Forum columneist Earl Ofari Hutchinson asks readers what they think about Michael Richards' racist remarks.
The N-word is certainly the most ffensive word in the English language. Racist name-calling has been used to justify everything form slavery to segregation. It has undermined black and white working-class solidarity.
All of us pay a heavy price for our own racism. It's past time we saw the light.
--Clarence Kaillin, Veterans for Peace, Madison
12/04/06 25 Years Of Monday Gatherings For Peace
WNPJ member Mary Beth Schlagheck featured in this artilce
25 Years Of Monday Gatherings For Peace
Wisconsin State Journal Monday, December 4, 2006
George Hesselberg
When the Madison Vigil for Peace gathers at noon today, as it has Mondays since December 1981, it will be marking the irony that as long as it meets, it is a sign that it has not succeeded.
From noon to 1 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Doty Street, the vigil founders will again make their weekly "public statement for peace and in support of the principles of nonviolence espoused by Martin Luther King Jr."
For the 25th anniversary gathering, those attending will repeat their call for an end to the war in Iraq and for the global abolition of all nuclear weapons. The names of American and Iraqi war dead will be read aloud. In what the participants call a "counterbalance" to that, people are encouraged to bring "peace symbols and signs of hope."
Mary Beth Schlagheck, a vigil organizer and participant for more than 20 years, said in a statement "we love this fragile democracy too much to let our opposition to its ruin go unnoticed."
The group has been meeting through war, incursions, invasions, occupations and liberations and has become a fixture at its Downtown corner. There can be as few as three or four gathered or as many as 20, as people walking by join for a few minutes of support.
For a time, they met in front of the Federal Center on East Washington Avenue -- to protest paying taxes that supported wars and weapons -- but in recent years, it has been at the busy corner across from the City-County Building.
In 1991, at its 10th anniversary, the group marked its gathering in all sorts of weather by carrying banners that read: "Disarm Now," and "Let's Ban the Bomb."
The members have had their share of notoriety. One founder, Helen Dery Woodson, has served federal prison sentences for damaging property.
12/06/07:Prisoners Reading Project - Camy Matthay
Prisoners Reading Project The Capital Times :: LIFESTYLE :: D3 Thursday, December 6, 2007 Lynn Danielson
Prisoners in Wisconsin and elsewhere have received hundreds of books this year thanks to the Wisconsin Books to Prisoners Project. The all-volunteer group, which began a year ago, has sent 400 packages of two or three books to 23 correctional institutions in the state, as well as to prisoners in 13 other states.
The project is trying to help address the inadequate selection of books in prison libraries, encourage literacy and support self-education.
So far, the group reports in a press release, Madisonians have been generous in donating books, and the biggest challenges are keeping up with the cost of postage and with specific requests such as dictionaries, thesauruses, books by African-American authors, drawing books, and - surprisingly - books by Friedrich Nietzsche.
Inmate requests included:
* "Do you have any books by Steinbeck?"
* "I'm trying to learn more about the Civil War."
* "I'm trying to teach my cellie Spanish. Do you have any instruction books for beginners?"
* "Do you have the sixth Harry Potter book?"
* "I'd like to read an autobiography of Tolstoy, Gandhi and/or Martin Luther King Jr."
New or gently used fiction and nonfiction can be dropped off at Rainbow Books, 426 W. Gilman St.; Lakeside Press, 1334 Williamson St.; or Madison Infoshop, 1019 Williamson St.
For more, contact Camy Matthay at 455-2712, maha@chorus.net, or Molly Stentz at Rainbow Books at 257-6050.
12/06/07:Summit's Goal: Perpetuate Repression Of Palestinians - Madison Rafah Sister City Project
Summit's Goal: Perpetuate Repression Of Palestinians The Capital Times :: EDITORIAL :: A7 Thursday, December 6, 2007 Barb Olson and Amal Othman
After meeting their own low expectations for the Annapolis conference amid intense skepticism, Bush administration officials crowed with delight," said an Associated Press story.
And well they might. It was more symbolism than substance, but President Bush looked almost presidential.
But all Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert really agreed on was to negotiate - Bush called it "hard bargaining."
"Hard bargaining" with Olmert and Abbas (and Bush too) at record low levels of support domestically?
"Hard bargaining" with the overwhelming power of the United States and Israel on one side and the divided and bloodied Palestinians on the other?
The United States is not an honest broker here. Congress just gave Israel another $30 billion for military aid over the next 10 years. That's on top of the $3 billion to $5 billion annually it already gets.
Since 2004, Bush has officially committed the United States to help Israel keep Palestinian land stolen for Jewish settlements. This policy of using "facts on the ground" to gobble up Palestinian land, water and commerce has already sparked two Palestinian uprisings and is destroying the viability of any independent Palestinian state.
Was this policy reversed at Annapolis? No. Instead Bush asked Israel to pretty-please remove a few trailer park "outposts" and to stop expanding the settlements. (Wink, wink.)
Bush instructed the Palestinians not to focus on the "borders" of a state. No wonder - Israel has already set the borders by constructing the annexation wall deep inside Palestinian territory, leaving the Palestinians imprisoned in a handful of poverty-stricken ghettos on a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of their original homeland.
What's next, a virtual Palestinian state?
Bush told Palestinians to focus on the "nature" of their state instead. It should be "democratic." Oh really? The United States and Israel have starved and bludgeoned the Palestinians for having elected the wrong people, and then invited Abbas (who overthrew the elected government) to Annapolis.
Bush hailed the "transparency and accountability" of the Abbas regime. These are the same crooks who were thrown out of office for shamelessly lining their pockets with the meager contents of the Palestinian treasury.
Bush and Olmert seek a puppet regime that will pick up the garbage and police the prison-statelets that are all Palestinians can expect from this "hard bargaining."
This is why the Abbas-Olmert agreement gives the United States (and thus Israel) a veto over any results, stating that implementation of the agreement will be "led by the United States" and "judged by the United States."
Completely absent, in spite of pleas from Palestinian human rights groups, was any mention of international law, which long ago laid down two unavoidable conditions for peace: the return of all Palestinian (and Syrian) territory taken by force in 1967, including removal of the colonial settler infrastructure, and a just solution for the millions of Palestinians driven from their homeland since 1948.
Bush's U.S.-Israel-Palestine bargaining process aims to circumvent this painful reality. Behind a fig leaf of endless negotiations, Israel will push ordinary Palestinians further into poverty and repression. Many will leave in order to survive. Those who remain face a grotesque form of apartheid, whose structure is already in place and whose foundation was laid by the logic of creating a "Jewish state" in a country populated mainly by others. Indeed, many Israelis openly hope that even so-called "Israeli Arabs" - Palestinians who stayed in 1948 and are now 20 percent of the citizenry - will be forcibly transferred to the new "Palestinian state."
If you want to see the reality obscured by the lofty language of politicians, visit the concentration camp that is Gaza, invisible at Annapolis. Smell the stench of raw sewage and uncollected garbage. Listen to the cries of hungry children and watch sick people die from Israel cutting the electricity or the embargo on medicine or from waiting too long at the perpetually sealed borders. Watch women screaming over the bodies of children and husbands torn apart by Israeli bombardment or vicious fighting among rival gangs of camp inmates.
The original online transcript of Bush's Annapolis speech referred to the "Iraqi soil of the West Bank and Gaza." Official versions corrected this to "rocky soil." But the cruel irony of this Freudian slip remains. Iraq certainly does resemble Gaza, with the West Bank close behind. This is not a path to peace.
Barb Olson and Amal Othman are members of theMadison-Rafah Sister City Project.
12/07/06 Resources here for female vets
Submitted by WNPJ member group chairwoman Sharyn Wisniewski
Resources here for female vets
Wisconson State Journal December 7, 2006
Regarding Sunday's article "Women warriors make mark in war zone," information for women veterans can be found in a new brochure developed by the Women Veterans Task Force, Wisconsin Women's Network.
The task force tapped the experience of women veterans from Vietnam through Desert Storm and Iraq to advise on what they needed when they returned. Too often women veterans don't know the benefits and services available to them. They may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, have been the victim of sexual abuse, face difficulty finding a job or feel isolated.
Titled "Women in Boots -- Marching Home," the brochure is distributed through the Wisconsin Family Assistance Centers of the Wisconsin National Guard, the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, the Women's Health Centers at VA hospitals and other organizations such as the Rural Women's Health Program of the Wisconsin Women's Health Foundation. It is also posted on the Web site of the Wisconsin Women's Network, www.wiwomensnetwork.org. And women veterans are encouraged to share their stories through the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program.
-- Sharyn Wisniewski, Madison chairwoman, Women Veterans Task Force, Wisconsin Women's Network
Women vets struggle for inclusion They served alongside men, often only to be treated differently
Vikki Kratz
The Isthmus December 7, 2006
When LaShell Lentz went to the cafeteria on her base in Kuwait, she kept her face forward and avoided making eye contact with any of the men there.
“You’re like a horse with blinders,” says Lentz, a Madison resident. “You never, ever look around.”
Lentz says the men who served in her platoon were respectful, but the other American men on the base often took any sign of friendliness from female soldiers as an invitation to make advances.
“All they see all day long is other men,” she says. “So every woman is attractive to them. Some days, it’s very flattering. On other days, you just want to punch them.”
During the year Lentz spent driving truck convoys into Iraq, she was one of only a dozen women in a 55-member platoon. Only 15% of the nation’s active-duty force is female. But Lentz, as the platoon’s leader, was even more isolated. Only about 15% of the military’s officers are female.
