Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 08.27.05

[David Shove (shove001]

            P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     08.27.05

1. Sensible vigil     8.28 12noon
2. A-Bomb survivor    8.28 1pm
3. GP candidate forum 8.28 2pm
4. Rights/soul food   8.28 4pm
5. Indian uprising    8.28 4pm
6. GPSP CC            8.28 4pm
7. Lavender Greens    8.28 7pm
8. KFAI/Farheen       8.28 9pm
9. World War 4/film   8.28 sundown

10. Dickinson meet    8.29 2pm
11. Cindy Sheehan $$$ 8.29 6:30pm
12. Cuban 5 release   8.29 7pm
13. Eyes open/plan    8.29 7pm
14. AI Augustana      8.29 7pm

15. Ralph Nader    - The privatization of our public universities
16. Karen Houppert - Who's next? The JROTC cancer spreads
17. Jeff Milchen   - Corporate power on ballot Q's subverts democracy
18. ed             - Broke? Sell your soul?

--------1 of 18--------

From: skarx001 <skarx001 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Sensible vigil 8.28 12noon

The sensible people for peace hold weekly peace vigils at the intersection
of Snelling and Summit in St. Paul, Sunday between noon and 1pm. (This is
across from the Mac campus.) We provide signs protesting current gov.
foreign and domestic policy. We would appreciate others joining our
vigil/protest.


--------2 of 18--------

From: David Brown <davidbrownxxxx [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: A-bomb survivor 8.28 1pm

In the spirit of reconciliation and peace, you are invited to attend a
very special forum Sunday August 28, at 1pm in the Mother Teresa Hall.
Ms. Sachiko Yasui, an atomic bomb survivor, and part of a delegation from
the Nagasaki peace office, will share her compelling story of living
through the atomic blast sixty years ago.  Please join us for a time of
recollection, reconciliation and peace.

The Basilica of St. Mary is located at the the corner of Hennepin and 17th
Street in downtown Minneapolis.  The Mother Teresa Hall is in the lower
level of the church.

---
From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>

Note from Lydia Howell: It's undeniable that white supremacy/racism is
embedded in American war-making and foreign policy. Perhaps, one of the
most grotesque examples is the United States being the ONLY country on
Earth to use nuclear weapons on CIVILIANS. In spite of continued arguments
that it was necessary to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
order to end WWII with fewer causalties - this is simply NOT true. The
Soviet Army was poised to invade Japan in Nov 1945 - a threat that was
moving the Japanese government to negotiate for peace when the bomb was
used. The ONLY thing holding up Japanese surrender was that they wanted to
be able to KEEP THEIR EMPEROR - rather like the various tricks the US
government has used to bomb both Iraq and Afganistan.

Currently, BushCo wants to build a new generation of nuclear weapons -
'mini-nukes" and massive "bunker busters". The latter have already been
used in Yugoslavia and Iraq (in both 1991 and current war):  depleted
uranium weapons used on CITIES qualifies as both a WMD and a war crime.
Hearing this survivior of the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima is a
reality-check that's essential.


--------3 of 18--------

From: Cam Gordon <CamGordon333 [at] msn.com>
Subject: GP candidate forum 8.28 2pm

Sun Aug 28: Green Party Candidates Forum, May Day Books, Minneapolis

Tired of the endless attempts to pick the public pocket for new stadiums?
Wonder why Big Corporatons get public subsidies - and them don't have to
comply with the living wage laws? Worried about housing?

The Green Party is fielding an impressive array of candidates for local TC
offices: Farheen Hakeem (Minneapolis mayor), Elizabeth Dickinson (St. Paul
mayor), and for Minneapolis City Council Cam Gordon, Dave Bicking and
incumbents Dean Zimmerman and Natalise Johnson Lee, plus, Annie Young for
Parks and Recreation.

Hear a breath of fresh air for making city goverment work for the rest of
us.

Weather permitting, outside on plaza. Snacks. Sun Aug 28, 2-3pm, May Day
Books, 301 Cedar Av S (basement Hub Bicycle, door frwy side of bldg), West
Bank, Minneapolis (612)333-4719 www.mngreenparty.org (Lydia Howell)


--------4 of 18--------

From: Welfare Rights Cmte II <welfarerights [at] qwest.net>
Subject: Rights/soul food 8.28 4pm

Fundraiser For Welfare Rights Please Come and Support

Re Fundraiser for Welfare Rights through the Headwaters Walk For Justice,
we are having a Soul Food Sunday on August 28 from 4-7pm at 4101 Oakland
Ave South the home of Kim Hosmer long time WRC member. This will be your
chance to have some real good southern food and here stories about the
Welfare Rights Committee struggles and some victories that were won in
this years legislative battle. So come out and support the Welfare Rights
Committee and make your stomach happy. Food will be prepared by Cooks for
a Cause!!! But if you can't make it and still want to donate check out our
website through Headwaters foundation at
http://walkforjustice.kintera.org/angel oh almost forgot please RSVP with
Angel Buechner at 612-964-8344

Welfare Rights Committee 310 E 38th St #207, Mpls MN 55409 ph:612-822-8020
fx: 612-824-3604 primary email - welfarerightsmn [at] yahoo.com secondary email
welfarerights [at] qwest.net


--------5 of 18--------

From: Chris Spotted Eagle <chris [at] spottedeagle.org>
Subject: KFAI/Indian Uprising 8.28 4pm

KFAI's Indian Uprising for Aug. 28th

Continuation - THE HEART OF WHITENESS: CONFRONTING RACE, RACISM AND WHITE
PRIVILEGE by Robert Jensen, Paperback, 124 pp. $9.07, City Lights Books,
publication date Sept. 30, 2005, www.citylights.com.  An honest look at
U.S. racism and the liberal platitudes that attempt to conceal it

White supremacy - The United States of America at the beginning of the
21st century­a century and a half after the end of slavery, four decades
after the passage of the Civil Rights Act­is a white-supremacist society.

