The Capital Times
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Rev. Jerry Hancock
"Should the death penalty be enacted in the state of Wisconsin for cases involving a person who is convicted of first-degree intentional homicide, if the conviction is supported by DNA evidence?"
This is the question on the ballot for Nov. 7. In the past couple of months, I have been asked to speak several times as a lawyer and a minister about this issue. Here is what we know about the death penalty:
We know that the death penalty is constitutional. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court banned the death penalty as it was then administered by states. In 1976, after states implemented legislative changes, the court reinstated the death penalty.
We know the death penalty is currently legal in 39 states.
We know the death penalty is administered in a variety of ways including lethal injection, the electric chair, the gas chamber, firing squad and hanging.
We know that in 1853 Wisconsin outlawed the death penalty.
We know the death penalty is ineffective in deterring crime. Studies comparing regions of the country have found that the South, in which most executions occur, has the highest murder rate. As a group, states that have the death penalty have a 42 percent higher murder rate than states that do not.
We know the death penalty is unpredictable. It varies from state to state, county to county, judge to judge, jury to jury, black to white and rich to poor.
We know the death penalty is profoundly racist. The majority of people currently on death row are either black or Hispanic. Also, in a process called "black victim discounting," people are three times more likely to be sentenced to death for killing a white person than for killing a black person.
We know the death penalty is not justified by traditional legal standards. The law allows the taking of a life in self-defense or defense of another when no other option is available. Since life without parole is an option, the self-defense justification does not apply to the deliberate decision of a state to choose death over the available option of life in prison.
We know the death penalty is contrary to Christian traditions. The Bible, of course, is used on both sides of this debate. But I think it is most helpful to look at God's own mercy toward three high-profile murders: Cain (Genesis 4:8-17), Moses (Exodus 2:11-15) and David (1 Samuel 11:1-21). Also, given Jesus' love for the poor and oppressed, it is hard to believe that he would abandon those on death row.
We know that the death penalty kills innocent people. Since 1973, over 115 innocent people in 25 states have been released from death row.
I think most people know all this. They know that the death penalty is ineffective, racist and unpredictable, and kills innocent people.
But many people still support the death penalty because they think some crimes are so terrible that the people who commit them deserve to die and that we can fix the problems in the system.
They believe that we are smart enough to find a system that ensures we will be safer, that will be predictable, that will eliminate the current racist imbalance, and that will guarantee that an innocent person will never be put to death.
But there is one more thing we know. We know that for the past 30 years we have tried and failed to find a fair way to implement the death penalty. After all that time we are left with an ineffective, racist, unpredictable system that kills innocent people.
What is obvious is that any fair system for killing people in the name of the state of Wisconsin is simply beyond our capacity to design.
As a minister, I would not presume to tell you how to vote on this issue. I will tell you that to believe that the death penalty can be used in a way that is fair and foolproof is sinful human arrogance.
\ The Rev. Jerry Hancock is director of the Prison Ministry Project at First Congregational United Church of Christ and is an attorney who formerly worked for the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
Wisconsin State Journal
Sunday, October 1, 2006
DAVID CRARY Associated Press
When it comes to statewide votes on gay marriage across the United States, the score so far is 20-0 in favor of keeping it a one-man, one-woman institution.
If there's a chance to break the streak on Nov. 7, it might be in Wisconsin, where activists believe that support from unions, college students and church leaders -- coupled with hoped-for conservative apathy -- could enable them to finally overcome the string of losses.
Among the hopeful are Debbie Knepke and Candice Hackbarth, devoted partners for nine years, raising a 3-year-old daughter and 7-month-old son in a pleasant Milwaukee neighborhood. They have joined some 8,000 other volunteers in a bid to defeat a proposed state constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and civil unions.
"It makes us mad that the Christian conservatives are so against us," said Knepke, 41. "If they came into our house, they'd find we're no different from anybody else. We're every single thing they consider good parents to be."
Eight states will vote on ban-gay-marriage amendments in November, following 20 that previously approved such measures. Passage is considered certain in Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota and Tennessee, but gay-rights strategists believe their side is at least competitive in Arizona, Colorado, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Supporters of banning gay marriage remain confident of victory, but optimism also is high in the ranks of Fair Wisconsin, a coalition fighting the proposed amendment since it surfaced in the Legislature in 2004. Large labor unions, many religious leaders, and top Democratic officials -- including Gov. Jim Doyle -- have spoken out against the measure.
"This could be the state where we beat this thing," said Fair Wisconsin campaign chief Mike Tate. "I'm not saying it's easy, but we've got the right ingredients on the table."
Tate believes the issue -- which helped motivate conservative voters in 2004 -- is no longer fueling the same urgency, possibly diminishing conservative turnout. One reason is recent court rulings in New York and Washington state against same-sex unions, leaving Massachusetts as the only state allowing gay marriage.
The head of the rival campaign, Julaine Appling of Vote Yes For Marriage, said her side may wind up being outspent and out-advertised, but she believes Fair Wisconsin's confidence is misplaced.
"It's a gross misunderstanding of the people of Wisconsin," she said. "They are good solid stock. They understand that marriage is a good public institution -- it's appropriate to protect it as the union of a man and a woman exclusively."
Among those opposing the amendment is Sue Werblow, 60, a longtime Oshkosh School Board member whose three children include a gay son now practicing law in Seattle.
"I would hope and pray people will stand up for nondiscrimination in our constitution, but it's anybody's guess," she said. Her son, observing from afar, "thinks we're going to lose this battle."
Kathleen Mentink, a college instructor in Eau Claire who favors the amendment, said most people in her area share her position, "but it's a quiet support." Some voters, she suggested, have been wary of revealing pro-amendment views for fear of being depicted as narrow-minded.
Debbie Knepke finds it hard to be dispassionate. Because the children she helps raise, Sienna and Nolan, were borne by Hackbarth, Knepke has no legal standing as a parent and fears passage of the amendment would dim her chances of ever gaining such recognition.
"It's the living in fear of what might happen," she said, fighting back tears. "I can't imagine, if something happened to Candy, that I would not have my children."
The campaign has divided Milwaukee's black community. U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore is among several black leaders opposing the amendment, while the "Yes" campaign has recruited a cadre of black pastors who are urging their congregations to support it.
Moore, a single mother, vehemently objects to the second sentence of the amendment, which would ban civil unions and other legal arrangements "substantially similar" to marriage. She worries that such terminology could spawn litigation challenging all sorts of informal family relationships, including benefits her own children have received from their father.
Appling insists that domestic partnership benefits will not be barred as long as they don't parallel marriage rights.
Other battleground states
In addition to Wisconsin, three other states -- Arizona, Colorado and Virginia -- are viewed by gay-rights strategists as having closely contested campaigns this fall over proposed constitutional amendments that would ban gay marriage and civil unions. A brief look at the campaigns:
ARIZONA: If this election is close, it will be because of a section of the proposed amendment that would bar local governments and state-run schools from recognizing any relationship similar to marriage, such as civil unions or domestic partnerships.
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, among others, has criticized the measure, saying a ban on domestic partnerships could hurt the city's ability to recruit skilled employees.
