 resistance today. Today is Blacks and pay for killing the United States. We have a fantastic group performing today and have some speakers. The group performing is fire in the, the group are Ray Kong, Harina, Blanchette, and we're very excited. They are a down East group, the fire in the commons. It's an intergenerational music group committed to empowering people through powerful, original songs. They perform in concerts, rallies, churches, and wherever people gather to work for solidarity, freedom, and sourcifully lifting spirits with a joyful roar. They aim to bridge cultures and bridge community with music that moves people to sing and songs that move them to act. They take inspiration from true doors like Pete Seeger, Violeta Pada, and change agents like Stephen Newarock and this revolution, Will I Am and Lady Smith, Black Mambazo. They use to make strong acapella arrangements and spare a powerful instrumentation with guitar, bones, cocks, and drums. They're their seal with topics like climate change, war peace, diversity, immigration, consumerism, hope, community building, and ecological stewardship. Samples of their songs can be heard on the internet at graycocks.bandcamp.com. For more information or to contact them for performance write or call graycocks at gray at coa.edu. Let's welcome fire in the commons. Thank you. Okay, thanks very much, Ginny. Thanks for arranging this and for inviting us. So the first song we're going to do is a very traditional kind of sing-along for rallies and like. And if you're at home watching this on TV, we invite you to join in. It's this little light of mine, but it's with verses that are relevant to questions about paying for the Pentagon and making peace throughout the world. This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Oh, this little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Hide it under a bushel, no. Hide it under a bushel, no. I'm going to let it shine. Hide it under a bushel, no. I'm going to let it shine. Hide it under a bushel, no. I'm going to let it shine. Hide it under a bushel, no. I'm going to let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Wherever there's a news blackout, I'm gonna let it shine, wherever there's a news blackout, I'm gonna let it shine, wherever there's a news blackout, I'm gonna let it shine, wherever there's a news blackout, I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, making peace throughout the world, making peace throughout the world, I'm gonna let it shine, making peace throughout the world, I'm gonna let it shine, making peace throughout the world, I'm gonna let it shine, making peace throughout the world, I'm gonna let it shine, making peace throughout the world, I'm gonna let it shine, making peace throughout the world, I'm gonna let it shine, making peace throughout the world, I'm gonna let it shine, making peace throughout the world, I'm gonna let it shine, making peace throughout the world, I'm gonna let it shine, making peace throughout the world, I'm gonna let it shine, making peace throughout the world, I'm gonna let it shine, making peace This next song we're going to do is, it's also a very familiar tune. All the songs we're doing are either completely original or the words are original. This one is the words. But you'll know the song. It's to the tune of She'll Be Come Around the Mountain. But it tells the story of some refugees from a dictatorship and the kind of situation in which war and military systems oppressed people in horrible ways, in particular tells the story of Marion Joseph. She'll be riding on a donkey when she comes. She'll be riding on a donkey when she comes. And she'll come bearing a baby when she comes. And she'll come bearing a baby when she comes. And she'll come bearing a baby when she comes. And there'll be no room at the inn when she comes. And there'll be no room at the inn when she comes. And a dictator will wanna disappear. And a dictator will wanna disappear. And she'll have to flee to Egypt when she comes And she'll have to flee to Egypt when she comes And she'll be a refugee when she comes And she'll be a refugee when she comes And she'll be seeking sanctuary when she comes She'll be seeking sanctuary when she comes And who'll go out to greet her when she comes? We all will And the donkey will eat bluegrass when she comes And the donkey will eat bluegrass when she comes Welcome among all those refugees and immigrants, regardless of their past problems. Now, let's sing a song that has to do with the involvement we've had in what's starting to seem now like an endless war. And it's one in which the people who've been fighting in it and all are very well-intentioned on our side. People in national gardens and so on, but we have to pause and ask ourselves, what are we doing? What's we're trying to accomplish in Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan? We had to borrow billions, hundreds of billions to fight these wars. And had to hire mercenaries, there weren't enough soldiers. And our friends in the National Guard, you know they're all good folk, but they don't know the language over there. What's going on? They can't tell who's the bad guys or ask