By "white supremacist," I mean a society whose founding is based in an
ideology of the inherent superiority of white Europeans over non- whites,
an ideology that was used to justify the crimes against indigenous people
and Africans that created the nation.  That ideology also has justified
legal and extralegal exploitation of every non-white immigrant group, and
is used to this day to rationalize the racialized disparities in the
distribution of wealth and well being in this society.  It is a society in
which white people occupy most of the top positions in power- to non-white
people who fit themselves into white society.

That claim will strike many as ludicrous.  Yes, we may have some remnants
of racial inequality, and of course there are lingering racial tensions,
and it's true that there are still some white people who hold openly
racist beliefs.  But white supremacist?  The entire society?  How can one
make such a claim?

It's easy.  We can start with the numbers.  President Bill Clinton
promised us a national conversation on race in the 1990s.  The
conversation didn't get very far, but his Council of Economic Advisors for
the President's Initiative on Race did gather a large amount of data.
 They detailed how, on average, whites are more likely than members of
racial/ethnic minorities to: listed

Robert Jensen is the author of Citizens of the Empire. He is a professor
of Media Ethics and Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin,
rjensen [at] uts.cc.utexas.edu.

TERRORISM ON THE "RIDGE" - Janis Schmidt.  I have lived with the Lakotas
on the Pine Ridge Reservation for the last 14 years.  I am white, and do
not have a drop of Indian blood that I know of.  I have endured all the
injustices that have been inflicted upon the Lakotas by an oppressive and
arrogant U.S. Government.  Just like the Lakotas, when I turned for help,
I was told I didn't have any rights.

(Her son Damon, age 17, got into a political argument over Ollie North at
a party.  Damon said that North was no hero and the U.S. had no business
going down to Central America to murder the Indians.  The bunch
immediately ganged Damon, pinning him down while a self-styled Rambo
stabbed him to death, stabbing him over 200 times.)

I began writing about the wrongs committed by the U.S. Government through
the BIA and IRA Tribal Government.  As a result of these stories, which I
then sent to the local paper for publication, Lakotas began calling me to
help with their sons who were innocent of charges, yet found them in jail
awaiting sentencing or trial, for a felony crime they didn't commit.

In an effort to remove and silence me, the authorities had me evicted,
arrested, banned, and jailed, and all my property, house, belongings,
seized, all without a court order, warrant or hearing. And I kept writing,
telling their stories.

We got so many calls that we decided to form an organization called Lakota
Wawokiya Civil Rights Organization, courage [at] gwtc.net.  Our advisors and
mentors are Lavonne King, daughter of the late Matthew King, Teuton Sioux
Treaty man, and Mildred Hazel Thunder Bull, granddaughter of Thunder Bull
who was a holy man who danced with Sitting Bull.

* * * *
Indian Uprising is a one-half hour Public & Cultural Affairs radio program
for, by, and about Indigenous people & all their relations, broadcast each
Sunday at 4:00 p.m. over KFAI 90.3 FM Minneapolis and 106.7 FM St. Paul.
Current programs are archived online after broadcast at www.kfai.org, for
two weeks.  Click Program Archives and scroll to Indian Uprising.


--------6 of 18--------

From: David Shove <shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu>
Subject: GPSP CC 8.28 4pm

Green Party of St Paul
Coordination Committee (CC) meeting
4pm Sunday, 8.28
Cahoots Coffee House
Selby Av 1/2 block E of Snelling in StPaul


--------7 of 18--------

From: David Strand <mncivil [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Lavender Greens 8.28 7pm

Lavender Greens Endorsing Meeting
Sun August 28 at 7 pm
Loring Park COffee House and Wine Bar on the corner of Harmon and 13th,
1301 Harmon Place, 612-332-9094

Lavender Greens, interested glbtiq community members and interested

I would like to see as many of you there as possible this Sunday night to
help make decisions pronto so the candidates we want to endorse can get
our endorsement into their newspaper profiles and we can issue a press
release and start disseminating copies of our endorsements.

In the past, we have done questionaires and this has been advantageous as
many of the issues we raised in our questionaire last time have been
accomplished in the four years hence including making the city's domestic
partnership registry reciprocal so that couples who are registered or in a
civil union or married elsewhere enjoy all the rights the city has the
power to extend to them at this time and also opening the domestic partner
registry to nonresidents so folks who don't live in the city can enjoy the
few benefits offerred by the registry.

We should be proud of the fact that Minneapolis went from a place of
inertia concerning specific movement on glbtiq issues for nearly 10 years
to considerable engagement in glbtiq issues in part due to our efforts and
issues we raised.

The questionaire format can elicit response from candidates who we don't
endorse as well or who are not part of our party and therefore can have an
effect reaching beyond those we endorse as they set out agenda items to be
pursued if city officials are going to claim or want to be glbtiq
supportive.

Hope to see you there!!!  If you can't make it please forward your ideas
to the listserve here for questions.