Bruce Merrill, a pollster and political scientist at Arizona State University, says roughly two-thirds of Arizonans favor limiting marriage to one man, one woman, while an almost equally large majority support domestic partnerships.
He suggested some Arizonans oppose the amendment simply because they view it as government intrusion into private matters.
"If there's a frontier mentality left, it's in Mountain States," he said. "There's an attitude of, Leave us alone.' "
COLORADO: This campaign is unprecedented because, in addition to the ban-gay-marriage ban, there is a separate measure put on the ballot by gay-rights supporters that would establish the legality of domestic partnerships providing same-sex couples with many of the rights of married couples.
Both measures could be approved, both could lose, or one could prevail but not the other.
The showdown has drawn some large contributions -- $500,000 for the marriage ban from the political arm of the Colorado Springs-based Christian ministry Focus on the Family, and an even larger sum for the domestic-partnership measure from a foundation overseen by software millionaire Tim Gill, a major backer of gay-rights causes.
VIRGINIA: Recent polls show Virginia's ban likely to win approval, but opponents have mounted a strong campaign, raising more than twice as much money through August as the ban supporters.
Opponents of the measure include Democratic Gov. Timothy Kaine, who says some of its provisions might impede legislators if they wanted to extend legal recognition to unmarried couples in the future.
The Capital Times
Monday, October 2, 2006
Beryl Gribbon Fago, Evansville
Dear Editor: Democracy means government "of the people, for the people, by the people." Rep. Brett Davis, R-Oregon, has voted 95 percent of the time with the Republican agenda. I believe that Davis does not work for us. He has allowed his party to table issues on health care, and investigations into government ethics. He supported TABOR, which would remove tax control from the hands of local communities.
Davis voted for the patient abandonment bill, which would have allowed health care providers to withhold vital information from patients, even when a woman's life depended on it, and would have allowed providers to deny a patient referral or transfer to another doctor if they feel the proposed treatment is against their religious beliefs. Luckily, Gov. Doyle vetoed this bill.
Davis also voted against bringing the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Bill to the Assembly floor for a vote. This bill would require hospital emergency rooms to offer rape victims information about and access to emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy. I spoke with Davis about emergency contraceptives and he thought that if a woman was careless enough to become pregnant then she should suffer the consequences. So I guess if your wife or daughter gets raped it's poor planning on their part.
I'm voting for Janis Ringhand. She will listen to your concerns and work for your interests to ensure that Wisconsin is a good place to live and do business.
The Capital Times
Monday, October 2, 2006
JOHN E. PECK
When Tommy Thompson gave his farewell speech as outgoing secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under President Bush in December 2004, he shocked many by admitting he couldn't understand why terrorists had not attacked our food supply yet, since it would be so easy to do. Little did he realize that the worst threat to U.S. agriculture is homegrown.
After a decade of repeated outbreaks and warnings, vegetable growers in the Salinas Valley of California are now reaping a deadly harvest. More than 183 people nationwide have fallen victim to the deadly O157:H7 strain of E. coli bacteria, with one death confirmed in Wisconsin, and a voluntary recall of bagged spinach is now under way.
While distant D.C. officials say it is still OK to eat suspect spinach after cooking it at 160 degrees for 15 seconds, those California health experts on the ground are telling consumers to throw it all out. Recent budget and staff cuts at the federal level have left the majority of food safety inspection and enforcement in the hands of city, county and state agencies. Ironically enough, the Bush administration is now trying to railroad through Congress the National Uniformity for Food Act, which would take away this local control over food safety and labeling.
Infectious disease specialists such as Professor Lee Riley at the University of California-Berkeley are right on target when they remark that such food-borne outbreaks do not occur in Africa or Asia, since this type of disaster was basically created by corporate agribusiness practices.
Academic studies have shown time and again that livestock force-fed grain in confinement have up to 300 times more pathogenic bacteria in their system as compared to cows allowed to freely graze on grass outdoors. And one of the dirty little secrets behind California's new-found status as the No. 1 dairy state is that it is literally awash in factory farm manure, which enters as runoff into channels designed to irrigate vegetables and blows as clouds of dust onto nearby produce fields.
It was actually under President Clinton that food safety began to take a real nosedive in the United States, as genuine public oversight shifted to ineffectual feel-good self-policing programs. Demoralized federal inspectors derided the new Hazardous Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) proposal as "Have a Cup of Coffee and Pray."
Under Bush, this dangerous deregulation of our food/farm system has only accelerated. Attempts by agribusiness lobbyists and government insiders to downgrade federal organic standards to allow the application of sewage sludge were only narrowly driven back by a massive grass-roots outcry.
Unfortunately, proper manure disposal rarely occurs in large-scale livestock confinement operations. The upshot is a nightmarish landscape of leaking lagoons, tainted wells, fish kills, debilitated farm workers and poisoned food -- all too reminiscent of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," written a century ago.
Whether it is bacteria lurking in the salad greens, genetically contaminated long-grain rice or a T-bone steak with mad cow disease, sitting down to dinner in the 21st century should not be such a gauntlet. When consumers in more than 20 states get sick from spinach grown in just one California county, it should serve as a wake-up call that we all need to reclaim and re-localize our food dollar by investing in sustainable small-scale agriculture instead.
Both the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture deserve a reminder that their public mandate is to safeguard our nation's farming system and natural heritage -- not to guarantee agribusiness profit.
Our entire agricultural system deserves a thorough democratic cleansing with consumer right-to-know labeling, tough antitrust action, corporate liability measures, and serious incentives for viable alternatives.
Consumers and farmers should be able to know, trust and support one another again, rather than having to dwell in fear of just what reckless free trade and filthy factory farming will bring next.
Wisconsin State Journal
Monday, October 2, 2006
JOHN E. PECK
The deadly E. coli outbreak in bagged spinach should make us rethink our farming practices and reinvigorate our regulatory system.
Food-borne outbreaks are due, in part, to corporate agribusiness practices, according to infectious disease specialists like Professor Lee Riley at the University of California-Berkeley.
"We don't see this disease in India, Africa, China. We only see it in highly technologically advanced countries, and the reason is because of this highly centralized food-processing system," Riley recently told the San Francisco Chronicle.
For instance, livestock that are force-fed grain in confinement have up to 300 times more pathogenic bacteria in their guts compared to grass-fed cattle, according to researchers from Cornell University. Other studies have found similar results.
California, which boasts of its new status as the No. 1 dairy state, is awash in factory-farm manure. This manure enters the food chain when it runs off into channels designed to irrigate vegetables or when it blows onto nearby produce fields.
Unfortunately, proper manure disposal rarely occurs in large-scale livestock confinement operations. The upshot is a nightmarish landscape of leaking lagoons, tainted wells, fish kills, debilitated farmworkers and poisoned food.
Food safety began to deteriorate in the United States under President Clinton. Public oversight shifted to ineffectual, feel-good self-policing programs. Under President Bush, this deregulation of our food and farm system has only accelerated.
