BUSH WATCH...HEATHER WOKUSCH

From Texas to Abu Ghraib: The Bush Legacy of Prisoner Abuse

by Heather Wokusch

While administration officials express shock and outrage over allegations of the torture and murder of Iraqi prisoners by US forces, a deeper look into Bushs stateside prison-system record shows disturbing similarities.

Despite Tagubas report detailing US sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses of Iraqi detainees, the President declared, We acted, and there are no longer mass graves and torture rooms and rape rooms in Iraq.

In George Bushs America, denial about inmate mistreatment runs similarly rampant. As Texas governor, Bush oversaw the executions of 152 prisoners and thus became the most-killing governor in the history of the United States. Ethnic minorities, many of whom did not have access to proper legal representation, comprised a large percentage of those Bush put to death, and in one particularly egregious example, Bush executed an immigrant who hadnt even seen a consular official from his own country (as is required by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which the US was a signatory). Bushs explanation: Texas did not sign the Vienna Convention, so why should we be subject to it?

Governor Bush also flouted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by choosing to execute juvenile offenders, a practice shared by only Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Significantly, in 1998 a full 92% of the juvenile offenders on Bushs death row were ethnic minorities.

Conditions inside Texan prisons during Bushs reign were so notorious text; that federal Judge William Wayne Justice wrote, "Many inmates credibly testified to the existence of violence, rape and extortion in the prison system and about their own suffering from such abysmal conditions."

In September 1996, for example, a videotaped raid on inmates at a county jail in Texas showed guards using stun guns and an attack dog on prisoners, who were later dragged face-down back to their cells.

Funding of mental health programs during Bushs reign was so poor that Texan prisons had a sizeable number of mentally-impaired inmates; defying international human rights standards, these inmates ended up on death row. A prisoner named Emile Duhamel, for example, with severe psychological disabilities text; and an IQ of 56, died in his Texan death-row jail cell in July 1998. Authorities blamed natural causes but a lack of air conditioning in cells that topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit in a summer heat wave may have killed Duhamel instead. How many other Texan prisoners died of such neglect during Bushs governorship is unclear.

As president, Bush presides over a prison population topping 2 million people, giving America the dubious distinction of having a higher percentage of its citizens behind bars than any other country. When considering that the US has three times more prisoners per capita than Iran and seven times more than Germany, the nation looks more like a Gulag than the Land of the Free.

Abu Ghraib has left administration officials falling over themselves with protestations of compassion, but its worth remembering that the Bush White House has fought hard against the International Convention Against Torture, text especially a proposal to establish voluntary inspections of prisons and detention centers in signatory countries, such as the United States.

Its not difficult to see why: if even a fraction of Bushs devastating legacy with Texan prisoners has been transferred to the US prison system as a whole, then the scandal over Abu Ghraib will seem like childs play.

The White House also wants to stifle investigation into the roughly 760 aliens (mainly Muslim men) the US government rounded up post-911, ostensibly for immigration violations. Amnesty International reports 911 detainees have suffered a pattern of physical and verbal abuse by some corrections officers text; and a denial of basic human rights.

Then of course, theres Guantanamo, where the US is holding hundreds of detainees in top secrecy and without access to courts, legal counsel or family visits. Add to that the roughly 1000 civilians the US imprisons in Afghanistan, the 10,000 civilians thought to be detained in Iraq and who knows how many others across the globe, and it looks as if incarceration is the nations best export.

But blame cant stop with Bush. A recent CNN poll asking Is torture ever justified during interrogation? yielded 47% of respondents answering in the affirmative, which explains why there hasnt been much stateside outrage over prisoner neglect in the past. Its that Faustian with-us-or-against-us mentality rearing its ugly head once again, promising safety but tempting us to dehumanize others and lose our souls in the process. --posted 05.12.04

Heather Wokusch is a free-lance writer, and can be reached via her web site: www.heatherwokusch.com. Heathers latest project is A Woman's Political Primer: 100 Easy Steps to Owning Your Power and Making a Difference to be released in the fall.