In terms of St. Paul, the situation is a little different and the issues
are significantly different.  Chris Coleman endorsed Kelly when he first
ran for mayor despite Kelly's hostile record on glbtiq issues as a state
legislator being one of the things that denied Kelly the DFL endorsement.
Interestingly, many say the only way St. Paul has achieved a four
progressive majority on the city council (which enabled the repeal of the
city's crossdressing ordinance and passage of a city council resolution
opposing the constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage among other
things) was due to Chris Coleman leaving his seat and being replaced by
Dave Thune - (Chris supported the Chamber of Commerce Candidate who was
not particular friendly to glbtiq rights nor endorsed by the DFL).

Chris Coleman has consistently supported candidates in other races in St.
Paul who were too conservative to win the St. Paul DFL's endorsement and
generally not glbtiq supportive so it's interesting now that the Coleman
campaign is trying to use party loyalty to keep progressives and the
glbtiq community as supporters when Elizabeth is actually the only
progressive in the race and the only individual with a demonstrable
history of support and advocacy on glbtiq rights(and also the only
Green!!! :).


--------8 of 18--------

From: Samantha Smart <speakoutsisters [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: KFAI/Farheen Hakeem 8.28 9pm

Tune in to KFAI Radio for an in-depth interview with Farheen Hakeem - the
ONLY woman running for Mayor of Minneapolis!

Sunday, August 28
9-10:30pm

The Womanist Power Authority: A Radio Journal, with host Samantha Smart
90.3 fm in Minneapolis and 106.7 fm in St. Paul KFAI Radio without
boundaries


--------9 of 18--------

From: Amanda Luker <amanda [at] pinkslipmedia.org>
Subject: World War 4/film 8.28 sundown

Sunday, Aug 28, The Fourth World War will be shown for free behind Arise
Bookstore. Starts at sundown!

About the film: From the front-lines of conflicts in Mexico, Argentina,
South Africa, Palestine, Korea, 'the North' from Seattle to Genova, and
the 'War on Terror' in New York, Afghanistan, and Iraq. It is the story of
men and women around the world who resist being annihilated in this war.

While our airwaves are crowded with talk of a new world war, narrated by
generals and filmed from the noses of bombs, the human story of this
global conflict remains untold. The Fourth World War
<http://www.bignoisefilms.com/4ww/index.htm> brings together the images
and voices of the war on the ground. It is a story of a war without end
and of those who resist.

www.bignoisefilms.com/4ww

Arise Bookstore 2441 Lyndale Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55405
www.arisebookstore.org


--------10 of 18--------

From: ed
Subject: Dickinson meet/greet 8.29 2pm

Meet & Greet with Episcopal Homes Seniors
Monday August 29
2-3pm
Iris Park Commons, Parkside Room, 1850 University Avenue (at Fairview
Avenue), St. Paul


--------11 of 18--------

From: wamm <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Cindy Sheehan fund 8.29 6:30pm

Cindy Sheehan Fundraiser

Monday August 29, 6:30pm. Kenwood Isles, 1425 West 28th Street (Hennepin
Avenue and 28th Street) The McDonald Sisters and Sr. Marguerite Corcoran
invite you to attend a fundraiser to support Cindy Sheehan. Suggested
donation: $5.00-$50.00. FFI: Call the WAMM office at 612-827-5364.


--------12 of 18--------

From: "Erlinder, Peter" <perlinder [at] WMitchell.edu>
Subject: Cuban 5 release 8.29 7pm

Professors to Speak on Combating Bias During the "War on Terror"
The Curious Case of the Cuban Five

St. Paul, Minn. - Professor C. Peter Erlinder, William Mitchell College of
Law, will headline a presentation on the historic decision by the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals overturning the conviction of the Cuban Five.

"In the Eye of the Beholder: Combating Bias/Upholding Due Process During
the 'War on Terror'" will be held Monday Aug 29 at 7pm at William Mitchell
College of Law in the Auditorium, 875 Summit Avenue, St. Paul. Also
speaking at the event is Professor Gary Prevost, St. John's University.

The "Cuban Five" are admitted agents of the Cuban government who were
convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage and murder by a federal court
in Miami in 2001. The "Five" were in Miami gathering information on
private, anti-Cuban groups in Florida that had carried out acts of
violence in Cuba that were planned and launched from U.S. soil. High
ranking U.S. military officers testified that they had not engaged in
espionage directed at the U.S. military or other U.S. agencies. [Their
convictions became a rallying point throughout the world and have been
condemned by U.N. agencies and Human Rights Watch, as well as other human
rights organizations.]

Erlinder was a consultant to the Cuban government in developing the
appellate strategy and submitted an amicus brief to the court on behalf of
the National Lawyers Guild, which focused exclusively on trial court abuse
of discretion in failing to transfer the "Cuban Five" case out of Miami.
The Atlanta based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a 93-page decision
on Aug. 9, 2005, that overturned the convictions based solely on the fair
trial/change of venue issues raised in the NLG amicus brief. This decision
is historic because it is the first time that a federal circuit court of
appeals has reversed convictions solely on fair trial/change of venue
issues.

On Aug. 29, 2005, the issue of anti-Cuba "bias" during the War on Terror
also will be discussed in the context of the immigration proceedings to
determine the status of Luis Posada Carriles. This discussion will be led
by Prevost. Posada Carriles is a Cuban exile with alleged links to
numerous terrorist plots aimed at overthrowing the Cuban government and is
wanted by the government of Venezuela in connection with the 1976 bombing
of a Cuban airline that killed 73 people and for other serious crimes.
Surveillance of Posada Carriles and others like him was the mission of the
"Cuban Five." In the court's opinion on the "Cuban Five," it cited Posada
Carriles as "a Cuban exile with a long history of violent acts against
Cuba."

