2008 Omaha Peace & Justice Expo p. 8

Why We Need To Close theUnicameral’s Revolving Door p. 8

Initiative Petition to ‘Use PublicPower’ Will Open Up theInformation Super Highway p. 9

Letters to NFP… Mondo & More p. 10

Speaking Our Peace p. 12

Thank You Senator Hagel p. 2

Ten Organizations from FiveStates Address ProposedUranium Mining p. 4

What’s HOT in Global Warming p. 5

StratCom Organization Chart p. 6

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Nebraskans for Peace941 ‘O’ St., Ste. 1026Lincoln, NE 68508

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Nebraska ReportAPRIL 2008

There is no Peace without JusticeNebraskans for PeaceVOLUME 36, NUMBER 4

The following editorial by NFPState Coordinator Tim Rinne was published in the March 13,2008 Lincoln Journal Star. It sub-sequently appeared on a numberof internet websites, includingcounterpunch.org, buzzflash.netand afterdowningstreet.org

Stories about the transforma-tion U.S. Strategic Command hasundergone since 9/11 have beendribbling out for years. But just re-cently have we gotten a clearer pic-ture of what these changes por-tend.

In October 2002, when the U.S.Space Command was shifted toStratCom, nobody could haveimagined that in six months the“Shock and Awe” bombing cam-paign on Iraq would originate fromOmaha. But with 70 percent of themissiles and smart bombs used inthat pre-emptive attack guidedfrom space, StratCom directed whatAir Force Secretary James Rochetermed the “the first true spacewar.”

Then, in August 2003, the“Stockpile Stewardship Commit-tee” overseeing StratCom’s nucleararsenal held a classified meeting atStratCom to plot the developmentof a new generation of crossovernuclear weapons—so-called ‘bun-

StratCom’s Satellite Shoot-downker busters’—that could be usedin conventional military conflicts.The ‘firewall’ between nuclear andconventional war-fighting was be-ing torn down, and StratCom wasswinging the hammer.

And who could have guessedin December 2005, when revela-tions about the warrantless wire-

tapping program became public,that this National Security Agencyoperation had StratCom finger-prints? But the NSA, underStratCom’s new mission of “Intel-ligence, Surveillance and Recon-naissance,” had been made a

StratCom “component command,”and the NSA director, GeneralMichael Hayden (who now headsthe CIA), was carrying out thisconstitutionally suspect activity.

It’s been nearly three yearssince the story broke that VicePresident Dick Cheney orderedStratCom to draw up plans for anair- and sea-based attack on Iran.Under its “Prompt Global Strike”and “Combating Weapons ofMass Destruction” missions, theOmaha headquarters is nowcharged with attacking any placeon earth—within one hour—on themere perception of a threat toAmerica’s national security. Thewar on terror is being waged fromStratCom, and the next war theWhite House gets us into (whetherwith Iran or a geopolitical rival likeChina) will start in Nebraska.

With all the missions it’s nowgot in its quiver, you can hardlyopen a newspaper anymore with-out reading about a StratComscheme.

The current flap with Russiaover the proposed missile defensebases in Poland and the Czech Re-public—that’s StratCom’s handi-work. The command picked up its“Integrated Missile Defense” mis-

conclusion on page 2

Here in Omaha… we arecalled on to be the mostresponsive combatantcommand in the U.S.arsenal. Responsibletoday for providing time-sensitive planning toconduct global strikeoperations anywhere onthe planet… we aretasked to be the mastersand defenders of domainsthat have become evermore critical to the waywe fight as a nation—those being the domains of space and cyberspace…

October 17, 2007 “Assumption of Command” Ceremony

I believe we are going to need a nuclear deterrent in thiscountry for the remainder of the 21st century… So long asthere are other countries in the world that possess enoughnuclear weapons to destroy the United States of Americaand our way of life… we need to have a nuclear deterrentforce that can do the mission of preserving our freedoms.

March 4, 2008 Comments to the Washington, D.C. Media

StratCom CommanderGeneral Kevin Chilton

Barely a week afterthe United States

repudiated a treatyproposal to ban

space weapons ata U.N. Conferenceon Disarmament,

StratCom shot downthe satellite—usingits so-called “missile

defense” system.

APRIL 2008 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.2

Moving? Change of Email Address?

Nebraska ReportThe Nebraska Report is published nine times annually by Nebraskans forPeace. Opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of the directors orstaff of Nebraskans for Peace.

Newspaper Committee: Tim Rinne, Editor; Mark Vasina, ChristyHargesheimer, Peter Salter, Marsha Fangmeyer, Paul Olson

Typesetting and Layout: Michelle Ashley; Website: Justin KemerlingPrinting: Fremont Tribune Circulation: 7,000

Letters, articles, photographs and graphics are welcomed. Deadline is the firstof the month for publication in the following month’s issue. Submit to: NebraskaReport, c/o Nebraskans for Peace, 941 ‘O’ Street, Suite 1026, Lincoln, NE 68508.

Nebraskans for PeaceNebraskans for Peace is a statewide grassroots advocacy organization workingnonviolently for peace with justice through community-building, educationand political action.

State Board of DirectorsSayre Andersen, Holly Burns, A’Jamal Byndon, Joshua Cramer, Henry D’Souza,Bob Epp, Marsha Fangmeyer (Secretary), Jill Francke, Caryl Guisinger, ChristyHargesheimer, Leah Hunter, Patrick Jones, John Krejci, Rich Maciejewski, CarolMcShane, Jeff Mohr, Patrick Murray, Paul Olson (President), Byron Peterson,Del Roper, Deirdre Routt (Vice President), Linda Ruchala, Jay Schmidt, NicSwiercek, Hank van den Berg, Mark Vasina (Treasurer). Tim Rinne (State Coor-dinator), Matt Gregory (Office Administrator), Susan Alleman (MembershipCoordinator), 941 ‘O’ Street, Suite 1026, Lincoln, NE 68508, Phone 402-475-4620/Fax 402-475-4624, nfpstate@nebraskansforpeace.org. Mark Welsch,(Omaha Coordinator) Omaha NFP Office, P.O. Box 6418, Omaha, NE 68106,Phone 402-453-0776, nfpomaha@nebraskansforpeace.org.

Crete Chapter .......................................... Pat Wikel ..................... 402-826-4818

Lincoln Chapter ...................................... State Office ................. 402-475-4620

Omaha Chapter ....................................... Mark Welsch ............... 402-453-0776

Scottsbluff Chapter ................................ Byron Peterson ........... 308-783-1412

Southwest Nebraska Chapter ................ Dennis Demmel ........... 308-352-4078

Wayne/Wayne State College Chapter .... Sayre Andersen ........... 402-375-3794

Central Nebraska Peace Workers ........... Charles Richardson .... 402-462-4794(Grand Island, Hastings, Kearney)

Contact the NFP State Office for information on the UNL, UNO, UNK, Creighton& Nebraska Wesleyan University and Hastings, Dana & Doane College Chapters

NFP Chapter & AffiliateContact Information

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sion in 2003 after the Bush/Cheney Adminis-tration pulled out of the ABM Treaty. Andthose Eastern European installations—whichthe Russians warn are reigniting the ColdWar—will be added to the network of interna-tional bases already under StratCom’s com-mand.

But from reading the news accounts,you’d never know the command was involved.StratCom’s name is never mentioned.

Or who realized that, when a U.S. Predatordrone fired a missile killing al-Qaida commanderAbu Laith al Libi in Pakistan this past January,StratCom did everything from supply the in-telligence to help fly the unpiloted vehicle?That incident dramatized how easilyStratCom—with its new war-fighting author-ity—can skirt the law. According to an Associ-ated Press story, the missile attack infringedon Pakistan’s national sovereignty, meaninginternational law may have been breached. Butwith the free hand it’s been granted, 60 min-utes from now, StratCom could have started awar and Congress wouldn’t even have had aclue.

