Steve Burns: A nation in need of an intervention

In a healthy democracy, a Presidential election would be a time to open up the national conversation to honest talk about the challenges facing us, and a time for a clear-eyed look in the mirror: who are we, where are we headed, and what are we really about? In the U.S. the opposite is true. Every four years, we witness a great narrowing of debate. Only a few topics make the cut, and even then, the range of debate shrinks to “How can we most effectively win the war on terror?” and “Exactly how much do we love America, anyway?”

Witness the recent controversy about Barack Obama's former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. After his hour-long interview with Bill Moyers on PBS, and his appearance before the National Press Club, the self-appointed guardians of our discourse have decided that we have heard quite enough of the good Reverend, thank you very much. Completely ignoring the substance of Wright's critique of our country, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert claims that Wright is motivated only by narcissism and a desire for revenge. For the good of Obama, for the good of the country, Wright must be silent.

But let's set aside the calculations of the presidential campaign for just a moment and try to think clearly about who we are. What do we see when we look in the mirror?

To put it bluntly, we are a nation that is addicted to war. Our war addiction has resulted in millions of dead Vietnamese and Iraqis, whom we apparently don't care much about, and has destroyed the lives of thousands of our veterans and their families, whom we claim to care very much about. And now, our war addiction seems to be pushing us towards national bankruptcy. Like an alcoholic who has lost his job, his wife, and his house, and is now preparing to pawn his wristwatch to buy another bottle, we are in serious need of an intervention. Now is the time for those who really care about this country to deliver some honest talk about our destructive habits and their consequences. And when was the last time you heard anyone on your TV set doing that?

Reverend Wright, a pastor who has surely ministered to many who suffer from addiction, knows the importance of honesty when speaking to addicts. And who can challenge the honesty of his statements? Did we not bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Did we not exterminate the indigenous people of this continent? Did we not support death squads in El Salvador and apartheid in South Africa? Have we not provided the guns and money needed to subjugate the Palestinian people?

No matter. Wright's criticisms must be filed with all the other “inconvenient truths” that must be kept as far as possible from the presidential election.

We've been down this road before. In 2004, we were told to mute our protests and get behind the candidacy of John Kerry, a man who said about our occupation of Iraq, “I'm not talking about leaving. I'm talking about winning.” Some even had the nerve to argue that we should refrain from protests at the Republican convention in New York, lest they backfire, and benefit George W. Bush. As a result of this cautious advice, the same year that saw the first revelations of the Abu Ghraib scandal became a lost year for the peace movement. Will we make the same mistake again?

We will know soon enough whether Wright has done serious harm to Obama's hopes for the Presidency, although Obama's strong showing in the North Carolina and Indiana primaries gives some reassurance that he has not. Perhaps the advocates of silence are wrong, and we will learn that the American public is capable of hearing some harsh truths about our brutal and bullying government without heading for the fainting couch. But whatever his effect on the Obama campaign, Pastor Wright is delivering a sermon that our country desperately needs to hear.

Steve Burns is Program Coordinator of the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.

Steve Elwood: "Why did my son die?"

Steve Elwood, who recently lost his son in Iraq, sends us this moving essay about awakening to the "reality of America."

They came today.

Two Sergeants left a few hours ago. Sergeant 1st class Andrew Beck is my "Casualty Assistance Officer". I asked Beck how did my son die. He said they found him at 6:30 A.M. 4/9/08 with a gunshot wound to his head. I asked,

"Found him? Was he lost? Was he AWOL? Was he on Duty?" Beck said that he didn't have any more information until after the investigation. I asked Beck, "Who shot him? Was it friendly or enemy fire? My daughter said that they implied it was self inflicted", (which my daughter could not believe). Beck looked down and said he did not know at this time. I informed Beck that I had spoken to his wife and she told me that she had spoken to Jake a couple of hours prior to them finding him. She told me that he was in good spirits and making plans for when he came home. I also informed Beck, Jake had a myspace web site where he would write down his feelings and concerns, I also told Beck I understand psychology and that Jake would not kill himself without leaving a note to explain why. Beck said I should not listen to any other story until I got the full report from him in a few weeks. He told me Jake's body would be in the United States by 10:30 tonight.