Nuke Nation: Putting Profits Before Safety

by Heather Wokusch

President Bush has always been a good friend to the nuclear industry, but his recent overtures should sound alarm bells. The White House has begun pushing to replace governmental safety standards at federal nuclear facilities with requirements penned by contractors. As one US lawmaker quipped, "It's like the fox guarding the hen house." What prompted the Bush administration's move? Simple: Congress insisted the government start fining contractors for violations. The proposed weakening of safety standards would affect over 100,000 nuclear plant workers and represents an especially lousy time to lower their morale. A strike by 276 operations and maintenance workers was narrowly averted last December at the Indian Point 3 plant, located 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan. When the plant's owner proposed substituting managers for striking workers, union spokesperson Steve Mangione observed, "Anyone would want the people who work there every day - not managers who take a crash course - to be the ones running the plant." Worker error is a key factor in nuclear plant problems. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reported 728 worker-caused mishaps during a recent two-year period, an average of over three mistakes per year at each plant. Even worse, government security contractors have apparently been lax in monitoring worker effectiveness. The Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee, for example, made headlines last month when it reported missing 200 keys to protected areas. Then news surfaced that security personnel guarding the nation's nuclear stockpiles, including tons of enriched uranium at Y-12, had been cheating on their antiterrorism drills. An Energy Department investigation discovered that contract security guards at the Y-12 plant had been given access to computer models of antiterrorism drill strikes in advance, rendering the tests useless. A representative from the longtime government contractor charged with securing the facility, Wackenhut, claimed security at Y-12 was "better than it's ever been" but few are convinced. A January 2002 study found only 19% of Wackenhut guards at NY's Indian Point facility reported feeling able to "adequately defend the plant." Almost twenty years ago, the reactor core meltdown at Three Mile Island struck fear into the nation, but consequences could have been much worse. A 1982 study by the Sandia National Laboratory predicted an accident at the Limerick nuclear plant outside of Philadelphia could result in 74,000 people killed within the first year and a further 610,000 afflicted with radiation-related illnesses. Add to that $200 billion in relocation and clean-up costs. By all appearances, however, stateside nuclear facilities are functioning well. Pennsylvania's Susquehanna nuclear plant just announced an electricity-generation record for 2003, which it attributes to "maintaining the highest safety and reliability standards," and Maryland's Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant (CCNPP) is hard at work assuring the public it's a friendly neighbor; the CCNPP web site includes references to its "forest management and wildlife protection." But the CCNPP site also lists protective measures to be taken in case of an accident, such as "put uncovered food into the refrigerator" and "washing yourself and your clothes removes radioactive material you may have picked up." How effective these steps would be in a meltdown is debatable - perhaps similar to clasping seatbelts tight when an airplane is nosediving. One factor is clear: CCNPP's location (just 60 miles from Baltimore and 50 miles from DC) might make it an interesting target for terror. Other reactors in across the country could be similarly at risk. If terrorists were to attack a nuclear plant via an air strike, truck bomb or even worse, grenade or nuclear device thrown into a Spent Fuel Pool, Armageddon could become reality for the neighboring communities. Regardless, the Bush administration has been pumping money into the nuclear industry, including a fresh $35 million infusion last year to build 50 new US reactors by 2020. Since each reactor costs over $1.5 billion to produce, and the public assumes liability in case of an accident or attack, the US taxpayer should be forewarned. The White House is also leaning on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to weaken regulations regarding nuclear waste transport and storage. How ironic that alternative energy sources receive relatively little in government subsidies, especially in light of new satellite mapping techniques showing that the Great Plains region could generate three times as much energy in wind-power as the US consumes. What then explains our government's obsession with nuclear power? Follow the money. Nuclear plant PACs invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the Bush/Cheney presidential campaign, and almost half a million dollars in the 23 members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in 2002 alone. That's no excuse for poor energy policy. The risks of nuclear plants must be considered before dumping any more money into this losing game. And as long as the nation's 100+ nuclear plants continue to operate, the toughest of safety standards must be enforced. Heather Wokusch is a free-lance writer. She can be contacted via her web site: www.heatherwokusch.com Copyright © 2004 The Baltimore Chronicle ###

Press Freedom Under Fire

by Heather Wokusch

If the first casualty of war is truth, then the War on Terror has dealt a body blow to those trying to get at the bottom of the story: journalists.

