Restoring Sanity

Yesterday, I attended The Rally to Restore Sanity/The March to Keep Fear Alive. Although it gave me faith in my generation with all of the people who gathered there, but I was upset that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not mentioned at all.

I feel like this is one of the most pressing issues facing our nation at this time, and people need to be aware of what is going on over there.  There were 215,000 people there, and not one sign that I saw mentioned ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and bringing our troops home. Something I think is very sane to do.

 When I checked my email this evening, I had an email forwarded to me from Jacqui Deveanau, a member of Peace Action Maine.  It was written by a founder of Code Pink, Madea Benjamin.  She said that the people who were there were slackervists, something that I was deeply offended by.  I am a very passionate activist, but I do  think that sanity needs to be restored to our government.  Apparently that does not make me a legitimate activist? I think there is something deeply wrong with her theory.  I think that sanity is something that we need in Washington if we want to stop the war spending, bring our troops home, and end these terrible wars.  There needs to be sanity in our country before any of those things are going to happen.  Yes, I may do some crazy things for Peace, but that does not mean that I do not want Sanity within my government, and I would think that a founder of such a major peace movement would want the same thing.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary. The evil it does is permanent—- Ghandi.

On November 3rd, I will be participating in the first day of the Maine Walk for Peace, Human Needs, and Veteran’s Care.

Although I am only walking 16 miles, I know my presence is important. The war is what’s making us poor. The war is the reason for school consolidations, lack of financial aide, and numerous other social problems in the United States. This my generation’s problem, and we need to get involved. We need to step up, and stop being passive citizens.

The goal of this walk is to engage the American public on the true costs of the war, which is costing the US over 8 Billion dollars a month. The average annual cost of the War for the town of Farmington, where I attend school is 1,900,000 dollars. The total war cost over the past nine years is 16,900,000— for a small college town in Western Maine. The War Economy is not working for me, and something needs to be done to stop this spending of our tax dollars that are desperately needed here at home. I can think of a million ways that the the state of Maine could have spent that 2.94 billion dollars on.


I am going to break it down for you-Approximately 289 thousand people live in the 43 communities we will be walking through. That is almost 22 percent of Maine’s population
-The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have cost the people of these towns, approximately 640 million dollars in the past 9 years. That is almost two-thirds of a billion dollars in war costs to just the people of these towns!
-The total cost of these wars averages out to 2300 dollars for every man, woman and child. That is 1000 dollars a year for a 4 person family!


This is why we are walking. We are walking, we are not marching, we are not demonstrating. We will be walking, to raise awareness. We are showing our commitment to ending these wars. I know that our efforts alone will not end these wars, but every movement needs to start somewhere.

For more information on the Peace Walk, visit vfpmaine.org.

It starts on November 3rd, in the Computer Center Parking Lot at the University of Maine at Farmington.
I hope to see you there.

About Me

Well I do not know truly where to start this.
I guess the beginning of my journey to becoming an activist was in February of last year, with my Professor, and Advisor, Dr. Kristina Wolff was denied tenure at the University of Maine at Farmington.  This women changed my life, and I wanted to do anything that I could to help her, so several students banded together and began a month long journey of working to get the tenure decision reversed.

Although I have been active on issues in the past, this was the first thing that I have been extremely passionate about.

This summer I also worked on a research project with Kristina, about Veterans for Peace, and the female member's history with the organization.  The research culminated with me attending the 2010 convention in Portland Maine, and interviewing and talking to these amazing women, and hearing their stories. I honestly felt as though I was on the verge of tears the entire convention.
I met Ann Wright, who is an amazing women, and if you're reading this, than you probably know who she is, and what she has done.  I also met Ethan McCord, who again, you probably know of.
I was also able to spend time with the amazing men and women of Chapter 001 of Veterans for Peace.  I sincerely feel as though I have inherited an extended family full of crazy Aunts and Uncles. But I also have never felt more at home and welcomed than with this group of people.

I am also involved in an activist group at the University of Maine at Farmington when I go to school.  It is called Peace Activists in Training (P.A.in.T) I know you are probably astounded with the witty acronym.  It is a wonderful feeling being the Vice President of this group, because I finally feel like I have found a club that I truly want to belong to on campus.

I hope that I remember to update this frequently about what I am doing in regards to Peace Activism.
If I don't feel free to harass me.