“To find someone like you is very difficult,” she says. “Officers are supposed to associate with other officers.” Two enlisted women eventually became Lentz’s best friends while she was overseas. “If I didn’t have them, it would have made life more difficult.”
Women serving in Iraq face all the same problems as men do — their lives are in constant danger, their fellow soldiers are injured or killed (one of Lentz’s drivers was killed by a roadside bomb), and they often return to the U.S. suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other problems. But as women, they have the added burden of being a minority in the male-dominated military. They often endure discrimination, sexual harassment or worse.
In 1990, during the build-up to the first Gulf War, one of Carolyn Morgan’s friends was sexually assaulted by an officer. There was no investigation, says Morgan, because the men in charge refused to believe the woman, who was eventually shipped back to the U.S.
“Not only did we have to worry about the enemy, we had to worry about our comrades,” says Morgan, who was in the Air Force.
When Morgan returned home to Madison, she went to a meeting for vets at the VFW. But when she walked through the door, she was promptly directed to the kitchen, to a meeting of the Ladies’ Auxiliary, for soldiers’ girlfriends and wives.
“Every time I went, I was told the auxiliary was in the kitchen,” she says. But Morgan notes that things have improved since then. (The VFW, for example, now has three Men’s Auxiliaries around the state.) And she’s proud of what women have accomplished in the Gulf War and Iraq.
“Women have been able to serve alongside their male counterparts,” she says. “They’ve been able to prove themselves.” But still, “There needs to be some way for us female veterans to connect.”
Earlier this year, Sharyn Wisniewski of the Wisconsin Women’s Network went to hear Abbie Pickett speak. Pickett had been a medic in Iraq and now suffers from PTSD.
“She said if she could get up in the morning and brush her teeth, that was an accomplishment,” recalls Wisniewski. “She wanted to just come back to her normal life, and nothing was normal.”
Wisniewski was touched by Pickett’s story and wanted to do something to help. So she began contacting other women, including Morgan, about creating a Women Veterans Task Force. The group, which now has about 18 members, has put together an informational brochure to help women access benefits, find employment and meet other female vets.
“The public perception is that it’s only men who have served,” says task force member Cheryl Adams, a Vietnam vet. She notes that women who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam were “not considered a veteran. We were told that point-blank.”
But women have been slowly infiltrating the military, although they are still not allowed to serve in certain combat situations. And because of their service, “Women today are eligible for all the same veterans services that men are,” says Adams. “They’re just not told about it.”
Wisniewski hopes the new task force will someday run public service announcements or hold a conference. But it must first raise funds. “We’d like to do more,” she says. “But we’re all volunteers. It takes time and money.” (For more information, see wiwomensnetwork.org.)
Morgan hopes the group can help end the isolation women vets feel, especially on returning home. Because so few women serve in the military, when they come back, they are often scattered across the country. And while men may have some of the same war experiences, they can’t understand what it’s like to be female — and a soldier.
“My female comrades have endured the sexual trauma,” says Morgan. “They’ve endured the discrimination of being a woman. They’ve endured hearing people say, ‘You can’t do this job.’ Or, ‘A woman shouldn’t be over there anyway.’”
In 1991, Vera Roddy of Milwaukee was awaiting deployment to Saudia Arabia during the first Gulf War. She had to sleep in a hall with 150 others, mostly men. She says whenever a woman would roll over in bed, some of the men would sit up and gawk. Some male members of her unit finally told them to cut it out.
“We didn’t go anywhere by ourselves,” she says, adding that at night, the men in her unit would push their cots closer to the women to protect them.
But Roddy scoffs at any notion that women don’t belong in the military or in Iraq. “Why should we be excluded?” she demands. “The onus is not on us as women. The onus is on men to prove they can cope with us.”
Roddy joined the Air Force in 1977, serving for 15 years. Retired now, she says she would serve in Iraq: “If my country called me, I would drop everything and go. There’s really a lot more good experiences than bad.”
Lentz agrees, even though she too encountered some problems as a female soldier. As platoon leader, she sometimes had to give orders to the men from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Turkey who’d been hired to drive the trucks into Iraq.
“There were a number of men who, because of their culture, would not take direction from a woman,” she says. So Lentz would have to pass the orders through a male soldier in her unit.
Despite everything, Lentz misses the time she spent in Iraq. “While you’re there, you feel like your life has a purpose,” she says. “Fighting oppression and getting rid of the bad guys — that’s a duty worth doing.”
12/07/06: Return to Rafah
Jennifer Lowenstein of WNPJ member group Madison-Rafah Sister City Project is the author of this article from the Isthmus newspaper.
Return to Rafah Israeli forces, with U.S. backing, are punishing Madison's unofficial sister Jennifer Loewenstein on Thursday 12/21/2006,
Ahmad, age 3, shot through the stomach outside his home in Beit Hanoun (photo by Jennifer Lowenstein)
Recently, I switched on a local public-access channel to see Mayor Dave Cieslewicz greeting a delegation from Madison’s sister city, Obihiro, Japan, with graciousness and pride. The mayor praised Madison’s rich sister-city relationships, which extend across the world to places like Ainaro, East Timor; Bac Giang, Vietnam; and Cuzco, Peru.
How different this was from the mayor’s words two years ago, when the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project sought official status from the Madison Common Council. Back then, Mayor Dave proclaimed, “At the end of the day, who cares whether Madison has a sister-city relationship with Rafah?”
Obviously, he cared — enough to threaten a veto should the “controversial” Palestinian city in Gaza win enough votes from council members to become official. Sister cities, we learned, are fine and good — as long as they’re the right cities.
Rafah, the poorest community in all Palestine, is an agricultural community of farmers and refugees, shopkeepers and street vendors. The unemployment rate is 55%, and four out of five families live on less than $2 per day.
Yet we were told that this desperate little town, struggling to survive under the yoke of 40 years of Israeli occupation, was a major terrorist threat to the United States, to Wisconsin and the people of Madison. The Madison Jewish Community Council’s hysteria over the prospects of an official relationship with Rafah was made manifest in accusations of anti-Semitism against anyone who dared support it.
On Nov. 6, I returned from a research trip to the Gaza Strip, and to Rafah, where I made contact with our partners on the ground. It took nearly a year to coordinate entry because of the human blockade into Gaza imposed by the Israeli Occupation Authorities. Israel does not want outsiders to see what it has done to this miserable strip of land, particularly since democratic elections last March catapulted the Hamas party into power with 44% of the vote.
Hamas did not win because the majority of Palestinians seek an Islamic state. On the contrary, Palestinians are among the most educated, secular and “westernized” peoples of the Middle East. Hamas won because Fatah, the former ruling party, failed so grievously to meet the needs of the people. It had nothing to do with suicide bombings or support for terror tactics and everything to do with domestic issues, primarily human suffering.
Even beforehand, Gaza’s 1.4 million people were living under a cruel occupation regime, unable to exit or enter the Gaza Strip without Israeli permission. Now they are subjected to a suffocating international siege as well. And because nearly half of Gaza’s population is under age 20, this U.S.-backed collective punishment is primarily a war against children.
In addition to living without sufficient food, water, electricity, fuel and medicines, the people of Gaza are subjected to near-daily incursions onto their land. While there, I visited hospitals and morgues and saw dozens of dead and wounded men, women and children — victims of deliberate shelling of civilian areas in Beit Hanoun. Since September 2000, the death toll among Palestinians has surpassed 4,000, including nearly 1,000 children.
The current pretext for these incursions is the firing of primitive Qassam rockets into Israel, which have killed nine people in the same timeframe. While this is indeed a breach of international law that should be condemned, the Israeli response has only increased the suffering and desperation of Gaza’s residents. And cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority, including humanitarian assistance, has exacerbated the problem dramatically.
Mohammad Omer, a 22-year-old award-winning journalist from Rafah, spoke in Madison in early December. His talks were riveting and vivid and brought out large audiences of people, keen to learn something about Gaza and the Israel/Palestine conflict. Mayor Dave didn’t come, though he was invited; nor, with one or two exceptions, did members of the established Jewish community.
There is increasing interest in Middle Eastern studies courses, for Arabic language study, for dialogue and debate on the issue of Israel/Palestine. We can shut our eyes and say it’s “too controversial” or “too divisive,” that it doesn’t concern us or that we can’t handle the terrible stories and images coming out of Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine. At the end of the day, however, we must face a different reality.
One of the conclusions of former President Carter’s book on Israel/Palestine, as well as the Iraq Study Group and other national and international forums, is that this conflict is inseparable from the U.S. quagmire in Iraq. Study Group member Sandra Day O’Connor recently told ABC’s “Nightline” that without exception, every leader and official in every Arab and Islamic country the group met stressed that Palestine was the central obstacle to resolving the Iraq mess and other·major regional problems.
Israel and its supporters, by trying desperately to keep this debate off the table, are harming the fundamental interests not only of Palestinians and Israelis but also of the American people.
Donations for the people of Gaza can be made via the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, P.O. Box 55371, Madison, WI 53705.
12/08/06 Let Corporations Support Education
Sumitted by WNPJ member Dave Stuffenson
Let Corporations Support Education
Wisconsin State Journal Friday, December 8, 2006
With two of three Wisconsin companies paying no state corporate income taxes, it's obvious how the excessive property tax burden can be lifted.
Every pro-business group in the state says that what attracts new business or keeps business in Wisconsin is our overall high-quality educational system that is financed heavily by property taxes. Property does not benefit from education, but education benefits businesses and people. The policy principle is to apply any tax to who benefits most.
