Action: No New Nukes in Wisconsin

Wisconsin's very reasonable restrictions on new nuclear power plants -- saying no new nuclear plants can be built in the state until / unless: (1) nuclear power is economically advantageous for state residents; and (2) there is a designated repository for nuclear waste -- are under attack.

On May 10, the state Joint Legislative Council will receive a special committee report recommending that the above restrictions be revoked. (If you would like to attend the Council meeting, it opens at 8:30 am on Thursday May 10, at the 411 South room of the state Capitol.)

The Wisconsin-based group Nukewatch is encouraging all state residents to contact their representatives in support of the state's restrictions. Their sample letter is copied below. See www.nukewatch.com for more information.

Dear Representative / Senator,

Please vote no on any repeal of state statute 196.493 -- a common sense law that protects the public from unnecessary pollution and nuclear waste. A bill to repeal the law may be introduced by Representative Phil Montgomery (R-Dist 4) May 9.

If passed, the repeal would encourage the building of more nuclear reactors in Wisconsin and increase the likelihood that the state will become a national high-level nuclear waste dumpsite.

If passed, the repeal would eliminate two legal conditions that must now be met before new reactors can be built in Wisconsin:

1) That a federal nuclear waste storage site must be in operation and accepting waste fuel; and
2) That reactor-generated electricity must be economically advantageous to the ratepayer compared with alternatives.

A special Nuclear Power Committee has recommended (March 5, 2007) repeal of these precautionary and fiscally conservative requirements. Its effort is part of an industry-wide push for more reactors (and waste production) nationwide.

Pro-nuclear propaganda has it that nuclear power is "cheap" and "carbon free." But nuclear waste management will cost hundreds of billions of dollars for at least 300,000 years; and the mining, milling and production of reactor fuel creates millions of tons of carbon pollution that the industry ignores.

The proposed Yucca Mountain dump site in Nevada is unfit and should never open. A Nuclear Regulatory Commission member said Feb. 7, 2007 that the Yucca project must be scrapped. This puts Wisconsin near the top of the list of potential national dump sites, especially if thousands of tons of new waste is produced by new reactors.

On April 12, the state of California rebuffed a similar attempt to repeal conditions on reactor construction. Wisconsin should do the same. Please vote no on repeal of State Stat. 196-493.

Sincerely,

Name
Address
Phone

CAN: "Why We Occupied Senator Herb Kohl's Office"

The following statement was issued by the Campus Antiwar Network on April 19:

On Wednesday, April 18, the Campus Antiwar Network at the University of Wisconsin-Madison led a walkout of approximately 200 students against the war. This walkout culminated in 100 antiwar activists entering the office of Senator Herb Kohl, with twenty-five staying the night and dozens more joining us in the morning before Senator Kohl's staff had us evicted by the Madison Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

WHY WE OCCUPIED SENATOR KOHL'S OFFICE

The simplest reason: Senator Kohl says he's against the war, but votes to fund the continuation of the war. Moreover, in a remarkable display of arrogance, Senator Kohl has refused to meet with the antiwar movement in his state during the entire four years of the war in Iraq. Thus, the vibrant antiwar community in Madison, including chapters of the Campus Antiwar Network and Iraq Veterans Against the War, the Madison Area Peace Coalition and the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, has never been able to discuss our position with a senator who says he is on our side, but never votes that way.

We presented Senator Kohl's office with six demands, and informed him that setting a definite date for a public meeting with him to discuss these demands would end our building occupation immediately. Ultimately, his office preferred to inflict the force of the police on us rather than the force of our arguments on the senator.

Our demands:
1) Immediate withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq
2) Iraq for Iraqis
3) Fully fund veterans' benefits and health care, including mental health care
4) Reparations to the Iraqi people, no strings attached
5) Ban the use of depleted uranium munitions in Iraq
6) Money for Jobs & Education, not for War and Occupation

Ultimately, our experience in the senator's office validated the premise of our protest: that we cannot wait for politicians like Herb Kohl to end the war of their own initiative, but must hold them accountable through our movement to the demand of Iraqis, Americans, and U.S. soldiers to end the war now.