The press watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) has noted a sharp jump in attacks on journalists internationally, and not just in high-profile cases such as the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

In 2002, a full 1,420 journalists were kidnapped, beaten or detained across the globe, and RSF concludes, "The fight against terrorism launched by the United States and its allies after the 11 September attacks damaged freedom of the press. Many governments stepped up and justified their repression of opposition or independent voices using anti-terrorism as an excuse."

In particular, the US military is under fire for its treatment of journalists in Iraq. An RSF report entitled "Two Murders and a Lie" text details the April 8 2003 attack by US forces on Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, which left two journalists dead and three injured.

Blaming Iraqi snipers for the Palestine Hotel attack, Pentagon officials said, "this desperate and dying regime will stop at nothing to cling to power." When evidence proved a US tank was in fact responsible, officials claimed the shelling was in response to hostile fire from within the hotel. After that version of events was proven false too, the standard line became soldiers attacked the hotel thinking they "were under direct observation from an enemy hunter/killer team."

The bottom line is the Pentagon knew the hotel had been filled with reporters for three weeks, yet soldiers on the ground had been left uninformed. According to RSF, "the question is whether this information was withheld deliberately, because of misunderstanding or by criminal negligence."

While the Geneva Conventions clearly state that "journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered as civilians ... and protected as such," apparently not everyone agrees; in the view of retired Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, "there's nothing sacrosanct about a hotel with a bunch of journalists in it."

Stateside, a similar attitude can be seen in the language used to describe visa requirements for foreign journalists: text "You must apply for a United States visa if you ... Are a professional journalist planning to cover news or informational stories; Have been denied entry on a previous occasion or have been expelled from the USA during the last five years; Have a criminal record or suffer from a serious transmittable disease or mental disorder; Are a drug addict, drug trafficker, or were involved in Nazi persecutions, and if you were or still are a member of a subversive or terrorist organization." In other words, journalists, criminals and terrorists belong in the same category.

At least it's appearing that way to an increasing number of foreign journalists visiting the US. Just last month, Austrian lifestyle-magazine reporter Peter Krobath flew to Los Angeles to interview Ben Affleck about his latest film. Despite having media credentials and a press junket invitation, Krobath was detained at LAX and interrogated for five hours. text He was then body-searched, handcuffed, placed in isolation and taken to a downtown prison where he spent the night in a cell with 45 others, including convicted criminals. Only after the Austrian consulate intervened was Krobath released from prison and placed on the first flight back to Vienna.

Krobath's crime? He didn't have a special visa for foreign journalists planning to cover news stories in the States. The catch? No embassies or consulates had been told about this new regulation, so foreign media groups couldn't prepare their staff members.

The War on Terror has no doubt taken its toll on press freedom, but it's hard to see how targeting visiting journalists will make the US safer, promote the image of an open and free America, or make life easier for US journalists abroad.

And it's unacceptable to whitewash a crime such as the Palestine Hotel shelling. The RSF has called for a reopening of the inquiry into the attack: "At the top level, the US government must bear some responsibility ... its top leaders have regularly made statements about the status of war reporters in Iraq that have undermined all media security considerations and set the scene for the tragedy that occurred."

Freedom of the press is crucial to any democracy, and silencing the messenger is no alternative.

Heather Wokusch is a free-lance writer. She can be contacted via her web site: www.heatherwokusch.com

Saddam's Just The Latest Plastic Turkey

by Heather Wokusch

Now that the Evil Prince of Iraqi Darkness has been captured by valiant US military forces, the Middle East is free to democratize and the world at large is a much safer place. As Bush put it, Hussein's capture means "sovereignty" for Iraq, "dignity for ... every Iraqi citizen, the opportunity for a better life. All Iraqis can now come together and reject violence." text

Any problems with this rosy assessment? Maybe my bullshit detectors go into overdrive every time the Bush administration announces a success, but this latest scenario just doesn't stack up.

