[HCCN] Fwd: April 4 Rally at Capital in Augusta, BRING OUR WAR $$$ HOME

[Judith Robbins]

> From: "Bring Our War $$ Home" <globalnet at mindspring.com>
>
>
>
> BRING OUR WAR $$$ HOME
> News Conference & Rally
> April 4 Augusta - Capital Hall of Flags
>
>  
>
> Contact:  Bruce Gagnon 443-9502
>                Lisa Savage 399-7623
>
>
> The Maine Campaign to Bring Our War $$ Home will hold a news  
> conference and rally inside the Hall of Flags at the capital in  
> Augusta on Monday, April 4 at 11:00 am.  The event will be held on  
> the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
>
> A Draw-in will follow the rally. Members of the Union of Maine  
> Visual Artists will be on hand working with the public to envision  
> spending on social needs rather than war and destruction, and this  
> event will continue through the afternoon.
>
> “For the past two years the Maine Campaign to Bring Our War $$  
> 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 the public and Maine’s elected officials to talk about war  
> spending as they face budget chaos in our communities,” said Bruce  
> Gagnon from Maine Veterans for Peace – one of 18 organizations in  
> Maine that are part of the campaign.
>
> The National Priorities Project reports that the total debt of all  
> 50 state governments is now $130 billion.  The U.S. will spend $170  
> billion on our wars in Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan this year.   
> Maine’s share of war spending since 2001 has been about  $3.4  
> billion.
>
> According to public school teacher and CodePink Maine Coordinator  
> Lisa Savage, “Dr. King was correct and disturbingly prescient when  
> he said, ‘A nation that continues year after year to spend more  
> money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is  
> approaching spiritual death.’ I would add that such a society is  
> also approaching democratic death, as the government loses  
> legitimacy with the governed. Hard-working Maine families continue  
> to slip into poverty and lose their homes while the government  
> squanders our tax dollars maintaining nearly a thousand military  
> bases around the globe. Maine’s state budget shortfall could be  
> solved if these funds were kept at home in Maine.”
>
> In his famous Vietnam War speech on April 4, 1967 Martin Luther  
> King said, “Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I  
> speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of  
> Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose  
> homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I  
> speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of  
> smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak  
> as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the  
> path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own  
> nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to  
> stop it must be ours.”
>
> The Bring Our War $$ Home Campaign will purchase full-page  
> newspaper ads in The Forecaster, Capital Weekly, and The Maine Edge  
> before the April 4 event in Augusta.  In addition the campaign will  
> buy radio spots across the state in order to take this message out  
> to a larger audience.
>
> See the Bring Our War $$ Home campaign web site at: http:// 
> www.bringourwardollarshome.org/index.html
>
> - END -

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