Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Forum on American freedom at 7 p.m. Tuesday (TONIGHT) at OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology

Contact Gladys Tiffany 973-9049, Melanie Dietzel 442-8600, Dick Bennett 442-4600
SPONSORED BY OMNI: CENTER FOR PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY
FORUM
Five citizens in the humanities will discuss the new book by Naomi Wolf, The End of America: A Citizen’s Call to Action. Wolf describes ten steps dictators have taken to shut down a democratic, open society—from Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin to Pinochet. Each of those ten steps is now under way in the United States today. The book is an impassioned call to return to the aspirations and beliefs of the Founding Fathers for a nation of, by, and for the people.

WHEN: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 7 PM

WHERE: UNITED CAMPUS MINISTRY/OMNI, 902 W. MAPLE, FAYETTEVILLE,
Corner of Maple and Storer, north of UA’s Old Main, adjacent east to Tri-Delta Sorority. Parking on Maple, Storer, campus parking lot a block north, and behind OMNI.
PANELISTS: Adelaide Adamson, Claire Detels, Tom Kennedy, Leonard Schulte, Doug Thompson. Dick Bennett, Moderator.

NAOMI WOLF

Wolf’s international bestseller, The Beauty Myth, questioned the unrealistic standards of beauty of the cosmetics industry. She has also written Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood. She co-founded The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, an organization that teaches young women how to become leaders and agents of change. A graduate of Yale and a former Rhodes Scholar, Wolf has written essays for The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Glamour, The New York Times, and other magazines and newspapers.

PANELISTS:
Addie Adamson, Ed.D. professor of English for 40+ years, taught the last seven as a teacher of English as A Second Language at the U of A, Fayetteville. I was a product of the 1960s, politically. I was teaching at San Antonio College from 1966 to 1975 (when I moved to the Mulberry River Valley, as a "drop-out" from the Nixon culture). I taught many wounded Vietnam Veterans and swore that I could never support any war again. Today, I feel that the U.S. government is making even more disastrous mistakes than did Nixon and cohorts. I fear greatly for our country. That is why I am glad to be on a panel to discuss this issue.

Claire Detels is UA Professor in Music History and Humanities active in arts education reform and feminist theory; keyboard performer and director of the Butcher-Detels Four-Hand Duo; author of Music in the Western Tradition and Soft Boundaries: Re-Visioning the Arts and Aesthetics in American Education.

Thomas C. Kennedy is UA Prof. Emer. of History Emeritus) & former Chair. He was President & Program Chair (three times) of Western Conference on British Studies, President of the Friends Historical Society (Great Britain, 1995), and Distinguished Alumnus, University of Dayton (1989). His publications include: British Quakerism, 1860-1920 and A History of the No-Conscription Fellowship, 1914-1919.

Leonard Schulte was raised Catholic in a small town in southwestern Missouri, attended seminary for six years, and became highly skeptical of his religious belief. He then studied philosophy at three different universities, most recently at the University of Arkansas from 1989 to 1993, where he completed all degree requirements for a Doctorate except for the dissertation. He has since taught philosophy courses, including Intro. to Phil, and Intro. to Ethics and Logic, at North West Arkansas Community College.

Doug Thompson is a news reporter and columnist for The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas and for the Arkansas News Bureau. The bureau provides state government news for newspapers in Fort Smith, Jonesboro, Conway, Pine Bluff and other regions of the state. He is a resident of Fayetteville, where he contributes a column to the Fayetteville Free Weekly. He's a long-standing critic of the current administration's policies on domestic spying and use of torture, among its other intelligence-gathering failures.

Dick Bennett is UA Prof. Emeritus in English, founder of OMNI, and compiler of Peace Movement Directory.

THE AMERICAN FREEDOM CAMPAIGN AGENDA, A CALL TO ACTION

(Appended at the end of Wolf’s book.)

At critical moments in our history, Americans have been called upon to protect our Constitutional guarantees of liberty and justice. We face such a moment today. The American Freedom Campaign is a non-partisan citizens' alliance formed to reverse the abuse of executive power and restore our system of checks and balances with these ten goals:

Fully restore the right to challenge the legality of one's detention, or habeas corpus, and the right of detained suspects to be charged and brought to trial.

Prohibit torture and all cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Prohibit the use of secret evidence.

Prohibit the detention of anyone, including U.S. citizens, as an "enemy combatant" outside the battlefield, and on the President's say-so alone.

Prohibit the government from secretly breaking and entering our homes, tapping our phones or email, or seizing our computers without a court order, on the President's say-so alone.

Prohibit the President from "disappearing" anyone and holding them in secret detention.

Prohibit the executive from claiming "state secrets" to deny justice to victims of government misdeeds, and from claiming "executive privilege" to obstruct Congressional oversight and an open government.

Prohibit the abuse of signing statements, where the President seeks to disregard duly enacted provisions of bills.

Use the federal courts, or courts-martial, to charge and prosecute terrorism suspects, and close Guantanamo down.

Reaffirm that the Espionage Act does not prohibit journalists from reporting on classified national security matters without fear of prosecution.

Dick Bennett
jbennet@uark.edu

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