Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 08.25.05

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     08.25.05

1. MN GIS/community   8.25 8:30am
2. Eagan peace vigil  8.25 4:30pm
3. Small is beautiful 8.25 5pm
4. Teen filmmakers    8.25 6pm
5. Bicking/Council    8.25 7pm
6. Smart/open mic     8.25 7pm
7. Wage/live/film     8.25 7:15pm
8. War plays project  8.25 7:30pm
9. GP/State Fair      8.25-9.05
10. A-bomb photos     8.25-9.22

11. Breakfast/Schiff  8.26 7:30am
12. DU for dummies    8.26 8am
13. Counter recruit   8.26 11am
14. Palestine vigil   8.26 4:15pm
15. Rock v recruit    8.26 5pm
16. Youth farm fest   8.26 5pm
17. Hurricane Carter  8.26 6pm
18. Wall/Israel/film  8.26 7:15pm
19. Cam Gordon/music  8.26 8pm
20. Arise reopening   8.26
21. Women run/office  8.26-27

22. Cindy Sheehan - Coming back to Crawford
23. Reuters       - Anti-Iraq war parents to take protests across nation
24. Stan Goff     - The Hayden plan: containing the anti-war movement
25. Elisa Salasin - The militarization of our children
26. Lucinda Marshall - How militarism is marketed to children
27. Harberg/Gorney - Brother, can you spare a dime? (song)

--------1 of 27--------

From: Gina Clemmer <nurinfo [at] urban-research.info>
Subject: MN GIS/community analysis 8.25 8:30am

Mapping Minnesota Communities: An Introduction to GIS and Community
Analysis Workshop - One Day Workshop

August 25 and 26 (8:30am-4:30pm) Note: This is a one day workshop. Please
choose which date is most convenient for you.
New Horizons Computer Learning Center 5010 Cheshire Lane, Suite 3,
Plymouth, MN 5540
Fee:  $399 Checks, Credit Cards and Purchase Orders Accepted
How To Register? Visit www.urban-research.info to register online or
telephone us at 877.241.6576.

Audience
This fast paced, hands-on workshop teaches the fundamentals of how to use
a Geographic Information System (GIS) in a way that is particularly
relevant to social service providers, planners and researchers.
Participants will learn three core components of GIS: thematic mapping,
geocoding (address mapping) and spatial querying. Mapping techniques
transferable to all communities. Exercises are designed for beginners.
Intermediate Excel skills required.

Materials
Comprehensive workbook (75 pages), which includes the presentation,
exercises and reference worksheets, ArcGIS (ArcView 9.1) software 60-day
trial CD set, access to new 2004 Tiger/Line geography files (already
converted to shapefiles) which include streets, zip codes, school
districts, voting districts, census tracts and many other useful
geographies.

Objectives
The Mapping Minnesota Communities workshop will teach participants:

-The fundamentals of using ArcGIS (ArcView 9.1) the leading GIS software,

-How to thematically map and analyze a wide variety of Census data such as
income, race, language and housing data (including how to download data
from the Census),

-How to map addresses such as those of clients, volunteers, campaign
donations and social service facilities as well as to identify gaps in
coverage areas by zip code and other geographies,

-Best practices of creating informative and well designed maps for public
dissemination. Class participants will review and critique several maps in
an attempt to learn good map design,

-Where to get a wide selection of free geography files including new 2004
Tiger/Lines including streets, zip codes and all Census geography.

Workshop Agenda

Lesson 1
Learn the basic functions of ArcGIS
Setting up ArcMap
Adding data and geography layers
Working with Layouts

Lesson 2
Introduction to American Factfinder
Downloading Census and American Community Survey data to map
Downloading free geography files including tracts, zip codes, blocks and
several others
Preparing Census tract data in Excel to import into ArcGIS

Lesson 3
Joining data and geography files
Creating thematic (color shaded) maps to display data
Working with legends and interval breaks

Lesson 4
How to do common spatial queries

Lesson 5
Where to download free business addresses
Geocoding (address mapping)

Lesson 6
Elements of good maps including colors, fonts and map must haves
Critique of several maps

New Urban Research, Inc. is a social research company located in
Portland, Oregon.  For more information about the workshop, who we are
and what we do, check out our website at www.urban-research.info. New
Urban Research, Inc. 3323 NE 33rd Ave Portland, OR 97212 877.241.6576


--------2 of 27--------

From: Greg and Sue Skog <skograce [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Eagan peace vigil 8.25 4:30pm

CANDLELIGHT PEACE VIGIL EVERY THURSDAY from 4:30-5:30pm on the Northwest
corner of Pilot Knob Road and Yankee Doodle Road in Eagan. We have signs
and candles. Say "NO to war!" The weekly vigil is sponsored by: Friends
south of the river speaking out against war.


--------3 of 27--------

From: Jesse Mortenson <jmortenson [at] Macalester.edu>
Subject: Small is beautiful 8.25 5pm

8.25 5pm
Cahoots coffeehouse
Selby 1/2 block east of Snelling in StPaul

Limit bigboxes, chain stores, TIF, corporate welfare, billboards; promote
small business and co-ops, local production & self-sufficiency.


--------4 of 27--------

From: Rod Krueger <rodmn [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Teen filmmakers 8.25 6pm

Minneapolis teens spent this summer creating video projects at Phillips
Community Television (PCTV) as part of Audio Visual Investigations of
Democracy (AVID).

Meet these creative teen filmmakers at Franklin Community Library and be
the first to premiere their films.

AVID: Fresh Voices!
PCTV gives teens the opportunity to produce personal independent videos
that explore important issues in their community and their lives.

We invite everyone to view and discuss this year's completed videos
Thursday August 25  6pm
Franklin Community Library
1314 East Franklin Avenue
http://www.mplib.org/franklin.asp

Some of the subjects being explored include choosing between a recording
career and finishing school, teen cutting, teens and anime, and
police/community relations in Minneapolis.