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE SENATOR'S OFFICE

From the beginning, our movement was peaceful yet very lively. We filled the senator's office with chants like "Iraq for Iraqis, troops out now"; "1 -- we are the students, 2 -- this is our movement, 3 -- we want to meet with Se-na-tor Kohl"; "Cut the funding, end the war -- What the hell is Congress for?" and many more. We received messages of solidarity and support from the historian Howard Zinn and antiwar sportswriter Dave Zirin (and, as the evening wore on, many other people from around the country who received word of our protest).

If our energy and support were inspiring, however, the reaction of Kohl's office proved extremely disappointing. The only message we could get from Kohl was a generic statement reiterating his supposed "support" for us while implying that as a U.S. senator, he has no power to stop the war. The message ignored our specific demands, perhaps because there was no way to address his lack of support for them without calling into question whether he is willing to pose any opposition to Bush at all.

At this point, we presented Kohl's staff with our demand for a public meeting and determined to stay in his office. Despite our offer to leave once we had an agreement to this seemingly basic demand from a large group of constituents -- that the senator publicly discuss with us the pressing issue of the day -- the country's richest senator was apparently unwilling to commit to this. Many times his staff tried to break our protest, as when they had security tell us we could only keep five people in the office, and others would be forcibly removed. After a democratic discussion, 50 of us decided to stay anyway, and they were forced to back down. They also promised us a conference call with Senator Kohl within the next two days (only to later renege), but told us they could not negotiate a public meeting since we were occupying their office, because "it's like negotiating with the terrorists."

But after this, the police, under the authority of Kohl's staff, turned what can only be called spiteful. They confined us in a small room where we could not possibly be comfortable (we couldn't all lie down at the same time), limited our bathroom breaks, and denied us access to our own things (including medications) that were in another part of Kohl's office. Acting under what they said were their orders from Kohl's office, police denied the protesters access to water bottles and other necessities. A student who asked to be able to access birth control pills in her purse was told, "You don't need birth control now." A student who wanted to get his sweatshirt, six inches from the guarded door of where we were camped, during the cold night, was told he would be forcibly evicted if he did so. A female protester was physically manhandled by a male officer, who then refused to reveal his badge number. The press was banned from the office (although through our own creativity we managed to get in several reporters anyway). And the police, and Kohl's staff, refused to discuss any of these issues with us.

There was no reason for these decisions other than spite. We decided to accept them rather than be evicted at night because we knew that more support (and media) was coming for us the next morning -- and indeed it did, in the form of dozens more activists who joined us when Kohl's office opened for the day. Having spent the night in political discussion, frequent chanting and singing, dramatic readings from Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's "Voices from a People's History of the United States," and other fun and important pursuits, we were ready to greet our fellow activists. At that point, we retook the main room of the office, until Kohl's staff had the police come in to remove us. Although Senator Kohl's staff refused to speak with us entirely, the police confirmed for us that they had asked to have us cited (with a $425 fine per person) if we did not leave. After all, this was "private property" and we, Kohl's constituents, were not welcome.

WHERE DOES C.A.N. GO FROM HERE?

Our protest confirmed that our political representatives will not end this war unless our movement forces them to do so. We left Kohl's office with a united plan to use the momentum and publicity from our stand (and the reprehensible reaction of America's richest senator) to build a stronger antiwar movement in Madison and everywhere.

At our campus rally, we presented four demands to the University of Wisconsin under the headline "University of Wisconsin Out of the War":

1) No more military research
2) Military recruiters off campus
3) No more CIA recruitment
4) Cancel Halliburton's planned April 30 recruitment visit.

The last demand is urgent. Our movement will not allow war profiteers to openly recruit on our campus. ...

While the walkout and sit-in was organized by the Campus Antiwar Network at UW-Madison, students from all three Madison colleges -- including Edgewood College and Madison Area Technical College -- occupied Kohl's office overnight. Those two campuses, which have not had antiwar groups before, are now in a position to start CAN chapters of their own. It is time for a bigger, stronger student movement in Madison, that can create the sustained militant action that it will take to end the war.

Who "Owns" the Iraq War?

The following message was sent by local peace activist Joy First on April 11. The weekly anti-war vigil continues on Wednesday April 18. UW students will be leading the vigil, which will start with a rally at UW Library Mall at 1 pm, followed by a march to Senator Kohl's office at 2 pm (Kohl's office is at 14 West Mifflin Street, on Capitol Square).

Check our events page for other local activities, including the next meeting of Madison Women for Peace: Monday April 16 at 6:30 pm at the Social Justice Center (corner of Williamson and Few Streets).