The program is free and open to the public. Application will be made for
1.0 Elimination of Bias Continuing Legal Education credit. The event is
sponsored by William Mitchell College of Law and the Minnesota Cuba
Committee. Directions to William Mitchell are at
http://www.wmitchell.edu/about/directions.html.

Media Contact: Trace Landowski, William Mitchell College of Law public
relations, (651) 290-6396 or tlandowski [at] wmitchell.edu


--------13 of 18--------

From: llgrahampeterson [at] stkate.edu
Subject: Eyes open/planning 8.29 7pm

American Friends Service Committee's acclaimed exhibit and memorial to
lives lost in the Iraq war and occupation, Eyes Wide Open, is coming to
the Twin Cities Sept. 29-Oct. 1.

Volunteers are needed for pre-event planning (logisitcs, programs,
publicity) as well as on-site assistance during the three-day event.  The
next two planning committee meetings are August 15 and 29 at the Twin
Cities Friends Meeting, 1725 Grand Av, St. Paul, at 7 p.m.  Come to one of
the meetings or contact Anne Benson at annebenson [at] msn.com or 651-699-6995
(press 2) to lend your assistance.  More information about Eyes Wide Open
and the Twin Cities event is at www.afsc.org/eyes/ The exhibit will be at
the College of St. Catherine St. Paul campus.


--------14 of 18--------

From: Gabe Ormsby <gabeo [at] bitstream.net>
Subject: AI Augustana 8.29 7pm

There are several local Amnesty International groups in the Twin
Cities area. All of them are welcoming and would love to see
interested people get involved -- find the one that best fits your
schedule or location:

Augustana Homes Seniors Group meets on Monday, August 29th, from 7-8pm in
the party room of the 1020 Building, 1020 E 17th Street, Minneapolis. For
more information contact Ardes Johnson at 612/378-1166 or
johns779 [at] tc.umn.edu.


--------15 of 18--------

Published on Saturday, August 27, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
The Privatization of Our Public Universities
by Ralph Nader

Soon millions of parents will be writing tuition checks for their children
at public universities, believing that they are paying much less than the
actual cost of an undergraduate education.

Tuition at these public institutions has been going up quickly in the past
decade, reversing the long-held public policy that tax monies should pay
for most of the tuition and the rest of the expenses of public higher
education. Quietly year by year, privatization of a public good has been
growing.

Public undergraduate tuition at schools such as the University of
California has almost reached a level beyond which parents may be starting
to subsidize teacher research and related graduate education. This is the
argument made by a retired professor of physics (UC Berkeley), Charles
Schwartz.

First a word about the remarkable Charles Schwartz. For over a decade this
scientist has volunteered thousands of hours pouring over the gigantic
multi-billion-dollar budgets of the University of California; most
recently he alleged secret, poor management of pension and endowment
funds.

University budgets have few faculty, student or alumni overseers. For one
thing they are very complex to understand; for another, the critical
breakdown details are either not there or are considered confidential.

Professor Schwartz, knowing and caring more than anyone else outside of
officialdom, has become the learned hair shirt of the University
Administration. He has pointed out many deficiencies in the annual budget
at public meetings with University officials and on his extraordinary
website (http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~schwrtz/). The University
reaction, with few exceptions, has been to ignore his protestations or to
dismiss his figures as attempting to disaggregate the cost of education in
a way that will be of little value.

Dr. Schwartz disagrees, in his usual meticulous manner, with a 16 page
paper (posted at
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/%7Eschwrtz/UndergradCost.html ). He
calculates the actual expenditure for undergraduate education at the
University of California as averaging $6,648 per student with the
parents-students paying 95% of that cost. By contrast, the University
officials say the average cost of such an education is $15,810 per
student.

He explains the discrepancy due to his disaggregating undergraduate
education from the whole bundle of academic functions, which includes
other levels of education plus faculty research. Unlike for graduate
education, he says there is very little connection between faculty
research and undergraduate education.

So why should anyone care about this, asks Professor Schwartz? Because the
state subsidy for UC undergraduate education is almost entirely replaced
by what students or their families are paying for tuition. And if student
fees continue to rise, as is widely expected, then tuition checks will
start subsidizing faculty research and related graduate programs. In
short, public university student tuition may start becoming like private
universities where cross-subsidies have been long standing.

After establishing his methodology, Dr. Schwartz lists several anticipated
objections and methodically responds to them. He then argues that student
tuition should not be permitted to rise above the actual cost of their
undergraduate education. Otherwise the undergraduate subsidy begins. "Such
a forced subsidization," he asserts, "is something that deserves a most
serious debate as a matter of public policy." He believes his research
methodology "should be applicable to any major [public] research
university."

Dr. Schwartz worries about an emerging vicious circle. As undergraduate
student tuition charges continue their annual increase, qualified lower
income students may not be able to afford them. With the shift to
admitting more students from more affluent families, the state
legislatures may reduce their state funding, which in turn will accelerate
the increase in student tuition. He calls this "a transition - the
privatization of undergraduate education at the Public Universities,"
leading to greater class stratification and reduced class mobility.

University administrators at Berkeley and elsewhere are not about to
change the bundled accounting system used by their financial managers. But
Professor Schwartz says there should be an open and honest debate about
these choices. "Our duty," he adds, "is to not allow it to remain hidden."


