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The Indy
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5:24 PM December 3, 2008
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Volume 1 Number 6
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11.08.01
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Vigilance Against Violence
 By Manfred Steger
This marks the end of our 48-hour fast for peace, but it does not mark the end of our vigilance, the end of our resolve, or the end of our belief that violence is wrong. That violence is not the answer. And that violence only begets more violence.
This is a campaign that does not just protest bombs that are falling in Afghanistan. It is a campaign that protests the violence that was perpetrated against innocent civilians in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania. This is a campaign that protests and demonstrates against violence that is perpetrated against the environment, against women, against minorities.
It is a campaign that understands that once we choose the path of violence, we are going down a slippery road that leads as Mahatma Gandhi said, to the blindness of the whole world. An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind. Do we want to live our lives in blindness?
Some people say, "how do you react to a person like Osama Bin Laden, you can't talk to a person like this." Folks, if we can't talk, if we can't exert nonviolent pressure, if we can't mobilize people, then the very ideals that this country is based upon-freedom, equality, solidarity-are unachievable and we are living a lie. [Full Story]
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A Marine Veteran Opposing War
By Maher Bages
During my high school graduation ceremonies in May of 1989, I got a glimpse of the US flag. It caused a shiver to run down my spine the likes of which I had never experienced before. That flag symbolized many things that I held dear to me. It was a symbol of the democracy and individual freedoms and liberties that I relished but never enjoyed while living in Israeli-occupied Palestine. That flag kept my hopes alive that one day all over the world, in Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan, and Palestine, people will be able to taste these freedoms that I enjoyed as an American.
Out of my gratitude to this nation for teaching me what it meant to have freedom and showing the positive effects of living in a democracy, I naively decided to join the US Marine Corps, thinking I would be able to help the government enforce democracy across the globe. Through the course of my service, I was ordered to different areas of conflict. I performed my duties as I was instructed and lived up to the oath that I took upon becoming a US Marine. When I left the USMC I was decorated with three rows of ribbons and medals. To this day I hold these dear to me, and I keep them as a memento of my service to this nation but mostly as a reminder of the horrors and inexplicable madness that I was exposed to.
The price I had to pay for these chest ornaments was the highest a human being can pay to his nation except for the loss of life or limb. The Marines trained me how to take a life, but never explained to me how to live with the guilt of having killed a fellow human being. [Full Story]
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Bangladesh Workers Describe Sweatshopss
By John K. Wilson
On a chilly fall Friday afternoon during Homecoming Weekend at Illinois State University, 75 students gathered in front of a pile of caps with university logos to discuss campus apparel. But this wasn't some kind of bizarre pep rally before the evening's parade and bonfire. This was a speech sponsored by the ISU United Students Against Sweatshops, and the students were there to hear from Bangladesh garment workers paid 1.6 cents to make ISU logo caps, caps that sell for $18.99 in the university bookstore.
For the alumni and students walking around campus with red and white ISU gear, not many know-and few seem to care-that what they're wearing may have been made in a Bangladesh sweatshop under brutal conditions. But to the members of United Students Against Sweatshops, such as ISU Junior Nick Berveiler, "This is an ongoing struggle to end sweatshop abuse.
"Today, 1.6-1.8 million workers in Bangladesh, a small Southeast Asia country the size of Oregon crammed with 130 million people, are producing 924 million garments per year for the United States. Earning 13-19 cents an hour down to 8 cents an hour (or less) for helpers, are miserable, accounting for less than one tenth of one percent of the retail price of the apparel. Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the National Labor Committee (which is sponsoring this 19-city "Tour of Conscience") calls it "the greatest exploitation the National Labor Committee has ever seen. [Full Story]
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