Recent budget and staff cuts at the federal level have left the majority of food-safety inspection and enforcement in the hands of city, county and state agencies. Ironically, the Bush administration is now trying to railroad through Congress the National Uniformity for Food Act, which would take away this local control over food safety and labeling.
Whether it is bacteria lurking in salad greens, genetically contaminated long-grain rice or a T-bone steak with mad cow, American consumers have to run a gauntlet before sitting down to dinner.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture deserve a reminder that their public mandate is to safeguard our nation's farming system -- not to guarantee the profits of agribusiness.
When consumers in more than 20 states are affected from spinach grown in just one California county, it's time to recognize that we need sustainable, small-scale agriculture, as well as tough regulations on producers.
Our agricultural system deserves a thorough democratic cleansing with consumer right-to-know labeling, tough antitrust action, corporate liability measures and serious incentives for viable alternatives.
We must safeguard our food supply not just from terrorists, but from dangerous farming practices.
Wisconsin State Journal
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
State Journal staff, Associated Press
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and Republican challenger U.S. Rep. Mark Green faced off on everything from manufacturing to stem-cell research Tuesday at a dinner for Madison's business elite, but only a pair of social issues -- gay marriage and abortion -- drew a strong response from the crowd.
Doyle and Green, a congressman from Green Bay, touted their records on taxes, worker training and other meat-and-potatoes issues for businesses to the 1,200 people at the annual Madison Area Chamber of Commerce dinner.
Doyle won applause when he noted the chamber had come out against a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 7 ballot that would ban gay marriage and civil unions in Wisconsin, saying the ban would do little "except make Wisconsin a less welcoming place to live and do business."
Green, who supports the ban, did not mention it in his speech. The state's largest business lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, has not taken a stance on the proposed ban.
Doyle also noted a variety of issues on which he differs with Green, including the carrying of concealed weapons (Green's for it, Doyle isn't) abortion (Doyle is pro-choice, Green isn't), and embryonic stem-cell research (Doyle is for it, Green favors focusing the research on cells from adults).
Green, on the other hand, mentioned Doyle only once in his address, which focused more on the broad themes of his campaign.
Green said too many people in their 20s are leaving Wisconsin, the tax burden needs to be lowered, and higher education needs to be accessible and affordable to residents. He also reiterated his support for reforming the state's liability laws and pushing for more funding for research.
Doyle touted the University of Wisconsin System, highlighted his record in office and said his administration has had success in fostering job creation and attracting companies to locate and expand in the state.
While it wasn't a debate, the topics the candidates hit on will almost certainly be covered again Friday when Doyle and Green meet for their second televised debate. There is no declared topic for the event in Milwaukee. The candidates will be quizzed by a panel of journalists.
Doyle and Green have a third and final debate scheduled for Oct. 20 in La Crosse.
Nelson Eisman is also running for governor on the Wisconsin Green Party ticket but was not invited to the debates or the chamber dinner.
The tight race between Doyle and Green has attracted millions of dollars in donations and national attention. The latest poll, conducted two weeks ago by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, showed Doyle with a 5 percentage point lead.
The Capital Times
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Daniel J. "Jim" Guilfoil Monona
Dear Editor: In 1955-56 I was a student at the University of Munich. Parts of Munich were still in rubble: the opera house, the underground, etc. I would ask folks around the university about living in an authoritarian police state and how that could happen in an enlightened German culture.
The common answer was that Germany needed to regain its pride after the war and that Bolshevik and other factions were tearing up the country. National Socialism seemed benign at first, but by 1935 or so it was too late. The apparatus of the state had been taken over.
I believe that this is happening today in the United States. McCarthyism was an effort to use the fear of communism to instill a sense of U.S. exceptionalism in the country and to turn the republic into an authoritarian state. The fear of the other, now called terrorism, is being used to scare enough people so that politicians of both parties are willing to use the techniques of the police state to "protect" democracy.
Profiling of illegal immigrants, eavesdropping on our privacy, invading our libraries, rendering and torturing, pre-emptively attacking other countries, rejecting international law and treaties, enlarging the concentration camp in Guantanamo, and preaching endlessly about "homeland" security -- electoral politics is being used to divide the country into "us and them," patriots and those who support the terrorists.
I have notified my congresspeople that I am withholding tax payments as a beginning effort, a way to remind myself that my conscience is the most important thing in my life. I cannot change the country, but I must change myself. I hope your paper will urge your readers to do what they can to protect themselves from what is happening.
The Capital Times
Friday, October 13, 2006
State Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, said she was shocked to learn that she had been named 2006 Stateswoman of the Year by the Wisconsin Women's Network.
We weren't.
Berceau has been a champion in the fight for equal protection under the law for all Wisconsinites, but particularly for women. And she has shown courage that is rare in the current Legislature, taking on fights that others -- even other liberal Democrats -- avoid.
Berceau's recent effort to repeal an outdated and unused state law that outlines fines and prison terms for women who seek abortions and for doctors who perform them is a good example of that courage. So too are her bills to ensure responsible school health education, birth control availability, and sensitive care for rape victims.
In a Legislature where most Republicans want to make it illegal for women to make basic choices about their lives and their bodies, and where many Republicans are afraid to wade into fights over hot-button issues, Berceau has, in the words of women's network Vice Chairwoman Sharyn Wisniewski, been "a crusader" for women's rights.
In Wisconsin these days, there are few political rewards for such work.
But the Stateswoman of the Year award, which has been given in recent years to Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, provides a measure of the recognition that is deserved by those who choose to place principle above politics.
Berceau is such a leader, and no one who has been paying attention -- except, perhaps, for the modest legislator herself -- should be surprised that she is being so honored.
Berceau will receive the Stateswoman of the Year award at a brunch at the Monona Terrace Convention Center from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday. For more information, contact the Wisconsin Women's Network at 255-9809 or www.wiwomensnetwork.org/.
Wisconsin State Journal
Saturday, October 14, 2006
SCOTT BAUER Associated Press
There was nothing improper about partisan operatives' contact with members of the state Elections Board before a key vote on donations to gubernatorial candidate Mark Green, the state Ethics Board declared Friday.
An attorney for Gov. Jim Doyle's re-election campaign, Michael Maistelman, and the executive director of the state Republican Party, Rick Wiley, both contacted board members before the Aug. 30 meeting in which the Elections Board ordered Green, a Republican, to get rid of nearly $468,000 in donations.
The Ethics Board said the contact was not illegal because the Elections Board was not dealing with a "contested case."
A contested case is defined as an agency proceeding in which two parties disagree over an issue and a hearing is required by law to make a ruling.
State law would prohibit contact between the parties and Elections Board members in contested cases. In this case, the Ethics Board said the Elections Board's Aug. 30 vote was actually an authorization to commence legal proceedings against Green should he choose not to comply.
Green's attorney, Don Millis, said in an interview Friday that he regarded it that way, as did Elections Board director Kevin Kennedy, according to the Ethics Board's order.
Green simply went to court first to challenge the order instead of waiting for the board to sue him for not complying, Millis said Friday. Green acted first in an effort to resolve the issue before the Nov. 7 election, he said.