For one, how do we know that the dusty old guy dragged out of the ground really is Saddam? Hussein was known to have had multiple "doubles," exact lookalikes who, for security reasons, took his place in meeting foreign dignitaries and in mingling with the public. Could the famous prisoner just be a double? A stooge set up to take the heat while Hussein lives lavishly-ever-after in some third country?

DNA tests will apparently be conducted on the prisoner to prove he's Hussein, but it's unclear where the necessary comparative DNA samples will be obtained or how independent the verification process will be.

One could argue, of course, that the Bush administration would look pretty dumb later on if an impostor testified in court, so the prisoner must be Saddam. But face it: if Hussein ever does go on trial, how public will it be? Imagine the testimony:

"Well Your Honor, during the 80's I got all kinds of battlefield intelligence and weaponry from my buddies in the White House. Reagan and Poppy Bush gave me billions of dollars in credits for US agricultural products, so I could buy more weapons on the side, and a whole slew of stateside corporations sold me biological and other weaponry. Gassing Kurds, crushing Shiite uprisings ... no problem for my American friends! Wanna see a picture of me and Donald Rumsfeld?" text

Won't happen. We will not be hearing detailed depositions from Hussein, any more than we'll be seeing open trials for Guantanamo inmates.

But suspend doubt for a moment and assume the prisoner really is Hussein. Imagine he didn't escape with untold wealth to a mansion in Moscow, a villa in Naples, wherever, and really did end up moving from hovel to underground hovel in bombed-out Iraq. Then who revealed his location and what were the true circumstances of his capture?

The official version (brought to us by the same folks who presented Jessica Lynch as a Barbie action figure) is that superior US intelligence led Operation "Red Dawn" forces to their dusty prey. Little mention is made of the $25 million bounty on Hussein's head (namely if it was forked over, as was the $30 million for information on his two sons), but the fact that information was reportedly obtained "under duress" to discover his whereabouts would indicate harsh interrogation, if not torture, was used to find him. The L.A. Times reported a US official saying, "Some people were impossible to find, but we'd find their relatives. One interrogation led to another raid, which led to another interrogation."

And then there's the matter of Hussein's spaced out, arguably drugged, appearance upon capture. Conspiracy theory has it he was actually being held prisoner, and the White House was just waiting for the most politically expedient time to "find" him. None other than Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently told a Fox news analyst she suspects Bush knows where Osama Bin Laden is too. text

Bribery, mass raids/interrogations, political kidnappings? Who knows the truth behind this sordid affair, but it appears "sovereignty" and "dignity" for Iraqis were not the operating principles in capturing Hussein.

Bottom line: Prisoner Saddam is nothing more than a distraction, a prop used to bolster sagging White House ratings, much like the plastic turkey Bush offered troops in photo-ops last Thanksgiving. Hussein will be dangled every now and then (just in time for Christmas, next year's elections, Halliburton's latest accusation of corruption ...) and then locked away in a dungeon for life, or maybe even bumped off, "Jack Ruby" style.

Because surely the White House won't need him for long. The US will soon invade other countries way more evil, depose their dastardly leaders, and win more hearts, minds, respect and security in the process. --posted 12.20.03

From Bring 'Em On To Bring 'Em Home

by Heather Wokusch

  We especially owe it to those struggling on the front lines in Iraq, Afghanistan - wherever fate and the Bush administration have sent them - to take a closer look.

Five Important Questions to Ask

1. Why did we invade Iraq?

With 140,000 active-duty, reserve and National Guard troops now on the ground in Iraq, almost 400 US soldiers killed since the invasion started (250 of those since Bush declared major combat over), and more troops being called up, it's important to remember why we're over there in the first place.

Claims about Hussein's nukes

- Bush, Oct 2002: "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program ... Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."

- Cheney, March 2003: "We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

Once the invasion was underway, the Bush administration did a U-turn:

- Cheney, September 2003: "I did misspeak. We never had evidence that [Saddam] had acquired a nuclear weapon."

- Rumsfeld, June 2003: "I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons."

Claims about Hussein's other WMD

- Rumsfeld, March 2003, "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

- Rumsfeld, September 2003, clarifying his earlier "We know where they are" claim: "Sometimes I overstate for emphasis."

