WAM! begins...

The first meeting of the Madison-area Women's Autonomous Movement (WAM!) saw some two dozen activists and participants in women-focused community and campus groups and businesses come together to discuss what a unified local women's movement might look like.

The overall goal with WAM! is to provide a forum for women's groups and individual activists to network; to share information on issues and upcoming events; and to support each other with information, advice and action. WAM! is not a group in and of itself, but a venue where we can come together, share our strengths, and avoid isolation and needless duplication of efforts.

At our first meeting, we set two goals. The first is to recruit more women and women-focused organizations to attend our second meeting. That's set for Monday, January 30, at 6:30 pm on the UW campus (Memorial Union, TITU).

Women for Peace will be making postcards and other materials to promote the meeting. Please stay tuned to our website, come to a Women for Peace meeting before then, and/or make some phone calls and send emails to your friends and colleagues to help us grow our local women's movement!

Our other goal is to work towards having local women's groups well represented at the International Women's Day celebration on Wednesday, March 8 (time and location to be announced). If you would like to help plan that event, the next meeting is Monday, December 12, at 5:30 pm at the office of the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua, 122 State St (5th floor, suite 507A).

Some possible long-term goals were also discussed at our first WAM! meeting, including holding a state-wide summit of women's groups -- perhaps as a grassroots alternative to WI Lieutenant Governor Lawton's WI Women = Prosperity.

If you have ideas, connections, or just want to help unify and strengthen women's voices in the greater Madison area, join us!

WAM! Towards a Diverse but United Women's Movement

Are you interested in creating Strength in Solidarity through an autonomous Women's Movement in Madison? The Madison Women's Autonomous Movement is a forum for Madison-area women's groups to meet each other, share information, support each other's work, and, when appropriate, launch coalition efforts.

Please join us for the inaugural meeting Monday, November 14, to discuss ways that we can respect participating group identities, platforms, and community actions. Let's break the cycle of fragmentation and organize a movement for women - by women - a
movement that adds strength and support to each of our unique missions. Our goal is to strengthen women's voices and effectiveness in all spheres of local life!

Join us at 6:00 pm on Monday, November 14
at A Room of One's Own Feminist Bookstore (307 W. Johnson St.)
Call Shelly for more information (608.280.8776)
Sponsored by Madison Women for Peace - CODEPINK

Guns Kill People; State Legislators Ignore People's Needs

I went to the public hearing on the concealed carry bill on November 2, 2005. I left frustrated and very angry about the process. I arrived at 8:30 a.m. and filled out a form to speak against the bill. I stayed at the hearing until 3:30 p.m. No member of the general public had yet had the opportunity to speak.

Senator Zien told all present that speakers would have five minutes to make their statements but he would be a little flexible on the time. The NRA's professional witness spoke for 45 minutes. Less than 10 people spoke by 3:30 p.m. Instead of limiting the time the "professional" witnesses were allowed to fill and giving Wisconsin citizens the opportunity to be heard, we listened at length from people from outside of our state. Then at 3:30 p.m. Sen. Zien said he was getting notes from people asking to speak soon because they had to leave. I was one of the first people to register to speak and thought I would be one of the first people called to speak. After five hours, I knew I would not be called any time soon.

The process was undemocratic. It was set up to frustrate citizen participation, not to hear us. Here's what I had wanted to say in person.

No one will ever know if Ms. Gratia would have stopped the massacre that killed her parents in Texas. She can say what she "thinks" would have happened, but she can only speculate.

But we do know, GUNS KILL PEOPLE. Guns are very good at killing people. Clearly it is easier to kill someone with a gun than without.

Make no mistake, the guns we're talking about here today - concealable handguns - are made for killing. You can't argue they are for any other purpose - they're made to kill people.

Concealed handguns will not make us safer. The more guns around, the more likely people will be killed by them, intentionally or by accident. Either way, they're dead. They're not coming back.

One of the first things you learn in firearm training is, "if you pull your gun you better be prepared to use it." That means you intend to shoot someone, you have the state of mind to kill someone. If someone pulls a gun as a threat, it may be taken away and used against them. It might be the only gun present.

The idea that Wisconsin needs a hundred thousand people walking around armed with concealed guns is ridiculous. But if carrying a gun will keep you safe, carry it in the open so people can see it. Wouldn't that more of a deterrent than concealing the gun? You can do that now, under current law.

Concealed weapons will not make our society more civil, thoughtful, or enlightened. The prospect appeals to the most base, coarse, reactionary impulses. I want a civil society, a culture.

Now, at a time when our schools are crumbling, people are sleeping in bus shelters, and thousands have no health care, our legislators who are supposed to be working for us, who are supposed to make our state better, come up with concealed carry? That's their answer to the pressing problems of our state?

There is no good reason to have concealed carry in Wisconsin - except of course for the pots of money the NRA has paid to get this law. The NRA is the ninth highest spending interest group in our state. And I noticed that even the bill's authors look to the NRA for information about provisions in their own bill. (During the hearing the authors were asked a question about their bill. Unable to answer, Sen. Zien asked the professional NRA witness, who answered for them.)

The concealed carry bill is a perfect illustration of why we need 100 percent public financing of campaigns. When a candidate takes money from the NRA or any industry or corporation, that candidate is expected to deliver for their paymaster - they are bought, owned. Do we citizens of Wisconsin want the NRA, oil companies, Archer Daniels Midland, and Monsanto dictating policy and making our laws? The record of that has been disastrous and does not serve us.

Our legislators should work for us, for the public good, for a better state and world. We need universal health care, good schools, well-funded police and court systems, and a fair tax structure. We do not need the NRA coming into our state, dictating our laws. And we do not need concealed carry.

- Amy Fuelleman