The Declaration of Peace - Madison

9/28 - Madison Declaration of Peace 12 - Liars Started War; Why Trust Them To End It?

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 08:25:35 -0500

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Liars Started War; Why Trust Them To End It?
The Capital Times :: EDITORIAL :: A11
Thursday, September 28, 2006

Thursday, Sept. 21, marked the International Day of Peace established by the United Nations in 1981. This year it also marked the culmination of the Declaration of Peace campaign with 360 communities in all 50 states taking action to end the war in Iraq. (See www.declarationofpeace.org.)

Here in Madison a dozen people committed themselves to 27 hours of action. Some of us risked arrest by sitting in at Sen. Herb Kohl’s office, others of us handed out leaflets in front of his office on the Square, many of us fasted, and all of us spent hours solemnly reading the names of the thousands of U.S. military and Iraqi civilian deaths. In the evening we were joined by scores of people who came for a rainy candlelight vigil.

All day Friday people came up to Sen. Kohl’s office and wrote letters to tell him to “end the war.” Specifically we asked him to sign on to Sen. Tom Harkin’s bill that calls for a withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2006 and to the eight-point program set forth in the Declaration of Peace. Kohl still refuses to endorse a timetable for withdrawing our troops from Iraq. He insists it is the responsibility of the Bush administration — the same people who led us into this disastrous war — to determine when our troops should come home.

Why would a dozen ordinary people like us take time out of our busy lives to collectively put 324 hours into an effort to “declare peace”? Because we are tired of the lies that got us into the war and the fear that allows a small group of neo-cons, who now control the government, to make us give up our deepest values. And because we know that peace does not come by killing innocent people.

Democracy is not built at the point of a rifle. Security is not achieved by dropping bombs. Human rights are not honored by torture.

We have brought unimaginable death and destruction to Iraq, but this shameful war is also inflicting the same horror on us. Ironically, this past Friday, the 2,974th American soldier died in Iraq, thus surpassing the total deaths from the attacks of 9/11. Another 20,000 have been wounded, tens of thousands are returning from Iraq emotionally and spiritually scarred, and America’s moral authority is tattered.

Our children and grandchildren will be saddled with paying the economic cost of this war. The National Priorities Project says Congress has already appropriated over $316 billion for the war with no end in sight. Much-needed social and environmental programs will go unfunded because war profiteering and tax cuts for the super-rich are not the basis for a sound economy.

We declared peace and stood up for the America we believe in — an America that:

Lives out its ideals by being an equal partner in the community of nations — not by being a military superpower.

Deals with heinous crimes like 9/11 with the rule of law — not by waging pre-emptive war or engaging in torture.

Protects our national security by honoring civil and human rights for all — not by using illegal wiretaps and detentions, secret tribunals, and other unconstitutional procedures.

We acted because we believe in an America where “dissent is the highest form of patriotism” and we hope for the day when all citizens exercise their rights and responsibilities.

This column was submitted by area residents Joy First, Mary Beth Schalgheck, Steve Burns, Janet Parker, Daryl Sherman, Char Brandl, Susan Spahn, Todd Kummer, Jim Murphy, Jackson Tiffany, Jo Vukelich and Bonnie Block.

Your Name: Janet Parker

Your Email Address: janetparker8@yahoo.com

Link to Published Item: http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2006/09/28/0609280221.php

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9/28 - The Capital Times - Liars started war; why trust them to end it?

admin — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 11:23:23 -0500

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The Capital Times
Madison, WI
Guest column

Here in Madison, a dozen people committed themselves to 27 hours of action. Some of us risked arrest by sitting in at Sen. Herb Kohl’s office, others of us handed out leaflets in front of his office on the Square, many of us fasted, and all of us spent hours solemnly reading the names of the thousands of U.S. military and Iraqi civilian deaths. In the evening, we were joined by scores of people who came for a rainy candlelight vigil.

All day Friday, people came up to Sen. Kohl’s office and wrote letters to tell him to “end the war.” Specifically, we asked him to sign on to Sen. Tom Harkin’s bill that calls for a withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2006 and to the eight-point program set forth in the Declaration of Peace. Kohl still refuses to endorse a timetable for withdrawing our troops from Iraq. He insists it is the responsibility of the Bush administration - the same people who led us into this disastrous war - to determine when our troops should come home.

Democracy is not built at the point of a rifle. Security is not achieved by dropping bombs. Human rights are not honored by torture.

We declared peace and stood up for the America we believe in - an America that:

• Lives out its ideals by being an equal partner in the community of nations - not by being a military superpower.

• Deals with heinous crimes like 9/11 with the rule of law - not by waging pre-emptive war or engaging in torture.