The solution is to use no property taxes to support schools except for small amounts to pay for local services to the schools. Instead, use state corporate income taxes so that they pay their fair share of having an educated work force. If that's not enough income, make up the rest with an additional sales tax for education -- provided we could get real equalization of that revenue among all districts.
-- Dave Steffenson, Madison
12/08/06 War Without End
WNPJ member Jane Jensen featured in this article
War Without End Many Iraq veterans are having trouble adjusting to life at home
Nathan J. Comp
The Isthmus Decmber 8,2006
Slowly, very slowly, Thomas Staskal is coming to grips with things he saw and did in Iraq. He is depressed, anxiety-prone and has an acute fear of crowds. Since returning home to the Green Bay area in November 2005, the 25-year-old Army reservist has lost three jobs and flunked out of college. Common things, like a flash of lightning, can induce the shakes.
“I used to have dreams where I was chased by the people I had to kill in Iraq,” he says, over doughnuts and milk at his east-side Madison apartment. “I no longer wake up from the nightmares, but the panic attacks are getting worse. One of the problems is that I’m angry, but I don’t know at what.”
Rarely is a soldier’s return seamless, but for battle-weary vets like Staskal, post-traumatic stress disorder can crash their landing in the civilian world. PTSD is caused by a traumatic event, witnessed or experienced, often involving the threat of death or grave injury.
Symptoms include acute anxiety, isolation, intrusive thoughts, emotional numbness, depression, nightmares and, in extreme cases, flashbacks and thoughts of suicide. For some, pills and therapy can spell relief. For others, treatment does little, and the disorder becomes a psychic wound, one that can bleed for a lifetime. Staskal, whose treatment has reached a critical one-year window, worries that he’ll never get better.
“What’s the alternative?” he asks. “You deal with it the best you can. Is it depressing? Yeah, it’s depressing to think about dealing with this for the rest of my life.”
The National Center on PTSD reports that 40% of those who’ve fought in Afghanistan or Iraq have or will acquire this disorder. These rates have already eclipsed the 30% lifetime rate of Vietnam vets. The rise is attributed to longer, more frequent combat tours and to the nearly 96% survival rate of seriously injured combatants due to advances in battlefield medicine.
More than 6,000 state soldiers have returned from active duty in and around Iraq or Afghanistan, according to Col. Tim Donovan of the Wisconsin National Guard. This does not include soldiers from other branches of military service.
The military, rocked by emotional fallout from the war in Vietnam, is paying unprecedented attention to the problems mental injuries pose to war-zone morale and the domestic life of soldiers after they return. Dozens of studies have been ordered on the effects of combat stress and related disorders. Neuroscience has begun explaining the biochemical mechanisms behind PTSD. And innovative therapies are being tried at many Veterans Administration hospitals, Madison’s among them.
Bob Kelter, chief of social work and chaplain services at Madison’s VA hospital, has counseled an endless stream of returning troops, many of whom have maladjustment problems.
“Our realistic goal in working with someone here at the VA is to reassure them that they’re not crazy, that these abnormal and unbelievable human experiences actually did happen,” says Kelter. “As much as they can’t imagine the world operating that way, that it is real, and their survival is real.”
Dealing with the aftershocks
Thomas Staskal was raised in Tisch Mills, a small, unincorporated town south of Green Bay. He joined the Army Reserve at age 17, and was trained as a water purification specialist. But on arriving in Iraq, Staskal learned that this job had been contracted out to a private company. He was given a larger gun and put on a protection and escort detail. Some convoy gunners panicked in battle and didn’t fire their weapons. Others didn’t stop firing them. But Staskal was coolheaded. Because of this, he was often assigned the more dangerous daytime missions.
The incident Staskal believes triggered his PTSD occurred in April 2005, when his convoy came under attack in a town near the Syrian border. As he returned fire, the Humvee driver abruptly swerved to avoid an object in the road. When the vehicle hopped the curb, Staskal was bounced up in the turret. Consequently, his weapon swiveled downward and cut down a 6-year-old Iraqi boy.
The killing — “collateral damage” in military parlance — rattled Staskal to his core. Once a confident gunner, Staskal told his lieutenant he could never again pull the trigger. Back at base, he cried often, and was seen by some as unfit for war. He met with military psychologists three times a week. Ultimately, he was put on chow hall detail, withdrew from his comrades and served out his tour honorably.
“I’m a soldier,” he says, his voice choking up. “Rationally my actions justified what I did, and I’d do the same thing again in the same situation. Emotionally, though, I can’t justify the killing of a kid. Especially with my values, which say children should be protected to the utmost.”
Many soldiers simply absorb combat stress and slide into a normal life. Others are hit hard by the aftershocks of trauma. They come home with high expectations, only to find themselves unhappy and upset. They struggle to relate to others once close to them. Those with strong family and social networks tend to get better faster. But, too often, family and friends don’t associate behavior with symptoms of PTSD. For vets with PTSD, life can quickly become agonizing and lonely.
“They often say they feel empty inside — nothing really makes them happy, nothing really makes them sad,” says Tracy Smith, the Madison VA’s clinical director for post-traumatic stress disorder. “If someone comes across as flat and nonresponsive, that can be troublesome.”
Pushing beyond it
For Madison Reservist Patrick Wilcox, 26, the first year back was the toughest. The Memorial High graduate never saw combat, but daily confronted the horror it produced. For nearly 17 months, Wilcox worked in a hospital in Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. Seeing soldiers — and more often, Iraqi civilians — torn open from bomb shrapnel or gunfire was as regular as the meals he ate. Many of these casualties died from infections.
“One day we had four people come in after their Humvee flipped into a river and they drowned,” he says. “Another day, a little Iraqi boy came in who’d been shot. He lived, but I mean, it’s hard to see that. You’d see a lot of that stuff every day.”
Within days of coming home in November 2004, initially to stay with his father in Madison, Wilcox began feeling depressed, guilty and was unable to focus. But there was little time to sulk. He had to find a job, an apartment, buy a car and get his papers together so he could begin college. But no matter how busy he kept himself, Wilcox couldn’t shake the memories of war.
“I just felt bad, I really did,” says Wilcox, who hasn’t been diagnosed with or treated for stress disorders. “There are some days, even now, where I feel really bad about things and others when I really miss being there, which is weird. You get a lot of those mixed feelings.”
Shortly after returning to Madison, Wilcox enrolled at Edgewood College. But he had trouble concentrating on his studies, and felt resentment toward classmates who seemed indifferent to the war.
“Not that I expected them to understand, but it’s the fact that people seemed like they didn’t really care,” says Wilcox. “Maybe that’s not the case, but that’s how I felt. You’re just very angry and for no real reason.”
Wilcox, a button-wearing member of Veterans for Peace, survived the semester, and is still pursuing a degree in nursing from Edgewood. He has spoken about his time in Iraq to high school students. He wrote an essay about his experience for the new book Long Shadows: Veterans’ Paths to Peace, which features memoirs by 19 local vets. Wilcox says sharing with others what war is like helps him push beyond it.
Staskal’s first postwar semester, at the UW-Green Bay, was more disastrous. Depression kept him in bed, and anxiety kept him from the classroom. His grade-point average plummeted, and he dropped out. Now in Madison, Staskal is enrolled at Madison Area Technical College, hoping to improve his grades and transfer back into the UW System. He still battles with PTSD, trying to manage his symptoms, realizing they may not go away.
“A lot of people never get cured or better,” he says. “They simply learn how to deal with it.”
The VA to the rescue?
When 800 members of the Wisconsin Army National Guard returned to Fort McCoy last month from Kuwait, Bob Kelter was on hand and spoke to many of them. The VA hospital’s point of contact for soldiers being transferred out of the military’s health-care system, he oversees many of its outreach programs. He receives up to three inquiries a day about mental health services, often from soldiers’ spouses.
“What we’re doing here is an unprecedented outreach effort to reach vets fairly early,” says Kelter. “One of the major problems with these maladjustments is that there’s the sense, ‘I must’ve been wrong. I screwed up.’ Unfortunately, as you become invested in saying, ‘I did something wrong,’ you invest in guilt and lowered self-esteem.”
When speaking with vets, Kelter tries steering the discussion toward uplifting subjects, like their competency as a soldier and the value of survival. But bad memories aren’t easily left in the war zone. As Staskal and Wilcox point out, homecoming engages soldiers in a different kind of battle. And too often, the military isn’t there to help.
“If you call the Army, they’ll tell you to go to the VA,” says Wilcox. “We’re lucky in Madison that we have a good hospital, but a lot of people don’t live near one, and maybe they can’t get there because they just got home and don’t a have a car. There’s got to be a way to follow up with people, ’cause that’s when things get real bad, once you realize there’s problems that come along with being home.”
In other words, just because help is available doesn’t mean it’s always accessible. Staskal moved from Tisch Mills to Green Bay not only for college but to be near a VA hospital. Unhappy with the level of care he received, he transferred to the VA hospital in Appleton, where he was given one hour of therapy every four to six weeks. Even then, Staskal recalls, “They didn’t really want to talk about what I wanted to talk about. They just wanted to prescribe me more medicine.”
Some soldiers fear that seeking psychological treatment might have repercussions, both in terms of their military service and civilian life. In fact, the Army’s first war-zone study, conducted in 2004, showed that roughly 32% of soldiers who felt therapy would help them were afraid to seek it.
“I think there was a generation of military men who would say psychological stuff is for cowards: Have a drink and forget about it,” says Kelter. But he thinks such attitudes are less prevalent today. “I don’t see it now. I sense a genuine concern.”
As understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder has increased, so has the scope of the problem. It’s estimated that 72,000 vets currently receive a disability pension for PTSD. And the VA has seen a 30% increase in PTSD claims over the last few years.
This presents serious challenges to the military, which is supposed to discharge those diagnosed with mental disorders. Because doing so would weaken the ranks, it has taken to treating war-fatigued troops on the battlefield, then returning them to battle. And, with so many soldiers seeking discharges, the military has made it more difficult to win mental health disability claims.
Staskal and his girlfriend moved to Madison in August, just before the start of the new school year. When he tried enrolling at the local VA hospital, he learned that transferring his file from Appleton would take 30 days. After that, he’d be put on the waiting list. Meanwhile, time was running out on the two years of VA benefits that reservists are given.
“If you are on active duty, there’s a lot more help,” says Staskal. “The reservists get shafted. I don’t function 100% and the Army should help me, but they’re not. You can’t just use us then leave us out to dry, which seems to be what’s happening.”
Getting better
The symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder have been described since the wars of antiquity, but weren’t accepted as a disorder until 1980, when the illness debuted in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Overall, it’s estimated that 30 million Americans will experience PTSD-like symptoms sometime in life. And the disorder, because it’s not well understood, is difficult to treat. But not impossible.
“If you look at rates of success for treatments of PTSD relative to other disorders, they’re actually quite good,” says Smith of Madison’s VA hospital. “My personal mission is to reach these vets early and get them into treatment, because we can make a big difference in terms of its trajectory.”
Over the last five years, neuro-imaging has shown that key parts of the brain function irregularly in victims of post-traumatic stress. But the findings are ambiguous.
“We don’t understand if the brain abnormalities are risk factors or are consequences of trauma,” says Eileen Ahearn, a psychiatrist at Madison’s VA hospital. “Because we don’t do pre-stress studies, we can’t say what a person’s brain looked like before.”
Parts of the brain that regulate fear and reasoning fall out of sync, producing a confusion of raw feelings. The inability of the brain to discern safe stimuli from those representing actual danger leads to a variety of hyper-arousal symptoms like anxiety and undue vigilance. Crowds, car wrecks, thunder and the evening news are among the events that can trigger panic attacks.
Drugs designed to treat psychoses, depression and anxiety can remedy or offset these chemical imbalances. Some blood-pressure drugs have been found to quiet the nightmares. How the medications work is just as mysterious as the disorder itself. Finding the most effective ones requires time, patience and a little luck.
Therapy can address how the trauma is remembered. Madison’s VA hospital has embraced an innovative cognitive processing therapy that helps soldiers reconstruct their traumatic experiences in a more positive light.
“Therapies work because it’s changing the reaction, how you think and how you feel about it,” explains Smith. “A big part of it is your rules and beliefs, how they’ve changed since the event and how would you like them to be.”
This approach was developed 15 years ago to help rape victims, but has been increasingly used with combat vets. It involves talk therapy — vets meet individually with psychologists once a week for 13 weeks — as well as homework assignments, which often require vets to write about their traumatic experiences.
“We ask people to read it every day. And then when they come into session, we ask that they read it to us,” says Smith. “The writing part makes it easier to titrate how upsetting it is to you, because you can stop, you can put it down, you can put it away.”
Through the redemptive powers of the written word, vets learn to deconstruct and rebuild their memories. The goal is that, over time, vets will ascribe different, more positive meanings to them.
“People can get better,” says Ahearn. “We have seen it with the cognitive processing therapy. They may have some minimal symptoms, but they’re getting better.”
Learn all about it
Not long ago, on a drizzly Saturday afternoon, 12 people arrived at the Labor Temple on Park Street for a screening of The Ground Truth, a heartbreaking documentary that follows five Iraqi war vets from boot camp through to their hard return to civilian life. By the end of the film, most of the audience was crying.
Jane Jensen, whose son has served in Iraq, organized the event. As founder of Military Families for Peace, Jensen is trying to bring awareness to the PTSD issue. “It’s just awful what these troops go through when they get back,” says Jensen, whose group has grown to more than 200 members.
Countless Web sites have sprung up bringing awareness to the effects combat-stress disorders have on soldiers and their families. The online journal ePluribus Media lists 128 news articles from 2002 to present, highlighting crimes and suicides committed by former combat vets. About 90 combat soldiers have killed themselves since October 2001, and at least 30 have been charged with homicide.
A definitive work called Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, was recently published. The author, Penny Coleman, watched her husband wither away from the disorder for years after returning from Vietnam, until the day he killed himself.
Government studies continue as well. A major study currently under way requires post-deployment mental wellness screenings of all returning vets. And Madison’s VA hospital is part of a cooperative study looking at how a specific drug eases the symptoms.
“There’s been huge movement to really attend to the mental health needs of soldiers,” says Smith. “There’s a lot of suffering with these illnesses. If people could just pull themselves up by the bootstraps, they would.”
Not a day goes by that Staskal and Wilcox don’t think about the awful things they saw in Iraq. War has changed them, and there is no changing back.
“I forget stuff or I just kind of don’t do what I should be doing. I just kind of blank out,” says Wilcox, who has received an honorable discharge. “That’s how I react to it, and I don’t like that. I don’t want it to affect me that way, but I don’t ever want to forget the things that happened. It’s strange that that was my life for a good amount of time.”
12/10/06 Time For Occupation Of Iraq To Finally End
Submitted by WNPJ member Marion Stuenkel
Time For Occupation Of Iraq To Finally End
Wisconsin State Journal Sunday, December 10, 2006
MARION STUENKEL
The picture on the front page of the Wisconsin State Journal on Tuesday took my breath away, because I knew that corner.
It was as if I were in Iraq, and the Baghdad newspaper had a picture of Madison's State Street with Michaelangelo's and The Childrens' Museum buildings all ragged and ripped out.
Pictured was the building with the Internet Cafe, across from the ice cream store with the splendid pistachio flavor, not far from the potato chip stand I frequented. I grocery shopped on this street, bought a birthday cake, laughed at the Teletubby dolls for sale in the toy store.
In 2004, that building and street were a vital part of the neighborhood where I lived in an apartment, without guards and with friends to visit. The friends were Christian, Sunni and Shia -- businessmen, doctors, lawyers, artists, clerics and priests.
Not far is San Rafael Church, where Paul Bremer attended mass when he first came to Baghdad.
I think the U.S. military industrial complex has succeeded in Iraq. What the corporate elites wanted, happened. They destroyed a civilization.
The same tactics all empires use -- from Assyrian to British to United States -- has worked yet again to the shame of us all.
What they've done is set tribe against tribe, religion against religion, women against men, profession against profession, city versus country and, finally, the inner self against itself.
For the Iraqi people, the first Gulf War was the war against Iran. More than a million men were killed. Many Iraqi perofessionals are single women. They had no men to marry.
Then came the 1991 war, won by superior technology on the field while terrorizing women and children at home. Next, the long seige, from 1991 through the "shock and awe" campaign in 2003, followed by looting that destroyed infrastructure and cultural artifacts.
Selective repairs followed, so that Green Zone U.S. soldiers have a swimming pool, while in Sadr City, strands of fecal matter can be indentified in the drinking water.
They've done dirty operations, then manipulated impulsive repsonses, committed war crimes and built on the reactions.
Many who can leave Iraq have done so, and they mourn in exile. Many of those who remain are ill from the same diseases war always leaves. During the Punic War, the earth of Carthage was salted. In Iraq, the earth is poisoned with depeleted uranium.
Tribes, hundreds of them, move herds back and forth within Iraq, and to and from Iran. Sunni are married to Christians and Sunni to Shia. Iraq, too, is a melting pot. There are many cooperative efforts about which nothing is reported, but as historians write, "The British always leave behind a civil war."
Some Iraqis say, "The servant (Saddam) has departed because the master (empire) has returned."
U.S. policy has been a success if what we wanted is a nation so divided and destroyed we can control its resources. Our behavior is mean, greedy and selfish, so we think everyone else's is too.
We who abhor such behavior must keep doing whatever we can to get our military out of Iraq. Some of the Iraqi people I met, with an arms-open gesture, said to me, "We people, we get along just fine," and, with hands arched overhead, continued, "It is our governments that are the problem."
I live in a representative democracy where government is said to be of, by and for the people. So I tell my representatives I want us to leave Iraq. The question of success or failure is not the right question. We didn't get into the mess, we made it. We can leave.
As I left Iraq, from the apartment not far down the street from the latest car bombings shown on the front page, our translator kissed me on the forehead in blessing.
I had just said how sorry I was that my government had hurt so many.
He said, "We have been invaded for thousands of years, and we will survive this occuaption as well."
It is time to leave Iraq now so the world around can heal.
12/10/06 Troops uninspired by commission's report
Submitted by WNPJ Outreach Coordinator Steve Burns
Troops uninspired by commission's report
Wisconsin State Journal December 10, 2006
As might be expected, the wisest take on the recent Baker-Hamilton commission comes from soldiers currently serving in Iraq. None of the soldiers serving in Ramadi, interviewed for Thursday's story "Soldiers in Iraq are skeptical," drew hope from the commission's recommendations.
Consider one recommendations: to reduce U.S. "combat forces" in Iraq while rapidly increasing the number of U.S. "combat advisors" embedded with Iraqi military units. Does it make any difference to an American soldier, when he is being shot at by snipers and threatened by roadside bombs, that he is now to be considered a "combat advisor?" Doesn't this increase the danger for our troops, soon to be "embedded" with Iraqi units of doubtful loyalty?