I asked the two sergeants, "We bombed Iraq back to the stone age....We have killed over 4000 American soldiers....One million Iraq civilians..... What for?....What did my son die for?" Both sergeants shook their heads in unison saying, "We don't know" as they shrugged. They had me sign some release forms before I escorted them out.

The reality of America.

I HAVE AWAKENED

I and many of my sisters and brethren have awakened. We awoke to find ourselves as slaves to the few bloodlines that govern and rule our world. Everything we have held near and dear to our souls are but illusions. I once believed a good work ethic and a strong, faithful belief in the Christian doctrine was enough to forge a well-lived productive life producing offspring to further mankind’s achievements toward a more perfect world..... I was wrong, we were deceived.

Our monetary value, (our assets), are dwindling everyday. Our currency used to be backed by a precious metal, (gold), so the currency would hold value equal to the amount of gold divided by the amount of currency in the system. The privately owned beauacracy, (The Federal Reserve),which loans the currency to our Government at interest, decided that they did not need to back our dollar with anything. They proceeded to print more currency to provide short term patches for the downward spiral of value of the American dollar. The powers that be have driven up the National debt to unbelievable amounts. This will drive America to the brink of economic disaster. Our children and our children’s children will be paying this debt for many generations.

I believe this to be part of a much larger agenda.

Anyone who has studied history can see a perpetual drive to enslave the masses for profit.

What better tool for enslavement then perpetual debt?

We are brainwashed into thinking we must work and keep working to achieve financial wealth. When we realize money is only an illusion we will achieve a spiritual awakening and see that it is all an illusion. Sporting events, video games, movies, clothing style, celebrities, television, are all put in place to distract us so we do not know we are slaves.

But the fact remains, we ARE wage-slaves.

Perpetual debt is continuing to destroy America. Tent cities are popping up all across America, people forced to be homeless because of falling behind on their debt. Businesses are failing propelling many hard-working Americans into the street.

A short time ago I still believed in America and the American way. I registered to be a republican so I could vote for a man who I thought had the answers to stop this enslavement. I joined the Republican Party and I went to the caucus where I was elected to be a delegate for my precinct in my District. I soon received a letter requesting me to attend the House District Convention to vote for delegates to the State Convention, (registration fee $50.00). I soon realized that I would pay $50.00 for the privilege of voting for State Delegates that may or may not vote for my candidate. I began to research the election process in America, what I found astounded me.

Super delegates are not elected but appointed.

The choices for who will become president is already decided well before elections. The Elite ruling class calls all the shots. If you are a normal working joe your son or daughter will NEVER become President of The United States.

The American dream is only a dream. The reality of America is a nightmare. I have just recently awakened to realize the full reality of life in this world.

The world outreach organizations have declared that for 54 million dollars a year we could sufficiently nourish all the hungry people of this world. The United States funding estimates for the war in Iraq is $517 billion. Staying in Iraq is costing us $300 million a day.

I believe if we feed the starving people of the world it would do more to curb terrorist acts than bombing other countries. But, what do I know...I am just a wage-slave.

I wish I could go back to believing in the dream. But, I have awakened and now I am suffering from insomnia and I do not believe I will ever sleep again.

Bill Christofferson: What to wear to the May Day march?

What to wear to the May Day march?

The Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice (WNPJ) has just the thing: "Immigrants Welcome" T-shirts in Spanish and Hmong. (There are yard signs with the same message.)

Justice for immigrants is a major focus of the events Thursday in Madison and Milwaukee.

The Milwaukee event is billed as a statewide action, organized by Voces de la Frontera and endorsed by Peace Action Wisconsin.