the neighbors where they are. They have to shout in English and shoot in the dark. And we're shouting in English and shooting in the dark. And it's time to get out. We're shouting in English and shooting in the dark. And it's time to get out. Our soldiers all met well when they volunteered. Most mighty fine folks whose names should not be smeared by the punks and the big shots who have abused their power. Torturing the innocent at Abu Ghraib or stealing working people's tax money with haliburton scams. Most of our soldiers over there are wonderful women and men, but we're shouting in English and shooting in the dark. And it's time to get out. We're shouting in English and shooting in the dark. And now we're using drones there, flown from somewhere out west. Aimed at terrorists abroad living among their families and friends. And when a pilot in the Rockies thinks he has a terrorist lined up right, he can drop that drone right down, pin landing on some bull's eye. But there's a circle of destruction surrounding that pin. A circle that can kill people who are really innocent. People whose families and friends then join the war. Friends and neighbors who were merely bystanders before. And then they are shouting, but we can't get what they say. All we hear is their anger, all we get is their pain and hate. And we're shouting in English and shooting in the dark. Don't know when it's time to get out. We're shouting in English and shooting in the dark. It's not a dilemma, it's not some difficult decision to make. The choice is simple. Can we admit we made a mistake and say we're sorry? Maybe that's something we could shout, shout we're sorry. We are not competent to sort this out, we should have done things differently. We should have understood more from the first, but what done is done is done. And we have to stop staying, making things worse. We're shouting in English and shooting in the dark. Don't know what we're shouting in English and shooting in the dark. It's time to get out, it's time to get out. This next song is about one of the things that people fight over a great deal. It's who owns things. The song is called Who Owns the Future. And it was written originally to commemorate, I won't say celebrate, but to commemorate Columbus Day, to mark the fact that it was a day long ago in which we could mark the birth of someone who came from Europe to the Americas and had a charter as so many discoverers as they were called after that did. This practice of going to a new land with a charter from a king or queen and then claiming ownership of people and places and things that thought they already owned themselves, thought they'd already discovered themselves is a process that's gone on for hundreds of years and is still even going on now as claim is laid by corporations with charters to the human genome and all sorts of other things in our world that are coming to be owned privately rather than shared as a common good. The song is called Who Owns the Future and just to tip off about the end of the story that it tells Who Owns the Future has to be children because they're going to be the only ones who are here to inherit it. The song is played with our bones. Well a company with a charter finds a person, plays a thing and they pay protection money to put it on a registry and they call it a discovery whose profits go to them un molested by their competitors who collude in this property system while the people places things in spirits who found themselves long to forego misnamed unrecognized and stolen Well if you get a word wrong on a welfare form your rights can be denied and if you fail to heed a warning the police can shoot to take your life if an addicted kid steals a pack of cigarettes he can be sent to juvenile but for a company that is big enough to commit an enormous crime addicted generation or commit cultural genocide there are many ways they can make it pay for the police to take its time can pass and force the needed laws that give ownership to thieves leaving people places things and spirits stolen without appeal a signing statutory right that gives powers to the strong and leaves the victims of their crimes in violation of the law there is always the appeal to the power of the mind and the power of the people to stand up and deny those crazy fictions would deterrence used to intimidate those crazy lies they used to tie a violent threat to authority and there's the appeal to hope and the appeal to love and the appeal to folks around us and when push comes to shove we can speak united truth to the lonely power of a gun and insist on changing all the rules in this new millennium number one is simple every child owns the things that she or he needs to thrive food shelter clothing healthcare education and family free of violence and environment secure and the second rule is just as basic any person, policy or institution that stands in the way of keeping the first rule has to be changed thanks so now the next song we're going to sing is in Spanish and if you were here we'd give you a song sheet on television land you can go to greatcox.bandcamp.com and find a song sheet there it's a simple enough song to understand the