First Lt. Gerard Dow had it right when he said of the Iraqi people, "U.S. soldiers are dying trying to help people who don't want their help."
If there had been even one participant in the Baker-Hamilton commission with Lt. Dow's common sense, they might have had the courage to come to the only conclusion that makes sense -- to bring our troops home now.
-- Steve Burns, Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, Madison
12/11/06 Evjue Funds Aid Peace Effort
Submitted by WNPJ member Evjue Funds Aid Peace Effort
The Capital Times Monday, December 11, 2006
Paul McMahon treasurer Clarence Kailin Chapter 25 Madison Veterans for Peace
Dear Editor,
On behalf of the board of Madison Veterans for Peace, I wish to extend our appreciation to the board of The Evjue Foundation for the $3,000 grant award we recently received.
We were extremely pleased at your show of support for our peace efforts in the community at large and will make every endeavor to demonstrate that your decision was well-founded.
Our board will be discussing the grant and start to determine the details of how we will distribute copies of the book and DVD of "Long Shadows: Veterans' Paths to Peace" in local schools.
12/11/06 Impeachment Rally Brings Out Faithful
WNPJ members Dennis Coyier and Jane Jensen featured in this article
Impeachment Rally Brings Out Faithful; Capitol Protest Part Of Nationwide Effort
The Capital Times Monday, December 11, 2006
By Ellen Williams-Masson Correspondent for The Capital Times\ The writer retains the copyright for this article
When Dennis Coyier marched up State Street Sunday afternoon to the Capitol in protest of the Iraq war, he was walking a familiar path.
The Vietnam-era Navy veteran got tear-gassed in anti-war protests in Madison when his active duty ended in 1968 and is proud to fight to "reverse this kind of militancy that is just unbecoming of an American."
"We're calling for bringing the troops home, ending the war in Iraq, and impeaching the president, vice president and Secretary Rice," he said.
"There is no exit strategy that is going to be positive," Coyier, an active local demonstrator, said. "The most we can do is prevent ourselves from getting shot in the butt on the way out."
For a city that has long embraced anti-war activism, few participated in the political rally that started at the Capitol on Sunday afternoon, which was part of a nationwide effort called "Human Rights Day." Its intent, according to organizers posting on www.afterdowningstreet.org, was "putting impeachment on the table."
Jane Jensen, founder of Military Families for Peace, said she marched in the protest warmed by an inner fire of indignation stoked by Bush's reaction to the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton report and his reluctance to pull out of Iraq.
"I think it is so awful that, as cold as it is, I am out here," she said.
Shouting, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, George Bush has got to go," a core of about two dozen activists marched down State Street to the Library Mall and back, gathering a few supporters along the way but failing to attract a sizable crowd among the holiday shoppers.
In contrast to the rioting in Madison during the Vietnam era, spectator Rachel Gallagher of McFarland noted that public response has been more subdued during the Iraq war.
"It's interesting that in the Vietnam days, there would have been many, many more protesters, versus this war, where it does appear that the poor man' is dying, and there is not a loud enough voice for him," she said.
Public reaction to the protest was mixed, with many shoppers smiling as the protesters passed by or honking their horns in support.
Former Madisonian Thelma Lindsey rolled down her window to shout encouragement as she drove around the Capitol Square and said she needed to "park my car and get out there with them."
"I just really feel that he is not for the people," she said. "We have so much going on over here that we need to be in tune with. So many of our people are dying."
Other shoppers stopped and stared in astonishment, and some complained that the activists were ruining their holiday experience at the Capitol.
"I am rather disappointed because we came here to take pictures with a foreign exchange student and we wanted to get him in front of the statue, and we have protesters out here wearing the American flag and impeach' signs," Christine Kvapil of Cornell, Wis., said.
Kvapil thinks that Bush is doing a "fantastic job" and was visiting the Capitol with her husband, their three children and Oleg Svarkov, a 17-year-old exchange student from Slovakia.
Svarkov paused as he snapped photos of the protesters to share his viewpoint on the rally.
"They can have free speech if they want," he said. "In my country, most people don't like Bush, too, for the war in Iraq. He is doing a good job for the economy."
Sheri Wideen was also visiting the Capitol with her husband and two children and said that she was initially irritated when the protesters entered the rotunda at the end of the rally.
"I did feel like, I'm here to enjoy the tree and not think about political things,' " she said. "Then I thought, If my child were in Iraq, would I feel differently?' "
David Swanson of Charlottesville, Va., is counting on similar realizations to build upon a groundswell to hold Bush accountable for decisions he made leading to the Iraq war.
Swanson is one of the cofounders for the nonpartisan coalition After Downing Street.org, which organized the nationwide "Human Rights and Impeachment Day" events in more than 75 cities on Sunday.
He said their movement has "incredible public support" that will snowball when the balance of power swings to the Democrats in January.
"We all think we are some little fringe group," Swanson said. "We need to make each other aware that we are 51 percent and growing, and we need to get more active."
The hustle and bustle of the holiday season and looming final exams no doubt contributed to low attendance at the rally, but a selection by UW a cappella group "Tangled Up in Blue" suggested that many are waiting for more than a change in the weather.
In an impromptu concert as the protesters passed by, the young women sang lyrics from a song by John Mayer:
"It's not that we don't care,
"We just know that the fight ain't fair
"So we keep on waiting
"Waiting on the world to change."
12/13/06: Gay Legislator's Marriage Is About Being A Couple
WNPJ member and State Representative Marc Pocan is featured in this story.
Gay Legislator's Marriage Is About Being A Couple
Wisconsin State Journal :: FRONT :: A1
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Melanie Conklin
Rep. Mark Pocan just got back from Indonesia -- but this two-week trip was more than just a vacation for the Madison legislator. It was his honeymoon.
On Nov. 24 in Toronto, Pocan and his partner of four-plus years, Philip Frank, got married.
Of course, the couple couldn't legally tie the knot in Wisconsin. And that would have been the case even if the Nov. 7 amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as being between one man and one woman had not passed, as it did with 59 percent of the vote. They'd made their wedding plans and bought their tickets months ago, but for Pocan and Frank, it is a private matter they didn't want to see turned into a political talking point.
"We were engaged last Christmas but didn't talk about it a lot because of the referendum," Pocan says. "The referendum had nothing to do with marriage and everything to do with getting certain voters to turn out at the polls. We didn't talk about it because we didn't want to affect the political maneuvering."
Frank and Pocan flew to Toronto on Thanksgiving and were married the next day at the wedding chamber in Toronto's City Hall. Kyle Rae, an openly gay member of the Toronto City Council who got to know Pocan when Pocan was on the Dane County Board, helped with the arrangements.
Rae told Pocan they are glad to have ceremonies for gay couples at City Hall -- no shotguns involved. "Often couples who get married at City Hall have to be there, so he said when gay couples come in they're all happy they are getting married and it's a nice change," Pocan says.
After the ceremony, attended by both men's immediate family, the newlyweds toured Toronto in a limo and dined at the CN Tower overlooking the city.
For the honeymoon, they spent two weeks in Bali, diving, whitewater rafting, sight-seeing and eating good food. Frank, who recently joined Pocan working at his Budget Signs & Specialties shop, says the highlight was visiting the astounding Borobudur Temple.
It hit home for Pocan that he is a married man when he returned to the U.S. and the custom's agent in Los Angeles asked if they needed one form or two. "We told her we only needed one, we came together as family, and that we'd gotten married in Toronto," Pocan says. "She told us she thought it was nice that they allowed that in Canada."
While the newlyweds haven't told many people, just having returned from Bali on Sunday, Frank and Pocan say the response, like that of the custom's agent, has been overwhelmingly positive to their news.
Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk sent the couple a copy of the book, "Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry." Says Falk, "It's all about commitment and why it matters and the underlying truth that we all long for relationships and commitment."
She was thrilled to hear his news. "It's just such a joy."
But Pocan and Frank shouldn't expect to get a card from Julaine Appling, executive director of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin, which spearheaded the fight for the marriage amendment.
"(Pocan's) look-alike or faux marriage in Canada is meaningless here in this state," Appling says. "I'm not going to condemn or condone it, but what he has is a meaningless piece of paper. That's the reality.
"... He hasn't really escaped Wisconsin law. We have a cordial relationship, but am I going to send him a congratulations card saying Best wishes on your wedding?' No, because I don't recognize it. Neither does the state of Wisconsin."
Given that his marriage isn't legally recognized in the state Pocan represents, why get married?
He says it has meaning in his life. "You get the question all the time, it's a societal question, Are you married?' It's nice to be able to say we're a couple, even though we won't be recognized for any of the rights and benefits given to married couples by Wisconsin or the U.S. government. It's important for us to recognize it."
Frank, however, has a question for the anti-gay marriage amendment advocates, based on the message of the campaign. "I'd be curious to find out how many marriages we've destroyed over the past few weeks. I'm pretty sure that's what they said this would do."
12/13/06: New Format Angers Listeners
WNPJ Member Val Walasek is featured in this report
New Format Angers Listeners Loyal Talk Radio Fans Are Fighting Clear Channel Radio's Planned Format Change To Sports. Wisconsin State Journal :: LOCAL :: B1 Wednesday, December 13, 2006 RYAN J. FOLEY Associated Press
Hundreds of liberals rallied Tuesday night to protest Clear Channel Radio's decision to ax a popular progressive radio station, urging the company to back away from a planned format change to sports Jan. 1.