--------16 of 18--------

Who's Next?
by KAREN HOUPPERT
The Nation
[from the September 12, 2005 issue]

The US Army Recruiting Command has a motto: "First to contact, first to
contract." In the school recruiting handbook the Army gives to the 7,500
recruiters it has trawling the nation these days, the motto crops up so
often it serves as a stuttering paean to aggressive new tactics - tactics
that target increasingly younger students.

To make sure they are the first folks to contact students about their
future plans, Army recruiters are ordered to approach tenth, eleventh and
twelfth graders - repeatedly. Army officials spell out the rules of
engagement: Recruiters are told to dig in deep at their assigned high
schools, to offer their services as assistant football coachesd - or
basketball coaches or track coaches or wrestling coaches or baseball
coaches (interestingly, not softball coaches or volleyball coaches) - to
"offer to be a chaperon [sic] or escort for homecoming activities and
coronations" (though not thespian ones), to "Deliver donuts and coffee for
the faculty once a month," to participate visibly in Hispanic Heritage and
Black History Month activities, to "get involved with local Boy Scout
troops" (Girl Scouts aren't mentioned), to "offer to be a timekeeper at
football games," to "serve as test proctors," to "eat lunch in the school
cafeteria several times each month" and to "always remember secretary's
week with a card or flowers." They should befriend student leaders and
school staff: "Know your student influencers," they are told. "Identify
these individuals and develop them as COIs" (centers of influence). After
all, "some influential students such as the student president or the
captain of the football team may not enlist; however, they can and will
provide you with referrals who will enlist." Cast a wide net, recruiters
are told. Go for the Jocks, but don't ignore the Brains. "Encourage
college-capable individuals to defer their college until they have served
in the Army."

Army brass urge recruiters to use a "trimester system of senior contacts,"
reaching out to high school seniors at three vulnerable points. In the
spring, when students' futures loom largest, the handbook advises: "For
some it is clear that college is not an option, at least for now. Let them
know that the Army can fulfill their college aspirations later on."

Finally, recruiters must follow the vulnerable to college: "Focus on the
freshman class [there] because they will have the highest dropout rate.
They often lack both the direction and funds to fully pursue their
education." (Thus do decreasing federal funds for college complement
recruiters' goals.)

"The good [high school] program is a proactive one," the sloganeering
commanders remind. "The early bird gets the worm."

                 Junior ROTC - A Vital Feeder Stream

The Army, which missed its recruiting quotas in four out of the six months
ending in July for active-duty troops - and nine out of the past nine
months for the Army National Guard - is getting desperate. Still more than
16,000 recruits shy of its 2005 goal, and with disaffected teens plentiful
but skeptical, the Army brass has added 1,000 new recruiters to pound the
pavement - or linoleum hallways - in the past year. New Junior ROTC
(Reserve Officer Training Corps) programs are being introduced in high
schools across the country, and lately kids as young as 11 are being
invited to join pre-JROTC at their elementary and middle schools. The Army
has increased its recruitment campaign budget by $500 million this year,
and it is slated to introduce a new ad campaign in September emphasizing
"patriotism." (In the past, it has focused on job opportunities and
personal growth.) The Army hopes Congress will agree to a slew of new
signing benefits designed to raise average enlistment bonuses from $14,000
to $17,000 (with some recruits getting as much as $30,000 for hard-to-fill
specialties and some re-enlistment bonuses spiking as high as $75,000).

Sometimes the Army gets even more creative. On the sly, recruiters have
helped high schoolers cheat on entrance exams, fudge their drug tests and
hide police records, as the New York Times reported in May. The Times
expos revealed that the Army investigated 1,118 "recruiting improprieties"
last year, ranging from coercing young people to lying to them. It
substantiated 320 of these.

That such tactics are deemed necessary says a lot about the recruiters'
desperation despite their extensive opportunities to engage students at
both the college and high school levels. Recruiters' access to college
campuses has been protected since 1996 under the Solomon Amendment, which
ties federal funding to schools' willingness to permit recruiters on
campus. And the military is taking full advantage, especially at community
colleges, where students with fewer choices are more likely to consider a
military career. Now the military has gained free access to high schools
as well, under a little-known clause in the No Child Left Behind Act.
Nestled among florid tributes to education reform and clunky legalese is a
brief passage stating that all public schools are required to share
students' names, addresses and telephone numbers with recruiters. "They
have unrestricted access to kids in the schools, cafeterias and
classrooms," says Hany Khalil, an organizing coordinator at United for
Peace and Justice, a national antiwar coalition. "They've even brought
Humvees onto campuses to make the prospect of going to war seem sexy and
exciting."

And it works. Not necessarily for the white doctor's son in the suburbs,
who can see both Princeton and a Porsche in his future, but for low-income
urban youth. In fact, the fewer alternatives a young person has, the
better. "The military recruiters are especially targeting working-class
youth and communities of color," says Khalil. "These are the communities
that don't have access to good schools or good jobs, so it's easier to
take advantage of them." Khalil's comments are substantiated by Defense
Department population studies showing that most recruits are drawn from
lower socioeconomic backgrounds, that 43 percent come from the South
(while only 15 percent come from the more populous Northeast) and that
only 8 percent of new recruits come from families with a father or mother
in the "professions."