Green has set aside $468,000 of his campaign money while the case is pending in the state Supreme Court.
The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's Mike McCabe said Friday that although he agrees with the decision the Elections Board made, he objects to the way it was done. McCabe said board members -- most of whom are appointed by political parties and their top leaders -- often make decisions based on political rather than legal grounds.
"The problem always has been that the Elections Board ... has always been so open to lobbying," said McCabe, adding that the board is "a jury of the politicians' pals."
The Elections Board said Green had to get rid of the money that he collected while in Congress because it came from political action committees not registered in Wisconsin.
Maistelman did not immediately respond to messages left seeking comment. Maistelman, who represented Doyle, contacted three Democratic members of the Elections Board before the Aug. 30 vote, prompting the state Republican Party to charge that the 5-2 vote made largely along party lines was rigged.
All three Elections Board members that Green should get rid of the money, joined by another Democrat and a Libertarian. Republicans cast the two no' votes.
The Ethics Board also looked into a phone call Wiley made to a Republican member of the Elections Board a day before the Aug. 30 vote.
Wiley said the brief phone call he had with board member John Savage was substantially different from the in-depth e-mails from Maistelman.
Doyle campaign spokesman Anson Kaye said the Ethics Board's finding "slams the door shut" on what he called a "ploy" by Green to avoid returning the money.
If the voters say yes, says Bob Hoch, organizer of the Wood County Impeachment Coalition's petition drives, a call to act will be dispatched to the state's congressional delegation -- two of whom, Madison Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Milwaukee Democrat Gwen Moore, have already joined a House call for an impeachment inquiry.
There are those who will suggest that referendum votes in a pair of central Wisconsin communities with a combined population of around 20,000 can't possibly mean much to the national discourse. But, surely, the cynics are wrong.
The referendums in Wisconsin Rapids and Pittsville, in Montpelier, Vt., and Urbana, Ill., and elsewhere across the land are classic illustrations of the petitioning for the redress of grievances that the Constitution does not merely protect but in fact encourages. The impeachment-from-below movement is the modern-day expression of the oldest of American ideals: No man, be he pauper or president, shall stand above the law.
As Stoughton's Buzz Davis, the veteran who has been leading the impeachment campaign in Wisconsin, says, "Impeachment is not a partisan issue but a question of whether our nation will live under the rule of law as our Founding Fathers believed."
James Madison said that "it may, perhaps, on some occasion, be found necessary to impeach the president himself."
It would come as no surprise to Madison or Jefferson that citizens are the first to recognize the occasion and to call for Congress to act. Nor would this trouble the founders; indeed, they would say that the impeachment-from-below movement is the truest expression of the patriotism that alone will preserve the republic.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinal
The world is drifting aimlessly toward nuclear war, and this month's apparent North Korean nuclear test illustrates the point. But not in the way you've likely heard.
The test was "a serious threat to the security of Japan and South Korea, and of neighboring countries," said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
President Bush said, "The United States reserves all options to defend our friends and our interests in the region against the threat from North Korea," a formulation that implies Iraq-style pre-emptive warfare is an option.
He further said, "We'll increase . . . cooperation on ballistic missile defense to protect against North Korean aggression."
But note what these leaders didn't say: "If we fail to take these steps, North Korea will invade South Korea" or drop its bomb on Japan or on America or anywhere else.
Why? Because they try not to say things that show they can't think one step ahead.
North Korea has no options involving aggression with its nuclear weapon. Such aggression would leave them a small, impoverished country more friendless than the Taliban after Sept. 11. Whatever we think of North Korea's leaders, they aren't committed to a prompt, grisly end of their own rule.
The Cold War doctrine of mutually assured destruction by nuclear weapons expressed our understanding that nuclear weapons were useless as a tool for military victory. This is true in general. As described above, the North Korean case just happens to be another in which it's easy to see.
The greatest threat from the North Korean bomb lies not in North Korean aggression, but in the trend that more and more people in nations like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea will see nuclear arms as the normal equipment of any country that wants to be taken seriously. As Joseph Cirincione observed last month in The Boston Globe, the same principle applies to Iran's nuclear program and its neighbors Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
It is folly to think that our concern should focus on acquisition of nuclear weapons by rogue states alone. Governments change, and alliances shift. What hasn't changed, even after Sept. 11, is that killing on the largest scale remains the exclusive province of governments. In this age of H-bombs and intercontinental missiles, governments are better equipped to do that than ever before.
Now that there is a North Korean nuclear weapon, the best prospect for its elimination probably lies in reunification of Korea. The Koreans are one people. Unlike the divide between mainland China and Taiwan, in Korea those on the side that now resists reunification would be clear winners if it came about. Their leaders will eventually come to see that.
Even under Kim Jong Il, there have been halting signs of opening to the outside world. Thus, we should weigh our policy options in light of their impact on prospects for Korean reunification.
Another frightening thing about the North Korean test isn't in the test itself. After all, they'd announced years ago that they had the bomb, and the prudent course was to believe them. For all we knew then, it really worked, and now it seems to be a dud. Further, it may be a device that is too large to deliver.
The test shows that even nuclear weapons, like terrorism before Sept. 11, aren't a big enough issue to sustain public interest. Intermittent flurries of interest at the time of a front page story are all we get.
That won't be enough to stop the drift toward nuclear war because our own democracy is one large engine behind the drift, and the United States won't stop pushing unless lots of Americans, or at least our leaders, come to see it.
But seeing one's own country as a source of mischief comes a lot harder than seeing mischief in a "rogue state."
Today's world hosts a large "forest" of nuclear weapons, and what we now see so well are the few small trees that belong to North Korea. But the most vigorous stand of "old growth forest" is ours.
Most countries, among them many of our steadfast allies, understand that the nuclear-weapons double standard we're trying to cling to is not sustainable. Their best efforts to make us see this have met little success.
As part of that effort, the government of Canada hosted a meeting in Ottawa in late September. Canada participates in the Middle Powers Initiative, a movement by dozens of mid-sized countries to persuade all nuclear-armed states that they must disarm. The Ottawa meeting was the third meeting of the Article VI Forum, named for the article of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - accepted by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China - that requires those five to negotiate in good faith for the complete dismantlement of their nuclear arsenals.
No such negotiations are taking place. The five were invited to send delegations to Ottawa. Only China and the United Kingdom did so.
Very likely, you've heard a lot about the North Korean test, but before reading this article, you'd never heard of the Ottawa meeting or the Middle Powers Initiative or the Article VI Forum, nor did you know what Article VI was.
But those are the things that can stop the drift to nuclear war, provided the citizens of our democracy come to understand them.
No one can say where or when the next Category 5 hurricane will hit the U.S., yet we know it will come, because the climate that spawns hurricanes won't go away.
Similarly, no one can say where or when a nuclear war will come. What we can say is that the climate among nations that spawns wars hasn't gone away and that increasing numbers of nuclear-armed states increase the risk of nuclear war. It's false comfort to say that a taboo against using nuclear weapons will protect us, for we need look no farther than today's wars for a reminder that the history of war is the history of miscalculation.
