Veterans for Peace chapters in Milwaukee and Madison have planned special Veterans Day events this weekend that promote peace rather than militarism. Details:
MILWAUKEE VETERANS FOR PEACE:
Barred from the city’s Veterans Day parade, Milwaukee Veterans for Peace, Chapter 102, will sponsor its own Veterans Day event at 10 a.m. in front of Milwaukee City Hall , 200 E. Wells, to observe the day with a call for peace.
Iraq veterans Ryan Freund and Ryan Nofsinger will share their experiences, and Vietnam veteran John Zutz will discuss the history of Veterans Day (originally Armistice Day), established in 1919 as a day to express support for peace and justice, not militarism.
Mark Foreman, a Vietnam veteran and president of the local VFP chapter, will serve as master of ceremonies. Music by Iraq war veteran Jason Moon will be followed by ringing of a bell 11 times to honor those who have served and to wish for peace. It is symbolic of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, which was the beginning of the cease fire at the end of the First World War.
After the program, Veterans for Peace members will go into the crowd of Veterans Day Parade watchers and collect donations for homeless veterans who live on the streets of Milwaukee .
The Veterans Day Parade Committee told Veterans for Peace it could not march in the parade with its banner because the group’s name is “political.”
MADISON VETERANS FOR PEACE:
Memorial Mile – the Third Display
On Saturday, Nov. 8, some 4,800 tombstones will be erected along Speedway Road in Forest Hill Cemetery on Madison's near west side. (Volunteers are needed that morning -- contact John Fournelle by email: jhfour@gmail.com).
After two successful and well-attended displays of the Mile at Olbrich Park, the chapter received permission from the Madison Parks Commission to move the Memorial Mile to a new location on the near west side. Forest Hill Cemetery, which faces Speedway Road between West High school and the Glenway golf course, is a dignified and appropriate location for the Mile.
It is the resting place for literally hundreds of Union and Confederate soldiers, as well as veterans who served in the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Korea, Viet Nam and the first Gulf War. It is the site of annual Memorial Day ceremonies respecting the sacrifices of so many Americans.
The public is invited to participate in the installation of the Mile on Saturday, Nov. 8, starting at 9am and also help uninstall the headstones the following Saturday, Nov. 15. Last May thousands of passers-by viewed the Memorial Mile during the week at Olbrich Park and comparable numbers of visitors are likely this November at Forest Hill. The Mile may be visited any time, day or night, during November 8-15.
The quiet cemetery roads may be entered at either end (near West High or at the Glenway St. end). Visitors may park along the internal cemetery roads. Walked quietly among the stones; leave flowers if you wish. The sobering and respectful display symbolizes the deaths of over 4,300 US service personnel in Iraq and nearly 500 in Afghanistan. Over 35,000 Americans have been seriously wounded in Iraq. To date 95 Wisconsin soldiers have died, symbolized by the small Wisconsin flags on scattered headstones.
Veterans for Peace members and volunteers will be available as often as possible throughout the week to answer questions, listen and share thoughts.
Sunday Ceremony and Reading of Names
A one-hour memorial ceremony will be held on Sunday, Nov. 9, at 2pm at the west end of the display. Those attending are welcome to park on the cemetery roads on that end. Featured speakers include the Rev. David Couper, Iraq War veterans Fran Weidenhoeft and Nate Toth (Iraq Veterans Against the War) and Vietnam veteran Will Williams. Bagpiping will accompany the reading of the 95 Wisconsin war dead at the end. VFP board member Frank Court will be the master of ceremonies.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that a man has been charged for registering to vote and trying to register others after being convicted of a felony. While this specific case may not directly apply, it does bring up some very important questions that we should be asking ourselves. In Wisconsin convicted felons are not allowed to vote until after they have completed the terms of their sentence. That could mean a prison term in addition to a long extended period of supervision.
Convicted felons often have to serve very long periods of probation and/or parole after they leave prison. One of the major goals of this supervision is that they become productive and fully integrate back into society. Exactly how are they supposed to do that if they are barred from voting, one of the most basic rights/responsibilities that we have as citizens? Many of them hold down jobs, pay taxes, provide for their families but still Wisconsin law refuses their right to vote.
