Author: Lisa Savage

Lisa Savage is a peace activist, educator and blogger currently waging the Maine Natural Guard campaign. Natural Guard members pledge to connect the dots between environmental harm and militarism. https://sites.google.com/site/mainenaturalguard/
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Troops To Teachers Is What They’re Gearing Up For As Proposal To Arm Teachers Floods The Airwaves

Display at a national education conference in Washington DC March, 2016

The distraction machine I call the demagogue with bad hair ventured into new territory this week by claiming that teachers could ward off assault weapons if they themselves were adept at using firearms.

Teachers unions and prominent educators immediately denounced the idea of arming teachers.

Experienced teachers pointed out that teenage students could be expected to access teachers’ guns, dedicated teachers said they would resign rather than be trained for concealed carry, and jokesters responded read more

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Chalk Up A Victory For The Little Guys: #Aegis9 And #1stAmendment Prevail

It was February 1 now and it was snowing. Again.

A handful of us had gathered on the pavement thinking about our government building weapons of mass destruction and polluting our relation the Kennebec River. Tormenting sea creatures with sonar and destroying the habitat of millions to create ports for gigantic nuclear-capable ships aptly called destroyers.

The Aegis 9 at the Bath Police Department after booking

On April 1, 2017 nine of us had been arrested outside General Dynamics shipyard in Maine, an historic site called Bath Iron Works (BIW), named read more

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Susan Collins Brags To Me About Her Vote For Tax Law To Benefit General Dynamics

Not only Congress but also the Maine Legislature is pressured by General Dynamics to provide tax relief. Maine Democrats Rep. Jennifer DeChant and Sen. Eloise Vitelli are sponsoring a bill to give GD $60 million from state coffers this year  —  because servicing corporations is a thoroughly bipartisan affair.


Maine’s senators are wealthy people. Senator Susan Collins has just sent me a long email explaining why I should be delighted that she helped pass a tax bill that 78% of her constituents responding to a poll in the Bangor Daily News said will not benefit them.



Most of us allegedly represented by Collins are not at all wealthy, and her claim that we will benefit under the new tax laws is only true in the very short term.


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Skywriting Dicks: Pentagon Climate Crimes Are No Joke

U.S. warplanes have been menacing the people of Afghanistan for more than 16 years now.


As a thought experiment, I decided to imagine that I lived under the threat of bombs raining down on my family from U.S. airplanes. Say, in Somalia.


I could live in any one of dozens of countries for this to be my reality. Not Canada, though, which borders Washington State and was treated to this expensive, polluting display of sophomoric scrawl by a U.S. Navy warplane earlier this week:

https://twitter.com/anahi_torres_/status/931266469869977600

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Is “Good German” status quo the order of our day? #Aegis9

 
Jason Rawn leading a Maine Peace Walk in 2014

Today’s guest post by civil disobedient Jason Rawn was rejected by the Times Record. A daily paper local to General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works plant, the Times Record customarily publishes a monthly opinion column written by various Peaceworks members. In July the editor refused the submitted piece saying that drawing connections between the present day and the Holocaust is “a bit much.” But is it? You be the judge.

Are We The “Good Germans” Now?

by Jason Rawn

I’m read more

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Glorifying Drones And Recruiting New Operators Propaganda Effort Has Many Helpers

One of thousands of squares commemorating war victims in the Drone Quilt Project.   Art by Leeza Vinogradov

I’ll admit here that I gave up on National “Public” Radio some years ago, around the time they began running promos for their agribusiness and other corporate sponsors. NPR’s coverage of the Iraq war was so carefully tailored to show the view through approved windows that I began to lose respect for their journalistic integrity. More like the New York Times and The New Yorker magazine, really, puffing Obama while panning Republicans, signalling their fealty read more