But wars, unlike hurricanes, happen only by human choice. They have moral implications that obligate citizens of democracies to learn about these things.
For now, though, we continue to drift.
Chuck Baynton, a retired physician from Whitefish Bay, chairs the Disarmament Committee of Peace Action Wisconsin
Posted: Oct. 14, 2006
Appleton alderman imprisoned for Army school protest
Post-Crescent staff writer elowe@postcrescent.com
A one-time Appleton alderman imprisoned for two months after protesting at an Army military school linked to human rights abuses has been honored for his lifelong commitment to peace.
Delmar Schwaller, 82, Appleton, was one of three state residents named Peacemaker of the Year by the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice at its annual assembly Saturday in La Crosse.
Barbara Hoffman, Appleton, a member of the Fox Valley Chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, said she nominated Schwaller for the award because knowingly sacrificed his freedom to protest government policies he views as corrupt.
"His willingness to go to prison was what I found so admirable," Hoffman said Saturday.
"He didn't know what the consequences of that act would be, but he did know that people where receiving sentences of up to six months in prison."
Schwaller said his annual missionary efforts in impoverished areas of Latin America led him to witness the aftermath of human rights abuses attributed to Latin American soldiers trained at the U.S.-Army-run training center established in 1946 as the School of the Americas.
He became a federal prisoner after trespassing at Fort Benning, Ga.-based facility now named the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, a military training school for U.S. and allied Latin American troops during a peace vigil there on Nov. 20.
Schwaller, who was unavailable at his home Friday and Saturday, said his act of civil disobedience was designed to help drew public awareness to a social cause.
However, Hoffman said his arrest came amid a lifetime dedicated to social justice-related sacrifices.
"I believe that his motivation was strictly spiritual," Hoffman said. "He was led to take this act after a lot of prayer."
Connie Kanitz, a Menasha representative of the Fox Valley Peace Coalition, said Schwaller accepted his legal penalty without complaint, and used it as a means to witness the barriers faces by inmates and their families.
"It feels good just to be around him," Kanitz said.
"His time in prison became just another part of the remarkable work he has done his whole life."
Schwaller said he intends to continue his annual visits to the annual vigil at Fort Benning, which last year drew attendance estimated at 19,000. It is scheduled to take place over three days starting Nov. 17 this year.
"I'm surely not intending to get arrested again," he told The Post-Crescent after his release from prison in August.
"It took me eight years to make up my mind to do it the last time, but I'll still be there. The mission is not done."
Ed Lowe can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 293, or
By Ed Lowe
Wisconsin State Journal
Sunday, October 15, 2006
John Nichols
From Vermont to Illinois to California, voters this fall will be deciding the fate not just of candidates for Congress but of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Communities that are home to more than 1 million Americans will have an opportunity to cast ballots on the question of whether Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against the president and vice president.
Only the U.S. House of Representatives can impeach a member of the executive branch, and only the Senate can convict the targeted official and remove him from office. But the founders always intended for citizens to have a voice in the process. Thomas Jefferson, who argued that power must ultimately rest in the people, as they alone are the surest defenders of the republic and its democratic aspirations, observed, "It behooves our citizens to be on their guard, to be firm in their principles, and full of confidence in themselves. We are able to preserve our self-government if we will but think so."
Duly troubled by a president and vice president who have launched wars without congressional declarations, who have spied without warrants, who have disregarded and disdained the Constitution, citizens across the country have put themselves to the task of preserving self-government by raising the call for impeachment. Dozens of communities have considered resolutions calling on Congress to act, and this fall's referendums will raise the volume.
Two of those referendums will be held in Wisconsin, where the Wood County communities of Pittsville and Wisconsin Rapids will vote on a local resolution that declares: "The U.S. House of Representatives should start an impeachment investigation against President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney now."
Wisconsin State Journal
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
GEORGE HESSELBERG ghesselberg@madison.com 608-252-6140
With considerably less fanfare than what accompanied a similar effort six months ago, more than a dozen Wisconsin communities will be flexing their advisory rights Nov. 7 by telling the government what to do in Iraq, and when.
The government is not required to take the advice, although anti-war referendum supporters hope the added weight of the nonbinding vote turns a few political heads.
The referendums -- most of them identical to the questions answered by voters in 32 municipalities in April -- are presented as "Bring the Troops Home Now" questions, though two communities are considering whether to urge impeachment proceedings against the president and vice president.
Voters in one Wisconsin county, Ozaukee, will enter the debate from a different direction. They'll be asked whether they support war "until such time as organized terrorism is eliminated and citizens of all countries can be assured of their safety to go about their tasks of everyday life."
"Everybody was putting out referendums to try to say let's get out of Iraq," said Warren Stumpe, a co-author of the resolution last spring and recently retired member of the Ozaukee County Board. "I'd been in the military for 30 years. I support the military and what they're trying to do. The military is subservient to the civilian leadership and we should support the military all the way."
Few other states allow such homegrown referendum efforts. Last April, voters in 24 of 32 Wisconsin communities -- including Madison, Baraboo, Mount Horeb, Evansville and La Crosse -- supported anti-war referendums.
A local tool
The referendum is a local tool, and state election authorities do not keep track of which municipalities have scheduled war-related questions. But at least 13 communities are known to have such ballot questions. In addition to Ozaukee County, those include Boscobel, Fox Point, Lake Delton, Middleton, Milwaukee, Pittsville, Racine, South Milwaukee, the town of Springdale, Viroqua and Wauwatosa.
Referendums in Wisconsin Rapids and Pittsville call for an impeachment investigation of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. An anti-war referendum had been scheduled in Glendale, but a court decision last week resulted in the vote being postponed until April.
Unlike last spring, when opponents of the referendums were active in Madison and La Crosse, no similar effort has surfaced for this election. The "Vote No To Cut and Run" Web site, begun in response to Madison's referendum, has not been updated, and the La Crosse site has closed.
Similarly, said Steve Burns, a "Bring the Troops Home" coordinator for the Madison-based Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, the national media have shown little interest in this round of referendums. That interest is expected to increase, however, as the election nears.
Burns said he thought support for the referendums would grow as opposition to the war has increased.
'This isn't Madison'
"Based on the results last April, even in places that traditionally vote Republican, all of the (November) referendums have a good chance (of passing)," Burns said.
"It will be interesting to see the results in places like Racine and South Milwaukee, solid working-class communities," he said. "This isn't Madison we are talking about."
Also less obvious this time around is any concerted effort in support of the referendums.
In Middleton, anti-war referendum organizer Kurt Kobelt said he was optimistic the measure there would pass, adding that he has not seen any organized opposition to the vote.
"It was really a grass-roots effort, a bunch of community people who got together. ... we got more (signatures) than we needed," he said. In the Dane County town of Springdale, organizer Tim White also expects a positive outcome for an anti-war referendum.
"We're not a liberal bastion or anything. I would imagine that Springdale is pretty much like the rest of the country," said White. "The majority of the citizens are fed up with a war we know we do not need to be in."
"And since the April election, more of our soldiers, including Wisconsin soldiers, have been killed."