• Protects our national security by honoring civil and human rights for all - not by using illegal wiretaps and detentions, secret tribunals and other unconstitutional procedures. We acted because we believe in an America where “dissent is the highest form of patriotism” and we hope for the day when all citizens exercise their rights and responsibilities.

Joy First, Mary Beth Schalgheck, Steve Burns, Janet Parker, Daryl Sherman, Char Brandl, Susan Spahn, Todd Kummer, Jim Murphy, Jackson Tiffany, Jo Vukelich, Bonnie Block

Published: September 28, 2006

Your Name: Scott

Your Email Address: scott@vcnv.org

Link to Published Item: http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/index.php?ntid=100678&ntpid=0

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Demanding An Exit From Iraq - Madison Capital Times 8/22

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 21:06:14 -0500

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Photo and caption from sit-in at Senator Herb Kohl’s office in Madison, Wisconsin - Sept 21 and 22.

See photo - pdf file

Your Name: Janet Parker

Your Email Address: janetparker8@yahoo.com

Link to Published Item: http://www.madison.com/tearsheet/pdf/2006/09/22/TCT/20060922-C-C-001--CN_-TCT--.pdf

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DoP editorial in The Capital Times paper - 8/21

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 21:02:43 -0500

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Wisconsin Foreign Policy
The Capital Times :: EDITORIAL :: A8
September 22, 2006

Arguably, the biggest lie in politics is the claim that foreign policy issues ought not be the concern of state officials.

When the United States engages in adventures abroad, the blowback always hits states. The $200 million-a-day cost of the Iraq war is paid out of a federal budget that is then “balanced” by cheating the states out of needed funding for education, health care and housing.

Legislators from the Madison area recognize that fact, and seven of them have added their names to the national Declaration of Peace campaign, which calls on Congress to get U.S. troops out of the quagmire in Iraq.

State Sens. Fred Risser and Mark Miller have joined Reps. Spencer Black, Terese Berceau, Joe Parisi, Mark Pocan and Sondy Pope-Roberts in signing the pledge. Black, an organizer of the legislative endorsement of the campaign, explained: “We believe the effort to achieve peace is essential to the well-being of our state and we want to show our support for bringing a quick end to the war in Iraq.”

What are the legislators and hundreds of other area residents signing onto?

The Declaration of Peace calls for:

The withdrawal of U.S. troops and all coalition forces.
No permanent U.S. military bases and installations in Iraq.
Support for an Iraqi-led peace process, including a peace conference to shape a post-occupation transition and an international peacekeeping presence if mandated by this peace process.
The restoration of Iraqi control over its oil resources and the political and economic life of the nation.
Reparations and reconstruction funding to address the destruction caused by the U.S. war and 13 years of sanctions.
Increased support for U.S. veterans of the Iraq war.
No so-called “preventive” war against Iran or any other nation.
The establishment of a “peace dividend” for job creation, health care, education, housing, and other vital social needs.

In considering which legislators merit re-election this fall, we’ll certainly consider the fact that these senators and representatives had the wisdom to recognize that the war is a state issue, and that opposition to the continued U.S. occupation of Iraq is the right position for Wisconsin and the nation. We hope that voters will be similarly inclined, just as we hope they will ask legislators who have not signed the Declaration of Peace to do so.

Your Name: Janet Parker

Your Email Address: janetparker8@yahoo.com

Link to Published Item: http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2006/09/22/0609220135.php

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Resistance Actions in Wisconsin Focused on Senator Kohl

admin — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 23:11:07 -0500

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Dear Friends,

We had very energized peaceful resistance actions in Wisconsin over the past two days. Lots of people participated and we got lots of good coverage, listed below. All of our Declaration actions focussed on Senator Kohl, urging him to sign on to the Declaration & the Harkin bill.

There were arrests at Kohl’s office in Milwaukee, and we occupied his office in Madison for 27 hours (they brought in federal marshals as we slept there overnight, then continued vigiling today), and activists in Eau Claire, La Crosse, and Appleton went to his offices too. In Madison about 20 core people participated for the 27 hours. We disrupted business as usual and risked arrest by reading names of the dead in Kohl’s office through the day. Some fasted for 26 hours. 50+ came to the candlelight vigil last night. We leafleted outside the office which is in a heavy pedestrian area on our state capital square. Many passersby took time to write to the senator (52 comment cards were written just today).

Below are links to some of the coverage.

Thanks to everyone for the work around the country so far, and the work to come next week!

Janet Parker, Joy First, and Steve Burns Madison, WI 608-257-2748

2 Wisconsin Public Radio stories Thursday about actions in Milwaukee and Madison:

Text of one story is below.