Local activists, politicians and business owners said the Texas-based radio giant's decision to replace its highly rated progressive talk station with Fox Sports Radio simply doesn't make sense. They said the station, known as The Mic, provided a voice for progressive causes and helped inform the public in a city long known for its liberal views.
"This can't happen. The airwaves belong to us and we will take them back," said Valerie Walasek, a 28-year-old listener who organized the rally that filled the High Noon Saloon, 701 E. Washington Ave., to its capacity of 400 people. She said more than 5,000 people had signed an online petition asking Clear Channel to reconsider.
Former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin threatened to file complaints with the Federal Communications Commission against Clear Channel's local stations in the coming years if the company didn't "tear up its contract with Fox Sports."
"For every ounce of energy we put into it, we can create a pound of aggravation for them," he said. "The secret is convincing them that's not the way to go. That's what we got to do today."
Not backing down
But so far, the company shows no signs of backing down from the planned format change.
The company's market manager in Madison, Jeff Tyler, said too many advertisers stayed away from 92.1 FM because of opposition to the 2-year-old format, which mixed nationally known liberal talkers such as Al Franken with local hosts who discussed everything from city politics to animal rights.
The station is making money but has consistently ranked dead last out of 14 Madison stations that report earnings, Tyler said, noting that liberal talk has faced similar problems nationwide. Air America Radio, the progressive talk and news network that provided some programming to the Madison station, filed for bankruptcy protection in October.
Terry Kelly, a Madison businessman and an investor in Air America Radio, said the Madison station was one of Air America's highest-rated affiliates in the country. He said he doubted the timing of the announcement -- just three days after the Nov. 7 election as the left was celebrating electoral victory -- was a coincidence.
He acknowledged Air America's financial problems but said the company was close to finding new financing.
Tyler said the format change on WXXM will answer a growing demand for high school and UW-Madison sports coverage and feature highly rated sports personalities Jim Rome and Dan Patrick.
"Madison is a sports town in a sports state," he said.
Jack Mitchell, a University of Wisconsin journalism professor who had a 30-year career in public radio, said he doubted the left's attempts would sway Clear Channel.
"The backlash doesn't prove anything more than the ratings did: There are a lot of people that like the station," Mitchell said. "People in Madison think they can make a difference, but they may be disillusioned." High ratings
The station had the second highest ratings in Madison for news talk and the 11th highest in the market overall over the summer, according to Arbitron, Inc., a media research company. That means about 30,100 listeners in a media market of 468,800 tuned in during any given week.
The top-rated news talk station, WIBA-AM, features a mix of straight news and conservative talkers.
National hosts featured on The Mic have joined in the outrage. Ed Schultz, a Fargo, N.D.-based progressive talker whose daily show is heard on more than 100 stations,
"This is not a ratings issue because the station is No. 1 in Madison. It's an issue of management," he said. "Instead of changing the format, maybe we ought to change Jeff Tyler."
Tyler said the company was exploring ways to continue progressive talk in Madison, including picking up liberal hosts on one of its other five local stations.
"Our company sales team embraced the station, the format and enthusiasm we all had for the station and its role in our community," he said. "However, there are many advertisers, local and national, who have been at conflict with the programming or stay away from controversial programming."
12/18/06 Iranian Questions Worth Considering
Submitted by WNPJ member Daniel "Jim" Guilfoil Iranian Questions Worth Considering
The Capital Times Monday, December 18, 2006
Dear Editor:
In the 1970s Edgewood College had students from Iran on the campus. In my logic classes some of them observed that what I was teaching was not consistent with their culture. They wondered what their families and tribes would do if confronted by children who "thought for themselves."
I thanked them for their questions and offered a similar experience that Edgewood faculty and students had, in the Western culture: that of questioning their church or faith. Those in authority are not accustomed to having their judgments questioned by those who are unequal to them in power or status.
I think of the use to which the Holocaust is being put by politicians in Iran and Israel, and the way this use is being reported by the media. This Iranian Conference on the Holocaust is being used by some to support the claim that Israel was established by European interests to divide oil countries into factions that could be manipulated by colonial powers. The Holocaust was a tool to support Israel. How would a young Iranian question these things?
There were Armenians, Ukrainians, Gypsies, etc., killed as groups by Nazis, Soviets, and others during World War II. Why are the Jews singled out as exceptional and used to make a nation state? Why did European powers use an orientalist perspective to establish a Jewish state?
Again the question of the Iranian students. How do I question what my family, my tribe, my people say?
12/18/06: Iranian Questions Worth Considering
Iranian Questions Worth Considering The Capital Times :: EDITORIAL :: A9 Monday, December 18, 2006 Daniel "Jim" Guilfoil Monona
Dear Editor: In the 1970s Edgewood College had students from Iran on the campus. In my logic classes some of them observed that what I was teaching was not consistent with their culture. They wondered what their families and tribes would do if confronted by children who "thought for themselves."
I thanked them for their questions and offered a similar experience that Edgewood faculty and students had, in the Western culture: that of questioning their church or faith. Those in authority are not accustomed to having their judgments questioned by those who are unequal to them in power or status.
I think of the use to which the Holocaust is being put by politicians in Iran and Israel, and the way this use is being reported by the media. This Iranian Conference on the Holocaust is being used by some to support the claim that Israel was established by European interests to divide oil countries into factions that could be manipulated by colonial powers. The Holocaust was a tool to support Israel. How would a young Iranian question these things?
There were Armenians, Ukrainians, Gypsies, etc., killed as groups by Nazis, Soviets, and others during World War II. Why are the Jews singled out as exceptional and used to make a nation state? Why did European powers use an orientalist perspective to establish a Jewish state?
Again the question of the Iranian students. How do I question what my family, my tribe, my people say?
12/19/06: Coast Guard Says It Won't Fire On Great Lakes
Coast Guard Says It Won't Fire On Great Lakes Wisconsin State Journal :: LOCAL :: B3 Tuesday, December 19, 2006
KEN THOMAS Associated Press
Responding to safety and environmental concerns, the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday it was withdrawing plans to use 2,500 square miles of the Great Lakes for live machine-gun firing exercises.
The plan had been criticized by several U.S. and Canadian mayors, business leaders and environmentalists who said it could be unsafe and disruptive. Environmentalists also said they worried about the consequences of lead ammunition being deposited in the Great Lakes.
"The Coast Guard appreciates the thoughtful comments we received, and we will work with the public to ensure the Coast Guard can meet any threat to public safety or security," said Rear Adm. John Crowley Jr., commander of the Ninth Coast Guard District in Cleveland.
"We are committed to addressing the concerns that training be safe, preserve the diverse uses of the lakes, and protect the environment," Crowley said.
During several public hearings in the region, Coast Guard officials said the training exercises were vital to its homeland security and law enforcement missions. The plan called for crews to shoot at floating targets with M240-B machine guns aboard cutters, rescue boats and other vessels.
Each of the 34 "safety zones" on lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario would have been closed to private vessels for four-hour spans about four to eight times a year. Exercises would have taken place in each zone two or three times a year.
The proposal followed the Coast Guard's decision to mount automatic weapons on about 150 Great Lakes vessels as it has done on vessels on the East, West and Gulf coasts.
Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., said Monday he learned about the decision from Adm. Thad Allen, the Coast Guard's commandant, who "was dissatisfied with the process by which the Coast Guard undertook this activity."
"We understand the need of the Coast Guard to be in a top state of readiness, but they must respect the public's concern for safety and the environment," said Rep. Dave Obey, D-Wausau.
Mayors from 80 U.S. and Canadian cities from around the Great Lakes urged the Coast Guard to halt plans for the exercises, saying it would create tensions. Toronto Mayor David Miller said it was "totally contrary to the long history of peaceful relations and environmental cooperation" between the neighboring countries.
The Coast Guard had said the exercises would not endanger the public, noting that about two dozen live-fire sessions were conducted on the lakes this year. The exercises took place in temporary zones while the plan to establish permanent training sites were under review.
But some of the zones overlapped established vessel routes, including those of Wisconsin-to-Michigan car ferries and the Beaver Island ferries originating from Charlevoix on Lake Michigan. And some worried that boaters might not hear warnings on maritime radio and find themselves in the line of fire.
Hugh McDiarmid Jr., spokesman for the Michigan Environmental Council, said the group was pleased by the decision. The council was concerned that about 7,000 pounds of lead would be deposited annually into the lakes and "there really was no examination of where this lead would fall and what it would do," he said.
Crowley said he would "take the time to get this right" and would not conduct live-fire training in the lakes to meet non-emergency training requirements. Crowley said he planned to reconsider public concerns and was committed to finding "environmentally friendly alternatives to the lead ammunition we currently use."
12/19/06: Rallying for Liberal Radio
WNPJ Members Dennis Coyier and Russell Novkov are featured in this story
Rallying For Liberal Radio Wisconsin State Journal :: LOCAL :: D9 Sunday, December 17, 2006 A rally to protest Clear Channel's decision to change The Mic 92.1's programming from Air America to sports on Jan. 1 filled the High Noon Saloon, 701 E. Washington Ave. to its capacity of 400 last week. Madison businessman and Air America investor Terry Kelly, above, speaks to the crowd about the switch.
At right, Russell Novkov, Chris Schaapel and Patrick Robbins add their names to a petition asking Clear Channel to keep the city's main progressive talk station. Mic listener and rally organizer Valerie Walasek said she has collected nearly 5,500 signatures she will hand deliver to Clear Channel's offices, 2651 S. Fish Hatchery Road, as part of a Free Speech Funeral Rally Wednesday. Rally participants will gather at Brittingham Park at 1 p.m. and drive to Clear Channel with signs on their cars decrying the changeover as the death of free speech. Walasek said supporters plan to hold more rallies and fundraisers and will consider all options to try to find a way to keep progressive talk streaming in Madison.
