the voices raised from Baltimore: fund human needs, not wars!

Mayors want to bring war dollars home

Boston, April 2011

Congress was treated to some low-quality legal counsel this week over the costly and unauthorized bombing of Libya. According to President Obama's lawyers (highly paid by me and thee), the executive branch of the federal government does not need to consult the will of the people as represented by Congress before carrying out airstrikes on other countries – no matter what the Constitution says.

Elected officials under our form of government are supposed to listen to their constitutents, aren't they?

Mayors around the nation appear to be listening, as twenty have now endorsed a resolution calling on Congress to stop funding wars and redirect the money to domestic needs. They hail from cities in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Virginia, Maryland, Florida, Ohio, Michigan Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Mexico, California, Oregon – and the mayor of Hartford, Connecticut just jumped on the bandwagon.

The war dollars home resolution comes before the July 18-20 annual meeting of the U.S. Council of Mayors in Baltimore, and is the first to address military spending at the federal level since the Vietnam War. USCM resolutions guide advocacy in Washington, DC and, if the war dollars home resolution passes, it will be presented to Congress by some of its many sponsors. Perhaps Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore will do the honors since she's right next door and has homeless problems, low-income nutrition problems, jobs problems, and education problems.

Baltimore students protest cuts / Jordan Farrar / People's World

These are problems in common: providing basic services during times of shrinking contributions by the federal government. Big city mayors know what it looks like to have to cut nutrition programs for pregnant women, or Head Start programs for low-income preschoolers. They understand that their city becomes less safe when firefighters have their hours cut, and that it becomes less economically viable when education suffers because teachers are laid off and class sizes balloon.

Why isn't the government in Washington DC clear on these concepts?

Presumably because their vision is clouded by the millions corporate lobbyists spend lavishly entertaining them, and contribute to their campaign coffers when it's time for re-election.

Ordinary folks, 30% of whom told CNN recently they fear becoming unemployed in the near future, are increasingly opposed to continuing these costly endless wars. As many as 2/3 respond to polls agreeing that the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting, and a Pew Research Center poll showed a majority identified the cost of wars as the leading cause of the federal budget deficit.

Washington DC ought to be listening. Perhaps if we raise our voices loud enough in Baltimore this weekend, they will hear us all the way to the Beltway.

Austin, Texas rally 2011

Mayors to Congress: bring war $$ home!

Since its founding in '03, CODEPINK's mission has been working to end U.S. funded wars and redirect resources to what the people need -- not profits for the military industrial complex!

Budget cuts at the city and state level for education, firefighters, transportation, housing and infrastructure repairs are not necessary! A few minutes of the war budget would restore funding that has been withdrawn e.g. a $1 million bomb would pay 25 school teachers for a year.
 
CODEPINK has been in on the Bring Our War $$ Home campaign from the start in the state of Maine, and has helped it spread to the national level. Mayors endorsing a resolution this month at their annual meeting in Baltimore include sponsoring Mayor Kitty Piercy of Eugene, Oregon plus:

• Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles, California
• Carolyn Peterson, Ithaca, New York
• Dave Norris, Charlottesville, Virginia 
• David Coss, Santa Fe, New Mexico
• John Duran, 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*

"As mayor of the city of Biddeford, we are cutting $1.6 million in our education budget, and last week I had had it and I'm starting to say it from the podium," Twomey said. "It's my responsibility as mayor of the city of Biddeford to start saying if our priorities were straight, if we could bring these war dollars home, I wouldn't have to be doing this, and neither would the Biddeford school board."

Join CODEPINK in action in Baltimore June 18-20 to let mayors from all over the US we want them to tell Congress: Bring our war dollars home!

A recent press release for the Maine campaign:
Maine leads the way in national campaign to bring war dollars home
 
Mayor Joanne Twomey of Biddeford, Maine has joined a group of mayors from all over the U.S. endorsing a resolution calling on Congress to redirect funds from war to domestic needs. The “bring war dollars home” resolution (see full text below) will be presented next month at the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors in Baltimore by sponsor Kitty Piercy of Eugene, Oregon.

The Bring Our War $$ Home campaign began in Maine last year and has swept the nation, gathering momentum that began when Stonington, Portland, and other Maine  locations passing resolutions that were sent to Congress. Rep. Chellie Pingree and Rep. Mike Michaud have been among those voting no on war funding supplemental bills in the past two years, and both voted yesterday against the FY12 Defense Authorization bill. Rep. Pingree had already indicated in an email that she intended to vote no on the bill, citing war costs.

Cities in all parts of the United States are feeling severe effects of funding cuts at the federal level. With another $118 billion on the verge of approval by the House of Representatives to fund wars in Fiscal Year 2012, mayors everywhere are asking why their cities are laying off police and firefighters, teachers and maintenance workers, while there seems to be money available for weapons.

Mayor Twomey has been a leader on this issue since speaking out at a council meeting in Biddeford and later at the state capitol Hall of Flags rally to Bring Our War $$ Home on April 9. Maine Public Radio broadcast her remarks: "As mayor of the city of Biddeford, we are cutting $1.6 million in our education budget, and last week I had had it and I'm starting to say it from the podium," Twomey said. "It's my responsibility as mayor of the city of Biddeford to start saying if our priorities were straight, if we could bring these war dollars home, I wouldn't have to be doing this, and neither would the Biddeford school board."  Link to the MPBN coverage of Mayor Twomey.

The war dollars home resolution will be taken up by the Metro Economies Policy Committee  Committee on June 18 and, if recommended by the committee, by the full plenary on June 20.

For more information on how to get your mayor involved, or to sign a petition to your rep in the House, visit bringourwardollarshome.org.

Text of the mayors' resolution :

CALLING ON CONGRESS TO REDIRECT MILITARY SPENDING TO DOMESTIC PRIORITIES

WHEREAS, the severity of the ongoing economic crisis has created budget shortfalls at all levels of government and requires us to re-examine our national spending priorities; and

WHEREAS, the people of the United States are collectively paying approximately $126 billion dollars per year to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan; and

WHEREAS, 6,024 members of the US armed forces have died in these wars; and at least 120,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the coalition attacks began.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors supports efforts to speed up the ending of these wars; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on the U.S. Congress to bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs, promote job creation, rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, and develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy.

Co-sponsors of the effort to seek mayoral endorsements: Maine Campaign to Bring Our War $$ Home, CODEPINK, U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, Women's Action for New Directions (WAND), Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF) Ann Arbor & Sacramento, Peace Action,  Veterans For Peace, Chapter 61, St. Louis, New Priorities Network, and Community Alliance of Lane County, Oregon.
--

Thank you, Eugene Mayor Piercy,
for your fearless leadership!

Campaign notes

Bring Our War $$ Home campaign April, 2011

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