At least 60 U.S. service members with official residence in Wisconsin are among Iraq war fatalities. Another six have been killed in Afghanistan, according to Lt. Col. Tim Donovan of the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs.
The Department of Defense numbers as of Jan. 31 showed 9,053 active duty troops from Wisconsin who have served or are serving in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. To that, Donovan said, add "more than 9,000" Wisconsin troops from seven military reserve components.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, about 80 percent of the Wisconsin National Guard's soldiers and airmen have served on active duty either at home or overseas.
Ozaukee County's referendum
Voters in Ozaukee County will address the war in Iraq from an unusual angle, with this referendum question drafted by county supervisors in February in response to anti-war referendums on ballots in the spring elections:
"Do you support the efforts of the United States and its military in waging a war on terror throughout the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan, until such time as organized terrorism is eliminated and citizens of all countries can be assured of their safety to go about their tasks of everyday life?"
As officials explain on the county's Web site, "a yes' vote indicates you support the current U.S. efforts to combat terrorist activity throughout the world." A "no" vote indicates you do not support current U.S. efforts.
Fox Point's referendum
The wording for most of the anti-war referendums are similar to this one, from the village of Fox Point:
Shall the following resolution be adopted: "Be it resolved, that the United States should now begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, and continue steady withdrawal until all our troops are home."
Impeachment referendum
The Wisconsin Rapids' referendum, one of the two impeachment referendums in the state says: "Shall the U.S. House of Representatives start an impeachment investigation against President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney now?"
Wisconsin State Journal
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
RYAN J. FOLEY Associated Press
A watchdog group on Tuesday accused the Catholic Diocese of Madison of failing to disclose its attempts to influence a Nov. 7 referendum on gay marriage and civil unions.
The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which opposes the proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage, asked the state Elections Board to take action against the diocese for failing to register its activities supporting the proposal.
The group's informal complaint cited a flier prepared by the diocese and distributed outside a Catholic church in Madison.
"A YES vote upholds the Catholic teaching that marriage is a union between a man and a woman," the flier said.
Diocese spokesman Brent King said he was looking into the matter. He emphasized that the brochures were produced and distributed only to parishes, not the general public.
State law requires groups that spend more than $25 to support or oppose a state referendum to register. Those that spend more than $1,000 must disclose their fundraising and spending.
Some supporters of the ban have avoided the disclosure requirement by stopping short of advocating a yes vote.
The Family Research Institute of Wisconsin says most of its efforts have been educational in nature and as a result do not have to be disclosed. Its political arm, Vote Yes for Marriage, reported spending $547 as of June 30.
As a result, Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said citizens are in the dark about who is paying for efforts advocating the amendment. The Elections Board should use the case to send a message to other churches that have gotten involved in the campaign in support of the amendment, McCabe said.
Elections Board spokesman Kyle Richmond said the board would need a more formal complaint before it would consider the matter. A violation would typically lead to a fine.
Bill Bartz, pastor of Monona Oaks Community Church, said he doubted the registration requirement applies to churches like his. He has urged his members to vote for the amendment, put together a telecast for a local public access channel and left literature urging the proposal's passage at hundreds of homes.
Bartz said his congregation hadn't printed most of the literature and hadn't spent more than $25 in its efforts.
Anti-war campaign yearning for action
by Kyle Szarzynski
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
There was once a time when the University of Wisconsin-Madison was a center of radical anti-war activism. During the late 1960s, the student body took to the streets in protest against a war in Vietnam that was unjustified and inhumane. They demonstrated and staged sit-ins. In short, they did something about an obvious injustice.
Today, there exists a similar type of war in Iraq but a very different type of response. Despite Madison’s liberal reputation, the sad — or perhaps shameful — reality is that few UW students have ever taken part in any sort of organized anti-war effort. Over the last few years, there has been a march here, a counter-recruitment demonstration there, but nothing that could be defined as a real movement against the war. Of course, this isn’t just a local phenomenon; the inability to jump-start an anti-war movement in Madison has been echoed throughout the country.
Yet we all know of the human tragedy that is the American occupation of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed; millions have been left homeless, unemployed, maimed. More than 2,700 American soldiers have fallen, and the number increases every day. Meanwhile, the evidence that the war’s justifications were lies continues to mount: The Downing Street Memo and countless other documents and reports reveal that the Bush administration did indeed "fix the facts" for the basis for going to war.
What is the explanation for this? Why isn’t there a mass radicalization of students as there was during the Vietnam era? One contributing factor to the complacency of Americans is the relative complacency of their own media. Unlike the footage of the Vietnam War, the media today generally doesn’t broadcast the horrors of war. Dead bodies, mutilated children and demolished homes usually aren’t available for the American viewer to see. Obviously, this tends to dull the anger that most Americans feel about the war.
The tragedy of this is that the entire Democratic Party establishment is and always has been pro-war, including 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry. The flawed logic of anti-war voters putting all their faith in a political party that is mostly pro-war speaks for itself, and the result has been devastating for building a viable anti-war movement.
Perhaps the most important reason for the lack of action against the war, though, is the absence of a draft. If thousands of young Americans were forced to fight an immoral war, then the obvious response would be active opposition. History would indicate this to be the case, as every major anti-war movement of the 20th century — from Canadian opposition to World War One to the French protests against their country’s colonialism in Indochina and Algeria — has featured mandatory military service.
The above analysis seems to imply a hopeless situation. It is certainly undeniable that fighting back against the war machine is a monumental task. Still, Americans have become more frustrated as an unjust war continues to be waged, and the death toll continues to increase. A New York Times poll, conducted in June 2006, found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the war in Iraq was a mistake. Of course, the emergence of an anti-war public is old news; the issue now is how to turn anti-war sentiment into resistance.
On the UW campus, the student body is solidly anti-war (witness the overwhelming "Yes" vote on the war referendum last spring). A movement can arise from such sentiment only if there is a real way of channeling it in a way that is productive to ending the war. The issue of how to best tap into the anti-war anger on the UW campus and throughout the country is fundamental to the emergence of a mass movement against the war.
It is in this context that the establishment of a new student organization at UW, the Campus Anti-War Network (CAN), should be welcomed. Here, the process of working to get students involved and confronting the problems of building a movement can become a reality. The group’s central demand — immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq — is a breath of fresh air after listening to all the "gradual" withdrawal strategies of the so-called anti-war politicians in Congress.
It is only by getting involved with the movement through groups like CAN that any hope of ending the bloodshed in Iraq in the near future is possible. It is only through organization that we can hope to create an effective struggle against the war and, once again, fill the streets with anti-war activists.
Kyle Szarzynski (szarzynski@wisc.edu) is a sophomore majoring in Spanish and history.
Wisconsin State Journal
Friday, October 27, 2006
LINDA KETCHAM
On Nov. 7, Wisconsin voters will be asked whether to enact the death penalty for cases involving murderers, if the conviction is supported by DNA evidence.
Should Wisconsin, with one of the lowest homicide and overall violent crime rates in the country, join Texas, Oklahoma, and other death-penalty states?