Visit http://www.youthmedia.tv or call 612-821-3938 for more information
about AVID and PCTV.
This program is a partnership of the Minneapolis Public Library (MPL) and
Phillips Community Television (PCTV).


--------5 of 27--------

From: David Strand <mncivil [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Bicking for City Council 8.25 7pm

The next meeting of the Campaign Committee will be held at Dave's home -
3211 22 Av S Minneapolis, just a couple of blocks off Lake St. at 7pm
Thursday August 25.

A lot of things are happening now as the race fires up:  We have the lawn
signs and thanks to a lot of talent and work by Carrie Anne Johnson they
are beautiful and eye catching; Dave and Mayoral candidate Farheen Hakeem
had a successful fundraiser dinner last Tuesday at Walker Church; Dave has
been interviewed by the Pulse and will be doing a spot for KFAI; the
Minneapolis Strib has requested and received information from Dave for
publication; we are going to put ads in some local and cultural
newspapers;  and we are beginning to do doorknocking.  And more...

But a lot more needs to be done between now and the Primary Elections on
September 13 and that means that NOW WE NEED YOU. On Thursday at the
meeting, hopefully with your intelligence and ideas we will make plans for
strategies to win this election.

Please call either me or Dave if you have any questions or comments, but
please most of all be there to help.  My phone is 651-310-9967 - cell
612/414-9528 and Dave's is 612/276-1213.

--Dori Ullman Campaign Manager Dave Bicking for City Council


--------6 of 27--------

From: Samantha Smart <smartlibraries2005 [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Smart/open mic 8.25 7pm

Thursday 25 August
MNSWA'S PEOPLE'S OPEN MIC | Mapps Coffee & Tea
1810 Riverside Ave. | 7pm-9:30pm | FREE

Libraries, Literacy, Liberation and the Power of the People!
Curated by Samantha Smart, Candidate for Minneapolis Public Library Board

Featuring performances by:
Arleta Little, illuminating the work of Lucille Clifton and June Jordan +
Renowned local poet, pugilist and journalist; Mark Connor +

Samantha Smart, Catalyst of Speak Out Sisters!, KFAI Womanist Power
Authority producer and Candidate for the Minneapolis Public Library Board
and other special, surprise guests, plus...

Open Mic - let's hear your views on libraries, literacy, liberation and
the current state of crisis that our system faces!

Campaign Donations will be happily accepted!

For more information on this Minnesota Spoken Word Association People's
Open Mic contact admin [at] mnspokenword.org. For more information on this
curation contact Samantha Smart at smartlibraries2005 [at] earthlink.net.

The People's Open Mic is presented weekly every Thursday, Same Time, Same
Place. Spoken Word by the People For the People


--------7 of 27--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Wage/live/film 8.25 7:15pm

Thurs Aug 25-Sept 1: Films: America's Working Poor, Bell Aud., Minneapolis

Some issues are defined as off-limits, banned, made invisible--even when
the impact of them is brazen. Two films refuse silence."Waging A Living"
looks at the 30 million Americans (that's 1 in 3 workers) who are the
working poor. Looking through the daily dreams, frustrations and
accomplishments of four people living paycheck to paycheck. Longing to
raise their families out of poverty, this film answers the "Ownership
Society" hype with sober economic realities of our stolen American
Dream. (Thurs Aug 25/Fri Aug 26).


--------8 of 27--------

From: Diane J. Peterson <birch7 [at] comcast.net>
Subject: War plays project 8.25 7:30pm

Frances Ford, Twin Cities  actor, teacher, director, will be presenting a
free workshop of her theatre piece

"LETTERS TO, LETTERS FROM. . . LETTERS NEVER WRITTEN"
at Twin Cities Friends Meetinghouse
1725 Grand Avenue
StPaul
August 25
7:30pm
The public is invited to attend.

This workshop will be presented by THE WAR PLAYS PROJECT with the support
of Twin Cities Friends Meeting, Vets for Peace, and Fellowship of
Reconciliation.  There will refreshments and a chance to discuss the
project after the performance.  This "theatre for voices" is drawn from
letters, journals and reminiscences of Minnesota soldiers.  It starts with
a letter from a member of Minnesota's 1st Regiment during the Civil War.
The entertaining and sometimes frightening letters and journals end during
the 1991 Gulf War.

Ms. Ford created "LETTERS" as a way to entertain, and to stimulate
conversation about the experiences of soldiers and their families as they
are away from home.  This hour-long piece explores the unspoken
experiences of Minnesota soldiers, and the price that they and their
families have to pay for their service.

The goal of THE WAR PLAYS PROJECT is to perform "LETTERS" in many
community settings: high schools, churches, synagogues, community centers,
mosques. Grants are being sought for this purpose.


--------9 of 27--------

From: wyn douglas <wyn_douglas [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: GP/State Fair 8.25-9.05

The Greens will be hosting a booth at the State Fair again this year.


--------10 of 27--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: A-bomb photos 8.25-9.22

8/25 to 9/22, "60 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki" A-Bomb Photo
Exhibit, St. Paul City Hall.  612-722-9700.


--------11 of 27--------

From: "Schuchman, Noah D" <Noah.Schuchman [at] ci.minneapolis.mn.us>
Subject: Breakfast/Schiff 8.26 7:30am

Please join Gary Schiff, 9th Ward Minneapolis City Council Member, for
Breakfast with Gary on Friday, August 26.

This month, welcome Nathan Wolf, newly appointed Consul of Mexico to
Minnesota. This is an exciting opportunity for constituents to hear from
the head of the new Mexican Consulate. The new consulate will provide a
much needed resource for Mexican immigrants. The 9th ward has the largest
Latino population and the highest percentage of Mexican immigrants in the
City of Minneapolis.

Friday August 26 - 7:30-9am
Café of the Americas - 3019 Minnehaha Avenue South
$5 for breakfast


--------12 of 27--------

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: DU for dummies 8.26 8am

August 26 - DU for Dummies: the science behind Depleted Uranium. 8-10am

Lisa Ledwidge, outreach director for Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research.  Lisa works to impart understandable information
without sensationalism. IEER s mission:  to bring scientific excellence to
public policy issues to promote the democratization of science and a
healthier environment.