12/20/06 Unelected Advocates ( including information you can use to make your voice heard on local issues)
WNPJ member Daniel "Jim" Guilfoil and other local activists featured in this article
Unelected Advocates
While Most Of Us Stay Away, Unofficial Representatives In Madison And Elsewhere Make A Point Of Showing Up To Monitor And Participate In The Business Of Local Government.
Wisconsin State Journal Wednesday, December 20, 2006 DEBORAH ZIFF
Expecting a lively crowd, Rosemary Lee arrived early at a Police and Fire Com- mission meeting called to get citizen input on the next police chief.
Instead, she found the room empty and sat through the 2004 meeting alone among the benches facing the commissioners, save for a former police chief.
"Out of a town of 220,000 people, I was the only one who cared enough," she said. "I was extremely disappointed. I was the only citizen that thought the selection of the new police chief for the city was important."
Truth is, the sense of civic duty so ardently held by Lee is simply not shared by most citizens -- at least not to the same extent.
Madison is a city that emits a manic hum of political activity. Many Madisonians are motivated to political action by pet issues, involve themselves in neighborhood groups and take care to be socially conscious.
But for most people -- even here -- the mere mention of the phrase "tax incremental finance district" is enough to induce a heavy slumber.
It is only for a few brave individuals that "tax levy" and "operating budget shortfall" are calls to arms -- or at least calls to pore over city meeting agendas, trudge to countless public meetings and pen dozens of letters to the editor.
"They really are a unique bunch," said Ald. Mike Verveer, 4th District. "There's only a handful of local activists that go to the length these do to monitor city government, literally to the point they are well-known far and wide in City Hall."
So much so that Mayor Dave Cieslewicz bestowed the moniker "21st alderman" on Lee. "Rosemary has a better attendance record at City Council meetings than some members," he said.
Sometimes called gadflies, many of those in the Madison area who nose themselves into a wide variety of local issues are less like irritating flies, and more like crickets -- not biting, but chirping.
The question is: Are they loud enough for political leaders to hear?
\ A rare species
Though Madison is a hotbed of grass-roots activism, people such as Lee and Phil Ejercito are a rarer species, taking it upon themselves to sound off on a broad range of issues -- often with no personal gain other than the knowledge that they took a stand.
Ald. Austin King, 8th District, calls Ejercito, 25, "his own little institution in Madison."
Among other things, he helped persuade the university to end its use of Tyson Foods products and created CRASH, a Halloween group with the goal of keeping Freakfest safe.
In 2002, when Ejercito was a student, he felt students should be more aware of their rights as tenants. He revived a dormant tradition called the "Worst House in Madison" contest, which aimed to improve housing conditions by throwing a spotlight on negligent landlords.
Since then, 25-year old Ejercito has used his passion for housing issues to angle onto the housing committee, and he's the chairman of the landlord tenant issues committee.
Such individuals are most effective at making a difference in public policy when they are representing a larger group of people affected by a problem, said UW-Madison political science professor Dennis Dresang. The key is being focused and having a persuasive argument, he said.
Sometimes those who are invested in the going-ons of local government will decide to make the move from the citizen realm to that of the politician. Marsha Rummel, Verveer points out, is now running for City Council after years of involvement in a range of city issues.
For those who don't take that plunge, there is a potential risk to being too ubiquitous on the local government circuit: It can cause elected officials to become numb to the steady stream of e-mails, phone calls and complaints.
Often the role of these political watchdogs may be to identify community harms for those who aren't paying quite as much attention, Dresang said. "They have the effect of setting the agenda. They get the attention of the problem-solvers, they get the attention of the media."
But some aren't so concerned about the irritation factor.
One of Madison's most notorious gadflies, Ira Sharenow, who has since moved to California, battered city officials with thousands of e-mails on the topic of enacting a smoking ban.
"Sometimes people that are activists get under the skins of public officials or opinion leaders," said Monona Ald. Jeffrey Wiswell Sr. "They don't seek fame or glory or public office. They seek a better community."
\ Why they do it
Activists generally can be broken down into two categories: those who get energized by a particular issue -- say, the imminent construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter or efforts to save wetlands from development -- and those who are perennially interested in just about everything.
An example of the former occurred when residents in the Monroe Street neighborhood wanted to ensure a grocery store would be erected in the vacancy left by Ken Kopp's Fine Foods. They organized themselves into the Monroe Grocery Store Cooperative.
"(The group) reflected the neighborhood's strong groundswell of opinion that there needed to be a grocery store," said one of the cooperative's founders, Brad Ricker.
The show of support ensured that several prospective businesses, a Curves for Women and Walgreen Drug Store, were prevented from taking over the space and prompted the city to help finance the project, which ultimately resulted in Trader Joe's making a home in Monroe Commons.
But the motivation of the latter type of activist is more complex, often combining a mixture of civic responsibility and deep-seated principles.
These individuals vehemently insert themselves into local politics by different methods, some by speaking out at meetings, some by writing letters to the editor, some by leveraging technology through Web sites and blogs and some, like Monona's Mari Ann Lichtfeld, by writing a newspaper column.
Rosemary Lee, who often serves on steering committees, has most noticeably left her fingerprints on Downtown developments, said Verveer, her longtime alderman.
"I like the feeling that sometimes I know I make a difference in my city government," said Lee, emphasizing "sometimes."
Likewise, Monona's Dan "Jim" Guilfoil, isn't so concerned with the influence or success of his campaigns. His intent is to point out the inequities he sees in society.
The retired Edgewood philosophy professor is moved to action on anything that offends his notions of social justice. He frequently writes letters to the editor or appears before Monona's political bodies on everything from objections to the war in Iraq to asking that the name of Squaw Bay be changed because it is offensive to American Indians.
"What's most important is you don't allow what's popular to change you," he said.
Nor does Guilfoil mind being labeled a gadfly. The term was used by Plato to describe Socrates' criticism of the Athenian political scene.
"That's a very proud insect that I would accept gladly," he said.
\ Here is information you can use to make your voice heard on local issues.
City government
Write Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, Room 403, 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Madison, WI, 53703. Or call 266-4611. The TDD number is 266-4443. E-mail:mayor@cityofmadison.com.
Write your alderman in care of: Madison City Council, Room 417, City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Madison, WI, 53703, or call 266-4071. The fax number is 267-8669 and the TDD number is 267-8670. E-mail: council@cityofmadison.com.
Find city meetings and agendas online at www.ci.mad ison.wi.us.
Dane County government
Write County Executive Kathleen Falk in care of: Dane County Executive, Room 421, City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Madison, WI, 53703, or call 266-4114. The fax number is 266-2643 and the TDD number is 266-9138.
Write your county supervisor in care of: County Board Office, Room 118, City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Madison, WI, 53703, or call 266-5758. County Board Chairman Scott McDonell can be reached at 266-4360. The fax number is 266-4361. www.co.dane.wi.us
Madison schools
To comment on Madison School District issues:
Call Superintendent Art Rainwater at 663-1607. To leave a message or request information, call the district's 24-hour line at 204-HELP.
Address letters to School Board members to: Board of Education, 545 W. Dayton St., Madison, WI 53703.
You can reach the board secretary at 663-1659. Send faxes to 204-0341. Address E-mail to: comments@madison.k12.wi.us
Letter to the editor
Send your views to the State Journal in 200 words or less:
Call 283-3123 in Madison, 888-696-8675 elsewhere.
Mail to: Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 8058, Madison, WI 53708
E-mail: wsjopine@madison.com, no attachments please.
12/20/06: The Professor: Daniel 'Jim' Guilfoil
WNPJ member Jim Guilfoil is profiled in this Wisconsin State Journal story
The Professor: Daniel 'Jim' Guilfoil Putting On Pressure Trying To Check Power Wisconsin State Journal :: FRONT :: A7 Wednesday, December 20, 2006 Deborah Ziff
On issues as wide-ranging as the war in Iraq to an incoming Wal-Mart, Daniel "Jim" Guilfoil is a resident whistle-blower on what he sees as societal wrongs.
It was Guilfoil who caused ripples of concern over the name of Monona's Squaw Bay after pointing out that the term is offensive to American Indians. Neither the bay nor a street with the same name have been changed.
It was he who demanded more diversity on cable Channel 12, which he felt had too much Christian programming and not enough variety.
It was he who put pressure on Edgewood High School to drop the Crusader nickname, which he says hearkens back to atrocities of the medieval Crusades. His "crusade" caused the high school's board of trustees to vote on it, though they voted against changing it.
"I understand democracy as meaning you try as hard as possible to keep wealth and power from the hands of a few people," Guilfoil said.
Though his efforts are not always effective, they've certainly been noted in Monona. "He is absolutely unusual, a one-of-a-kind case," said Ald. Doug Wood. "He is very persistent. I'm not sure he always listens to the answers he gets."
Guilfoil, 74, got involved in activist causes during the 1960s, when he was part of the movement that helped Wisconsin become the first state to ban housing discrimination.
His efforts have also drawn occasional threats. It's a price he's willing to pay for standing up for democratic principles.
"He plays a very constructive role," said Monona Ald. Jeffrey Wiswell Sr. "He calls to people's attention issues that might not be important to everyone, but at least he takes the time to comment on issues."