Organizers at Voces say:

The immigrant rights movement has made great progress over the last two years in defeating some of the most anti-democratic legislative proposals in the history of this nation. All three remaining presidential candidates support some form of immigration reform. However, we face continued efforts to criminalize both employers and workers through initiatives like the Social Security No Match Letters, increased raids that tear families apart, and anti-immigrant local and state ordinances that have led to increased racial profiling, civil rights abuses, and economic damage to local communities.

Last year at least 80,000 people of all races and ages from across the state marched in Milwaukee to support civil rights for immigrants. This year we must mobilize again in massive numbers to send a clear message of the need for change.

This year's themes:

* Stop the raids and separation of families

* Just legalization

* Access to driver's licenses

* Stop Social Security No Match Letters

* Fair International Trade Agreements for Workers

* Good Jobs and Health Care for all

* End the War in Iraq

Milwaukee marchers will assemble 10:30am, S. 5th St. and Washington. March to Veterans Park on the lakefront starts at 11:30.

In Madison, an Immigrants and Labor Rights Rally will march at 11:30 from Brittingham Park to Dane County Building, where a rally will be held.

Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney's policies toward immigrants will be in the spotlight, the Immigrant Workers Union(IWU) says. IWU ask to the general public for support to put an end to what it calls Sheriff Mahoney's harassment of immigrants.

These new signs feature handwritten messages of "welcome" in six languages by people from many of Wisconsin's immigrant communities. The two-sided yard sign features "welcome" in Spanish and Hmong, single-sided 11x17 window signs feature either Spanish or Hmong. Yard sign: $5 plus postage, Window sign: $2 plus postage. Call (608) 250-9240 or email info@wnpj.org to order. T-shirts are $15. Or buy them in person at WNPJ office at 122 State St. in Madison, at Brittingham Park before the Madison march, or at WNPJ table in Veterans Park at the end of Thursday's march in Milwaukee.

Bill Christofferson is a member of WNPJ and a regular contributor to the blog Uppity Wisconsin and a Wisconsin coordinator of the Iraq Moratorium.

Steve Burns: Greenwashing Bottled Water

Sometimes I wonder whether there’s any limit to the deceptive ad campaigns that PR firms are willing to take on, any bit of hokum so absurd that a PR specialist might tell their client, “No, there’s no way we could try to put that one over on the public.”

Suppose, for example, that you own a company that sells bottled water, a product that Rainforest Action Network has called "a business that is fundamentally, inherently and inalterably unconscionable". But your bottled water isn't just depleting a local aquifer, or misleading consumers by reselling them filtered tapwater at exhorbitant prices, your bottled water is shipped, in its little plastic bottles, ten thousand miles from the bottling plant to the consumer.

Could you possibly "brand" such a product as eco-friendly?

If you answered "no" to that question, then you don't know our modern PR industry. Because Fiji Water, a company that ships its bottled water all the way from, yes, Fiji, is now claiming the "green" label, in an ad campaign called "Every drop is green" (not a very appetizing image for bottled water, I admit, but in the PR industry you work with what you've got.)

Here's how it's done:

First, buy some carbon credits. In fact, you'd better buy a lot of carbon credits (remember those diesel-powered ships, full of little plastic bottles of water, wending their way from Fiji, through the Panama Canal, to New York.) Heck, while you're at it, buy enough carbon credits so that you can claim your product is not just carbon-neutral, but carbon-negative. Then you can claim that people who buy your bottled water are actually helping the environment with every sip. You can even claim that drinking a 1.5 Liter bottle of water does as much good for the planet as "walking five blocks to the grocery store instead of driving." (Yes, they really did say that.)

Then, you'll need a scientific study to throw some doubt on the concept of "food miles" and the environmental impact of shipping food and water halfway around the world. How about a study co-written by a representative for lamb producers in New Zealand? (Some day, the New Zealand Lamb producers and the Fiji Water people should get together in an who-has-the-most-chutzpah contest).

Next, take your New Zealand lamb producers study and build a story around it at your "Fiji Green Blog", under the title: "Debunking the 'food miles' myth."