This is not our fathers’ StratCom.Gone are the days when Strategic Com-

mand simply controlled America’s nuclear de-terrent, and its doomsday weapons were onlyto be used as a last resort. Since 9/11, StratComhas gone from never supposed to be used tobeing used for everything. Likening thechanges that have occurred at the command

StratCom’s Shoot-down,conclusion

to a tsunami, former astronaut and currentStratCom Commander Kevin Chilton brags thatStratCom today is “the most responsive com-batant command in the U.S. arsenal.”

It’s now also the most dangerous place onthe face of the earth.

And hardly anybody knows it.StratCom’s well-publicized shootdown of

the spy satellite, however, may have finallyshown the world just how menacing the com-mand has become. Barely a week after theUnited States repudiated a treaty proposal toban space weapons at a U.N. Conference onDisarmament, StratCom shot down the satel-lite—using its “missile defense” system. Andthe message this shootdown sent to the worldstruck with all the force of an anti-satellite mis-sile. Despite the innocuous name, missile de-fense is now understood to be an offensiveweapon by which the United States (in the lan-guage of the Administration’s National SpacePolicy) means to “dominate” space…

And whoever controls space controls theEarth.

Operating like some executive-branch vigi-lante, StratCom has just launched a new armsrace—because you can bet Russia and Chinawill never surrender the heavens without a fight.

What’s equally worrisome, though, is thatStratCom is now hourly making a mockery ofour system of congressional checks and bal-ances. And if Congress can’t rein in StratCom,can anyone?

Thank YThank YThank YThank YThank You Senatorou Senatorou Senatorou Senatorou Senatorfffffor Yor Yor Yor Yor Your Unstinting Candorour Unstinting Candorour Unstinting Candorour Unstinting Candorour Unstinting Candor

In his just-published book, America:Our Next Chapter, retiring U.S. SenatorChuck Hagel states that: “This admin-istration’s hell-bent determination to goto war in Iraq was an historic blunderborne of an astounding amount ofarrogance, ignorance and incompe-tence… [It was] the most dangerouscostly foreign policy debacle in ournation’s history.”

Accusing the Bush/Cheney Admin-istration of “cherry-picking intelligence”in a “headlong, foolhardy rush to war,”Hagel writes that in October 2002 theSenate was “asked to vote on aresolution based on half-truths,untruths and wishful thinking.” In hind-sight, he states, “Yes, I regret my vote.” Senator Chuck Hagel

APRIL 2008 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.3

The White HouseWashington, DC 20500Comment Line: 202-456-1111202-456-1414202-456-2993 (FAX)president@whitehouse.gov

Sen. Chuck Hagel248 Russell Senate Office Bldg.Washington, DC 20510202-224-4224202-224-5213 (FAX)402-476-1400 (Lincoln)402-758-8981 (Omaha)308-632-6032 (Scottsbluff)hagel.senate.gov

Sen. Ben Nelson720 Hart Senate Office Bldg.Washington, D.C. 20510202-224-6551202-228-0012 (FAX)402-391-3411 (Omaha)402-441-4600 (Lincoln)bennelson.senate.gov

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, District 11517 Longworth House Office Bldg.Washington, D.C. 20515202-225-4806402-438-1598 (Lincoln)house.gov/fortenberry

Rep. Lee Terry, District 21524 Longworth HOBWashington, DC 20515202-225-4155202-226-5452 (FAX)402-397-9944 (Omaha)leeterry.house.gov

Rep. Adrian Smith, District 3503 Cannon House Office Bldg.Washington, DC 20515202-225-6435202-225-0207 (FAX)888-ADRIAN7 (Toll Free)adriansmith.house.gov

Capitol Hill Switchboard202-224-3121

State Capitol Switchboard402-471-2311

State Senator, District #State CapitolPO Box 94604Lincoln, NE 68509-4604

Governor Dave HeinemanPO Box 94848Lincoln, NE 68509-4848402-471-2244402-471-6031 (FAX)gov.state.ne.us

PoliticianContacts

Artwork by Justin Kemerling

APRIL 2008 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.4

by Shannon Anderson,Powder River Basin ResourceCouncil

Organizations from Wyoming,North and South Dakota, Nebraskaand Colorado met in Casper, Wyo-ming, Saturday, March 15, to dis-cuss their joint concerns about ura-nium mining in the Northern GreatPlains. Citizens from ten organiza-tions are voicing their concernsabout surface and ground water,human health, and local propertyvalues.

Defenders of the Black Hills,South Dakota Sierra Club andACTion for the Environment at-tended from South Dakota, whichfaces mining proposals along thesouthern Black Hills. The PowderRiver Basin Resource Council andBiodiversity Conservation Alliancecame from Wyoming, where explor-atory and mining permits havebeen applied for in the state.Coloradoans Against ResourceDestruction traveled from thenorthern part of Colorado whereuranium mining is also proposednear Fort Collins. Three organiza-tions—Nebraskans for Peace, theNebraska Sierra Club and the West-ern Nebraska Resources Coun-cil—represented Nebraska whereCrow Butte Resources is seekingto expand its uranium mining op-erations in the northwest corner ofthe state. Members of Dakota Re-source Council from northwesternNorth Dakota are also facing newplans for uranium mining in theirpart of that state.

In all five states, companiesplan to use ‘in situ’ leach mining(ISL) which injects a dissolvingsolution underground into sus-pected uranium deposits. The so-lution dissolves the uranium andits radioactive decay products, aswell as heavy metals. This radio-active solution is pumped to thesurface. The uranium is then re-moved and shipped to a mill forconcentration into “yellowcake.”The water is re-treated and theninjected back underground in acycle that continues until all the

Ten Organizations from Five StatesAddress Proposed Uranium Mining

uranium has been extracted. Re-verse osmosis is then often usedto remove some of the toxics fromthe water, and the remaining liquidis either injected underground orretained in shallow ponds. Numer-ous uranium mining companies aremaking plans throughout the Westas a result of recent increases inthe price of uranium.

“In Wyoming, there are sig-nificant questions about regulationand oversight of uranium opera-tions,” according to Wilma Tope,Powder River Basin ResourceCouncil Board Member. “Citizensneed to have a stronger voice inuranium activities.” Wilma’s fam-ily owns a ranch in Crook County,Wyoming, and has banded to-gether with other local residents topressure regulators to ensure ad-equate protection of local watersupplies—both quality and quan-tity.

In South Dakota, PowertechUranium Corporation has starteddrilling more uranium exploratory

wells in an area where they alreadyhave 4,000 wells in the southwest-ern Black Hills. “It’s already beenproven world-wide that ISL miningcontaminates aquifers and thenthose aquifers cannot be restoredto their previous state,” said

Charmaine White Face, Coordina-tor for Defenders of the Black Hills.“South Dakota relies very heavilyon aquifers for drinking water andlivestock use. We’ve been in adrought for the last ten years andthe last thing we need to do is poi-son our water,” she said.

ACTion for the Environmentis very concerned that South Da-kota taxpayers will once again haveto take on the toxic messes that areleft when a mining company leavesas happened previously with Ca-nadian companies. Powertech is aCanadian company. “The Board ofMinerals and Environment shouldremember what happened whenthey gave approval for the Brohmgold mine. Now South Dakotapeople are paying for that mess.Are we going to have to pay for aradioactive mess left by anotherCanadian company?” said GaryHeckenliable of ACTion for the En-vironment. “Not only South Dakotaresidents but all the taxpayers ofthe United States are going to haveto pay for this for many, many yearsto come,” he said.

Coloradoans Against Re-source Destruction (CARD),formed last year in response toPowertech’s proposal to mine inthe rapidly-growing area near FortCollins. “Of course uranium min-

ing always causes some form ofcontamination. Water at in situleach mining sites is not returnedto its original condition,” saidJackie Adolph, a member of CARD.“Most people don’t know that fed-eral policies that subsidize thenuclear industry aren’t just aboutpower plants. The nuclearindustry’s largest negative impactshave always been in uranium min-ing and milling processes.”