Location: StMartin ' Table, 2001 Riverside Ave Minneapolis


--------13 of 27--------

From: sarah standefer <scsrn [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Counter recruitment 8.26 11am

"Our Children Are Not Cannon Fodder"
CounterRecruitment Demonstration
Fridays   11-12 noon
Recruitment Office in Stadium Village at the U of M.
1/2 block east of Oak St on Washington Ave.
for info call Barbara Mishler 612-871-7871


--------14 of 27--------

From: peace 2u <tkanous [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Palestine vigil 8.26 4:15pm

Every Friday
Vigil to End the Occupation of Palestine

NOTE: new winter time:
4:15 pm - 5:15 pm
Summit & Snelling, St. Paul

There are now millions of Palestinians who are refugees due to Israel's
refusal to recognize their right under international law to return to
their own homes since 1948.

--------15 of 27--------

From: PRO826 [at] aol.com
Subject: Rock v recruitment 8.26 5pm

Benefit concert for Youth Against War and Racism

ROCK AGAINST RECRUITMENT!
A show to launch the campaign for metro-wide student walkouts on November
2 against military recruitment in our schools and to stop Bush's war on
Iraq.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 26
Walker Community United Methodist Church

3104 16 Av S (one block from Lake St & Bloomington Av) Mpls
Doors @ 4:30
Concert @ 5:00
$5-$10 donation at door
Proceeds go to Youth Against War and Racism and the campaign
for November 2 student walkouts.

BANDS:
Gilbots, Black Plague, Kick Face Smile, Mareena, Bloody Santorum,
Flowerbaby

For more information: against.war [at] gmail.com 612-760-1980 www.yawr.org


--------16 of 27--------

From: Anne Carroll <carrfran [at] qwest.net>
Subject: Youth farm fest 8.26 5pm

Come celebrate the accomplishments of the west side youth farmers and
their contribution to the community at the 6th Annual West Side Youth Farm
Harvest Festival.  There will be a free community dinner, youth awards and
Youth Farm Products and Art for Sale.  Bring your friends and family!

We will also have Youth Farm Cookbooks, canned goods, home made body
products and more for sale!

Friday August 26 5-8pm
West Side Youth Farm & Market Project, 85 E. Page St. (across from
Humboldt High School parking lot at La Puerta Abierta UMC Church)

For more information, contact Gunnar Liden at 651.283.0562 or
gunnar [at] youthfarm.net

Harvest Festival Schedule
5:00 - 5:30 : Garden Tours and visit the Minnesota Family Project truck
5:30 - 6:00 : Danza Mexica Cuauhtemoc performance
6:00 - 6:45 : Community Dinner, "Food from Around the World" cooked by Youth
              Farm Cooking Group
6:45 - 8:00 : Youth Awards & Recognition

(if it is raining, the festival will be at Cherokee Park United Church 371
W Baker St.)


--------17 of 27--------

From: Todd Heintz <proud2liveinjordan [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Hurricane Carter 8.26 6pm

2nd Annual Feeding the Least Increasing the Peace - Community Health
Awareness Event in conjunction with the 1st Anniversary Celebration for
Cub Foods West Broadway.

The event is sponsored by Cub Foods, General Mills, African American
Family Services, MPPAT, North Point Health and Wellness Center,
Minneapolis Empowerment Zone, Minneapolis Urban League and Turning Point.

This years event, hosted by Miss Black U.S.A, Celi Dean, will highlight
community-based organizations that are working to educate and empower
residents to take better care of themselves, physically, mentally and
emotionally.

Activities include:

Friday, August 26, 6-9pm free showing of the Movie "The Hurricane" at
Minneapolis Urban League, 2100 Plymouth Avenue North

Free food served 11:00am until 3:00pm (healthy menu) Guest Speakers
(Minnesota Attorney General, Mike Hatch and African American Family
Services Executive Director, Lissa Jones

Hosted by Celi Dean, Miss Black U.S.A. and Lance Knuckles, Community
Organizer, Hawthorne Area Community Council

Youth Scholarship Presentation/Awards
Community-based education and resource booths, Senior activities
Games and prizes for youth
Live Music by RISE, sponsored by the Joe Jones Team of Coldwell Banker
Burnet Live Spoken Word
Community Health Screenings (blood pressure, HIV screening)

This year our community will have the fortune of having Rubin Hurricane
Carter as a Keynote Speaker for the event at 3:15PM.  Hurricane has been a
champion within the civil rights movement and has dedicated his life to
providing a beacon of hope to those whom have lost their way.  Rubin
Carter has spoken with former President Clinton on issues related to the
death penalty, addressed the General Assembly at the United Nations, and
has spoken alongside President Nelson Mandela.  His insight and wisdom
into the realm of health and its relationship to violence will set a
foundation for an in-depth dialog amongst our residents.

Dr. Carter's Public Engagements

3:15pm -4:30pm   Keynote Speech & Awards Presentations, Cub Foods
6:30pm - 7:30pm       Book Signing

Holding Forth the Word of Life Ministries
2029 West Broadway Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55411

Feeding the Least Increasing the Peace August 27, 2005
Todd Heintz ,  Jordan


--------18 of 27--------

From: Adam Sekuler <adam [at] mnfilmarts.org>
Subject: Wall/Israel/film 8.26 7:15pm

ONLY AT THE BELL AUDITORIUM
WALL

"We saw the camera and thought it was a weapon," says one young girl
interviewed in the Moroccan-born Jewish director Simone Bitton's recent
documentary WALL which looks at the construction of Israel's infamous
security barrier. The film opens for a week at Minnesota Film Arts' Bell
Auditorium Friday August 26.

