By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Chris Miller wasn’t overwhelmed with the response to his talk on dwindling energy resources Saturday morning.

Five minutes past his scheduled 9 a.m. start time and his room at the Bates Mill was still empty.

His neighbors across the hall, Veterans for Peace members Doug Rawlings, Jack Bussell and Dud Hendrick, were faring a bit better with their talk on abolishing war. They had five people sitting in their audience, waiting to get started.

So, they invited him to join their group.

“After all, what is the cost of war?” said Bussell. “Three dollars a gallon.”

So they did, combining the Veterans for Peace’s rationale for resisting war, arguing against the draft and urging peace with Miller’s concern that the world is running dangerously low on oil.

The seminar was one of the many scheduled this weekend as part of the Maine Social Forum. The event, which continues at 10 a.m. today, includes discussions of progressive issues and exhibits and displays by New England social action groups.

Miller and the veterans group didn’t have trouble linking war and oil.

“Basically, we will never produce more oil than we have this year,” Miller said. Miller argued that humankind has produced, refined and used half of the world’s supply of oil as of this year. While supply begins to dwindle, demand for oil is at an all-time high. The result is conflict over oil around the world.

“They are experiencing it around the world now, in shortages of every kind,” Miller said. “We will begin to feel it, too.”

That can lead to war. But it doesn’t have to, according to Rawlings, a professor at University of Maine Farmington.

“War is not a biological necessity, but it seems like it,” Rawlings said. Once-peaceful nations find themselves becoming more warlike when faced with warlike neighbors or competitors, he said. It’s a cycle that feeds itself.

“So we need to break that habit,” Rawlings said. They do it by presenting their cases to anyone who will listen. Rawlings said he’d love to engage conservative groups and supporters of the ongoing war in Iraq.

“We will talk, talk, talk to any one that will listen,” said Bussell. “We never ever turn down an opportunity to talk.”

The local forum is an informal outgrowth of the Boston Social Forum held last July.

A group of Mainers who attended that event decided they needed to do the same thing here.

Organizers were hoping as many as 600 would attend the forums events and a special Film Festival Friday and Saturday night at the Lewiston Public Library.

Organizer Larry Dansinger said Saturday night, by the end of the weekend event he expects between 300 and 350 people will have attended.

Copy the Story Link