Same story, of course, with the administration's imaginary link between Hussein and 9-11.

So why again are we in Iraq? Why have our service members been put in harm's way over there?

2. Who profits from the takeover of Iraq?

Iraqi reconstruction has become a bonanza for companies connected to the Bush administration. Vice president Cheney, for one, owns 400,000 stock options in/receives large payments from Halliburton, a company whose subsidiary KBR has been soaking American taxpayers via no-bid contracts in post-war Iraq.

And of course, deep-pocket Bush supporters have reaped handsome post-war dividends. A study by the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity found that companies sharing the $8 billion spoil in contracts to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan had donated more money to the Bush presidential campaign than to any other politician over the last dozen years.

Meanwhile, the American taxpayer has forked over billions for the invasion and occupation, billions that could have been much better spent at home.

Why again are we in Iraq?

3. What's going on for our troops on the ground?

Judging by a mid-October slew of upbeat letters-to-the-editor written by soldiers in Iraq (reporting positive developments like "the quality of life and security for the citizens has been largely restored") things are going just fine over there.

Unfortunately though, it turned out the soldiers didn't write those letters after all - instead Army superiors had just given them copies to sign for propaganda purposes. That fact became obvious when 11 different newspapers ended up running the exact same letter, supposedly written by different soldiers, on the same day.

What's really going on over there?

4. How are military families holding up?

The Bush administration has dramatically lengthened deployment periods, which in turn has put pressure on military families - when both parents are sent to fight, imagine what that does to the kids left behind.

At the same time, the administration has requested cuts in combat pay, Veterans Administration per capita expenditures, life insurance benefits, and funding for school districts that host military bases.

In addition, our returning wounded vets are often denied proper treatment. In one particularly nasty example, hundreds of injured Iraq veterans have languished at a poorly-equipped base in Georgia, waiting to receive medical care.

And of course, we now know the Army and Air Force all but ignored a 1997 law requiring that soldiers sent to war zones be given extensive pre- and post-deployment medical exams, which will make it much harder for Iraq veterans to press for medical compensation in the years to come.

5. How does the Bush administration honor fallen veterans?

Many find it insulting that the President has not attended memorial services for troops, and see it as the administration's attempt to gloss over the harsh realities of war. Similarly, body bags are now being called "transfer tubes" and the media is forbidden to show coffins arriving home with U.S. casualties from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But sticking our collective head in the sand doesn't make America's problems go away, and it certainly doesn't make life better for our service members.

We can't just drape flags around the (unseen) coffins of our fallen soldiers and call that patriotism.

We've got to insist that our troops aren't sacrificed for the profits of politicians' favored corporations, and we've got to make a distinction between supporting our troops and supporting the Bush administration. Because we don't help those in the trenches by handing the Bush administration more money and more power. Instead, we should fight to bring 'em home. --11.24.03, from an earlier version

Make War Not Love:
Abstinence, Aggression and the Bush White House

by Heather Wokusch

The Bush Administration's sexual prudishness is no secret - and neither is its love of war. Could the two be connected?

The freewheeling "Oral Office" Clinton years came to an abrupt halt when Bush took over. Suddenly, abstinence became the White House mantra, and men whose religiosity seemed to preclude doing the nasty occupied the highest offices in the land.

There's Attorney General John Ashcroft, who opposes drinking, smoking - even dancing - on moral grounds, and who ordered the "Spirit of Justice" statue covered up because he couldn't handle the sight of her naked marble breasts. There's David Hager , an OB/GYN who refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women (and believes the Bible is an antidote for premenstrual syndrome), as one of three religious conservatives Bush appointed to the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs.

Then there's the " no sex is safe sex " youth campaign, backed up by "virgin pledge" programs for high schools. Reminiscent of Nancy Reagan's "just say no" approach to drug education, abstinence-only programs have seen their budgets explode in recent years, as Bush keeps an election promise to his conservative Christian backers. Similarly, funding for sex education courses has been cut, along with medical services providing contraceptives to teenagers.

Not everyone is pleased with this new push to stifle open discussion about sex. The Institute of Medicine has called abstinence-only programs "poor fiscal and health policy," and former US Surgeon General David Satcher has argued that teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) cannot be fought without sex education classes which openly discuss contraceptives and other forms of self-protection.