Bitton, a Mizrahi Jew who is fluent in Hebrew and Arabic, interviews
Israelis and Palestinians who live and work close to this structure.
Members of both communities are involved in building the wall, and all are
affected by the rupture it creates in the landscape. Bitton's painterly
cinematography and restrained pacing, reminiscent of an Abbas Kiarostami
film, allow her subjects to speak for themselves. The film, dubbed "a
documentary fresco" by its director, elegantly fixes on the wall both as a
symbol and as a mundane, graffiti-covered and pockmarked mass of cement.

Bitton's interviewees include a representative of the Israeli Defense
Force who describes the construction, rationale and cost of the wall, and
a kibbutz official who eloquently points out the irony of a people who
were once crowded into ghettos now intentionally walling themselves in.
Even 15 years after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the images shown
in Wall cannot help but reverberate with the archetypal images of what
was, until now, the world's most debated partition.

The film screens nightly at the Bell Auditorium (17th & University Ave SE,
Mpls) at 7:15 and 9:15pm with additional shows Saturday and Sunday at 3:15
and 5:15. More information about the film can be found at
www.mnfilmarts.org/bell or by calling 612.331.7563


--------19 of 27--------

From: Cam Gordon <CamGordon333 [at] msn.com>
Subject: Cam Gordon/music 8.26 8pm

Fri Aug 26: Jayhawks' Singer for Greens' Gordon, Hard Times, Minneapolis

The Green Party (GP) is setting its sails for local waters and Cam Gordon
is making a second voyage to become City Councilmember for Minneapolis'
Ward 2 (Seward, West Bank, Prospect Park, University area).

A longtime GP member, community organizer and small buisnessman, Gordon
has new ideas for 'economic development' that benefits neighborhoods and
small businesses - not just Big Developers and Big Corporations, housing
and government accountablity.

You can support his campaign and enjoy a night of music with the Jayhawks'
founding member, singer/songwriter, Mark Olson. Also featured West Bank
legendary folkie, Razz Russell - master of mondolin, guitar, violin and
vocals.

$7 (no one turned away) Fri Aug 26, 8pm, Hard Times Cafe, 1818 Riverside
Ave. West Bank, Minneapolis (612)296-0579 www.camgordon.org


--------20 of 27--------

From: Arise! <arise [at] arisebookstore.org>
Subject: Arise reopening 8.26

If you haven't been to Arise lately, you won't believe your eyes. After
weeks of collective effort, we have torn down walls, torn out the carpet
and laid tile. We built a new meeting room, and now have a big, beautiful
front window!

Arise! will be hosting a GRAND REOPENING on Friday, AUGUST 26th, with
music, food and other fun stuff. Check the website for more details as
they are determined.

ARISE BOOKSTORE 2441 LYNDALE AVE. S. MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55405
www.arisebookstore.org


--------21 of 27--------

From: Ken Pentel <kenpentel [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Women run/office 8.26-27

Please share the invitation below (and attached) with women you know who
are considering a run for elective office.

The Humphrey Institute's Center on Women and Public Policy, in
collaboration with the Center for American Women in Politics, is excited
to announce Ready to Run, Aug. 26-27, 2005.  This training and networking
opportunity aims to provide women with the training and confidence to get
involved in Minnesota politics.

http://www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/wpp/ready_to_run.html for more information.
Contact Sarah Taylor-Nanista at staylorn [at] umn.edu.

Ellen Tveit Program Associate Humphrey Institute Policy Forum 301 19th
Ave. S. Minneapolis, MN 55455 612-625-8330 612-624-0068 fax
www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/policy-forum


--------22 of 27--------

Published on Wednesday, August 24, 2005 by the Huffington Post
Coming Back to Crawford
by Cindy Sheehan

I'm coming back to Crawford for my son. As long as the president, who sent
him to die in a senseless war, is in Crawford, that is where I belong. I
came here two and a half weeks ago for one reason, to try and see the
president and get an answer to a very simple question: What is the noble
cause that he says my son died for?

The answer to that question will not bring my son back. But it may stop
more meaningless deaths. Because every death is now a meaningless one. And
the vast majority of our country knows this. So why do more young men and
women have to die? And why do more parents have to lose their children and
live the rest of their lives with this unbearable grief?

The presidency is not bigger than the people's will.

And when the people speak out, it's the president's reponsibility to
listen. He is there to serve us, not the other way around.

This isn't about politics. It's about what is good for America and what's
best for our security and how far this president has taken us away from
both.

I'm coming back to Crawford because - now and forever - this is my duty
for my son, for my other children, for other parents, and for my country.

 2005 Huffington Post


--------23 of 27--------

Published on Wednesday, August 24, 2005 by Reuters
Anti-Iraq War Parents to Take Protests Across Nation

Parents of soldiers killed in Iraq plan to follow President George W. Bush
around the country in the coming months, hoping to generate nationwide
anti-war sentiment after camping out at his Texas ranch.

Through much of August, Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son in Iraq, has
stationed herself with other protesters outside Bush's Crawford ranch,
garnering international media coverage at a time when more than 1,800 U.S.
military have died in the Iraq conflict.

Sue Niederer, who with Sheehan and other families of dead soldiers founded
"Gold Star Families for Peace," on Wednesday vowed to pursue the president
with her anti-war message.

"We are going to be continuously on Mr. Bush and make him understand we
are not going away. We are very, very steadfast in what we doing," said
the 56-year-old housewife, real estate agent and substitute teacher from
Hopewell, New Jersey.

Niederer, whose 24-year-old son Seth Dvorin died in Iskandariya, Iraq, on
February 3, 2004, said she and others plan to travel to wherever Bush will
be speaking.

Anti-war groups kept the pressure on the president this week as he made
speeches in Utah and Idaho, where he promised that U.S. troops would
remain in Iraq to complete their job to honor those who already died there
-- a logic Niederer disputed.

"You are dishonoring the soldiers, you are not honoring them," she said of
Bush's speech.

"Given the reasons for why we went into this war, why have their deaths
not been in vain?" she asked, referring to Bush's now disproved pre-war
assertion in 2003 that Iraq might have stockpiles of weapons of mass
destruction.