Listen to “Arrests In Milwaukee Peace Protests 09/22/06”
“Rally Held Pressuring Senator Kohl 09/22/06”

Big photo on front page of the local section today and summary caption in The Capital Times. Also an editorial there today congratulating our many state legislators who signed on to the Declaration during a press conference earlier this week.

Front page, above the fold story, yesterday in Wisconsin State Journal about Joy and other civil resisters in Wisconsin: (you can click on “virtual newsprint to see the photo etc

We did live interviews from Kohl’s office on our listener sponsored WORT radio last night and this morning, and an interview this morning on our local Air America affiliate too.

Wisconsin Public Radio story: Rally Held Pressuring Senator Kohl

By Brian Bull
Friday, September 22, 2006

(MADISON) In Madison yesterday, peace activists gathered outside Senator Herb Kohl’s office, to launch a 27-hour “Fast for Peace.”

About 15 people stood on the sidewalk, reading the names of the sixty Wisconsin soldiers who’ve died so far in the Iraq war. Organizers, including Janet Parker of the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, say Senator Kohl has been “recalcitrant” in taking a stance on the conflict. She says the group wants Senator Kohl to represent the people of Wisconsin, who overwhelmingly want to see the troops home by the end of the year. She says Iraqi citizens also believe that it’s time for the occupation to end. She says they want Senator Kohl to take a stand by signing on to legislation to bring the troops home.

The fast and a candlelight vigil is among 400 other national events planned this week to commemorate International Peace Day.

Kohl’s office has issued a statement saying the Democratic Senator has been critical of President Bush’s handling of the war, and that he supports a resolution stating to the Iraqi government that U.S. troops will not be there indefinitely.

On Thursday, police arrested four people who were blocking traffic outside of Kohl’s Milwaukee office in an act of civil disobedience.

Your Name: Scott

Your Email Address: scott@vcnv.org

Link to Published Item:

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Lives On The Line

admin — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 22:16:20 -0500

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Protesters Put Themselves At Risk As Civil Resisters Breaking The Law To Spur Social Change.

“It Felt To Me, As A 79-year-old, That I Should Stand Up And Speak Out.” Fred Brancel, Who Was Arrested And Sent To Prison After A Protest At The School Of The Americas In Georgia

Originally published in the Wisconsin State Journal :: FRONT :: A1
Thursday, September 21, 2006
by SANDY CULLEN

At age 79, Fred Brancel crawled under the sharp barbs of a wire fence at a controversial Army training camp and was arrested. Months later — just five days short of completing a three-month prison sentence — the former missionary awoke to find a razor blade stuck in his neck after offending a fellow inmate.

Though steadfast in his commitment to the principle of nonviolent resistance, the Monona resident struggles with whether he will break the law again to protest “the military-industrial complex about which President Eisenhower cautioned us.”

Brancel and others committed to nonviolent civil resistance say such extremes are necessary to shift public policy and spur social change.

“Our dissent has to be strong,” said Joy First of Monona, who has been arrested twice in Washington, D.C., and several times in Madison for nonviolent civil resistance in an effort to end the war in Iraq. “We’re trying to go up against the big powers in this country.”

First, 52, will participate in nonviolent civil resistance planned for today, International Peace Day, at the Madison office of U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, and Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, D.C., as anti-war activists push for Congress to end the war.

After attending two protests at the Army’s Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly called the School of the Americas, in Georgia, Brancel decided to take part in the nonviolent civil resistance at the annual vigil that drew an estimated 19,000 demonstrators last November. Critics say dictators, death squad leaders and others trained at the facility have tortured, raped and murdered hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans.

“It felt to me, as a 79-year-old, that the time was right and I should stand up and speak out,” said Brancel, who was among 41 protesters arrested at the school he associates with a growing national deficit and increasing economic disparity as a result of military spending.

Brancel, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday, said he was inspired by a church book study, where he read “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It” by Jim Wallis, who “wrote about changing the direction of the wind.”

The Conservancy Creek condominium Brancel shares with his wife, Mary Ann Litwiller, is decorated with peace doves and other artwork from their travels to Africa and South America.

His wife gave her “full support” for his action, said Brancel, who doesn’t know if he will repeat his resistance at the annual protest in November.

“Some of my closest relatives and friends feel there are better ways of using one’s time, and they might be right,” said Brancel, whose frailty of age is overshadowed by the strength of his beliefs shaped by nearly 20 years of missionary work in Zimbabwe, Zaire and Angola, where he was imprisoned for three months then deported.