Some pitfalls to watch out for:

Blogs, like your "Fiji Green Blog" generally allow for comments, and the comments you attract might not be favorable. Expect comments like these:

"Because of your red-herring approach I think I’m going to have to give up drinking Fiji water - I just can’t support a company that lies."

"[N]o matter how much you try to green-wash your product, it’ll never be environmentally friendly, sustainable, or just."

"How you define or even mitigate your inevitable food miles makes no difference really- drinking something that exists locally already, with an infrastructure/process in place already- will ALWAYS be less wasteful than importing something you already have."

"There’s so much wrong with this site I don’t even know where to start. First of all, the article presents a strawman argument that shipping water around the world is somehow comparable to shipping food products from Kenya. Also, the effectiveness of carbon offsets are highly controversial, and should never be used as a substitute for direct carbon emissions when possible."

Ouch! Better hire a good PR person to respond to those comments ("Ecodaddy, thanks for your feedback..."). Above all, emphasize that the issue is complicated, with arguments like this:

"[B]ottling from a local spring doesn’t necessarily require the same energy as bottling abroad. It could be more or less. There are many factors that make a difference, whether it’s packaging choice, emissions intensity in the local grid, the amount of processing involved, and more."

"Pay no attention to those ships full of water!" Some apples-to-oranges comparisons might be helpful, too. For example, did you know that it takes much more energy to make a glass bottle than a plastic bottle? So, by packaging its water in plastic bottles, Fiji Water is helping to reduce carbon emissions!

Oh, one more pitfall: Be careful that you don't release too much information to the public. For example, at the bottom of this page of the "Fiji Green" website, under all the animated examples showing how much you'll help the planet by drinking Fiji Water, you'll find a small table:

Bottle Size	Carbon Footprint (grams CO2 eq)
330 ml	230
500 ml	302
1 L	573
1.5 L	801

So a half-liter bottle of Fiji Water (which, as anyone who has taken high school chemistry knows, contains 500 grams of water) produces 302 grams of carbon dioxide emissions. Do the math, and it turns out that Fiji Water is selling a product that produces roughly 60% of its own weight in CO2 emissons.

But what choice do they have? If your entire brand identity is built around "water from Fiji", then the water has to come from Fiji, no matter the cost to the planet. Fiji Water's predicament becomes clear when one commenter on the Fiji Green Blog, "James", helpfully suggests that Fiji Water get out of the bottled-water-from-Fiji business and into something less harmful, like home water purifiers. To this, Fiji's PR blogger responds:

"With all due respect, James, I’m not quite sure what to do with a recommendation to brand a home purifier as 'FIJI.' "


Meanwhile, here in Wisconsin: WNPJ member group Concerned Citizens of Newport played a key role in defeating Perrier's plans to suck groundwater out of a central Wisconsin aquifer, and now leads the opposition in our state to bottled water with their "kNow Bottled Water" campaign. To find out more, contact Hiroshi Kanno at: hirok8@aol.com

Steve Burns is Program Coordinator of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice

Steve Burns: Interest in Army plummets

Since the beginning of the Iraq war, the U.S. military has had greater and greater difficulty meeting its recruitment goals, and an April 17 report on National Public Radio described some of the measures the Army is taking to meet their quota in a tough recruiting environment.

The Army has increased the number of waivers issued to new recruits who suffer from medical conditions that would have previously made them ineligible, and issued more waivers for recruits with criminal records.

But the most interesting part of the report went unmentioned by reporter Tom Bowman. This graph was posted on the NPR website, accompanying the story:
These are really staggering drops in interest in joining the Army, regardless of race or ethnicity. Even including youth who are only "probably interested" in joining the army, the percentage of African-Americans who have an interest in the Army is now at about 10%, a drop of more than half since the invasion of Iraq. Equally dramatic is the nearly 60% drop in interest among Hispanics over the past two years.

The Army had become increasingly dependent on Hispanic enlistment due to the precipitous drop in African-American enlistment following the Iraq invasion (African-Americans, who were once represented in the military in numbers greater than their share of the the population, now represent a percentage of the military roughly equal to their share of the population.)