While the DNA exception would seem to act as a safeguard against wrongful execution, referendum sponsor Sen. Alan Lasee, admitted to the State Journal that the DNA language was intended to win votes and that any actual legislation reinstating the death penalty might not include the DNA requirement.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, states without the death penalty generally have homicide rates below the national average. The gap between homicide rates in death penalty and non-death penalty states actually widened in 2003, from 36 percent in 2002 to 44 percent in 2003.
The death penalty is expensive. An Indiana study found the death penalty cost the state 35 percent to 37 percent more than if life without parole were the most severe penalty available.
The most compelling argument against the death penalty is the discriminatory nature in which it is meted out:
In court records of 502 murder cases from 1993-1997, researchers at the University of North Carolina found that race played a significant role in who was sentenced to death.
In Maryland, a comprehensive study commissioned by the governor concluded the state's death penalty was "tainted with racial bias," finding that defendants were much more likely to be sentenced to death if they had killed a white person than if they had killed an African American person.
The New Jersey Supreme Court found "unsettling statistical evidence indicating that cases involving killers of white victims more likely to progress to a penalty phase than cases involving killers of African American victims."
Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, a death penalty supporter, declared a moratorium on the state's death penalty, finding its application immoral due to the lack of fairness and accuracy in administering.
Jury selection also offers opportunity for racial bias. The Supreme Court has noted that "the risk of racial prejudice infecting a capital sentencing proceeding is especially serious in light of the complete finality of the death sentence."
Requiring DNA evidence in death penalty sentencing will do nothing to ensure that race and poverty do not determine who is sentenced to death. Wisconsin ranks first in racial disparities in terms of incarceration. How will that disparity play out if the death penalty is enacted? Will we lead the country in racial disparities for people sentenced to death?
Is a system where people of color and the poor are disproportionately arrested, tried and convicted of crimes and sentenced to death a just system? Is a system in which racism and poverty play an undeniable role in sentencing decisions a just system? Can a society that supports such a system be considered a just society?
Reject Unjust Death Penalty
Wisconsin State Journal :: OPINION :: A6
Friday, October 27, 2006
LINDA KETCHAM
On Nov. 7, Wisconsin voters will be asked whether to enact the death penalty for cases involving murderers, if the conviction is supported by DNA evidence.
Should Wisconsin, with one of the lowest homicide and overall violent crime rates in the country, join Texas, Oklahoma, and other death-penalty states?
While the DNA exception would seem to act as a safeguard against wrongful execution, referendum sponsor Sen. Alan Lasee, admitted to the State Journal that the DNA language was intended to win votes and that any actual legislation reinstating the death penalty might not include the DNA requirement.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, states without the death penalty generally have homicide rates below the national average. The gap between homicide rates in death penalty and non-death penalty states actually widened in 2003, from 36 percent in 2002 to 44 percent in 2003.
The death penalty is expensive. An Indiana study found the death penalty cost the state 35 percent to 37 percent more than if life without parole were the most severe penalty available.
The most compelling argument against the death penalty is the discriminatory nature in which it is meted out:
In court records of 502 murder cases from 1993-1997, researchers at the University of North Carolina found that race played a significant role in who was sentenced to death.
In Maryland, a comprehensive study commissioned by the governor concluded the state's death penalty was "tainted with racial bias," finding that defendants were much more likely to be sentenced to death if they had killed a white person than if they had killed an African American person.
The New Jersey Supreme Court found "unsettling statistical evidence indicating that cases involving killers of white victims more likely to progress to a penalty phase than cases involving killers of African American victims."
Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, a death penalty supporter, declared a moratorium on the state's death penalty, finding its application immoral due to the lack of fairness and accuracy in administering.
Jury selection also offers opportunity for racial bias. The Supreme Court has noted that "the risk of racial prejudice infecting a capital sentencing proceeding is especially serious in light of the complete finality of the death sentence."
Requiring DNA evidence in death penalty sentencing will do nothing to ensure that race and poverty do not determine who is sentenced to death. Wisconsin ranks first in racial disparities in terms of incarceration. How will that disparity play out if the death penalty is enacted? Will we lead the country in racial disparities for people sentenced to death?
Is a system where people of color and the poor are disproportionately arrested, tried and convicted of crimes and sentenced to death a just system? Is a system in which racism and poverty play an undeniable role in sentencing decisions a just system? Can a society that supports such a system be considered a just society?
The Capital Times
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Dear Editor: Conventional wisdom says that a vote for third party candidates is a wasted vote. That may not always be the case.
In Wisconsin's U.S. Senate race, incumbent Herb Kohl, a Democrat, faces challenges from Republican Robert Lorge and the Green Party's Rae Vogeler. This is considered a "safe seat" for the Democrats; there is virtually zero chance that Kohl will be turned out of office.
Under these circumstances, the truly "wasted" vote is a vote for Herb Kohl, who is predicted to capture more than 60 percent of the vote.
To make one's vote truly count, the logical choice is Rae Vogeler. She distinguishes herself from both Kohl and Lorge by opposing the Iraq war and supporting clean, renewable energy.
Even if Vogeler loses, your vote will still send Kohl a message that you want a more progressive senator, and give a sorely needed boost to the Green Party.
Jeff Peterson Luck, Wis.
The Capital Times
Saturday, October 28, 2006
When the citizens of Madison and 23 other Wisconsin communities gave their overwhelming support last spring to referendums calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, their message made it all the way to the White House.
During the daily briefing on the morning after the results of the local votes in Wisconsin were recorded, reporters peppered presidential spokesman Scott McClellan with questions about the White House response to the results. McClellan was eventually drawn into a rambling discussion of growing anti-war sentiment -- something that had rarely been acknowledged by the Bush administration up to that point.
It is not often that the White House and Congress take notice of what is happening in Wisconsin's cities, villages and towns, but Wisconsin's "Bring the Troops Home Now" referendum campaign has broken through and had a genuine impact on the discourse.
The message needs to be delivered once more, and so it shall be on Nov. 7. Another 11 Wisconsin communities will be given an opportunity to say that no more Americans should die in a conflict over Iraq -- a conflict that, according even to U.S. intelligence services, has so damaged our credibility that it has actually increased the likelihood that Americans will be targeted by terrorists.
Among the communities voting on anti-war referendum are the city of Middleton and the town of Springdale, Racine, the Milwaukee suburbs of Fox Point and Wauwatosa, and rural communities in western Wisconsin such as Boscobel and Viroqua.
We encourage residents of these communities to cast enthusiastic "yes" votes in favor of these referendums. And we urge them to do so with the recognition that this is not a symbolic act. Their votes will be noted -- by members of Wisconsin's congressional delegation and by officials in Washington.
The Constitution of the United States gives citizens the power to petition for the redress of grievances. These anti-war referendums represent precisely the sort of petitioning that the founding fathers intended. Voters should seize the power that was given them and tell Congress and the White House: Bring the Troops Home Now!
Wisconsin State Journal
Monday, OCT 30, 2006
STEVE HERRICK
There is an old saying that America doesn't need a third party, America needs a second party.