‘It’s scary’

First, a mother of five grown children and grandmother of three, recently completed a doctorate degree in women’s studies at Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, and is eager to begin a new career working to prevent child sexual abuse. But before doing that, she is committed to working full time to end the war in Iraq.

“A shy, quiet kind of person” by her own description, First said she had to do a lot of “personal work and healing” to get “the strength to be able to go out in public and speak out strongly against the war.” She stepped into the realm of resistance as the possibility of war in Iraq surfaced.

First distinguishes civil disobedience, or breaking a law that is unjust, from civil resistance, which involves breaking a law that might be just in an effort to change public policy.

“It’s scary doing this. I don’t do this because it’s easy or it’s fun,” she said. “I feel I’m doing important things that need to be done.”

First was among 51 protesters arrested last March after scaling a fence Pentagon police erected to thwart their attempt to deliver an anti-war message to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The previous September, she was one of 371 arrested for sitting down outside the White House gate after hanging up posters of people who have died in the war following an unsuccessful attempt to meet with President Bush.

In Madison, First has joined others in blocking access to military recruiting stations and Truax Field, where the Wisconsin Air National Guard is headquartered.

All of First’s arrests have resulted in fines. “I hope I never have to go to jail,” she said. “If it comes to that … that’s what I will do.”

Resistance community

Longtime anti-nuclear activist Bonnie Urfer had to leave Madison to find the support she needed to live a life of resistance.

Urfer, 54, who has been arrested “close to 100 times” and has spent a total of about four and half years behind bars, now lives at Anathoth Community Farm in Luck, in northwest Wisconsin. The community is specifically designed to allow its nine members to do nonviolent civil resistance.

“It’s knowing that I have a home to go back to,” Urfer said.

Anathoth’s five homes are heated with solar energy and wood cut by community members, who make and sell maple syrup and grow much of their own food in a 2-acre garden, Urfer said. When one member is in prison, others pitch in to do their work.

Everyone in the community works a part-time job, but they keep their earnings below the poverty level to avoid paying taxes that support the military, said Urfer, who works in the office of Nukewatch, an environmental and peace action group based at Anathoth that works to abolish nuclear power and weapons.

“Everybody in that community has been in prison or jail at least one time,” said Urfer, who served six months in federal prison for sawing down three poles at a former Navy antenna site in northern Wisconsin in 2000, and an additional five months for refusing to pay restitution to the government.

“I don’t dwell too much on the consequences,” she said. “My decision is to do the action because it’s the right thing to do.”

Enormous consequences

The consequences of resistance can be enormous for both participants and those affected by their actions.

Mary Beth Schlagheck, a longtime Madison area peace activist, with her late husband, Jim, spent 15 years caring for seven children, six of them developmentally disabled, adopted by Helen Woodson after Woodson’s arrest for damaging the cover of a nuclear missile silo in 1984.

Woodson was sentenced to 18 years in prison — much longer than anyone had anticipated. Paroled in 1993, Woodson used an unloaded starter’s pistol to get money from a teller at an Illinois bank, then set the money on fire on the bank floor. She remains in a Texas prison after sending threatening letters to federal officials and pouring red liquid on a security station at a federal courthouse when paroled again in 2004.

“Within the movement, Helen is kind of an anomaly,” Urfer said. “She renounced her commitment to nonviolence, which is extremely unusual. In the movement in general, commitment to nonviolence is crucial.”

Like Brancel, Schlagheck, 68, remains faithful to the movement, though she has chosen not to participate in civil resistance.

“I think we have to think about in advance the consequences of an action when they relate to other people,” said Schlagheck, now married to John Marhoefer, who designed their Windsor home to allow sunlight to stream in through its high ceilings.

“I am not going to risk putting him at any emotional discomfort with what I might be doing,” Schlagheck said. “As people of resistance, the idea of turn-taking comes to mind.”

Instead of taking part in the nonviolent civil resistance planned for today, Schlagheck will be joining others in a 27-hour fast and vigil outside at Sen. Kohl’s office.

“We will be in solidarity with one another,” she said.

Peace vigil

A 27-hour fast and vigil calling for an end to the war in Iraq will take place today and Friday in front of the Madison office of U.S Sen. Herb Kohl.

The vigil will begin at 2 p.m. today on the sidewalk outside of Kohl’s office, 14 W. Mifflin St., with a candlelight observance from 7 to 10:30 tonight.

The fast and vigil will continue overnight at Grace Episcopal Church and resume outside Kohl’s office Friday morning, concluding at 5 p.m.

Your Name: Scott

Your Email Address: scott@vcnv.org

Link to Published Item: http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/wsj/2006/09/21/0609210021.php

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