Although general opposition to the Iraq war (exceeding 80% in the African-American community) goes a long way to explain the decline, the relatively recent and dramatic drop in interest in the military among Hispanics caused me to recall a passage I had read recently in the book Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World.

The book reports on the growing use of Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (JROTC) programs in many inner-city schools, starting as early as middle school. Arlene Inouye, founder of the California-based organization Coalition Against Militarism in our Schools (CAMS) tells the story of one Hispanic youth who had been recruited into the JROTC program in his local school:


"Sal is a bright JROTC student who lacked support for success in school and beyond. His father was deported to Mexico about two years ago, and he was told by the military recruiter that if Sal enlisted, his father could come back to the US. His father begged him to enlist after high school. Sal later learned that the military was lying, and that he couldn't help his father come home."

The Army has dangled promises of citizenship in front of people who are increasingly desperate to escape the growing crackdown by another branch of our militarized government -- the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency -- but those promises have often turned out to be false, or citizenship has only come posthumously. Now that word of the Army's bait-and-switch tactic has spread, the Army finds itself facing even greater, and well-deserved, difficulties in recruitment.

What the Army sees as a source of difficulty, I see as a sign of hope. I see communities, well aware that their government has no interest in their opinions or opposition to the war, taking the most effective step possible toward ending the war, by denying the military the soldiers needed to continue the war. If Dick Cheney answers "So?" when told that the American people don't think the war is worth fighting, if Congress continues to shovel billions into the war machine, that machine can still grind to a halt when it runs out of bodies. In the end, stopping the Iraq war may come down to something as simple as the answer to this question: "What if they gave a war and nobody came?"

Steve Burns: "Illegal" vs. "Undocumented"

Last Friday, the UW College Republicans invited Michelle Malkin, an extreme anti-immigrant bigot, to speak at the Madison campus. I had made up some flyers highlighting the fact that Ms. Malkin had written a book defending the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII, and that she had frequently claimed that there exists a secret plan to reconquer the southwest US for Mexico though immigration.

On the flyers, I made the point that Ms. Malkin's views aren't just rhetoric - views like hers have had real consequences for real people, and as an example, I cited the case of Tope Awe, a third-year UW pharmacy student who had been taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement only the week before, and is now threatened with deportation to Nigeria, a country she hasn't seen since she was three years old.

Most of the students accepted the flyers without comment, but one older man wanted to argue with me, specifically about Tope Awe. "But she's illegal, right?" he said. "Her parents came here, overstayed their visa, so they've been breaking the law. Don't you think we should follow the law?” I pointed out that Ms. Awe is an honor student and campus leader, her parents have been working and paying taxes, Tope's brother, Benga, is also threatened with deportation, despite being married to a US citizen and having an eighteen-month-old son, and Tope's father is seriously ill, is undergoing kidney dialysis, and may very well die if deported to Nigeria. “It doesn't matter,” he said. “The law is the law, and if we start breaking the law for emotional reasons, then the law doesn't mean anything.”

And that's the problem with seeing the immigration issue through the lens of “legal” vs. “illegal.” Once we decide that the defining characteristic of the Awe family or any other immigrants living here without proper documentation is their “illegality”, what options do we have? After all, the law must be obeyed, right?

Viewing immigration as a question of “legal” vs. “illegal” is a choice we make. We could make another choice. We could choose to face the messy reality of our situation: we are a relatively rich country located next to many relatively poor countries, we have pursued economic policies that have created vast poverty and misery south of our border and elsewhere in the world, and now millions of people are in our country without papers, working, doing no harm to anyone, and contributing much that is good. We could face this messy reality and ask this question: How can we best deal with this situation in a way that is humane, recognizes our own responsibility for the impoverishment that drives immigration, and does the least harm and produces the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people?

“Illegal” is simply a dead end. It stops the questions that would lead us to search for a solution and forecloses our options – and that is surely the intention of at least some who use the word.