In Nebraska, Crow Butte Re-sources (a subsidiary of the Cana-dian company Cameco Corp.) isseeking to expand one the largestand oldest ISL mines in the coun-try. Organizations have intervenedin the NRC’s licensing procedures.“We are particularly concernedabout protection of local watersupplies and cultural resources,”said Buffalo Bruce, Vice Chair ofthe Western Nebraska ResourcesCouncil. “The NRC has failed tofulfill its duties under the TrustDoctrine, which protects indig-enous rights granted to NativeAmerican populations under U.S.treaties.”

North Dakota just recentlystarted public hearings to acceptcomments on ISL mining in thatstate. Ken Kudrna, a member ofDakota Resource Council, livesonly a few miles from where ura-

nium mining is planned to begin.The groups have issued a

common statement:

“We want the uranium indus-try to know that we stand togetheron this issue. Whether in a ruralsetting or a populated area, ura-nium mining causes radioactivecontamination. Past uraniumsites continue to contaminate theair, land and water. Any bonds de-signed to pay for clean-up offormer mining areas have notbeen sufficient, and taxpayershave been forced to pay the bill.We call on the public and allelected officials to do everythingpossible to protect the water, landand local economies from pro-posed uranium activities.”

More information can be found at:

Defenders of the Black Hills:www.defendblackhills.org

Coloradoans Against ResourceDestruction: www.nunnglow.com

Powder River Basin ResourceCouncil: www.powderriver-basin.org

Nebraskans for Peace: www.neb-raskansforpeace.org/

Contact:Charmaine White Face: 605-399-1868, or Shannon Anderson: 307-763-1816

Wellheads dot the landscape at the Crow Butte Resources uranium mine near Crawford, Nebraska.

We call on thepublic and all

elected officials todo everything

possible to protectthe water, land,

and localeconomies from

proposed uraniumactivities.”

photo credit: The Chadron Record

APRIL 2008 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.5

by Professor Bruce E. Johansen

What’s HOT in Global Warming?What’s HOT in Global Warming?

Global Warming Is Alive and Well

Bruce E. Johansen, Frederick W.Kayser Professor of Communi-cation at the University ofNebraska-Omaha, is the authorof the three-volume GlobalWarming in the Twenty-FirstCentury (2006).

“You think of what theimplications are,

and it’s pretty scary.”— Tim P. Barnett, Scripps Institute of Oceanography

Having done my best to explainthermal inertia and feedbacks in anOmaha World-Herald “MidlandsVoices,” I seem to have arousedseveral counter responses in theletters to the editor from hard-coreclimate contrarians. If carbon diox-ide had a sense of humor, it mightget a chuckle over the fact thatsome human beings reject the no-tion that CO2 retains heat and willhave a role in warming the Earthbeyond environmentally safe lim-its.

At the University of Nebraskaat Omaha, we have such a rare birdon our chemistry faculty—RobertSmith, a full professor, no less. Pro-fessor Smith has his doubts aboutevolution, too, having signed apetition to that effect offered bySeattle’s Discovery Institute,which promotes “Intelligent De-sign.” Smith is locally renownedfor exercising his First Amendmentrights to make a fool of himself,cock-walking our Faculty Senatemeetings and the op-ed page of theOmaha World-Herald, telling, inthe name of science (as he sees it),non-chemists such as myself thatwe are ignorant nobodies.

Working the public prints, Ihave crossed paths with some veryweird ‘science.’ Jack Kasher, whoused to teach physics at UNO, alsotossed a denier’s log on the fire.Professor Kasher is well known foradvocating alien abductions. Sev-eral letters to the “Public Pulse”upbraided me for raising the sub-ject of global warming when it iscold outside.

True enough, it’s been an av-erage winter around here. We stillhave the good Nebraska fortuneof freezing our rear ends off nowand then. We have lost our per-spective about what is ‘average,’

however, because the last severalwinters have been so wimpy.

Rest assured, global warmingis alive and well. Meanwhile, hereare a few dispatches from otherplaces.

Solar Power DevelopingQuickly

Robert F. Service reports inScience (February 8, 2008) that thecost of solar power has been de-clining sharply, from $22 per wattin 1980, to $6 per watt in 1990, and$2.70 in 2005. Economies of scale,as well as improvements in effi-ciency and less-expensive con-struction materials may bring solarenergy down to cost that com-pletes with fossil-fuel generationby about 2015. By 2008, the solar-power industry’s generating ca-pacity worldwide was growing atan astonishing 40 percent a year,but it still generated only a frac-tion of one percent of total electri-cal power.

The silicon solar panels thatdominate the industry today maybe replaced by new technologiesthat combine several light-absorb-ing materials able to capture differ-ent portions of the solar spectrum,or solar cells manufactured in rollsof thin copper-indium film galliumselenide atop a metal foil.Nanotechnology plays a role insome designs for future solar-gen-erating technology that is beentheorized, but not yet commercial-ized. While today’s silicon cellsconvert about 15 to 20 per cent ofsunlight to electricity in the field(up to 24 per cent under perfectlaboratory conditions), new tech-nologies that have broached therealm of theory (and some in de-sign, but not commercialization)raise that figure to 40, 60, even 80

percent. Photovoltaics made ofplastic may dramatically reducemanufacturing costs.

Lake Mead May Run DryLake Mead, the vast reservoir

for the Colorado River water thatsustains the fast-growing cities ofPhoenix and Las Vegas, could losewater faster than previouslythought and run dry within 13years, according to a study by sci-entists at the Scripps Institute ofOceanography.

With weather patterns in awarming world favoring a drier

American West, a study by scien-tists at Scripps indicates that LakeMead, which spans the border ofNevada and Arizona, could run solow by 2013 that water pumpswould become useless. The studyhas become a center of contro-versy between scientists at Scrippsand others at the U.S. Bureau ofReclamation, who assert that itsclimate models are too crude toforecast the future water level of asingle large lake.

The Scripps study found thatLake Mead’s water supply has a50 percent chance of becomingunusable by 2021 if the demand forwater remains at present levels, andif global warming trends conformto mid-range models. ResearchersTim P. Barnett and David W. Pierce

of Scripps say that even with anoccasional snowy winter (such as2007-2008) demand for the lake’swater exceeds the amount addedeach year by runoff. “We were re-ally sort of stunned,” Barnett toldThe New York Times. “We didn’texpect such a big problem basicallyright on our front doorstep. Wethought there’d be more time.” Headded, “You think of what the im-plications are, and it’s pretty scary”.

Other research has found thatthe Colorado River watershed, ofwhich Lake Mead is a part, has hada long-standing tendency toward

drought that makes the last cen-tury look unusually wet. Climatemodels also indicate that a warmerclimate favors persistent droughtin this area.

Ethanol May Not be Eco-Friendly

When the full emissions costsof producing bio-fuels are calcu-lated, most of them are environmen-tally more expensive, causing moregreenhouse gases than fossil fu-els, according to studies publishedin Science early in 2008. Growth offeedstock for many bio-fuels, fromcorn to sugar cane to palm oil, de-stroys natural ecosystems (mostnotably rainforest in the tropics

and South American grasslands),releasing gases as they are burnedand plowed. Destruction of theseolder, natural ecosystems also re-moves carbon sinks. In addition tothe greenhouse gases caused bygrowing bio-fuels, additional emis-sions result from refining and trans-porting them.

“When you take this into ac-count, most of the bio-fuel thatpeople are using or planning to usewould probably increase green-house gasses substantially,” saidTimothy Searchinger, lead authorof one of the studies and a re-searcher in environment and eco-nomics at Princeton University.“Previously there’s been an ac-counting error: land use changehas been left out of prior analy-sis.”

Clearance of grassland re-leases 93 times the amount ofgreenhouse gas that would besaved by the fuel made annuallyon that land, said Joseph Fargione,lead author of the second paper,and a scientist at the Nature Con-servancy. “So for the next 93 yearsyou’re making climate changeworse, just at the time when weneed to be bringing down carbonemissions.”