According to an ACLU study, 62,324 people with felony convictions in Wisconsin are not allowed to vote; however, 61% of these people are no longer incarcerated. By not allowing them to vote, we are hindering their ability to reinstate themselves as active members of the community. According to Senator Russ Feingold, “…the more doors we close on people trying to rejoin society, the more likely it is we will drive them back to the behaviors we want them to leave behind.”
Wisconsin ’s felony disfranchisement laws are more severe than those of several of its neighboring states. Michigan , Illinois , Indiana and Ohio all automatically restore voting rights upon release from incarceration. Disenfranchisement in Wisconsin also disproportionately affects African American males and other minority populations. The ACLU study found that one out of nine African Americans males are disenfranchised because of Wisconsin ’s ex-offender laws. This statistic places Wisconsin 11th in the nation for the disenfranchisement of African American voters. This is obviously unacceptable and some might even call it Jim Crow, Wisconsin style. It is a disgrace and the current law should be changed.
I went off and worked in politics for 20+ years, then came back to antiwar work after my retirement a year ago -- and found Julie Enslow as a key person in Milwaukee, now with Peace Action-Wisconsin, the successor to Mobilization for Survival. She and the organization are both still going strong.
Julie's about to get some well-deserved recognition for her lifetime of work. Julie, a stalwart of the Milwaukee peace movement for more than 30 years, will receive a lifetime Peacemaker award on Oct. 4 from the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, a statewide network of 159 organizations working for social change. Read More »
Bill Christofferson, an antiwar atheist, walked with the group of Catholic Workers for a day last weekend, on the Mississippi River from Pepin to Maiden Rock, and reports on the trip at Uppity Wisconsin.
Update: Readers can contact the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (MJS) on this matter at: Letters to the Editor http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=766191
Milwaukee, Wisconsin—Donna Ganong is a 70-year-old widow running a corner tavern on Milwaukee's near-south side.
In early July, Mrs. Ganong tried to help a crying, hungry dog in an alley, and the Milwaukee police fined her $350 for her trouble.
Located at the corner of 1400 West Orchard Street and South 14th Street, Ganong’s Corner, has seen its share of life, though the neighborhood bar is not much of a blip on the Milwaukee radar screen.
Apparently the people don't matter all that much to the Milwaukee police either.
The walkers leave Prairie du Sac Thursday morning, July 31, headed for Baraboo. The schedule for the next week or so follows below the fold: Read More »
The ACLU says the Army is violating international law by targeting children in its recruiting.
More here.
UPDATE: Wall Street Journal story.
We met a Bush supporter as soon as we arrived at the bus. This man told us that the group sponsoring the bus, Americans United for Change, should have took the money they "wasted" for the bus and put it to something more useful like Habitat for Humanity.
Now, I am all for helping Habitat, but it seemed a little ridiculous for a Bush supporter to be criticizing anyone for their use of money, doesn't it? I mean it's entirely comical. It's like a raging alcoholic screaming at you for being a smoker. Isn't it the Bush presidency that's blowing trillions of dollars on an unnecessary and senseless war? Maybe I am out of place.
This guy also went on to tell us that we went to war because congress approved it so it had to be the right thing to do, you know, the president wasn't wrong "Hey, everyone approved his invasion, so how can you blame him" bla bla bla bla bla. Same old "taking years of my life cause of this ignorance" stuff, right?
You can't argue with these people, it's impossible. Your best bet is to do what they do for all the stuff that's wrong with this presidency and our way of life today: just keep on ignoring it.
I've got to give it to him though, he's a very resilient fellow. He'd probably be able to survive through a category 5 hurricane, you know, if said hurricane was raining intense amounts of bullshit. I'm sure he'd be just fine.
I mean what can I say? Do I need to stand up with a microphone and tell you you're being screwed? I don't think I do. If you can't see it with your own eyes, than I am terribly sorry for you, it's pretty sad if you don't know when you are being screwed. And if you don't see the disaster now, you'll come face to face with it soon enough.
Better start stocking up on canned goods.
The first candidates for Tom Reynolds' (R-Outer Reaches) Clean Sweep Wisconsin's project to run some 12 candidates against Milwuakee-area Democratic incumbents in the Democratic primary are now public.
The Reynolds' folks are: Phil Landowski (running against state Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee)) and Josh Hoisington (running against Tony Staskunas (D-West Allis), West Allis being Reynolds' home turf), reports Daniel Bice in yesterday's Journal-Sentinel.