On college campuses a different set of tactics is employed - not always
with enough care about the truth of financial claims. "My son's recruiter
told us that his student loans would be paid in full if he joined the
Army," says Kathy Allwein, an administrative assistant in Lebanon,
Pennsylvania, whose 21-year-old son was in his third year of college and
constantly worried about the $19,000 student loan he carried when
recruiters approached him in 2003. Relieved by the promise of financial
help, he immediately signed on the dotted line. After serving ten months
in Iraq, he learned the Army would not be paying his loans, because
although they were procured through the Pennsylvania Higher Education
Assistance Agency, they were not technically government loans. "We didn't
even realize the difference, to be honest," says Allwein. "For a long time
the recruiter just told us to be patient and the loans would be paid for.
We've been very patient, but when the bill collectors start knocking on
the door, it gets a little scary."

Deceived and disillusioned, the Allweins are now getting mail from
recruiters trying to sign up their 16-year-old daughter. Fortunately,
Allwein, who opposes the Iraq War, has yet to answer the phone and find a
recruiter on the other end of the line: "I would tear them from limb to
limb," she says.

Seeking to further push recruitment among target populations, the military
is expanding its Junior ROTC - a longtime recruitment tool particularly
popular in the South and in urban minority communities. Describing JROTC
as "adventure training," the military is bringing it to ninety-one new
high schools next year. But JROTCs are already an integral part of the
formal curriculum in 1,555 high schools, in every state. Taught by retired
military - who may or may not have college degrees - the instructors bring
what the Army describes as "discipline, leadership training, military
history, marksmanship and rifle safety" to 273,000 high school JROTC
"cadets" today, up from 231,000 in 1999. Forty-five percent typically
enlist after the experience. With the cost of the JROTC teachers' salaries
shared by the military and the school district, it's a win-win situation:
Cash-strapped schools get bargain-rate teachers for a slew of additional
elective courses; the military gets inside the schools for one-on-one
contact with potential recruits. In some overburdened public school
systems, students are involuntarily placed in the program. Teachers and
students in Los Angeles, for example, have complained that high school
administrators are enrolling reluctant students in JROTC as an alternative
to overcrowded gym classes.

                   ASVAB - No Child Left Untested

To help high school students find "their rightful place," the Army's
standard recruiting tool is the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery
(ASVAB). High school juniors and seniors are encouraged to take this test
to "identify and explore potentially satisfying occupations." The Army,
which encourages high school career counselors to administer the test -
ideally, making it mandatory for all juniors or seniors - has stopped
spelling out the acronym in the past few years. Many parents and students
don't know what it stands for. Carefully described in literature and on
websites simply as a "career exploration program," the ASVAB, according to
the Army, is "specifically designed to provide recruiters with a source of
prequalified leads." Further, "It gives the recruiter the students' Armed
Forces Qualification Test scores, military aptitude composites, and career
goals. It identifies the best potential prospects for recruitment that
allows recruiters to work smarter." It also provides the recruiter with
"concrete and personal information about the student" - the better to
contact him or her repeatedly.

"My son scored in the top 1 percent of the ASVAB," says Lou Plummer of
Fayetteville, North Carolina. "When the recruiters got the scores we got
almost nightly calls for a while from the Air Force, the Marines, the Army
and the Navy." Plummer, an Army vet himself, encouraged his 17-year-old
son, Drew, to heed the recruiters' call and become the fourth generation
in their family to serve in the armed forces. "He was an obviously very
bright kid, but a slacker who was never into school," Plummer says. "I
thought this would be a good opportunity for him to learn a lot." Plummer
co-signed, since Drew was under age, and just weeks before the terrorist
attacks of September 11, Drew joined the Navy. (Drew has since been
"discharged other than honorably," after publicly protesting the US
involvement in Iraq, being disciplined for disloyalty as a result and
eventually going AWOL.) Lou Plummer has become an outspoken antiwar
activist, and he bristles when he continues to get calls from recruiters
for his 18-year-old daughter. His advice to similarly harassed parents?
"Tell recruiters your child is gay or lesbian," Plummer says. "I've heard
that works pretty well."

Meanwhile, confusion swirls around the rules for recruiters. Though
parents can sign an "opt out" form that prevents schools from giving out
information about their kids to recruiters, and students can decline to
take the ASVAB, few families know their rights. According to Arlene
Inouye, a speech and language specialist in the Los Angeles Unified School
District and a co-founder of Coalition Against Militarism in our Schools,
it's not unusual for students to be strong-armed into taking the test.
"It's a voluntary test, but students don't know that," she says,
describing a situation in which students at Fremont High in South Central
Los Angeles didn't realize it was a military test until they walked into
the room and saw the uniformed proctors. Nine students refused and were
suspended. Later, under pressure, administrators reconsidered and
reinstated the students. "A lot of people here are concerned about the
issue," Inouye says, "but don't know what to do about it."

Even those inside the military are worried about such tactics, with
critics suggesting that in the Army's rush to fill its ranks, it is
recruiting those who are ill qualified to serve. (And weeding out
poor-performing recruits just got a whole lot harder; in the spring, Army
brass moved the decision for discharge up the chain of command - a
transparent effort to stop the costly hemorrhaging of marginal recruits.)
The Army insists, however, that this is not the case. "No, we haven't
lowered the enlistment standards in any way," says Army spokesperson
Douglas Smith. According to Army figures for 1999, 90 percent of
active-duty recruits were high school grads and 63 percent scored in the
top half of the ASVAB; thus far in 2005, 90 percent are still high school
grads and 71 percent scored in the top half of the ASVAB.