Many U.S. farmers are grow-ing corn year-round, whereas pre-viously corn crops were alternatedwith soybeans. More soybeans arebeing raised on newly clearedrainforest land in Brazil.

Created by Loring Wirbel, Citizens for Peace in Space

Organizational “J-Code” Groups

J0 – Office of the Commander – U.S. AirForce General Kevin Chilton, not only has operationalauthority over the traditional nuclear triad (land, sea& air warheads), but also full oversight over whatformer Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calledthe “new triad”: 1) offensive nuclear and conventionalweapons; 2) defensive systems, both passive andactive; and 3) infrastructure such as communicationsand intelligence. That’s a mission that covers a goodportion of Defense Department operations.

J1 – Manpower and Personnel – The militaryequivalent of human resources.

J2 – Intelligence – The office that coordinatesstrategic intelligence, but as the “ComponentCommands” diagram below indicates, this meanssome direct oversight over agencies like the NationalSecurity Agency (NSA) and the Defense IntelligenceAgency (DIA).

J3 – Global Operations – Coordinating all themilitary wings serving StratCom, which meant nuclear-weapon wings in the bygone days of the Strategic AirCommand (SAC), but now means many elementswithin Northern Command and the geographicalcommands like CentCom and SouthCom.

J3A – Combat and Information Operations –The chunk of Global Operations that pays attention tothe underlying C4ISR (Command, Control,Computers, Communications, Intell igence,Surveillance and Reconnaissance) and ‘fightingsoldier’ infrastructure.

J3B – Current Operations – The chunk ofGlobal Operations that works with units actuallydeployed in ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

J4 – Logistics – StratCom’s equivalent ofcompanies like Halliburton, making sure the right

J0 – Office of the CommanderGeneral Kevin Chilton

support operations are in place for the right groups ofpeople.

J5 – Plans and Policy – Figuring out the long-range stuff, dreaming up overarching plans like“Operationally Responsive Spacelift.”

J6 – C4 Systems – Administration ofcommunications and computer equipment.

J7 – Joint Exercises and Training –Management of global exercises, including thoseconducted with allies.

J8 – Capability and Resource Integration –An important office in planning StratCom’s budget,since it has to decide if StratCom has the money andmaterial to do the things the politicians and punditswant it to do.

Global Innovation and Strategy Center – Apost-9/11 ‘cross-over’ think tank that constitutes anacademic institution within StratCom for studyingbroad problems in strategic warfare. A joint public/private entity, it is based at the University of Nebraska-Omaha Aksarben Campus.

J1 – Manpower and PersonnelCol. Timothy Cashdollar

J2 – IntelligenceCaptain Jeffrey Canfield

J3A – Combat & Info OpsBrigadier General Brooks Bash

J3 – Global OperationsRear Admiral Doug McClain J3B – Current Operations

Colonel Michael Carey

J4 – LogisticsCaptain Walter Wright

J5 – Plans & PolicyBrigadier General Mark Owen

J6 – C4 SystemsColonel Mark VanUs

J7 – Joint Exercises & TrainingColonel Richard Boltz

J8 – Capability/ResourceIntegration Ken Calicutt

Global Innovation & StrategyCenter Kevin Williams

SpaceVandenberg AFB, CA

Lt. General William Shelton

Joint Information Operations Warfare CommandLackland AFB, TX

Major General John Koziol

Global Strike and IntegrationBarksdale AFB, LA

Lt. General Robert Elder

Intelligence/Surveillance/Reconnaissance DIA HqtrsLt. General Mike Maples

Integrated Missile DefenseArmy SMDC, Arlington, VALt. General Kevin Campbell

WMD Center, Defense ThreatReduction Agency, Ft. Belvoir, VA

Dr. James Tegnelia

Network WarfareNSA Hqtrs., Ft. Meade, MDLt. General Keith Alexander

Functional Components

Space – For less than a year, “Space and GlobalStrike” was a combined command based in Omaha.The new independent space component is now basedat Vandenberg Air Force base in California, home tomany of the nation’s military space assets. Was theseparation of the two an effort to give space a greaterrole? Or was it a public relations gambit to makemilitary space seem less directly connected to globalstrike operations?

Global Strike – Lt. General Robert Elder of the8th Air Force, former commander of the combinedSpace and Global Strike Component, continues tohead the Global Strike unit based at Barksdale AirForce Base in Louisiana. Global Strike responsibilitiesinclude preemptive bombing and strategicreconnaissance operations to deter attacks againstthe United States anywhere on the globe. To thatend, it is also charged with looking at futuristic elementslike the Falcon global space plane.

Joint Information Operations Center – Whenthe Department of Defense (DoD) says “informationoperations,” they mean fusing the intelligence fromdifferent agencies and sources into unified databases,and ‘mining’ those databases. This center is atLackland AFB in San Antonio, conveniently close tothe giant National Security Agency operation atMedina Annex.

Integrated Missile Defense – This is the closestStratCom gets to the Army in day-to-day ops, sincethe Army is in charge of staffing the missile battalionsof ground-based missile defense. The Air Force,however, is in charge of making all the missile-defenseelements work together, such as the Navy’s Aegisships and the ground- and sea-based radar thatsupport missile defense.

Intelligence, Surveillance, andReconnaissance – While this sounds similar to theJIOC above, this group is run by the DefenseIntelligence Agency, and decides what kind of nationalintelligence is relevant to the mission of StratCom. Itactually runs the “platforms,” while JIOC fuses thedata collected.

Network Warfare – This is where the director ofthe NSA plays the most direct role, primarily becauseNSA has the longest history in providing computer

defense, and in planning covert computer attack.This mission was temporarily under the wing of theUS Space Command, until USSC was merged intoStratCom in 2002. Current CIA Director GeneralMichael Hayden conducted the NSA’s now-legendary“warrantless wiretaps” program while heading upthis StratCom Component Command. DefenseInformation Systems Agency (DISA) also is directlyinvolved in this group.

Global Network Operations – Almost a subsetof Network Warfare, this DISA-run group is the‘Information Technology Central’ of the DefenseDepartment, determining the architecture of itscomputer and communication networks.

Center for Combating Weapons of MassDestruction – A post-9/11 agency, co-located withDefense Threat Reduction Agency at Fort Belvoir,Virginia, for the study of active operations againstadversaries’ nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Service Components

Air Force Space Command – Shall we call thisthe remnants of US Space Command? But withGeneral Robert Kehler, the former DeputyCommander at StratCom moving to Colorado Springsto take this over, don’t think its glory days are past.

US Army Strategic Command – Army has itsown Space Command which manages Ballistic MissileDefense (BMD), but it falls under the command ofthis more general group that also oversees Strykerbrigades, some remaining tactical nukes, etc.

Marine Forces Strategic Command – Onemight have thought the Marines would play a minimalrole here, but now that Northern Command includes“maritime ops” in defense of the homeland, theMarines and Navy will jointly be playing a more globalrole in ‘policing’ the seas.

Fleet Forces Command – Includes the formerNavy Space Command, and active elements of NavalSecurity Group, handling everything from the Navycomponent of missile defense (Aegis cruisers) toglobal Navy space-based intelligence operations likeRanger and Classic Wizard.

Task ForcesThese are the “hardware management groups”

for weapons and platforms, with dedicated task forcesfor airborne communications, aerial refuelingand tankers, intercontinental ballistic missiles,ballistic-missile submarines, and strategicbombers and reconnaissance aircraft.