Sheehan, the Vacaville, California, mother whose son Casey was killed in
combat in Iraq, has become the center of the anti-war effort by camping
out near Bush's ranch and demanding to meet face-to-face with the
president.

She plans to speak in Brunswick, Maine, in September and in Brooklyn, New
York, in October.

After Bush ends his Crawford stay at the end of August, the anti-war
families are also considering crisscrossing America in buses in hopes of
building a national protest movement similar to that seen during the
Vietnam War, when public sentiment against the war contributed to the
eventual U.S. withdrawal.

"This is Vietnam No. 2. As we are seeing in the polls, the American people
are beginning to realize this war was created on lies, deceit and
deception," Niederer said.

A majority of the U.S. public doubts the United States will win the war in
Iraq and believes the Bush administration deliberately misled Americans
over Iraq's weapons capabilities, according to a July 27 USA
Today/CNN/Gallup Poll.

It was the first poll to find that more than half of Americans -- 51
percent -- believed the administration was deliberately misleading when it
asserted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

But creating a Vietnam-style nationwide protest against the Iraq conflict
will be near impossible without a draft to focus dissent, said Stanford
University Political Science Professor and Hoover Institution Senior
Fellow Morris Fiorina.

"If you had a draft, you would affect everybody and break beyond the usual
protesters," Fiorina said.

 2005 Reuters Ltd


--------24 of 27--------

The Hayden Plan
Containing the Anti-War Movement
By STAN GOFF
CounterPunch
August 24, 2005

I feel compelled once again to be a skunk at the party, but it's a role
I'm growing into. Cindy Sheehan's squatter's camp has re-energized the
antiwar movement, but just as it has done so, it has also re-energized the
herd dogs of the Democratic Party who fear nothing more than an
independent mass movement.

Cindy plopped down outside the Bush gopher ranch on a 98-degree day. The
cops told her to leave. As tactfully as she could, Cindy advised them in
less scatological terms to piss up a rope, putting the cops, the Bush
administration, and the Democratic Party in a dilemma.

Neither the cops nor the admnistration wanted to be held responsible on
camera for dragging away the grieving mother of an Iraq war fatality (her
son, Casey). For a moment, they were hopeful that there would be an
untimely end to this little action when Cindy collapsed from severe
dehydration on the first day; but alas she re-hydrated and re-appeared the
following day and began attracting mad media.

For the Democrats, of course, of whom exactly one elected offical (Maxine
Waters) has deigned to visit "Camp Casey," this presented quite another
problem - the same problem that the whole movement against the war
presented prior to the last electoral farce in 2004. The masses were
moving to their left and threatening to expose this moribund Weimar
formation as the waste of both money and oxygen that it has repeatedly
demonstrated itself to be. But Joshua Frank did an excellent job recently
on this site of describing the Democratic Party.

I want to talk about something more specific, and that is one of the
tactics being employed by the partisans of this rotting political edifice
to try and contain the newfound energy that exploded onto the scene at
Crawford and threatens to fill the DC Mall with malcontents on September
24th.

And that is the "exit strategy" proposal drafted by Tom Hayden and being
vigorously pimped by by policy-encrusted liberals all through cyberspace,
the print media, and soon enough on television. This is the oral fomulaic
appeal to "reasonableness and realism" of weak-kneed liberals every time a
mass movement threatens to gain any momentum - we have to present a
"reasonable" alternative (always a POLICY alternative, of course), and we
have to face the fact that we can't "move" "our" agenda without accepting
a "realistic" (read: watered down) approach. You kiddies have acted up
enough now; go on and play; leave the rest of this to Daddy and Mommy in
Congress.

Republicans, of course, are only at risk of losing a tiny sliver of their
base among the strictest libertarians over the war.

The Democrats are already grooming a few 2008 candidates, including the
execrable Hillary Rodham Clinton who has stated her desire to beef up the
war against Southwest Asia. Let's not forget that her husband presided
over an Iraqi holocaust that George W. Bush is still trying to match. The
Republicans are secure for now with their white nationalist popular base.
An active and increasingly militant left is a more immediate threat to the
Democrats - who have prospered from Repubilican reaction for decades now
by capturing social bases that feel they have nowhere else to go. That
dilemma is real, but it is also predicated on the notion that to "go
there" we need to contain ourselves in electoralism and pluralist policy
fights that are engineered by corporations and NGOs.

That's why Sheehan and others who propose the radical option of simply
leaving Iraq are now being surrounded by the friendly faces of
"progressives" who will try and redirect this newfound mobilization along
the acceptable policy-debate paths.

Enter Tom Hayden with his "proposal" for disengagement in Iraq. Hayden's
proposal appeared recently in the LA Times, where he explained:

"The rallying cry of 'out now' expresses the belief that the Iraq war is
not worth another minute in lost lives, lost honor, lost taxes, lost
allies. But its very simplicity makes the demand easy to ignore or
dismiss."

Oh thank you, oh wise one, for instructing us on the finer points of
political realism. And thank you for putting words in our mouths that have
us express precisely the kinds of chauvinist horse manure being shoveled
out of the DP stable. Most of us oppose the war because it is a cynical,
amoral, imperial crime. To hell with allies and "honor." And don't worry.
We will not be dismissed. Cindy Sheehan, one of those naifs who say "out
now" isn't being dismissed, now is she? Except by Tom Hayden, who in a
patronizing tone, calls Cindy's "bring them home now" position a "moral
stance."

Tom says that we "deserve a hearing," and that this means we will have to
propose an exit strategy of our own... which is actually Tom Hayden's. By
they way, Tom, we intend to be heard one way or another, unless you mean
we deserve to be heard - with our respectful hats in our respectful hands
- by the venal "leadership" of elected official-dum.

Your statement is a non sequitur, by the way. There is not anything about
our deserving-ness that in any way suggests we have to propose some
abstract, unenforceable, debatable-for-the-next-five-years "exit
strategy." But thank you oh so much for validating us in our deserving.

