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Bring Our War $$ Home campaign April, 2011
- 1. Tired of endless wars abroad and endless cuts to services? Bring Our War $$ Home is a national campaign to engage our communities and elected officials through resolutions, creative actions, and smart messaging on the cost of war and militarism and the need to redirect funding to public education, job creation, and other life-affirming programs being desperately hurt by the economic recession. . Contact your mayor today to co-sponsor the War Dollars Home Resolution. LA Mayor Villaraigosa will bring a resolution to the annual Mayors' Council if 10 other mayors can join him to endorse the resolution!
- 2. RESOLUTIONS TRIED: City of Portland Deer Isle Ogunquit Solon Madison Brunswick etc. Maine School Administrative District #74 Letter from Maine's legislators to our representatives in the House
- 3. More campaign tools: bringourwar dollars home.org
- 5. RESOLUTIONS passed: City of Portland (passed 7-1) Deer Isle School District #74 Northampton, MA Amherst, MA Hartford, CT MAYORS endorsing Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles, CA Joanne Twomey, Biddeford, ME May 17 deadline for resolution to Mayor's conference, Baltimore, June
- 7. PUBLIC HEARINGS Convened by towns. Convened by state legislators. Convened by newspaper editors. Convened by citizens.
- 8. Review of Campaign Tactics – What was most effective? GOAL: Generate discussion around war $$ & broaden our constituencies * Resolutions (whether they passed or not they educated and created local debate) * Dropping door hangers in 19 Maine communities on the week leading up to April 15 (tax day) * Draw-a-thons! * Letters to editor, op-eds & online comments * Vigil at Rep. Chellie Pingree campaign fundraiser just prior to vote on war supplemental
- 9. Your answer to questions about government spending & its local impact. Your customizable, embeddable, data-driven fact of the day to cut through overwhelming rhetoric of our time. Click here to view the kind of unique stories NPP's data can tell – with your help! Help NPP bring the federal budget home to millions of your neighbors.
Notas do Editor
- The Bring OurWar Dollars Home is Codepink's latest campaign to connect the dots of needs unmet at home because of money wasted on wars. This national campaign has seen resolutions passed by many towns and cities , and has two mayors endorsing it. The goal of resolutions is to create a space for conversation around budget cuts, program cancellations and layoffs of public workers. Whether it passes or not, it reaches out with a message that resonates with groups that are not ordinarily working to oppose wars. This message has been part of Codepink's mission statement since it was founded to oppose the Iraq war in 20002.Codepink's website has several pages of resources to help you wage this campaign in your community.
- The campaign started in Maine with a coalition of peace groups across the state. Including Codepink Maine Veterans for Peace Union of Maine Visual Artists Global Netowrk Against Nuclear Weapons & Power in Space Peace Action Maine Pax Christi P&J centers in several communities American Who Tell The Truth & etc.
- The website for the Maine Bring Our War Dollars Home campaign also has many useful tools including artwork available for activism at a nominal fee plus shipping. Drawa-thons with the Union of Maine Visual Artists have been a key component of how the campaign has been waged in Maine. Organizers use tools on the National Priorities Project website to find out how much their state or other location has spent on wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, and then intereacts with the public to answer the question: What would you have rather spent $3.4 billion on?
- $5+ $3.50 shipping School bus is a free dowload, and others will be eventually.
- The campaign has spread rapidly to communities in New England plus California, Washington DC, Pittsburgh. It easily joins forces with similar efforts to oppose war spending and prmote social spending. US Labor Against the War, for example, has found many labor councils to affiliate with their effort to bring resolutions to cities such as Richmond and Oakland, CA. April 12 is a Global Day of Action action Militarism. April 15 is tax day. There are many opportunities to connect the bow$h message.
- The budget cuts being felt by an ever broader segment of society produce effects that can be shared and paired with the few minutes of warfare that would solve each particular budget crisis. For instance, schools across the country were closed last year. At $50,000 a minute for war in Afghanistan, most could have been kept open if a few minutes or hours of war had been cancelled.
- From 2010 to 2011, attendance in Maine's state house for a bring our war $$ home news conference and rally grew tenfold. One of the legislators said: you could hear the crowd throughout the whole building, chanting Bring Our War $$ Home.
- Periodic reflection on what tactics had been most effective to spread the word about the campaign produced this list. Courting media attention and connecting with events where press coverage is expected was also helpful. Paid advertising, including both signature ads in local newspapers and radio spots on both a commercial and an alternative station, were also effective. And there were plenty of congressional office visits, and letters sent to federal, state, and local officials.
- It would be hard to overestimate the utility of the National Priorities Project website tools. Their enormous database contains easy to use tools that give equivalencies for states, towns or counties. For instance, Maine could have provided in-state tuition for 4 years for the next 21 entering classes at University of Maine for the amount paid so far for wars. nationalpriorities.org