Granted, the Democrats and Republicans differ on gay rights and abortion. However, on issues like campaign finance reform, renewable energy, college tuition, the war in Iraq, health care, crime, drugs, economic development, corporate taxation, government outsourcing, ethics reform, and more, the positions of Jim Doyle and Mark Green are closer to each other than either is to Nelson Eisman of the Green Party.
Is that because Eisman's ideas are outlandish? Ed Thompson doesn't think so. Handing him a campaign contribution, Thompson told Eisman, "You're the only one in this race talking common sense."
Here's some common sense - honest government. Doyle and Green bicker about who is more ethically challenged, but only Eisman wants to end the legal corruption of corporate campaign contributions through publicly-financed elections. He would also eliminate government waste and fraud by rewarding whistleblowers, not punishing them.
Eisman calls for universal health care. There are advantages for Wisconsin besides the obvious. For example, the biggest obstacle to job creation is expensive health premiums, which universal health eliminates. This expands the tax base and makes Wisconsin better for business.
Doyle and Green worked renewable energy into the last "debate," after polls showed Eisman's numbers climbing. Their vision, however, is underwhelming. Eisman, in contrast, calls for conservation, expanded mass transit, and development and manufacturing of solar and other renewables here in Wisconsin.
Eisman proposes to eliminate the sales tax completely, as well as the property tax on primary residences. That revenue would be made up in the income tax, but not by the poor. In fact, people making under $25,000 would pay no income tax at all. Up to $250,000, the tax rate would be around 5 percent to 6 percent, and above that, whatever it takes to balance the budget. That would probably be about 10 percent, a rate the rich already pay in some states.
October 30, 2006
Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune
BY ANDREW HELLPAP
Some referendums give directions, while others were meant for voters to
be able to share their opinions.
For that purpose, the Wisconsin Rapids Common Council voted Sept. 19 to
place a question asking the public if it would support an impeachment
investigation of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
The referendum states: "Resolved: The U.S. House of Representatives
should start an impeachment investigation against President George W. Bush
and Vice President Richard Cheney now."
This question has people in the community positioned on both sides of
the fence.
"Why, because we are at war we should impeach him? That's stupid," said
Rick Allen of Wisconsin Rapids. "We should stand behind him."
Questions like this are not necessary, Allen contends, because in all
aspects of life there are things people don't support or like, but you
have to deal with them, he said.
"That's just the way life is," he said.
Amy Zalewski of Port Edwards had a different take on this advisory
referendum.
"People are entitled to their opinions," she said.
Because, she said, most people are afraid to voice their opinion
publicly, doing so in the privacy of the voting booth is the only way some
people feel comfortable expressing themselves.
"People can chose to voice their opinion," Zalewski said. "I think it's
excellent."
Council member Connie Verjinsky, who voted in support of putting the
question on the ballot, agreed with Zalewski's perspective.
"I just think its a good idea that the public be able to voice its
opinion," Verjinsky said.
The man responsible for getting the question to the ballot in Wisconsin
Rapids and Pittsville, Robert Hoch of Arpin, is aware of what people are
saying about him for asking the public to voice its opinion on an issue
dealing with federal politics.
"I am paying the price for it; people are saying it's over-the-top,"
Hoch said.
He is very passionate about the issue. In Pittsville, he gathered the
required 48 signatures on his own in July. In Wisconsin Rapids, he
enlisted the help of a few others to collect about 900 signatures required
to get it on the ballot, which took about six weeks.
"I just wonder what could happen at the polls," he said. "I don't want
another two years of this guy."
Oct. 21 and 22, Hoch went door to door in Wisconsin Rapids dropping off
literature on the referendum question, and plans to pay for an insert in
The Daily Tribune next week.
While the ability of the public to voice it's opinion is crucial,
Verjinsky said, this process should not be used for just any matter.
"I don't think we need to put everything to referendum." she said.
Andrew Hellpap can be reached at 422-6728
or at ahellpap@wisconsinrapidstribune.com
Capital Times
By John Nichols, Oct. 31, 2006
October 31, 2006
When U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold proposed in March that President Bush be censured for authorizing warrantless wiretapping of the telephone conversations of Americans and then lying about it, only a handful of Democrats had the intellectual honesty and the courage to stand with the junior senator from Wisconsin.
There was no question that Feingold was right to seek to hold the president to account for the wrongdoing associated with the illegal spying program. Nor was there any question that Feingold had chosen a moderate course suggesting a censure motion when, as the senator acknowledged, many of the offenses committed by the president rose to a level where talk of impeachment was appropriate.
Most importantly, Feingold framed his bold initiative in the context of the Constitution, which does not merely allow but in fact requires Congress to police the executive branch.
Yet Democratic leaders in the Senate were more worried about their images in an election year than they were about upholding the rule of law. In the end, only three senators California's Barbara Boxer, Iowa's Tom Harkin and Massachusetts' John Kerry co-sponsored Feingold's censure resolution.
Wisconsinites, who have felt a good measure of pride in their junior senator's leadership on this issue, should note that the name of the state's senior senator, Herb Kohl, is not on the list of those who supported Feingold's necessary initiative.
Instead of working with his fellow Wisconsin Democrat to check and balance an out-of-control executive, Kohl joined Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman in suggesting that the Senate should look for ways to work with the Bush administration to construct a legal framework for the spying program.
Kohl is up for re-election this fall, and he is again reminding Wisconsinites that he is his own man.
That's true. Kohl certainly has not made common cause with Feingold to oppose the war in Iraq, to battle the assaults on civil liberties contained in the Patriot Act or to hold the Bush-Cheney administration to account.
Contrast the senior senator's response to Feingold's censure proposal with that of Kohl's Green Party challenger in this fall's election, Rae Vogeler.
When Feingold proposed censure, Vogeler immediately endorsed his action, declaring that "censure is a tool of accountability in the Senate and is a good first step. I support the resolution of censure."
She also urged support for a resolution sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and co-sponsored by Wisconsin Democrats Tammy Baldwin and Gwen Moore, calling for establishing a select committee to determine whether articles of impeachment should be brought against members of the Bush administration.
Feingold is backing Kohl this fall. They have found common ground on some issues, and they are, after all, members of the same party.
But on the issue of holding President Bush to account, Feingold and Vogeler share the same values not to mention the same understanding of the constitutional duties of a senator.
There are other issues on which Eisman is conspicuously different from the corporate parties. One is his strong opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Another is calling for an immediate tuition freeze for in-state UW students, and tuition reduction in coming years. Still another is his support for instant-runoff voting.
Eisman wants to expand the discourse in this campaign. He accepted five debate invitations from civic- minded organizations, such as the League of Women Voters. Doyle and Green, in contrast, only appeared in the "We the People" and Wisconsin Broadcasters Association "debates," which allowed them to avoid facing Eisman.
As they learn of Eisman's exclusion, Wisconsinites tell our campaign they are outraged - regardless of who they plan to vote for - because debates are for the benefit of the voters, not the candidates. Until the voters see all the candidates and hear all their ideas, the democratic process in Wisconsin remains fundamentally flawed. Herrick is campaign manager for Nelson Eisman, the Green Party candidate for governor.