Tell the surviving families of those thousands of Iraqis whose corpses
rotted under the rubble of Fallujah that they "deserve a hearing." Where
do you people learn to talk like that? Is there some kind of secret school
for Democrats where they get a graduate degree in Weasel Wording?

Here's Tom Hayden's "plan":

"First, as confidence-building measures, Washington should declare that it
has no interest in permanent military bases or the control of Iraqi oil.
It must immediately announce goals for ending the occupation and bringing
all our troops home - in months, not years, beginning with an initial
gesture by the end of this year."

Tom, old boy, I can't help myself. This is bullshit.

Are you joking about this? Guarantees from the US? You been to Pine Ridge
lately? Ask them about guarantees from the US government. Perhaps you can
explain to some of us why this adminsitration would ever offer a guarantee
to turn its back on the central goal of the whole Iraq invasion. Let me
propose a different confidence building measure to reach out to Iraqis. We
make the political cost so high in the US for continuing the war that it
threatens the entire US state with destabilization... just an alternative
suggestion, you understand.

More of Tom's "exit strategy":

"Second, the U.S. should request that the United Nations, or a body
blessed by the U.N., monitor the process of military disengagement and
de-escalation, and take the lead in organizing a peaceful reconstruction
effort."

Tom, are you having a mescaline flashback? The United Nations? What
nationalities, pray tell, will be under those Carolina-blue K-Pots? Or
does the UN employ angels? Moreover, why in the world would the US or the
Iraqis need anyone to "oversee" a disengagment? Here you propose a plan
that is allegedly going to conform to a set timeline, yet it is utterly
dependent on the script being followed by actors over whom the US
exercises little to no control. I can't help remembering a similar notion
that was enacted by Richard Nixon in 1969. He did get out of Veitnam,
however, six years and a million dead bodies later with people clinging to
the skids of UH1H helicopters.

Let me just say something about how to withdraw. This is my plan. Hey, if
Tom Hayden is qualified to write up exit strategies, why not an old grunt
like me, eh?

The Plan: The National Command Authority orders all US forces redeployed
out of Iraq within one month and out of the theater in two months. Any
commander that fails to meet the deadline will be summarily relieved, and
replaced with a commander that will thereby be placed on a shorter
timeline. I can promise anyone who has no experience of the military that
this is perfectly feasible, and that with that kind of command emphasis,
the mission can and will be accomplished.

Here, of course, is where we discern the liberal pre-occupation (pun
intended) with "overseeing" disengagement and other such poppycock. Oh
Gasp! they will delcare. What then will become of these simple-minded
brown people who want nothing more than to drink each other's blood? At
the end of the day, a liberal can be every bit as much the white
nationalist as any rock-ribbed Republican Confederate. They really believe
that the United States is the beacon of civilization because we have
sitcoms and theme parks, and that the brutality of the US military
occupation is an aberration - the antithesis of our true nature. Under
all this verbiage is plain, Anglo-American Kiplingesque white supremacy.
Remember the "white man's burden to civilize the dark races?"

Tom, here is a delivery from the cluetrain. Iraqis were doing algebra and
astronomy when some of our European anscestors still believed that a bath
would leave you vulnerable to evil spirits - number one clue. Having
smart bombs doesn't make you smarter. It just makes you meaner. Get over
your chauvinist self. Number two clue - the primary catalyst for the
intensifying violence in Iraq right now is... the US military presence.
Tom, you say this yourself later on in your proposal, which only makes
this protracted and abstracted "disengagement" thing all the more
remarkable.

But, of course, Tom goes on:

"Third, the president should appoint a peace envoy, independent of the
occupation authorities, to begin an entirely different mission in Iraq.
The envoy should encourage and cooperate in peace talks with Iraqi groups
opposed to the occupation, including insurgents, to explore a political
settlement."

So let me get this straight. The US authorities should be replaced... by a
different US authority, renamed, of course, an "envoy." And the the envoy
would be the countryman of... the occupying military. This bait-and-switch
is... a "political settlement." Wow, I'm really getting the hang of this
now. I'm beginning to feel like I might be able to CLEP out of Weasel
Wording 101.

Tom reminds us that "[n]either the Bush administration nor the news media
have shown interest in these voices [of the antiwar movement], perhaps
because they undercut the argument that we are fighting to save Iraqis
from each other."

Huh? You yourself are proposing a plan with this assumption at its very
core.

But even more astonishing is the attempt to lay the blame for this war at
the doorstep of Republicans (and of course the news media). There is an
entire party allegedly in opposition to the Republicans - your party, Tom
- that hasn't shown any interest in the voices raised against the war,
until of course two things happened: (1) The polls shifted against the
war, and (2) large numbers of non-Republican people became disenchanted
with the utter and gutless capitialationism of the Democratic Party and
started listening to actual leftists.

Some of us were saying all the way back when that Arkansas
horseshit-huckster was in the Oval Office that Iraqis were being killed
off by the hundreds of thousands in a war (and its sanctions) that started
- by the way - in 1990 and has not ceased for one moment since. That war
went on all the way through both terms of that sexully exploitative (It
DOES matter!) prevaricator, who bombed Yugoslavian bridges and aspirin
factories with the same enthusiasm that Bush the Younger has displayed in
bombing Afghani weddings and Iraqi hospitals. Where were the Democrats
listening to "these voices" then?

Here's another voice the DP can listen to. "You're over." More and more of
us are learning that we can never let you take us for granted again. And
we can fight Republicans on our own terms... by any means necessary.

See you in September.

Stan Goff is the author of "Hideous Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the US
Invasion of Haiti" (Soft Skull Press, 2000), "Full Spectrum Disorder"
(Soft Skull Press, 2003) and "Sex & War" which will be released
approximately December, 2005. He is retired from the United States Army.
His blog is at www.stangoff.com.