Air Force Space CommandPeterson AFB, ColoradoGeneral Robert Kehler

U.S. Army Forces StrategicCommand (ARSTRAT)

Arlington, VALt. General Kevin Campbell

Marine Corps Forces Strategic Command (MARFORSTRAT)

Quantico, VALt. General James Amos

Component Commands Component Commands

Service-Specific Components Service-Specific Components

Organization Chart of S Organization Chart of StratCom Groups, Component tratCom Groups, Components & T s & Task Forces ask Forces

Fleet Forces CommandNorfolk, VA

Admiral Jonathan Greenert

AirborneCommunications Aerial Refueling/Tankers

Land-based IntercontinentalBallistic Missiles

Ballistic MissileSubmarines

Strategic Bombers& Reconnaissance Aircraft

U.S. S U.S. S U.S. S U.S. Strategic Command trategic Command trategic Command trategic CommandU.S. Strategic Command

Or Organizational “J-Code” Groups ganizational “J-Code” Groups

T Task Forces ask Forces

Joint Task Force for GlobalNetwork Operations

Lt. General Charles Croom, Jr.

Defense Intelligence OperationsCoordination Center

Daniel Dawson

National Security Agency RepresentativeMs. Pat Moreno

National Geospatial IntelligenceAgency Representative

Eric Herbst

APRIL 2008 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.8

by Roger Holmes and Jack GouldCommon Cause Nebraska

During the Government Committeehearing on LB 870, the so-called re-volving-door bill which calls for a two-year wait before former state Sen.sand certain other elected officials canbecome lobbyists, Sen. Mike Friend ofOmaha said he was unaware of anyproblems that would justify the bill. “I failto find any value in this bill,” he told thecommittee.

To enlighten Sen. Friend and othercommittee members who appeared toshare his lack of awareness, we offerthe following recent examples of therevolving-door syndrome.

Our first concerns former Sen.Don Pederson of North Platte and theAssurity Life Building across the streetfrom the Capitol at 16th and K Streetsin Lincoln. Sen. Pederson, as chairmanof the Appropriations Committee in the99th Legislature (2005-2006), was in-strumental in arranging for the state’sappropriation of $12 million to purchasethe building. Pederson was term-lim-ited out of the legislature in January2007. In February, he registered as alobbyist for Assurity Life, telling the

Why We Need To Close the Unicameral’s Revolving DoorOmaha World-Herald it was the onlylobbying job he intended to take. Heresigned as Assurity’s lobbyist in June,six months later, having been paid$20,000 for his lobbying efforts.

The next example involves theformer Speaker of the 98th Legislature(2003-2004), Curt Bromm, and effortsto pass legislation prohibiting powercompanies and municipalities from of-fering broadband services to consum-ers, which, as a consequence, wouldmaintain the monopoly on these ser-vices by private telecommunicationscompanies. Bromm twice sponsoredsuch legislation; the first effort failed;the second bill was passed but the lawwas overturned in a court case.

In January, 2005, two days afterterm limits ended Sen. Bromm’s legis-lative career, he registered as a lobby-ist for nine clients, including the Ne-braska Cable Communications Asso-ciation and the Nebraska Telecommu-nications Association. These two clientspaid $5,000 a month each for his ser-vices.

Our final example concerns Sen.Kermit Brashear, LB 645 and the re-cent Omaha schools legislation. Just as

former Speaker Bromm was travelingthrough the revolving door into thelobby, the newly elected Speaker of theLegislature, Kermit Brashear, picked upthe effort to prohibit public entities fromproviding broadband services by intro-ducing LB 645 into the 99th Legislature(2005-2006).

On February 2, 2005, SpeakerBrashear filed a conflict of interest dec-laration, as required by law, listing LB645 and eight other communications-related bills as possible conflicts of in-terest because he was under contractas a lawyer to Cox Cable, a companyproviding broadband services.

Such conflict declarations do notrequire a senator to recuse himself fromworking on conflicted bills. SpeakerBrashear played a significant role in thepassage of LB 645, aided by now-lob-byist Bromm’s Rotunda buttonholing of

his former colleagues. SpeakerBrashear was also heavily involved inthe Omaha schools legislation that oc-cupied so much of the 2006 session.

In February 2007, within a monthof his term-limited exit from the legisla-ture, Brashear registered as a paid lob-byist, listing the Metro Student Achieve-

ment Steering Committee as his soleclient.

At the recent hearing on LB 870,committee chair Ray Aguilar and othermembers praised former Sen.Brashear and other former speakersand senators for their assistance to thelegislature after leaving office, citing inparticular Brashear’s work on theOmaha schools issue.

Helpful though they may havebeen, Brashear’s efforts were under-written to the tune of $1,000 per monthby the Metro Student Achievement

Steering Committee, a group with clearinterests in the outcome of the legisla-tion.

And, in the first three months of2008, just one year after his departurefrom the legislature, Brashear addedthree more lobbying clients: theBrownell-Talbot School, an interestedparty in the Omaha schools legislation,pays him $1,000 per month for his ser-vices. And Cox Cable, Brashear’s legalclient whose telecommunications inter-ests were protected by LB 645, payshim $3,000 per month to representtheir interests. In March, Lincoln MayorChris Beutler, a colleague of the formerspeaker in the legislature, announcedthat the city was hiring Brashear as alobbyist to the tune of $12,000.

Former Sens. Pederson, Brommand Brashear are not alone in capital-izing on a quick move through the re-volving door between the legislativechamber and the lobby. It is because oftheir conduct and that of others (includ-ing two other recent Speakers) thatCommon Cause supports the Gover-nor and Sen. Avery in asking the legis-lature to close the door. Such behaviorundermines the electorate’s trust inelected officials and threatens the in-tegrity of our state government.

2008 Omaha Peace & Justice Expo“Working Toward a World Without Poverty”

Author and activist Sam Daley-Harris will be thefeatured speaker at the 2008 Omaha Peace &Justice Expo. President and founder of the501(c)(3) RESULTS Educational Fund, Daley-Harris is dedicated to mass educational strate-gies to generate the will for ending worldhunger.

RESULTS Educational Fund organized theFebruary 1997 Microcredit Summit held inWashington, DC. The Summit was attended bymore than 2,900 participants from 137 coun-tries and launched a nine-year campaign toreach 100 million of the world’s poorest fami-lies, especially the women of those families,with credit for self-employment and other finan-cial and business services by 2005. By the endof 2006 the Microcredit Summit Campaign hadmade loans to more than 133 million people,93 million of whom were among the world’spoorest. Almost 85 percent are women, and theloan repayment rate is about 98 percent.

Daley-Harris is also founder and presi-dent of RESULTS, an international citizens’lobby dedicated to creating the political willto end hunger and poverty. He is the authorof Reclaiming Our Democracy: Healing theBreak Between People and Government,about which President Jimmy Carter said,“[Daley-Harris] provides a road map forglobal involvement in planning a betterfuture.” Daley-Harris is also editor of “Path-ways Out of Poverty: Innovations inMicrofinance for the Poorest Families.”

He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wifeShannon, who is a consultant with theReligious Affairs Division of the Children’sDefense Fund. Their son Micah was born inMay 1998 and daughter Sophie was born inMay 2001.

This year marks the fourth consecutivePeace & Justice Expo which annually drawsupwards to 500 participants.

Keynote Speaker:

Sam Daley-Harris

Saturday April 26

9:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Lewis & ClarkMiddle School

6901 Burt Street

Such behavior underminesthe electorate’s trust in elected

officials and threatens the integrityof our state government.

APRIL 2008 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.9

by Paul Schumacherwww.usepublicpower.com

Nebraskans deserve the same ben-efits from competition as people inother states. Nebraska communi-ties should be able to provide ser-vices to their people, as do com-munities in other states. And Ne-braskans are entitled to the samebenefits of technology as peoplein other states.

The fact that Nebraskanswere smart enough to be the only100-percent public power state inthe nation and to own their ownpublic power infrastructure shouldnot now handicap them and forcethem to underutilize resources.