The Bush Administration's emphasis on abstinence has also made it something of a sexual pariah abroad. Citing objections about health workers being allowed to discuss condom use, last year the US voted against a United Nations resolution to fund global AIDS education and prevention. Intriguingly, the only others voting with the States against the UN resolution were Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Syria and the Vatican.

Numerous studies have documented that "no sex" societies are often plagued by acts of rage. A cross-cultural investigation by American psychologist J.M. Prescott, for example, found that societies which punished premarital sex tended to have higher rates of crime and violence. Prescott also linked sexual repression to aggression, insensitivity, criminal behavior, and a greater likelihood of killing and torturing enemies.

Of course, just as sexual repression can lead to aggression, a culture of war can equate intimacy with violence. So these days, it comes as no surprise that lethal weapons are often described in loving, phallic terms.

Case in point: a recent exhibition in San Francisco, entitled "The Gun Show (Girls + Guns = Sex)," celebrated weapons as erotic art; a review of the exhibition said, "... as a nation, we have fulfilled the very definition of fetishism: we have transposed genital sexuality onto a non-sexual object-the gun. Obviously, there's a phallic element here somewhere, it's not exactly a giant leap for mankind to figure out what that shiny, steel shaft is supposed to be."

When a macho view of weaponry and war becomes the norm, however, women often become "the enemy," with dehumanization and sexual abuse following close behind.

The chilling recollection of a US service member who witnessed a gang rape during the Vietnam War is indicative. Marine sergeant Michael McCusker described what happened after a squad of nine Americans entered a small village:

"They were supposed to go after what they called a Viet Cong whore. They went into her village and instead of capturing her, they raped her -- every man raped her. As a matter of fact, one man said to me later that it was the first time he had ever made love to a woman with his boots on. The man who led the platoon, or the squad, was actually a private. The squad leader was a sergeant but he was a useless person and he let the private take over his squad. Later he said he took no part in the raid. It was against his morals. So instead of telling his squad not to do it, because they wouldn't listen to him anyway, the sergeant went into another side of the village and just sat and stared bleakly at the ground, feeling sorry for himself. But at any rate, they raped the girl, and then, the last man to make love to her, shot her in the head."

A brutal gang rape ending with murder is described as making "love." The line between sex and rage is blurred until it disappears entirely.

In today's White House, that same line is being tested. Top administration strategist Karl Rove was caught at his ballistic best awhile back, making plans for a minor political operative who had displeased him: "We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him . Like no one has ever fucked him!"

Apparently for Rove "fuck" and "ruin" are synonymous; the implications speak for themselves.

How does all of this bode for our future?

When Bush was running for president, he promised to "build a culture that respects life." Of course, he was referring to fighting abortion rather than ending capital punishment or stopping war. Similarly, while the Bush White House has delivered impassioned speeches on the need to combat sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS, it has also deleted information regarding condoms from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site. More worryingly, AIDS programs supported by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have been singled out for funding review, and criticized if their content is too sexually explicit. No wonder Secretary of Health Tommy Thompson was booed and heckled when he spoke at the World AIDS Conference in South Africa last year.

Unfortunately for Ashcroft and the rest, sexuality today is not as easy to cover up and deny as the "Spirit of Justice" statue's breasts. Not everyone who has sex is straight and/or married. STDs are rampant; AIDS has ravaged entire nations. Young and old alike are numbed 24/7 by images of gratuitous sex and violence.

What's needed is a good long look at sexuality today - with all of its pleasures, diversities and dangers. Young people must receive information about self-protection in addition to abstinence. Contraceptives must be freely available. The societal line between sex and rage must be drawn firm and clear.

Maybe then weapons wouldn't be idolized and women dehumanized. Maybe then governmental funding for creative, life-affirming programs would outpace that for weaponry and war. --10.27.03

©Heather Wokusch 2002. Heather Wokusch is a free-lance writer. She can be contacted via her web site www.heatherwokusch.com. This article is featured in the premiere issue of Stella magazine (www.stella-magazine.com)