So I prefer “undocumented.” But I have problems with that word too, because, more often than not, my use of it leads the conversation away from real people, and on to the words we use to describe them. Words have power, and that's why people argue about them, but I hope as we continue this conversation we can go beyond the question of “what words should we use?” to all the other questions that face us.

Life, generally speaking, doesn't present us with stark choices between right and wrong; more often it's a matter of messy compromise, of getting by, of doing the best we can, of doing the most good – or at least some good – while doing the least harm. Some day our country will come to the point of messy compromise on the issue of immigration, and “legal” will become whatever those in power decide to make it. When that happens, “legal” won't mean “just” or “right”, it will simply mean “legal” - the product of bargaining between interest groups and politicians, some of the least perfect people on this planet. Before the bargains get made, we can all help tip the balance of that eventual compromise in the direction of compassion, of generosity, and of humanity. I hope you'll join us in that struggle.

Steve Burns is Program Coordinator of the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice

Elton Tylenda: Military not just another "career choice"

WNPJ member Elton Tylenda sends us these remarks, made to the Madison School Board in response to the School Board's decision to continue allowing "Army Strong" ads on school property:

I'm a member of Veterans for Peace, a Vietnam combat veteran, and I hold a Master of Divinity degree from The Chicago Theological Seminary. I'm requesting that all military advertising be removed from our schools. It troubles me that schools would promote the military as if it were just another career choice. What we have in effect is a poverty draft preying on our least privileged and most vulnerable youth. Count the number of children from wealthy, politically connected families "serving" in the military and you'll have fingers to spare. But from the working class you can count lives taken (over 4,000), count the maimed (over 70,000), brain damaged (over 100,000), count the suicides (120 each week) and there's no end to the counting!

You say you're presenting the military as just another career choice. What other career choice requires giving up one's constitutional rights? What other career requires a binding contract that can be rewritten at any time without the helpless recruit's consent to extensions? In what other career is job One the killing and maiming of defenseless civilians, including children? What other career matches these dismal statistics - 65% of enlistees don't receive the promised money for college and 88% of male veterans say no useful civilian skill was learned? What other career assures young women of a 30% sexual assault rate from fellow employees? What other career will encourage our teenagers to torture helpless civilians and to enjoy killing, like Marine commander Maj. Gen. James Mattis did in Falluja: "It's a hell of a hoot ...it's fun to shoot some people."? What other career choice do you offer students that will require them to commit crimes against humanity in the eyes of the world?

For our children's sake, inform yourselves of the facts about war and the evils enlistees will be pressured into. Conservative WorldWatch Institute figures state that 59% of the casualties in Vietnam were noncombatants. In Iraq the percentage is higher, with a million killed in just 5 years according to the most credible estimate. It took 10 years to kill over a million defenseless civilians and to torture thousands more in Vietnam. Then, as now, the public was continually assured that few civilians were being killed and that: "America doesn't torture"! Inform yourselves about what really happens in today's war zones. Listen to the Winter Soldier testimonies from Iraq and Afghan veterans. Read the testimonies of 19 veterans covering wars from 1937 through Iraq and Afghanistan in the book, Long Shadows: Veterans Paths to Peace. These ground truth experiences will not be mentioned in military ads or by recruiters. Let the truth about war and the military guide your decision on banning the ads.

If you recall, I compared military ads to those deceptive tobacco ads designed to lure people into addiction and premature death. Tobacco ads like "you've come a long way baby" are especially devastating to women - since 1980 their rate of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease has quadrupled. Pulling tobacco ads from our schools saves lives. Military ads too are deceptively alluring and far more dangerous to the health, safety and spiritual well being of our youth! Take them out of our schools! Replace "army strong," that throwback to the school yard bully and the might-makes-right nonsense, with timeless and edifying wisdom quotes from peacemakers like Gandhi: "I reject violence because the good it appears to do is temporary, the evil it does is permanent"; and, "means and ends are like seed and tree respectively." Save lives, return the paltry bounty, and remove those military ads.