basic parts of let me just get my guitar so I can sing it this one I wrote when I was going to Nicaragua and I was just first learning Spanish and I discovered that there are things you can say more easily or in Spanish than you can in English in fact there's some things you can hardly say at all in English like burrito for example if you were going to translate burrito into English how would you do it you might say something like well a burrito is kind of like a long flat round very skinny sandwich yeah long skinny sandwich that's one sided I mean that's sort of what a burrito is but that's not a burrito it's just not a sandwich at all it's a burrito the only way we can talk about it is to just take the word from Spanish right into English because you can't translate it that's true of a lot of things in the wonderful cultures of people all around the world and this song is one that brings into English the idea or brings into the song the idea in Spanish that in the grammar of Spanish there's something very interesting you can say that those other guys in Spanish you would say los otros are like or unlike you all you guys who in Spanish you would typically say in certain parts of the world as both otros and you can hear the otherness of the otros in that and the normal standard way of saying us all is to say nos otros so in Spanish it's clear that los otros those other guys whether they're Somalis in Lewiston or Shia in Iraq or what have you those other guys los otros and you all vosotros and nosotros us were all others todos, todos somos otros we're all others and this song plays on that fact and it says I know that the others each one male and female cada uno, una I know that each of vosotros of you all and I know that all of us are children, sons and daughters of God and the light yo se que los otros cada uno y una a yo se cada uno y una a yo se que los otros cada uno y una a todos todos somos hijas ellos de Dios y la luz a todos todos todos somos hijas ellos de Dios y los de Dios y la luz tal vez un día tu mamá te dio a ti que son indios son blancos oh peor peor peor son negros son evangélicos como estos protestantes son católicos horrible yo se que los otros cada uno y una yo se hace ellos de Dios y los de Dios y la luz a todos somos hijas y los de Dios y los de Dios y la luz tal vez un día tu papá te dio a ti que siguen ellos son de parentes no son como nosotros ellos son que captalistas horrible horrible castro saldizo subcomandate marcos imperialistas como estas gringas que vienen del norte horrible femenistas femenistas son yo se que los otros cada uno y una yo se que vosotros cada uno y una yo se que los otros como si hace y los de Dios y los de Dios y la luz a todos somos hijas y los de Dios y los de Dios y la luz y los de Dios y la luz tal vez un día los de Dios no son como nosotros son otros son diferentes son republicanos horrible green party democrats cisgender heterosexual they're veterans they're voters they're from massachusetts they're maniacs they're maniacs they're vegetarians they're they're they're others they're others pero yo se que nosotros cada uno y hace y los de Dios todos son los de Dios y los de Dios y los de Dios y la luz wow we're bombing people in a foreign land without a purpose and without a plan we're bombing people in a foreign land without a purpose and without a plan but regime change begins at home regime change begins at home regime change begins at home hundreds of billions that our taxes go for hundreds of billions for this unending war hundreds of billions that our taxes go for hundreds of billions for this unending war but regime change begins at home regime change begins at begins at home We'll stop this war that goes on and on. We'll stop the taxes that pay for the bombs. We'll stop this war that goes on and on. We'll stop the specs that pay for the bombs. Cause regime change begins at home. Change begins at home. Neighbor to neighbor will go door to door. Turn out the vote like never before. Neighbor to neighbor will go door to door. Turn out the vote like never before. Cause regime change begins at home. Regime change begins at home. Practice resistance now more and more. We'll change the Congress, we'll stop the war. Practice resistance now more and more. We'll change the Congress, we'll stop the war. Regime change begins at home. Regime change begins at home. What the Constitution meant. We the people own our own government. Yes, we know what the Constitution meant. We the people own our own government. And regime change begins at home. Right here, at home. Well, we got one more song for you all. And it deals with climate change. And change that we need to make. And I just would note that a lot of the struggles and wars that we face, like for example in Syria, have been caused, at least in part, by drought conditions that push people around and make them into refugees and migrants who are suffering and who get caught up in struggles like the one in Syria, and elsewhere in the world. This song is called, Coming Like a Hurricane. There's a change that's a-coming. There's a change, change, change, change. That's a-coming. There's a change that's a-coming. Soon it's coming, and it's coming like a glacier melting. Cause they say it's gonna be at least two degrees. They say it's gonna be at least two degrees. They say it's gonna be at least two degrees. At least two degrees soon. And they say it may be much more. And they say it may be much more. And they say it may be much more than two. But we won't let it cause we all, we all, finally get it. Like the 19th century, and the slavery of dependency. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall will make a change. No time, spirit, will revival, or you make a change. For material consumption, invest in real creative destruction. Start a political eruption, make a change. With piles of political donations, campaign consumption, invest in coming like a hurricane. Change is a-coming. Jenny, you're here to speak more about that, I think, aren't you? So thank you for attending this war tax resistance day. We're thinking about all the people that our tax dollars are killing around. Representative from the Maine Southern Workers Center, Erin Hennessey, and she will introduce herself. She is a fabulous person. I worked for her. She was my supervisor on the right-choice voting campaign. With Erin, I'm sure everybody will have six days paid soon. Tax resistors, and here at Tax Sam, we say thank you so much for asking us at the Maine Workers Center to speak. Awesome. So I am going to start by saying a bit about what the Southern Maine Workers Center is. We are based in Portland. We have our headquarters on 56 North Street. And we are a workers' center, and we are a member of our organization that does all our work around human rights principles. So we're currently advocating for universal health care for all in Maine. In addition to that, we're also working on a paid six days campaign, and we also just started the relaunch of a workers' support hotline and a legal clinic with volunteer-leaders projects. So if you know anyone who is experiencing any waste after discrimination in their workplace, they can call our hotline 24 hours a day and get help with either legal referrals or organizing help. So we have a lot of projects cooking, and the one that I am currently working on is for April 24th. This is our first paid six days public hearing with the health and human service community. We're rallying at 430 outside City Hall, followed by our first hearing. So if you have opinions on paid six days, if you'd like to see that passed, if you'd like to show up and support low-income workers in Portland, it would be a really great time to see all of you there. But in the meantime, I'm here to stand in solidarity for the workers' center with the Maine War Tax Resistance Resource Center. And I actually have a couple of words I wanted to share from one of our joint members, Morgana Warner Evans. She's a member of the Workers' Center and also does a lot of work with all of y'all, organizing a fabulous human being. And she prepares to save it, but she cannot read today, because she has to work, and I was going to read that on her map. So our two groups collectively responded in their call to action for a federal budget which prioritizes needs of poor and working-class people over the handful of corporations that make up the military and industrial complex. We believe in the human right of all people, regardless of citizenship or nationality, to have adequate food, education, medicine, and shelter, and to live in the world free from war and violence. Currently in the United States, the government does not uphold these priorities, it does not uphold these human rights principles in its decision about where to spend tax money, and we call for the government to rethink its priorities. Our federal budget upholds a social and economic system that disproportionately harms low-income people, people of color, black communities. Each year, just over half of our federal discretionary tax dollars are actually spent on war. The money is used to maintain an expensive system of over 800 military bases around the world, and under the 1033 program, excess military equipment is transferred to police departments who unnecessarily use this equipment to terrorize communities of color. When our tax money is spent on producing weapons, we are unable to use it to meet human needs. When the money is spent on the Department of Defense, we provide healthcare for 147 million low-income adults for one year and provide Head Start to over 58 million children in a year. We call for the United States government to shift its spending priorities and create a budget that meets the needs of poor and working-class people within the United States that a lot of people are in the world and within the United States to live without fear of violence and the United States government. I also just wanted to end on a note that, I think sometimes when you think about the government as a large thing, it's hard to think of all the ways in which that keeps into our daily collective understanding and the workers' center, one of the things that we really work to do is try to make the concept of change or change making something that everyone can engage in and have access to and it's really important for us to be building