                   Playgrounds and Parade Grounds

Today Chicago is the military's rising star. Cementing its reputation as
the public school system with the largest military program, it grew last
year to include 10,000 teen "cadets" in its elementary, middle and high
schools. Chicago has joined Florida and Texas in offering military-run
after-school programs to sixth, seventh and eighth graders; the city's
youngsters drill with wooden rifles and chant time-honored marching
cadences ("I used to date a high school queen/Now I lug an M-16," etc.).

But in Chicago, as in other cities and towns across the country, a
coalition of indignant parents, concerned teachers and savvy activists has
formed in order to draw attention to the issue. "The local school council
was asleep at the switch when the military after-school program was
proposed at Goethe Elementary School," says current Goethe school council
member Jim Rhodes, who successfully spearheaded a drive to eliminate the
program this year. "It didn't raise any red flags until one of the
teachers wrote an impassioned letter about how they were marching with
wooden guns and showing how attractive and fun the military could be, to
influence these kids to go into JROTC when they got to high school, and
then hopefully enlist after that." Even beyond its efforts to seduce kids
into the military, Rhodes worried about its educational value. "It was
sold to the parents in a presentation as a citizen and leadership
program," he said. "But it ended up just being about obedience."

Undaunted by opposition to the military's presence in the schools,
Chicago, which already has two military academies and a separate naval
academy for high school students, intends to add a second naval academy in
September. The new, 600-student Senn High Naval Academy will be jointly
run by the Navy and the city. In such schools students are typically
uniformed, and military bearing and discipline are required. Designed to
promote discipline, citizenship and values among troubled students, they
are seen as a solution to a problem for school districts and a pool of
potential recruits for the armed services.

JROTC spokesperson Paul Kotakis is quick to clarify that the initiative to
create such academies does not come from the military. "In some instances,
some academic institutions have decided that JROTC is so worthwhile that
they have made it mandatory," he explains. "So when all the students
attending the school are required to attend JROTC, the 'academies' are
created - and that is a decision made by the individual school, not the
Army."

But while school administrators, school boards and politicians may be
drawn to the discipline of the JROTC academies, some parents make it a
hard sell. When parents in Chicago got wind last year of school board
plans to open Senn, they mounted a campaign to stop it. Troubled by press
reports indicating that 18 percent of students in Chicago's three military
academies join the armed services upon graduation, hundreds of parents and
high school students crammed into a school board meeting to protest. But
the school board held firm. The members had the support of Chicago Mayor
Richard Daley. "I don't know why people are so upset about this idea of
discipline and this idea of military service," Daley told the Chicago
Sun-Times in December. "I believe in military academies all over this
city."

                Recruiting Parents - The New Headache

Meanwhile, whether the Army solicits 17-year-old recruits, who require
their parents' signature before enlisting, or those who've reached the age
of majority, parents - or "adult influencers," in Army parlance - are
proving a serious obstacle to recruiting goals. According to a November
2004 Defense Department poll, only 25 percent of parents said they'd
encourage their teens to enlist, compared with 42 percent two years ago.

"For the first time, our recruiters are having to really work not only
with the applicant but with their family members to explain why enlisting
is important not only for the applicant but for the country," says Army
Recruiting Command spokesperson Douglas Smith. When pressed by parents
about the issue of safety, Smith says, recruiters are forthright. "What
they can say is, the young man or woman enlisting is going to receive very
good basic and advanced training from the Army. And that Army basic
training is designed to prepare every soldier with basic combat skills so
they are trained to protect themselves and their fellow soldiers if
they're called upon." Recruiters reassure parents that even though the
nation is at war, the Army hasn't shortened training or taken any
shortcuts with gear or weaponry. "But it's an emotional issue," Smith
acknowledges. "And we can't give any guarantees of safety. And we can't
say anything to lead someone to think there is such a thing as a truly
safe occupation in the Army." In the end, a plea to patriotism seems best.
"Ultimately, there is no answer to parents but 'service to country,'" says
Smith.

Thus the Army Recruiting Command both tiptoes around the issue of a
dangerous war in Iraq and simultaneously insists that American parents
need to face the facts and to ante up their children. "What I think we've
got to do is articulate to the nation that we're at war, and this is a
global struggle, this is a generational struggle," Defense Department
spokesperson Col. Gary Keck told the Army Times in June. "It's not going
to be over in two years. It's going to be with us for many years."

Of course, this message is the opposite of the one the Bush Administration
has been sending. Until his June speech at Fort Bragg - in which for the
first time he pleaded for recruits by reminding "those watching tonight
who are considering a military career [that] there is no higher calling
than service in our armed forces" - Bush spent a lot of time downplaying
the sacrifices this war would exact from Americans.

The conflict between the military, which would like Bush to turn up the
volume by regularly reminding Americans that we are at war and that war
requires sacrifice, and the Administration, which is concerned with the
political need to minimize the war's costs, is reflected in the recent
linguistic debate over whether to continuing calling the current state of
affairs a "war on terror" (President Bush) or to shift to broader, less
militaristic terms like the "global struggle against violent extremism"
(Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld). Though the latter was clunky, it
reflected Rumsfeld's response to the Iraq War's decreasing popularity: to
recast it as one aspect of an international "struggle" against not just Al
Qaeda but all "Islamic extremists." The use of the term "struggle" has the
bonus of sounding less violent and more inclusive of nonmilitary tactics.
But just as Rumsfeld hopes to fudge things - we're not "at war" per se,
just "struggling" - a casualty rate of 18,745 dead and wounded makes it
harder to bury the cost of this "struggle."

