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By Martha Spiess
WILPF Maine

May 2022

To recognize #TaxDayEarthDay this year, Maine WILPFers participated in a Pop-Up Art Exhibit at Congress Square Park in Portland, Maine. It featured the #DefundClimateChaos project’s six artist panels that we assembled at home and transported to the park. We handed out Veterans for Peace (VFP) Climate Crisis & Militarism Project bumper stickers: “US militarism fuels climate crisis” and posted National Priority’s Pie Chart of discretionary tax dollar spending.

We handed out fliers for the May 1 PPC collaborative event featuring Keynote speaker Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign. She spoke about Militarism and the War Economy. We were inspired by the WILPF PPC solidarity committee to invite her and were excited to collaborate with Maine’s Poor People Campaign and Peace Action Maine.

WILPF Maine continues to picket and vigil for diplomacy and peace for Ukraine with so many others. We take heart from WILPF’s open letter to the UN Security Council, which notes, “The rhetoric of militarism has silenced the calls for peace, and there continue to be flagrant violations of international law, including the core principles of the UN Charter.”