Goff can be reached at: sherrynstan [at] igc.org


--------25 of 27--------

Tommy Franks Invades Logan Street Elementary School
The Militarization of Our Children
By ELISA SALASIN
CounterPunch
August 24, 2005

As Labor Day draws near and children head back to school, much important
attention is being focused on recruitment tactics (sanctioned by No Child
Left Behind) in our country's public secondary schools and colleges.
However, this hounding and seduction is not just happening in our high
schools. Rather, it reaches down to children as young as 8 years old.
Here, though, it is packaged as leadership, character, and discipline
development, or as top-secret motivational presentations by so-called
medal of freedom recipients

On April 19, 2005 Tommy Franks visited Logan Street Elementary school in
Los Angeles to do what was billed as a "motivational presentation" for the
school's students. The "non-profit, pro-military" organization that
sponsored Franks' secret (without family consent or knowledge)
presentation to the school's fifth graders was actually U.S. Trust, a
private investment firm with $102 billion dollars in assets. Logan Street
school is 89% Latino, and 93% of the students receive free or reduced
lunch. This is exactly the population that is heavily targeted by
NCLB-related recruitment efforts. I suppose that US Trust and Franks were
there to encourage the students to be all they can be?

We don't know what actually went on during Franks'
performance/presentation for the fifth grade students, because apparently
the video of the event has been destroyed by the school district. However,
one parent speculated: "Rumor is that he took pictures with our community
youth to be used in a future run for office bid on the republican ticket."

Or, perhaps, Franks was priming these ten year old students for the
military programs that they may soon encounter in their middle schools:
Middle School Cadet Corps, or Junior Officer Reserves Training Corps.

An article from In These Times describes how many of these programs have
eleven year old students learning how to stand, march and salute in
synchronization while carrying fake guns and doing push-ups for disobeying
orders. Here's a bit from the In These Times piece that puts this kind of
militarization-in-the-name-of-education into perspective:

"Proponents of the programs tout leadership training and character
development. But critics quote former Defense Secretary Gen. William
Cohen, who described JROTC as 'one of the best recruiting services that we
could have.'"

In an effort to further deepen our understanding, here's a bit of an
interview with Nina Shokraii Rees, Assistant Deputy Secretary, Office of
Innovation and Improvement, United States Department of Education:

Do you consider art and music "frills," or would you say they are
necessary to a good elementary education?

Nina Shokraii Rees: It depends. If a student is attending an affluent
school that has the budget to invest in such things, then I see many
benefits to adding art and music courses. What I object to is focusing the
attention of poor school systems on these activities. Schools should be in
the business of teaching students the basics. If they fail to teach
students how to read and write, it makes no sense to ask them to offer
music! In a perfect world, these are decisions that I wish parents could
make and pay for.

So there you have it --affluent schools get art and music. Schools lower
on the socio-economic ladder get military training (and top-secret visits
from Tommy Franks). Countering the overt and more insidious recruitment
tactics sanctioned by NCLB is certainly necessary. However, as both
educators and humans, we must also be honest and upfront about ways in
which our structures of schooling, and the system's unmarked (default)
language of control, also contribute to our militarized culture.

God forbid that we might focus the attention of poorer school systems on
activities which might, as Paul Street wrote, help our children to
evaluate and resist the endless reactionary propaganda that is foisted
upon them. Nope, that kind of leadership and discipline development might,
just might, wreck one of the best recruiting services we've got.

Elisa Salasin is an educator in Berkeley, California, and can be contacted
at elisasalasin [at] gmail.com. Many of her writings can be found on her blog,
Two Feet In (http://twofeetin.typepad.com/elisa/).


--------26 of 27--------

ZNet Commentary
Let's Play War: How Militarism is Marketed to Children
By Lucinda Marshall
August 25, 2005

My friend Loretta is hopping mad about the mail that her nine year old
grandson is receiving. While military recruiters cannot 'recruit' children
under seventeen years of age, there is nothing stopping them from waging a
marketing campaign to win the hearts and minds of much younger children
such as Loretta's grandson. She tells me that he just received a mailing
from the Marines labeled "Required Summer Reading" that offers him limited
edition posters. As any parent well knows, anything labeled as 'limited
edition' is irresistible to kids of that age.

Parents are becoming more aware of the presence of military recruiters in
high schools because of the No Child Left Behind Act which requires
schools to turn over contact information on students to the military
unless the students request that their records not be shared. While this
is an easy way for the military to obtain information on prospective
recruits, it is only one of many ways in which the military can make a
sales pitch to children.

Each branch of the military runs its own JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer
Training Corps) programs. The Air Force alone runs 746 JROTC programs
throughout the U.S. with plans start more this year. The programs enroll
more than 100,000 students. According to the American Friends Service
Committee, each program costs school districts an average of $76,000,
effectively putting cash-strapped schools in the position of subsidizing
the military. It is important to note that JROTC programs routinely bring
weapons into schools (and teach children how to use them) and there are
numerous reports of JROTC-related violence, including murder.

The programs claim that they are not geared towards recruiting, that their
purpose is to teach leadership and discipline. But as former defense
secretary William Cohen told Congress in 2000, JROTC is "one of the best
recruiting devices we have." (1)

When now Vice President Cheney served as Secretary of Defense, he
summarized the purpose of the military quite accurately, "The reason to
have a military is to be prepared to fight and win wars. That is our basic
fundamental mission. The military is not a social welfare agency, it's not
a jobs program." Yet recruiters and JROTC programs as well as television
ads routinely hawk the educational and job benefits of joining the
military.

What they do not tell prospective recruits is that 57% of military
personnel receive no educational benefits and only 5% receive the maximum
benefit. The military frequently boasts about the great job training it
provides, but according to the Army Times, only 12% of male veterans and
6% of female veterans report using job skills learned in the military.
According to the Veterans Administration, veterans earn less, make up 1/3
of homeless men and 20% of the nation's prison population. (2)

The military's presence in schools is not limited to high schools. The
Middle School Cadet program at Lavizzo Elementary School in Chicago is one
example. Youngsters wear uniforms and are taught how to carry guns, a
skill distinctly at odds with the policies that virtually every school has
banning weapons on school property. (3)

The Navy also offers a program geared at middle-schoolers, the Navy League
Cadet Corp, designed for children ages 11-14, in addition to their Naval
Sea Cadet Corp which is geared towards high schoolers. The Navy offers 300
such programs reaching 11,000 children.