our membership from within low-income communities, communities of color, black folks and people, not English-speaking people in Maine because those are people whose voices need to be heard and those are the voices that are really strongly represented within our current, you know, even local and state governments. And when we can build more partnerships across organizations like the World Tax Service and the Southern New Workers' Center, we're only made stronger. So thank you for your work today and thank you for letting me speak. And the Southern New Workers' Center is great work, particularly on paid sick days and making the connection between all the things that we don't have and the fact that all the money is basically going to the military industrial complex. So our next speaker is Richard Clement. He's the current vice president and past president of the Tom Sturman Chapter One of Maine Veterans for Peace. He's a Vietnam-era veteran and the father of three wonderful children, his oldest and Iraqi war veteran. After his military service, he served as fellow veterans at the VA center at Togus, retiring in 2011 after 30 years. He lives in Kitson with his wife, Rita, and is hoping for the end of the month season so he can get his Harley on the road. VFP is a co-sponsor of this event. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Richard Clement and I'm here representing Maine Veterans for Peace. Veterans for Peace was founded here in Maine in 1985 and we have grown to have chapters in all 50 states. We also have a few international chapters. VFP is largely comprised of veterans from all branches of military service from all generations. We are dedicated to building a culture of peace, healing the wounds of war, and exposing the true costs of war. We pledge to do this with nonviolent means. We urge people who share our vision to join us and non-veterans are welcome to join as associate members. We are here today because it's tax day. Part of the VFP mission is to increase public awareness of the costs of war. These are many and varied but today I focus on the monetary costs. The Pentagon budget was already outrageous but will receive an extra $165 billion over the next two years. The 2018 military budget is $700 billion and for 2019 $716 billion. This budget has led to a staggering $5.6 trillion for the war on terror since 2001. These figures are enormous and can be difficult to grasp so breaking them down a little bit they come to $32 million an hour. Since 2001 every taxpayer has spent almost $24,000 on continual warfare and related military expenses. $24,000 that you could have spent on a new car or a good down payment on a house or paying off that college loan. Or since many people live paycheck to paycheck those extra bucks could ensure food on the table. The Pentagon budget uses up 57% of our discretionary spending. That leaves just 43% for housing, transportation, education and all other human needs. Our Congress throws more money at the Pentagon than they request. If we cut that $700 billion Pentagon budget by just 10% that would give us back $70 billion. And imagine instead of your tax dollars going to the Pentagon at endless war we could end homelessness in America. We could make higher education and universal preschool available to everyone. Pay our educators an honest wage. Repair our infrastructure, our bridges and our roads. Have affordable housing and healthcare for all. End poverty and provide a livable wage and end hunger. Make sure our water would be pure and safe to drink. Make sure social security is there for our seniors. When I spoke last year there was a plan to increase the Pentagon budget by $54 billion. This year's budget boosted by $80 billion more. This is just not sustainable. We must rein in this obscene taxpayer waste. Peace is always cheaper than war. Thank you. It's going to speak. And the polar bearer is here because the military, U.S. military has the largest carbon footprint on the planet. They're using tons and tons of fossil fuel. And according to retired general Castellan who spoke at University of Southern Maine about the military doesn't even have a comprehensive plan for sustainability. So the military is actually working against itself in security interests. Here is Cynthia Howard to read the peace action statement. We here have this opportunity to read this from Peace Action Maine. Peace Action Maine advocates to diplomacy, not war. A series by the U.S. France and England demonstrates is this good? Can you hear me do first and ask questions later? Here are some questions that needed to be answered first. Why did exactly the same several events happen in the U.S. and Syria last year almost to the day? Last year, number one, Trump declares U.S. willingness to leave Assad in power. March 31st, 2017. Two, chemical attack in Syria April 4th. Three, U.S. attacks Syrian air base April 7th. This is in 2017. This year, one, Trump announces troop withdrawal from Syria March 29th, 2018. Two, chemical attack in Syria April 7th, 2018. Three, U.S. France and England bombs Syria April 13th, 2018. Who benefits from these strikes? Why does the sequence repeat itself? An easy answer would