Historically, what has made Americans willing to sacrifice their lives -
or let their children do so - has been the certainty that military action
is both unavoidable and necessary to achieve some greater good. Bush tried
to make this point in his Fort Bragg speech. "We live in freedom because
every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater
than themselves," he said. But the current "struggle" in Iraq is a hard
sell; and the current struggle to meet recruiting goals reflects that.


[ED: This is being done because the rich insist on cannon fodder to kill
and die for more golden bathtubs for themselves. Why are poor people born?
To kill and die for the rich. Why are the rich born? To take possession of
everything, including the lives of everyone else.

StPaul has had JROTC for some years. Stamp out this cancer NOW.]


--------17 of 18--------

Published on Thursday, August 25, 2005 by ReclaimDemocracy.org
Corporations' Power to Influence Ballot Questions Subverts Democracy
by Jeff Milchen

After battling city officials all the way to the Utah Supreme Court over
whether they had collected enough petition signatures to force a
referendum, it seems the residents of Sandy, Utah will become the latest
in a growing number of communities to decide the fate of controversial
"big box" stores at the ballot box.

In a state where growth control often is equated with communism, the court
came down firmly on the side of citizens seeking to prevent Sandy's City
Council from rezoning industrial land in order to allow a new Wal-Mart and
Home Depot. The court's 5-0 ruling in July said, "The exercise of the
people's referendum right is of such importance that it properly overrides
individual [corporation's] economic interests." But after winning their
initial battle, Sandy residents may find the court's Jeffersonian words
hollow.

Why? The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled corporations have a "right" to spend
unlimited corporate funds to influence ballot questions. As citizens in
dozens of communities have learned, that power enables giant corporations
to turn ballot measures -- theoretically the purest form of democracy --
into yet another sphere of corporate dominance.

In May, Wal-Mart spent almost $400,000 in Flagstaff, AZ to run its own
ballot initiative and reverse a size cap on big box stores previously
passed by the city council. The company outspent the size cap's defenders
three to one -- a whopping $44 for each vote it received -- en route to
winning 51% of the vote.

Wal-Mart's ad campaigns painted the size cap as a union and governmental
attack on citizens' rights, including an ad that equated opponents with
Nazi book-burners. A backlash resulted, but came after most of mail-in
ballots were cast.

Becky Daggett of Friends of Flagstaff's Future, which supported efforts to
uphold the size cap, said the corporate funding "drove what should have
been a community debate and determined the outcome of a local decision."

The story isn't unique -- just two months earlier in Bennington, VT,
Wal-Mart had steamrolled citizens who tried to defend the town's big-box
size cap.

This is hardly what the authors of our Constitution had in mind.

When American colonists declared independence from England, they also
freed themselves from control by corporations like the East India Company
that extracted colonists' wealth and dominated trade. The colonial
experience bred fear of concentrated power in the hands of corporations as
well as despots, leading states to limit corporations' size, lifespan, and
range of activity. In most states, corporations were forbidden to spend
any money to influence elections or law-making.

Corporations escaped many of those barriers during the 1800s, aided by the
distraction and growth opportunities of the Civil War. By the end of the
century, the Supreme Court's judicial activism had invented a concept that
would have shocked American revolutionaries.

Ignoring the fact that corporations' are unmentioned in our Constitution,
the Court interpreted the 14th Amendment's guarantee of ":due process of
law" -- written to protect the rights of freed slaves -- to make
corporations legal "persons".

It took almost another century, however, before another episode of Supreme
Court activism effectively created a corporate "right" to dominate ballot
initiatives and referenda (initiatives are questions placed on the ballot
via signature gathering among the general public, referenda are questions
on which the government chooses to allow a popular vote).

The man who went on to write that key ruling gave fair warning of his
bias. In 1971, he wrote a famous memo to a friend at the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, urging the Chamber to aggressively expand big business' power,
noting, "the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social,
economic and political change."

One month later President Nixon appointed the memo's author, Lewis Powell,
to the Supreme Court, where he went on in 1978 to make his political
opinion the law of the land, writing the (5-4) majority opinion in First
National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti that created a new class of corporate
political "speech"

Notably, such decisions on expansion of corporate political power don't
necessarily follow left-right political divides. Indeed, Chief Justice
Rehnquist has repeatedly attacked the invention of corporate
constitutional rights. In his dissenting opinion from Bellotti, he warned
of "special dangers in the political sphere" that result from granting
political power to corporations (his full dissent is well worth a read).

Despite Rehnquist's objections, corporate executives have since wielded
vastly expanded power over communities around the country. Often, the mere
threat of running a costly ballot initiative intimidates local governments
into weakening controls over corporate activities.

So when the citizens of Sandy go the voting booth this fall, they'll
battle against a company that spent less than sixty seconds worth of
corporate revenue to defeat a skilled and well-organized citizen effort in
Flagstaff. Whether or not we're concerned by the proliferation of big box
stores, we all should be alarmed by this perversion of democracy.

The reasons that drove our country's founders to keep business creations
subordinate to democracy are even more compelling today. Until we return
corporate activity to "strictly business" and revoke their ill-gotten
political power, the power of a Wal-Mart typically will trump even the
most committed citizen efforts.

Community-level fights will continue and I wish people of Sandy the best,
but the crucial battle -- one to determine whether citizens or
corporations will control the future of our communities and country --
must take place nationwide.

Jeff Milchen directs ReclaimDemocracy.org, an organization working to
restore citizen authority over corporations. Their resource library on
corporations and ballot questions has much more on this topic.


--------18 of 18--------

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