The “Use Public Power” ini-tiative petition now being circu-lated in the state would grant lo-cal public power boards the au-thority over internet connectionaccess. ‘Local option’ authority iscritical in a big state like Nebraskawhere one size does not fit all. Forinstance, some boards maychoose to:

• ‘wholesale’ infrastructure ac-cess to the private sector;

• string fiber optic lines to farms,residences or industrial parksto link them to a buffet of pri-vate communications providers;

• work in dynamic partnershipswith local investors—youngtalent and old visionaries grow-ing the information age in Ne-braska, not just from the con-sumer side, but the all-importantproduction side as well;

• build a state of the art commu-nication system in their serviceareas;

• utilize existing power lines todeliver communications ser-vices using a technology calledBPL that the FCC says holdsgreat promise, but is currentlyprohibited by Nebraska law;

• do nothing but stand ever vigi-lant as a deterrent force readyto enter the market if private in-terests use their monopoly po-sition to deter competition orotherwise do not operate in the

public interest;

• employ existing investmentsand assets directly or in part-nership with the private sector;or

• perform any other role that pub-lic power boards, as trustees ofthe public heritage exercisinglocal control, find in the inter-est of their communities.

Under Nebraska’s currenttelecommunication’s policy, Ne-braskans pay the highest taxes ontheir phone bills of any state—duein large measure to a “UniversalService Fund” assessment whichraises $65,000,000 per year and isalmost all doled out to legacyphone companies to give them in-centive to provide rural dial toneand broadband. Most of thosecompanies are closed private cor-porations that have broad discre-tion with their internal finances. Bycontrast, the public power compa-nies are in a position to offer abroadband service carrying voice,internet and possibly digital tele-vision to the same rural areasusing much the same resourcesthey already have. The 6.95 per-cent Universal Service Fund as-sessment drives up the cost of tele-phone in the metropolitan areasand weighs against companiesconsidering relocation to the urbancenters. In rural areas it creates a

heavily subsidized competitorwhich discourages private broad-band investment and innovationthere.

Many rural states do not evenhave a universal service fund.Nebraska’s 6.95 percent is thehighest in the nation. The fundfrees up legacy company financesfor the massive political activitythat, in turn, keeps it on the booksand continues to outlaw publicpower involvement. For thoselegacy companies with operationsin other states, it may even free upresources for infrastructure inother states. While the accountingon the $65,000,000 per year is verydifficult to come by, clearly the as-sets purchased with the subsidiesbelong to the corporate recipientsand increase their stockvalue. There is no obligation forthe private companies to repay thesubsidies should the firm merge orsell. If the public is going to payfor infrastructure, shouldn’t thepublic own it?

The Federal government like-wise hands out almost an equalamount in annual subsidy to thesame legacy phone companies.Should public power companieschoose to position themselvesproperly—and allowed by the ini-tiative petition—they could sharein the federal subsidy and createpublic wealth with it.

The principal argumentagainst giving our public powercompanies authority to delivertelecom services (or not, as theychoose) is that government shouldnot be allowed to compete withprivate entities.

Such an argument ignoresthat in many respects public poweris simply a business like anyother—except it pays its share-holders dividends in the form ofcheaper rates than the national av-erage. Public power has few of the‘markers’ usually associated withgovernment. It levies no tax. It hasno police. It passes no laws. Thegeneral philosophical issue in the‘government vs. private’ debate isrooted in the government beingable to use such powers to com-pete unfairly. But like business cor-

porations, public power is estab-lished under authority of statutepassed by the legislature. It, likebusiness corporations, is gov-erned by a board or directors withfiduciary duties to the businessoperations. It, like business corpo-rations, is driven by the forces ofthe private marketplace.

In one very important re-spect, however, public power islike government. It is obligated totreat all equally and fairly. It isbound by public openness. It isbound by the principles of freespeech and neutrality with respectto content of communication.These form the essential founda-tion of a communications platformconsistent with our most sacredprinciples.

In fact, with respect to our cur-rent telecommunications situationin Nebraska, the ‘government vs.private’ arguments are actually re-versed. It was the local phone com-panies that got the Unicameral toimpose the 6.95 percent universalservice assessment on everyphone bill. It was the local phonecompanies that created a specialeligible class to assure they hadspecial status and access to thosefunds vis-à-vis innovators andcompetitors. It was the local phone

companies that insist on their abil-ity to bundle their product line andlimit access to infrastructure in dis-criminatory fashion.

We live in an age where theprivate and public sector often pro-vide similar services and commodi-ties. Examples:

• Parking Facilities

• Theaters and Arenas

• School Systems

• Shipping Ports and Airports

• Garbage collection and disposal

• Insurance (Medicaid and Medi-care vs. private insurance)

• Hospitals and Public Health(Nebraska University MedicalCenter, etc.)

• Transportation (mass transitand subways compete withtaxis, etc.)

• Radio & TV (Nebraska Educa-tional TV and Public Radio/TV)

• Energy (public power competeswith Natural Gas)

• Advertising (park benches,Buses, Score Boards, sellingnaming rights for public build-ings)

Initiative Petition to ‘Use Public Power’

Will Open Up the Information Super Highway for Nebraskans

UnderNebraska’s

current telecom-munication’s

policy,Nebraskans

pay the highesttaxes on theirphone bills of

any state.

conclusion on page 11

No, Should Not BeAllowed 22.5%

Yes, Should Be Allowed 53.4%

Don’t Know 24.1%

Do you believe that Nebraska’s public powercompanies should be allowed to provideInternet and other telecommunications

services, or should they not be allowed to?

APRIL 2008 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.10

Considerationson Crazinessby Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa

As targets of J. Edgar Hoover’s counter-in-telligence program (CoIntelPro) in the late’60s, Mondo and his co-defendant EdPoindexter were charged and convicted ofthe 1970 murder of Omaha Police officerLarry Minard. For over 37 years they havesteadfastly maintained their innocence andthat they were victims of an F.B.I. frameup.Amnesty International has designated themboth as U.S. political prisoners.

I don’t hear it—“You’ve got yournerve”—as much as I used to. It is, of course,what one might say to a person who’s beinga toilet bowl calling a sink ‘white.’

There’s much that goes on in the U.S.that stimulates at least some of us to say,“You’ve got your nerve” or somethingequivalent to that. For instance, accordingto a January 31, 2008 Lincoln Journal Stararticle, Andy Ringsmuth objects to the Ne-braska Minority Committee translating civiland self-represented litigant forms intoSpanish, Vietnamese and Arabic. Ringsmuthsays that, if a person chooses to live here(presumably, the U.S.), he or she shouldlearn English.

I hesitate to rain to Ringsmuth’s cha-rade. But there’s substantial irony in his de-cision to use the legal profession as a venuefor his English-only crusade. It so happensthat some of the most important and com-monly cited legal concepts are expressed,not in English, but in Latin and Latin-de-rived terminology, such as: “habeas cor-pus,” “mandamus,” “certiorari,” “nolo con-tendere,” “res judicata” and “voir dire.” IsAndy Ringsmuth objecting to the prevalenceof these Latin terms or to the prevalence ofLatin and Greek terms in the sciences?

And as to his insistence that peoplewho choose to live here learn English, heshould be reminded that there was a timewhen no one in this land spoke English orany other European language. Yet the En-glish and other Europeans who came andchose to stay didn’t bother to learn the lan-guages indigenous to this place. Nor doesRingsmuth seem to be expressing interest inlearning Lakota, Dine’, Cheyenne, Cree orany other of the languages spoken here be-fore his ancestors arrived. So if I happen tobe a person here in this state who doesn’tspeak English, I’m looking at AndyRingsmuth and thinking, “You’ve got yournerve.”

Ringsmuth is not alone in seeing him-self as having some kind of patriotic duty toprotect the dominance of the English lan-guage in the U.S. He is one of hordes ofpoliticians and other public figures who viewEnglish as representing a kind of purity ofAmericanism, with languages spoken mainlyby people of color representing contamina-tion. Unfortunately, for Mexicanos/as andother people from Central and South Americawho are of indigenous heritage and speakSpanish, the Spanish language is under at-tack. Why? It’s not only because it’s a for-eign language but because Europeans (Cau-casians) in the U.S. have come to associateit with brown-skinned, dark-haired, non-Eu-ropean people. This association serves tocause them a faultiness of recollection inwhich they forget that Spanish—like Latin,Greek, French, etc.—is a European lan-guage.