12/22/06: 'Mic' fans celebrate decision - Clear Channel kills plan to pull progressive radio
WNPJ Member Val Walasek of the Impeachment/Bring Our Troops Home Coalition is featured in this story.
'Mic' fans celebrate decision Clear Channel kills plan to pull progressive radio
By Judith Davidoff December 22, 2006 The timing of Clear Channel's decision to keep its progressive radio format on the air couldn't have been better for Maggie Thomas.
"Yesterday was my birthday, and that was the best present I got," said Thomas, who turned 45.
Thomas, who lives on Madison's east side, was one of thousands of local listeners who urged Clear Channel in recent weeks to reverse its decision to replace "The Mic" at WXXM/FM 92.1 with Fox Sports Radio on Jan. 1. Activists delivered a petition with 5,466 signatures to Clear Channel on Wednesday, and hundreds of listeners rallied against the move last week, with U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and Air America co-founder Terry Kelly also denouncing the move.
Local advertisers also organized to show their support, and Clear Channel, in a move that is being watched nationally, listened.
"Madison is really a microcosm of what could be taking place around the country," popular radio host Ed Schultz said this morning. "There is a mindset with the progressive format that it's shaky territory for advertisers, and it's simply not true."
Schultz, whose show reaches 2.25 million listeners nationwide, said he was excited about Clear Channel's move and "how it all came to work together."
"It's really encouraging to see listeners so passionate for the radio industry and to be so vocal and organized."
Activist Valerie Walasek, who spearheaded the petition drive, said she hoped Madison's experience would inspire activists elsewhere.
"The other communities facing a similar loss of their progressive talk radio stations can do this," Walasek said.
Boston and Cincinnati lost Air America programming recently and Gary Tipler, who also helped organize opposition to Clear Channel's move, said other cities are facing similar threats.
Jeff Tyler, vice president of Clear Channel Radio-Madison, said in a news release late Thursday that it reversed its decision after being "overwhelmed" by the outpouring of support for "The Mic" "from the public, some of our community leaders and some dedicated local advertisers."
Tyler has said in the past that ratings for "The Mic" were sub-par and that some advertisers were leery of its programming; he stressed in the news release that pledges of advertising support from local businesses played a key role in the station's decision.
Barb Wright had a hand in that.
She owns the Dardanelles restaurant on Monroe Street, and actively rallied support for the station among advertisers in recent weeks. She said today that businesses and listeners have a stake in helping "The Mic" succeed.
"It is essential that we have an informed electorate with intelligent debate on the issues," she said. "I found that, contrary to some opinions, the business community is ready to step up to the plate to ensure that progressive talk radio is not only sustained but will flourish."
Wright and Walasek said they are committed to help the station bring in additional advertising support to "The Mic."
Tipler said broad support for "The Mic" emerged once there was a forum for it.
"We've had people from Columbia County, rural Dane County and even abroad write, call in to the shows or show up at our events to air their observations and opinions," Tipler said. "It demonstrated that we must stand up and take action to preserve the things we sometimes take for granted - free speech and democratic institutions."
"The Mic" is an Air America affiliate, carrying headliners Al Franken and Randi Rhodes. The station's other popular shows include Schultz's "Straight Talk From the Heartland" and the Stephanie Miller show.
Miller's and Schultz's shows are part of the Jones Radio Network, however, and not Air America.
Kelly, who is now the main financial backer for Air America, which recently declared bankruptcy, said Clear Channel's reconsideration shows that "community activism works and that if you get at it from enough sides and enough depth people still have the power to influence things for the better."
It is, he added, "a wonderful example of how real democracy works through grass-roots organizing."
12/22/06: Counterspin: New York Times repeats Bush administration talking points
A letter from WNPJ Program Coordinator Steve Burns inspires a radio report by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Counterspin Click here to listen
12/29/06 Fair Trade Retailers Say Demand For Their Products Is Growing
WNPJ's Fair Trade Directory and local Fair trade outlets featured in this article
Fair Shopping
Fair Trade Retailers Say Demand For Their Products Is Growing
Wisconsin State Journal
Friday, December 29, 2006 CHRIS MARTELL cmartell@madison.com 608-252-6179
The term "fair trade" is finally becoming familiar beyond coffee shops on the Isthmus.
The range of fair trade products is rapidly broadening beyond coffee,
cocoa and bananas. Furnishings, clothing, spa products, gourmet foods,
toys, ornaments, musical instruments, kitchen equipment and jewelry are
among the items being sold under the umbrella of fair trade
associations.
Perhaps the most glamorous fair trade operation on
Earth is Bono's clothing company Edun (Nude spelled backward). And at
this year's International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, many
high-end design firms displayed a wide range of furnishings made by
Third World artisans.
But one of the world's most successful and
oldest fair trade groups, A Greater Gift, is based in Madison. And a
pioneering apparel, Fair Indigo, opened recently at Hilldale Shopping
Center.
"This is not charity," said Renee Gasch of A Greater Gift, which has
annual revenues of more than $9 million. "It's a way of doing business
fairly."
And the Internet is changing everything for the fair trade movement.
Its major tenet is paying "living wages" to producers. Living wages are
determined by a community's minimum wage and the cost of living. The
city of Madison, for instance, has determined that the living wage here
is $10.23 an hour. A calculator that can determine the living wage
anywhere in the world is being developed by the fair trade organization
called A World of Good. "But we look to the artisans to determine what
a living wage is for them," said Gasch.
In addition to living
wages, A Greater Gift and other fair trade groups set standards in
other areas: women's rights, the absence of child exploitation or
forced labor, safe and healthy work environments and eco-friendly
production. Fair trade production criteria set by A Greater Gift, for
example, prohibits the use of exotic, endangered or slow growing
species like the teak tree. Instead, sustainable materials like palm
grass or fast-growing bamboo are used.
For some fair trade
groups, including A Greater Gift, sales growth hit double digits in
each of the last three years, in large part because of online product
sales. A Greater Gift also prints a million catalogs and sells at 250
other locations in the U.S. Because the middleman is eliminated in fair
trade operations, prices are competitive even though higher wages are
paid to producers.
Fair trade stores try to make a connection
between shoppers and producers who are usually separated by an ocean.
Cards tell the stories of who, where and how many of the things were
made. Cold-pressed olive oil, for example, was made by a group of
Jewish and Arab women on Israel's West Bank who are working together to
improve the lives of Arab olive growers in Galilee. Other items came
from a workshop for handicapped artisans in Kenya; their profits have
provided them with housing, medical care and a cultural center.
Providing business help
Today's fair trade movement began in the ruins of Europe after World
War II. Madison's A Greater Gift has roots in a pacifist church that
wanted to help European refugees. Since then it moved on from war
zones, separated from the church and became a non-profit. Like other
fair trade groups, such as Ten Thousand Villages, it gives artisans
grants to buy equipment and supplies and computers, and it holds
workshops on exporting and other business practices and helps with
design. The Internet, in addition to connecting products to buyers, has
made it easier for artisans and those who work with them exchange
information.
"We tell (artisans) about trends -- natural colors
are popular now, and certain shapes are," said Gasch, a marketer for
the group. "But we are also very cognizant of the cultural meaning of
the artisans' works. We don't want to compromise the integrity of their
work just for the sake of fresh new design."
Building long-term relationships with artisans is one of the core goals of the group.
"The only way to dig out of poverty is for the artisans to get a fair
price year after year," Gasch said. The fair trade business model turns
the standard business model on its head. A typical business will
negotiate with producers to lower their prices in exchange for buying
large quantities. Rival producers are encouraged to underbid each other.
The path for Madison's pioneering fair trade apparel business, Fair
Indigo at Hilldale, may be more daunting because they deal with textile
factories instead of small artisan collectives.
"There's no
certification process yet for fair-trade apparel, and it's very
complicated," said store manager Julie Krbec. "We're working with
UW-Madison and Stanford to try to speed up the development of
certification standards, but I don't expect anything to be settled for
a couple of years. But it's going well for us so far. Madison was the
perfect place to try something like this, because people here already
understand the concept of fair trade."
Buying unique products
Mary Zwicky of Madison has been buying all of her Christmas gifts at
Global Express since attending a holiday fair held by the group at a
West Side church about five years ago.
"I found one-of-a-kind
things at good prices, and my family and friends seemed to like them
more than things from ordinary department stores," she said. "Then I
started hearing all the stories about overseas sweatshops and Wal-Mart,
and I started feeling guilty about buying anything there, even if the
prices are low. There are some stores I won't even enter any more."
For Paul Steiner of Madison, buying fair trade coffee at several area
coffee shops over the past several years piqued his interest in other
fair trade merchandise. He bought a black jersey skirt for his wife's
birthday at Fair Indigo, and wooden toys for his infant son at Global
Express.
"I'd say the United States has a big image problem
right now," he said. "I know thinking about what kind of coffee I buy
doesn't change much, but it's at least a little thing I can do."
Gasch says interest the fair trade movement in the U.S. is still in its infancy.
"It's a drop in the bucket," she said. "At this point fair trade isn't
affecting the economy of any country. But it is changing the lives of
individual artisans. We take surveys every year, asking if we're
effective, what we could differently or better. We believe that
eventually this movement will build to the point where it will change
the economy of a country."
Finding fair traders
The Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice has produced a new Fair
Trade Directory. The directory contains hundreds of fair trade, organic
and family-farm products available for sale in Wisconsin. Visit
www.wnpj.org and click on the image of the directory to see a PDF
version of the 59-page booklet. Printed copies are available for $5 ($2
additional for postage). Call 250 9240 or e-mail info@wnpj.org to order.