Another tool the military uses is to send military recruiting trucks to
visit U.S. high schools. The trucks use high tech media and eye-catching
graphics to whet students interest. The Army describes its Special
Operations Van this way,

"The SOF incorporates several exhibits. One can experience the excitement
of flying a helicopter, test your skills and landing accuracy in the
Airborne parachute simulator, or improve your driving or marksmanship
(sic) in the Ground Mobility Vehicle (GMV) system."

While the military claims that vehicles like this are for educational
purposes, their own regulations indicate otherwise, stating that the
vehicles are to be sent to schools that recruiters are trying to target,
and that recruiters must stay with the trucks while they are open to the
public. The purpose of the trucks is to "Ensure that exhibits create a
favorable image of the Army and current Army enlistment opportunities."
(Section 1-5.a.) (4) (5)

 The Department of Defense has been quick to understand that video games
are an excellent marketing tool. On the America's Army website, you can
play all manner of war games, although as Sheldon Rampton points out in
his article "War is Fun as Hell", the games are a, "sanitized, Tom Clancy
version of war."

Not only that, but the website sexes up their offerings, providing what
Rampton aptly describes as a "babes-and-bullets fantasy", by employing a
group of young attractive female gamers known as the Frag Girls to market
the games. (6)

As one woman gamer describes it,

"Lord knows you wouldn't want someone that was a real gamer and a wife and
mother. What would the drooling masses have to drool over? Certainly it
wouldn't be a young attractive SINGLE female that they might think they
had a chance with right?" (7)

And just to make sure there is no doubt as to what a Frag Girl is, they
have their very own website which offers these illuminating definitions:

"frag /frag/ n. & v. · n. 1 number of kills. 2 a fragmentation grenade.
· v. 1 to eliminate other players in multiplayer shooters (fragging).

rag·doll physics {buzzword} /ragdol fiziks/ n. 1 a program allowing
videogame characters to react with realistic body and skeletal physics.

frag·doll /fragdol/ n. 1 a female gamer with the skills to dominate in
multiplayer shooters. 2 a lady with the sass to use the laws of physics to
her incontestable advantage."

As concerned as many parents, schools and communities are about the impact
of No Child Left Behind, the Pentagon's recent announcement that it
intends to assemble a much more comprehensive database is far more
worrisome. According to the Pentagon, the database will contain some 30
million records of data about youth ages 16-25. The data kept will include
name, gender, address, birthday, email address, ethnicity, phone number,
education records including graduation dates, grade point averages
education level and military test scores. Parents, educators and privacy
rights activists have raised a number of objections to the planned
database, pointing out that it violates the Privacy Act and the DoD's own
regulations about the collection of information on citizens.

Misleading advertising is always reprehensible. But when we allow our
military to target children, leading them to believe that war is a game
and fighting is fun, one has to wonder if the next logical step is
camouflage diapers? (8)

-------------------------

Notes:

(1) "Air Force Plans To Invade: 48 High Schools Set to Start AF JROTC".
Based on research by Peacework intern Jamie Munro and materials on JROTC
from the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors and the American
Friends Service Committee Youth and Militarism Program. Compiled by Sam
Diener.

(2) "Why Question the Military's JROTC Program?", Central Committee for
Conscientious Objectors.

(3) "The Children's Crusade" by Jennifer Wedekind, In These Times, June
3, 2005.

(4) "US Army Makes Surprise Claim: We're Endangering US High Schools",
Peacework Co-Editor Sam Diener previously served on the staff of the
Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. Bill Sweet, an AFSC and GI
Rights Hotline volunteer, contributed research to this article.

(5) "Army's New Special Operations Van Invading US Schools", American
Friends Service Committee.

(6) "War is Fun as Hell" by Sheldon Rampton, Alternet, August 2, 2005.

(7) "The Fragtastic FragDolls" by Danielle "Sachant" Vanderlip.

(8) There are several excellent organizations that offer more information
about military recruiting and marketing to youngsters. They include:

American Friends Service Committee.

Center on Conscience and War (NISBCO).

Leave My Child Alone (has downloadable forms to opt out of having a
child's contact information given to the military and to opt out of the
new Pentagon database).


[ED: JROTC has been StPaul public schools for several years. Every year
StPaul taxpayers pay more of the cost of recruiting cannon fodder for wars
to benefit the rich and corporations. We lend our moral authority to this
imperialist arrogance, killing, and racism. JROTC should be removed from
StPaul schools immediately. Unfortunmately, most StPaul public officials
want to duck this issue forever. A simple remedy for the duckers is to be
removed in the next election. This is no small issue that can be pushed
aside as irrelevant, as many of the school board candidates might like to
do. They keep ducking, and we keep killing so the rich can have another
gold-plated bathtub.]


--------27 of 27--------

 Brother, can you spare a dime?
 EY Harberg/Jay Gorney  (1932)

 They used to tell me I was building a dream
 And so I followed the mob.
 When there was earth to plow or guns to bear,
 I was always there, right on the job.
 They used to tell me I was building a dream
 With peace and glory ahead --
 Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

 Once I built a railroad, I made it run,
 Made it race against time.
 Once I built a railroad, now it's done --
 Brother, can you spare a dime?

 Once I built a tower, up to the sun,
 brick and rivet and lime.
 Once I built a tower, now it's done --
 Brother, can you spare a dime?

 Once in khaki suits, gee, we looked swell
 Full of that Yankee Doodle-de-dum.
 Half a million boots went slogging through hell,
 And I was the kid with the drum.

 Say, don't you remember they called me Al,
 It was Al all the time.
 Why don't you remember, I'm your pal --
 Say, buddy, can you spare a dime?


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
                     over 2225 subscribers as of 12.19.02
              please send all messages in plain text no attachments