When we see these advocates for ‘En-glish-only’ laws, policies and so forth, wealmost always see, side-by-side with them,advocates for ‘fixing our borders.’ The fire-breathing Lou Dobbs of CNN is among themore prominent of these, combining incen-diary rhetoric with a demeanor suggestingthat he not only feels personally offendedby ‘aliens’ illegally crossing into the U.S.from Mexico, but that he is feeling offendedon behalf of real Americans. Someone therein the newsroom of CNN should tap Lou onthe shoulder and give him a ‘heads-up’ onthe fact that much of the southwestern U.S.was taken from Mexico and that the entiretyof the continental U.S. was taken from thenations (tribes) who inhabited it at the timethe first Europeans arrived here, and hadbeen living here for thousands of years be-fore their arrival. Somewhere, right aboutnow, there’s a so-called ‘illegal alien’ look-ing at Lou Dobbs on the TV screen andthinking, “You’ve got your nerve.”

On the television these days, there arechannels appealing to all kinds of interests:entertainment in general, movies and par-ticular categories of movies, music and dif-ferent genres of music, a large variety ofsports, etc. Recently, I was clicking throughsome channels and stopped, out of curios-ity, at the Sportsman Channel. The programwas “Tommy Wilcox Outdoors.” I’ve been avegetarian since 1973 and don’t find any-thing entertaining about people killing ani-mals. But I had a feeling that I should checkthis out for a couple of minutes.

There was a large, fat man dressed incamouflage, crouching amid tall vegetation.Some distance from him, there was a flutter-ing contraption used to lure flying quail towithin shooting range. This large, fat man incamouflage was shooting tiny quail with abig gun and, instead of a bird dog, he was

using his young son to go fetch the birds hewas shooting out of the sky. At one point,the son, who was probably six or seven,came running back to his dad with a fewdead quail. He was so proud as he cheered,“Dad, you shot this one right in the eye.” Atanother point, the ‘great white hunter’ shottwo quail in quick succession and, pleasedwith himself, sang a couple of bars of“Double your pleasure, double your fun.”That was more than enough for me. AndMichael Vick is doing time in prison, but nota fat man in camouflage, shooting tiny quailfor fun, with a big-ass gun.

Sometimes words are just words, orseem to be. But often, words are much morethan words. Today, for example, I learnedthat, though torture is torture most of thetime, when it is done under the authority ofthe Bush/Cheney Administration, torture isnot torture, but “enhanced interrogation.”

There is much to be learned. There arechildren who believe their parents havevalue. But they learn soon enough from thiscountry’s news media that Warren Buffettand Bill Gates are worth several billion each.So, what of the children whose parents areworking hard at full-time jobs and are onlymaking enough money to make it from pay-check to paycheck and have little or no ma-terial assets? How long does it take for these

Letters to NFP… Mondo & Morekids to begin to ask themselves, if Buffettand Gates are worth billions, what are theirparents, who have no material wealth, worth?

“Freedom” is a word that can mean onething to one person or group and another toa person or group in a different set of cir-cumstances. And it can mean one thing forone person or group and something else foranother person or group. “Freedom” undercapitalism may mean very similar things tothose who have capital and those whodon’t. But the freedom for those with capitalis very different from the freedom for thosewithout. For the former, it is a matter of virtu-ally unlimited options.

In this country, freedom of speech isespecially prized by those with capital whorun commercial media. Their freedom meansthat they can use broadcast and print fea-tures, as well as ads, to encourage people toeat too much, to buy things they don’t need,to pile up credit debt, to laugh at people’shardships and suffering, to disrespect vitalaspects of people’s cultures, to enjoy vio-lence, to become obsessed over sex, and tootherwise put themselves and/or thosearound them into jeopardy. The more thosewho run media exercise their options, themore the healthy and constructive optionsfor the targets of media shrink.

Regarding the column by A’Jamal Byndon in the March 2008 Nebraska Report, OPPD doeshave policies relating to both part-time and full-time hires, and neither prohibits the children ofemployees from applying for jobs at OPPD. The policy is clear that no employee should behired who would directly or indirectly supervise, or be supervised, by a relative, or who wouldbe assigned to the same work group in which a relative is employed. In other words, relativesof employees can appy and work at OPPD, but they cannot be supervised directly or indirectlyby the existing employee. This applies to all full-time and part-time positions.

OPPD is an equal opportunity employer and administers all employment activities withoutregard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, marital status, age, national origin, veteran status,disability, or any other factor prohibited by law.

Our personnel are not bartering jobs for employees’ children with MUD, and webelieve these statements should be corrected. Thank you.

Gary Williams, Division Manager - Corporate Communications, OPPD

The March 2008 Nebraska Report printed a column by A’Jamal-Rashad Byndon, in which hestated: “Sometime ago I was told a story about employment at the Omaha Public PowerDistrict and the Metropolitan Utilities District, the public utility in Omaha. Both institutions haveinternal policies which prohibit hiring the children of employees for summer jobs. However,employees circumvent those policies by developing contacts in the other company with whomthey barter jobs for their children.”

The Metropolitan Utilities District allows children of employees to apply for summer em-ployment. We do not barter jobs for employees’ children with the Omaha Public Power District.

The Metropolitan Utilities District requests a retraction of both statements.

Mari Matulka, Director, Corporate Communications, Metropolitan Utilities District

MUD & OPPD Respond

APRIL 2008 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.11www.theross.org

COMING SOON

Your Foundation Speaksby Loyal Park, President, Nebraska Peace Foundation

Have you considered the Foundation in your will? Is peace workimportant enough to be at the top of your list? Will StratComcontinue without being challenged by the work that Nebraskansfor Peace is doing to educate the public about the changes andplans of that combatant command?

We are hoping to have the majority of people who have supportedpeace work over the years become supporters of the Foundation’s Endowment Fund.The Endowment Fund is growing, but we need your support to keep peace workgoing long into the future.

Any questions about how you can help? Call me 402-489-6662.

• Right of Way (providing access forphone, cable and gas lines on publicproperty competes with the private landowners who could sell access along theiradjoining property otherwise.)

• Postal Service (competition with UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc.)

• National Weather Service competes withprivate weather forecasters

• Banking (federal government’s FarmCredit Service is the largest lender—USDA competes with private banks)

• Office Buildings (government owns of-fice buildings and leases off space com-peting with private landlords; govern-ment also sells timber and grazing rightswhich would have to be purchased fromprivate companies if the governmentwasn’t in the business)

• Municipal water wells compete with land-owners who could drill qualifying wellsto connect to the distribution system andsell water to customers.

• Publicly run ambulance services competewith private ambulance companies.

The ultimate debate needs to focus onwho should own the information super high-way? Should the owner be answerable tothe local people or far-away investors?Should the owner be in a position to dis-criminate in favor of those who buy otherservices from it? But if the owner is a publicutility, then the consumer is free to selectwhich private vendor to carry its voice pack-ets (VoIP)´… which email service to pro-vide its email and spam filters… which video

company to provide its movies and news…and which online radio station to listen to. Ifthe highway is a public road, then the dooris open to the competitive marketplace forservices delivered on that road system. Thevision of a reasonably unregulated competi-tive information marketplace has a chanceof becoming a reality because the consumerhas the choice and the accompanying ben-efits of competition. But if the highway isnot a public road, the owner is someone in aposition to restrict consumer choices tothose approved by it and to collect tributefrom each and every packet of informationeach citizen sends or receives.

Nebraska, as the nation’s only fullypublic power state, is in a unique position topioneer at creating a true public informationsuper highway. That pioneering spirit waspowerfully evidenced in a late 2006 state-wide scientific poll of likely voters:

Just over half of all respondents believethe public power companies should be al-lowed to provide Internet and other telecom-munications services. Another 24 percentdon’t know or don’t have an opionion oneway or the other.