Having visited the Army exhibit, rather than relying on newspaper reports, I'm now for declaring victory. What the Army exhibit offers now is much different from the virtual killing it was promoting as a recruiting tool for young teens before Peace Action-Wisconsin intervened.
Summerfest still needs some thank you calls at 414-273-2690.
Actually, Summerfest needs to be thanked and congratulated for doing the right thing. It is never easy to publicly take a stand and reverse an earlier decision -- not to mention facing down the military.
Please take a minute to call Summerfest at 414-273--2680. They need some support.
More here.
At the request of Summerfest officials, the U.S. Army on Tuesday removed a virtual urban warfare game that allowed fest-goers as young as 13 to hop into a Humvee simulator and fire machine guns at life-size people on a computer screen.
Peace Action-Wisconsin launched a campaign Tuesday to shut down the "game," and Veterans for Peace, Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice also joined in asking their members to call Summerfest to complain.
Summerfest officials reported "a handful" of complaints, but it took less than 12 hours to get action, suggesting there was more than a handful of callers, which forced Summerfest to take it seriously. Read More »
The following text (in two e-mails) below was received from timkisting@aol.com, commenting on a brief analysis (SC Decision Striking Down Gun Control Is Fine with This Progressive) on the Supreme Court decision, District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), that was picked up in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Sunday.
Well, let's hope this guy, timkisting@aol.com, doesn't own a gun.
The ad hominem attempt (below among many) to insult by raising the possibility of my being a "fag" merits a reply: Being gay is okay. As is working for the people residing in "Milwaukee's ghetto population".
As I was getting ready for my day this morning I heard Matt Lauer of the Today show interviewing U.S. Senator John McCain. Lauer asked him many questions but one brief exchange stood out to me well beyond the rest of their discussion. Lauer asked that if the surge in Iraq is indeed working, “Do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?” To my amazement, the Arizona senator said, “No, but that’s not too important.” What? I quickly grabbed a pen and wrote down his words as if in disbelief. After confirming what I heard with another source, I just sat in amazement. How could McCain say that having a better ESTIMATE of when our troops will be able to come home is “not too important”?
Perhaps John McCain refused to give an estimate because he has been so terribly wrong about the War in Iraq from the very beginning.
In 2003 on NBC’s Meet the Press (3/30/03), McCain said that the war would be “relatively short.” In 2005 McCain predicted on CBS’ The Early Show (2/3/05) that we would be in Iraq “at least another year to a year and a half.” In 2006 McCain said on Meet the Press (11/12/06), “We’re either going to lose this thing or win this thing within the next several months.” On the same show in 2007 (5/13/07) he admitted that “I don’t have a date.” His most popular statement on the Iraq war came in a town hall meeting in Concord, NH. After being questioned about how long we might stay in Iraq, John McCain said that the US could stay there for “maybe a hundred years” and that he was “fine” with it.Given all of his wrong predictions so far, I could understand why he would be hesitant to give an estimate. But to say that having one is “not too important” shows that he is totally out of touch on the issue. I think that most Americans would think the exact opposite. Not to mention the families of those that so bravely serve. For them a safe and soon return is the most important thing about the war in Iraq.
Iraq Moratorium - Friday, June 20
What Have YOU Done Lately to Stop the War?
By Julie Byrnes Enslow
Sometimes we need a good push to get off our duffs and act. The Iraq Moratorium Day on the third Friday of each month gives us the challenge and the opportunity to take creative actions to end the US occupation in Iraq.
Friday, June 20, will be the tenth Iraq Moratorium. What are YOU going to do? Read More »
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s new book, What Happened, describes the White House’s “propaganda campaign” surrounding the War in Iraq. Rather than fact checking and holding the White House accountable, Senator John McCain chose to use his seat in the U.S. Senate to cheerlead and help amplify the Bush propaganda on the war. An analysis by the Atlanta Journal Constitution (5/28/08) shows that the Bush Administration, McClellan, and McCain all towed the same party line to make the case for an unnecessary war.
In 2003 during a radio address Bush insisted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. McClellan also said in a White House Breifing (7-23-03) that “we judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction programs.” Early on McCain also latched onto this talking point saying that “Hussein continues to acquire, amass and improve on his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.” (Ashenville Citizen-Times, 10/13/02)
Read More »What follows in an op-ed submission following my continued disgust with the media’s reporting on conditions in Iraq.
Read More »
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