be that the white helmet opposition to Assad is behind the chemical attacks trying to keep the U.S. in the game. But some very credible people, not the U.S. government, like Glenn Greenwald, don't believe that. Check it out for yourself, fill our mind, and just Google Glenn Greenwald, democracy now, and you'll be able to hear him in full. Another question, why didn't the U.S., France, and the U.K. wait for the UN inspection crew? And why hasn't media not asked that question, folks? Right? Okay. Crew is arriving Saturday. Why couldn't they wait? They couldn't, why didn't they? And the last question, to what extent is the length of the war in Syria due to the Obama initiated policy called Timber Sycamore, which gave arms, money, and training to rebels opposed to Assad in Syria while trying to keep weapons out of the hands of ISIS? The result, as in Libya, has been a stream of weapons flowing indiscretedly to people in the area. We follow the French Committee on National Legislation in calling for Congress to debate the constitutional legitimacy of the U.S. president launching an act of war without congressional approval. More bombs will only fuel the fires of war in Syria, whereas a comprehensive political settlement will ultimately help extinguish them. Those are the ends of the, that's the end of the Marker Peace Act in me. As a polar bear, I have a few additional comments to make, and I think most of you who are informed and reading have heard that the Arctic is melting at twice the rate of the rest of the planet, or heat up, causing the melting. It's a very important impact of this. It's going to come quickly upon us. This melting of all this fresh water is going to shut down the Gulf Stream, which is the pump in all the whole oceans, the whole planet, that produces the climate that we know, that keeps us warmer than we would otherwise. And if it shuts down, which it is going to, stop fossil fuels now, then it's game over, folks. And I don't know about you, but I have people in my life that will be here when I'm gone, and I want them to be able to go sailing on the beautiful ocean in Maine and go to the beach and see crabs and be able to fish, and we need to start caring about the rest of the species on this planet, including the polar bears. Thank you so very much for listening. Thank you so much, Cynthia, for speaking for peace action and also making the connection between the climate change and the military. The same general, retired general, who spoke at the University of Southern Maine last week, said, right now in Fort Smith, which was flooded yesterday, I know for a fact, because my partner works down there, expects to have 12 flooding days a year with the military not addressing its fossil fuel footprint, carbon footprint. Fort Smith Naval Yard will expect 150. So this is something that's life or death in terms of coastal communities. Cynthia, tax resistance resource center. Thank you for attending this war tax resistance day. Needless to say, we are reminded now by the bombing of Syria, the critical need to resist and speak out about the human and environmental costs of war. Yet again, we are faced with an administration that is engaging and working together is crucial to achieving our goals. Recently, University of Southern Maine, which I mentioned a couple of times, of the U.S. military bases located in very bases, many of them, such as the Fort Smith Naval Shipyard, will be affected. They are jeopardizing our national security directly. Not only countries, why are we in 172 countries? Why are Asians? Depending on the estimate between 48 and 60 percent of our industrial comparts this year. All the rest of the government gets to us left over. We are fueling a culture of death to national health care. We are the wealthiest country in the world, yet we have people lining up at soup kitchens and sleeping out in the cold. Thankfully, the people of the U.S. are waking up, albeit more slowly than one would hope. Loretta Moore, who also spoke at USM last week, said 25 percent of the people in the U.S. have participated in protests since the Trump administration began. This is huge, and this is an energy we can harness and build on. Remember, this year, the main state legislature gave 45 scarce state tax dollars to General Dynamics, a super wealthy corporation that is funded completely beyond protesting in the streets. What can we do? We can divest ourselves and organizations from the military. Divesting yourself means examining what you are paying into the tax system to support the war machine and reducing that amount. There are legal ways and disobedience ways. Feel free to ask Research Center at 55 go to our website at http-slash-main-wtr at nwtrcc.org. You can also work with schools, organizations, and companies to ensure that they stop investing in military and fossil fuel companies. We have information about both types of divestment. Don't forget to write letters to your congressional members, the state legislature, and the newspapers. These statements are all part of making change. Thank you again for coming. We hope to see you here next year in every war tax day until we create a peaceful, sustainable planet.