Approximately 89,000 verifiable signa-tures representing at least five percent ofthe registered voters in each of at least 38counties are necessary to place the initia-tive on the November 2008 ballot. The sig-natures need to be submitted to the Secre-tary of State by July.

The petition text and extensive back-ground information is available atwww.usepublicpower.com. Petitions areavailable for circulation by a simple requeston the website or email to petition@usepublicpower.com.

‘Use Public Power’conclusion

4.11 - 4.244 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYSThis outstanding picture firmly establishesRomania as a major force in early 21st-century world cinema. Winner of the Palmed’Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival,Cristian Mungiu’s excruciatingly intensedrama is set in Bucharest in the mid-1980s.Mungiu’s decision to film every scene in ahyper-documentary style, with long,unbroken takes (by co-producer OlegMutu), ratchets up the tension to nearlyunbearable proportions. It is filmmaking atits most masterly.4.11 - 4.24 SNOW ANGELSSNOW ANGELS, adapted from the novel ofthe same title by Stewart O’Nan, is twostories of love and loss converging. One isof a recently separated couple attemptingto pick up the threads of a future whenfaced with tragedy. The second is about anawkward young man, currently in thethroes of discovering his first romance,forced to deal with the separation andsubsequent strife of his parents’relationship. “Snow Angels” is written anddirected by critically acclaimed filmmakerDavid Gordon Green.4.25 - 5.8 THE COUNTERFEITERSSet in a Nazi concentration camp, thisdrama centers on history’s biggestcounterfeit operation. In THECOUNTERFEITERS, prisoners must choosebetween aiding the Third Reich in theirmoney-making scheme and their own well-being.

It’s the War, Stupidby Paul Olson, NFP President

SpeakingOur Peace

BUBULLELLETITIN BON BOARARDD

Wednesdays in Lincoln Anti-war vigil, Lincoln Federal Building, 15th & ‘O’ St., 5-6 p.m.

Wednesdays in Omaha Vigil at StratCom’s Global Innovation & Strategy Center, 6825Pine Street, UNO Campus, 4:30-5:30 p.m.

April 11-13 Global Network 2008 Conference on StratCom at CreightonUniversity (see page 3 for details).

April 20 Earth Day, Noon to 4 p.m., Auld Pavillion, Antelope Park, inLincoln. The free, no-litter Earth Day event will feature livemusic, children’s activities, interactive displays, plus presen-tations by local environmentally concerned organziations.

April 26 2008 Peace & Justice Expo in Omaha. See page 8 for details.

May 13 2008 Primary Election

“It’s the economy, stupid.”Sign in the headquarters of the 1992Clinton for President Campaign

During Vietnam, President Johnson toldus that we could have both “guns andbutter.” Richard Nixon told us the samething in different words. But after theNixonian price controls to contain the eco-nomic fall-out and the stagflation of theFord/Carter years, we found that we hadtoo much civilian and military demand chas-ing too little productivity, too much easycredit and a resulting 21 percent inflation.When Reagan shut down the easy moneyand ag-land prices fell, farmers found theirfarms not worth as much as their mort-gages—hence, the ’80s ag crisis.

We have two new ‘guns and butter’fairy stories that promise to dominate thefall elections:

1. The Iraq “surge” has workedpretty much, and it will work completelysoon (the gun myth);

2. The economy is the fall electionissue, and ‘our candidate’—Republican orDemocrat—can bring prosperity back (thebutter myth).

These are myths.One, the surge is not working, despite

what Bush and McCain claim. We haveachieved three of the 13 goals we projected:less than 25 percent (hardly a passinggrade). We have bought off a few Sunnitribal leaders in Western Iraq, men whowill stay bought off as long as we bribethem. We have brought a culture of brib-ery and corruption to our companies and

to their government. Muqtada al-Sadr hascalled off his Madhi army for a spell whilehe reorganizes it to be more unified underhim, but his Shiite dominance goals havenot altered. Al-Qaida in Iraq is still active.Deaths in Iraq are down only as low asthey were before the Golden Mosque’sbombing. What can put a good face onthings is that some weeks Baghdad’sformer violence seems to have moved toMosul or Afghanistan or Northeast Paki-stan. Moving the violence, though, doesnot end it.

Charles Sennott, an embedded Bos-ton Globe reporter sympathetic to thesurge’s goals, said recently on NPR thathe’d encountered no Iraqis who believedthat pacification would last after Ameri-can divisions pulled back. But we inAmerica, we are told to wait at a littlelonger and give the surge a chance towork—just like we had only to wait for theIraqi elections to work, or for the Iraqi Armyto be trained, or for the capture of SaddamHussein to break the back of the insur-gency. Now, we are told, we must wait again“lest we lose the purpose of all those liveslost.”

What we should be waiting for is aUN-sponsored police action and negotia-tion to stabilize Iraq. We should be wait-ing for a peacekeeping mission from Iraq’sregional neighbors. We should be waitingfor our bases to close, and for Iraqis tocontrol their own oil. We should heraldChuck Hagel though the streets of Lin-coln and Omaha for his honesty.

Two, the economy is NOT the issue.

About half of the people in the U.S. be-lieve the economy is the issue becausethat is what the media and the politiciansare telling them. The candidates are cam-paigning as if the credit crisis and homeforeclosures have nothing to do with Iraqor Afghanistan. One can understand howcitizens losing their homes—after gainingeasy credit, variable-rate mortgages andthen seeing, in the last two years, interestrates rise while the value of their homesfell below the size of their mortgages—might think the economy was the issue.They’re being told that a moratorium onforeclosures or cutting the interest ratesor going after predatory lenders or tax re-bates will solve things. But these band-aids will not work.

They will not work because theeconomy is not the issue. The war is.

The war created this economy. Wehave borrowed over $500 billion to pay forthe war already—this whole war has beenfought on borrowed money. Five hundredbillion is ten times what Bush-Cheney toldus the war would cost. And Joseph Stiglitz(the Nobel Prize-winning economist) andLinda Bilmes, in their new book Three Tril-lion Dollar War, show that—the with in-terest on debt, intelligence costs, coststucked in departments other than defense,off-the-books costs, and the costs of medi-cal injuries to U.S. service veterans—thiswar will cost at least $3,000,000,000,000.That translates into an eventual debt ofabout $100,000 for each family of three inAmerica.

To try to pull off this ‘guns and but-

ter’ scenario, the Fed made easy moneyavailable just as it did before the farm cri-sis. It encouraged massive investment inhousing to create civilian contentment. AsStiglitz explains, because of the war’s cost,the “Fed sloshed credit all through the sys-tem… The regulators were looking the otherway and money was being lent to anyonethis side of a life support system” (TheAustralian, 2/8/08; see also The Three Tril-lion Dollar War, pp. 125-26). The Fed alsorelaxed credit controls. As Stiglitz argues,the war is the reason for the recession, andwe will pay not only in foreclosures andbank instability, but in inflation and gen-eral fiscal instability for years, perhaps fordecades. That is what we have bought withthis endless stupid war—beyond thedeaths, injuries and refugee camps.

So when presidential, congressional orsenatorial candidates try to tell you, “It’sthe economy, stupid,” tell them where toget off. There are no ‘guns-and-butter’wars. Wars mean sacrifice, either now orlater. We can choose to have schools, uni-versities, roads, healthcare, thriving familyfarms and productive households, publictransportation and green energy. Or we canchoose to cry ‘Terror’ endlessly, worsenthe causes of unrest in the Middle East,forfeit our civil liberties and squander ourblood and treasure while making ourselvesinto a military state.

It is not the economy; it is the war.And if we do not pin back the ears of ourDemocratic and Republican candidates onthis issue, we will deserve the wastelandwe will get.

Let’s Make Everyday

EARTH DAY