Today citizens in Madison, WI met with our Senators and Representative to present them with the "certificate of ownership" that they must accept after voting to give Bush $100 billion more for the war in Iraq. Since they voted to pay for the war, they now own the war, and are responsible for the deaths of well over 200 US soldiers and countless Iraqis who have died since the Democrats have taken control of Congress.

Three of us first met with Senator Russ Feingold's staff in Middleton, WI. this afternoon, in spite of heavy snowfall throughout the day. Emily Plagman, Feingold's aide on Iraq, joined us by phone from Washington. We told his staff that we appreciated all that Feingold is doing and that he is a giant among the Senators. At the same time, we were disappointed in his vote for the supplemental funding, and we presented him with the "certificate of ownership" which has a 30-day return policy. He can return it by voting against the funding when it comes before the Senate again. We also discussed his current legislation that he introduced to end military involvement in Iraq. Our concern with this legislation is that the three categories of soldiers that can exempted from the withdrawal could potentially include all US soldiers in Iraq. Under this bill, Bush could continue the war as it is currently being fought. Emily said that she thought the exemptions were very narrow (which I strongly disagree with). She also said that putting the exemptions in the bill was part of the compromise Feingold made with Harry Reid in order to get the bill introduced. This sounds like blackmail to me. I asked if Feingold would consider a filibuster or even the threat of a filibuster of the supplemental funding if the senate decides to strip all the restrictions out of the bill. His staff will pass on to Senator Feingold that we would support him in a filibuster. Steve Burns ended our discussion by saying simply and clearly that the surest way to end the war would be to stop paying for it, and that is what we are asking Senator Feingold to do.

We drove across town to Senator Kohl's office in downtown Madison meeting about 12 others who have been joining us regularly for our weekly vigil at Senator Kohl's office since February 5. It was a good turnout for a very snowy day. We had a short visit with Senator Kohl's staff today, presenting them with the "certificate of ownership. We asked his staff if he was supporting Senator Feingold's bill to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. They did not know, but would find out. We reminded them that we are here for the same reason we have been here for the last several weeks. We want Senator Kohl to vote no on funding for the war in Iraq.

We walked across the Capitol Square to Representative Tammy Baldwin's office and met with a member of her staff. Again, we presented Kurt with the "certificate of ownership". Tammy Baldwin has been a great ally. She is in the Out of Iraq Caucus. She has consistently voted against funding for the war. BUT, she voted yes a few weeks ago. We told him how disappointed we were, and that we would be counting on her to do the right thing. He said that she had sent out a statement explaining her vote. Basically, she said that she felt she had two choices, either vote for the bill that came before the house, or the leadership would strip out all the restrictions and they would be voting on a bill to give Bush $100 billion with no restrictions. I think it is disgusting that we have a Democratic leadership now that uses bribes, threats, and blackmail to get their way.

At the end of the day, I don't know how much of an impact we really had, but we keep plugging away, doing what we can, and speaking our truth. It is what we have to do. We cannot sit quietly, hopefully waiting for our Congress to do the right thing and end the war. Our voices will be heard.

Vote Tuesday April 3!

Democracy starts at home, so make sure you vote in local elections this Tuesday, April 3! More information is available on the following websites:

• Madison City Clerk


• Dane County League of Women Voters


• Isthmus election coverage

Good luck and thanks to the activists in Stoughton who successfully added to their ballot two referenda questions: one on withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, and one on impeaching President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. As John Nichols wrote in the Capital Times:

With each new revelation about what Gonzales did at the behest of the Bush White House to politicize prosecutions by U.S. attorneys, the revulsion with the way this president has disregarded the Constitution and the rule of law becomes more intense. And citizens are not cutting their president much slack.

A new USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted over the weekend shows that, by nearly 3 to 1, Americans want Congress to issue subpoenas to force White House officials to testify in the Gonzales case. Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed say the president should drop his claim of executive privilege in this matter, while only 26 percent agree with the reasoning Bush has used to try to block a meaningful inquiry. ...

As [Republican Senator Chuck] Hagel says, "This is not a monarchy. There are ways to deal with (executive excess). And I would hope the president understands that."

If not, perhaps Stoughton, and other communities like it across the country, will remind him -- just as they will remind Congress that it is time to take the "I" issue up.