excerpts from: Contrascience #3 < for an original copy, 2131 - 80th St So send $2 to this address. Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54494 ____"WAR = FUN"_____ "Our young ones are at this very moment assimilating fiction which, under its pert and smiling guise, turns them into competitors, teaches them to see domination as the only alternative to subjection. They are learning sex roles; perverse and deformed visions of history; how to grow up, adapt, and succeed in the world as it presently is. They learn not to ask questions." - Ariel Dorfman I grew up as most average American kids do - playing war, cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, playing at any game involving imaginary violence for the sake of "fun." Ask any kid and odds are he, or she (there is a tendency to assume just boys play this game - girls are supposed to play with dolls, remember. But many girls do, too) can make all the gun noises and wants to be an "army guy" like G.I. Joe, or another high-tech, gun-toting hero. It doesn't matter what stage in the technological evolution of killing the kids reenact and aspire to be a part of, it is still killing. We learn that war is this amazing game where no one gets hurt, no one dies, and the bad guys always lose. In the US, it seems kids grow up wanting to be a soldier, shooting guns and throwing hand grenades; or a sports star. I wanted to be in the army and have all the "cool" guns and drive a tank. As I got older I guess I grew tired of the idea of being a soldier, but the fascination with killing and guns remained. Once again, like the "average boy," I began exploring the power of using a gun. Of taking a BB gun and killing something simply because it could be done - a new version of the game I had learned to enjoy. I remember sitting for hours, trying to shoot birds as they landed on a tree branch and frogs as they sat on the edge of a pond. I probably killed many, but I eventually reached a point where I could do it no longer. I realized that it made me feel ill to kill for the perverse enjoyment of it. My gratitude to my parents for making me think about what I was doing and what I had done. The sad thing is that thousands of kids are taught to kill much more than I, and to truly love the act. I was a light-weight in comparison to the majority of kids that I grew up with. This does not excuse my actions, but it brings to light the fact that this fascination with killing is commonplace, even considered status quo. While I wasn't verbally encouraged to kill, my actions were condemned very little. To many people such actions seem insignificant. "Boys will be boys!" is often the standard explanation. The fact is that we are all raised in a culture where guns, warfare, and killing are so commonplace that when a child acts accordingly, it is viewed as "natural." As serious an issue as cruelty to animals is, it is secondary to the fact that we accept kids pretending to kill one another and kids living killing living creatures for fun as normal. This way of thinking is the heart of the problem. This attitude has allowed children to run around wishing for war and mocking violence for generations. All you need to do is walk through a toy store to see where our childrens' interest lies. These attitudes will continue unless we work to change them. I do not believe that the government has been preparing us for war as we grow up without any kind of focused effort. But if we all grow up wanting to be soldiers it doesn't make recruitment any harder. And besides, society is so ingrained with these pro-war notions that why should a government even need to promote it. Just demonize a small and poorly armed country, bomb it back to the stone age while showing off all our neat new killing machines, get the people's bloodlust raging, and watch the support grow. Make it seem like a sporting event, like a Rambo movie, like fiction; fun and exciting. Who is going to question it? This game of mixed messages continues. Toys recreate war and cartoon characters carry and shoot guns at one another with smiles on their faces. TV is not the problem, only a symptom. We are the problem and our attitudes must change. While many of us realize the failings of such an attitude, many more do not. They go out hanging yellow ribbons everywhere believing smart bombs do not harm civilians and enjoying all the wonderful parades. Some join the military, hoping to use the power they have learned to love. Or maybe worst of all, they just go along for the ride with their heads buried in their gun cabinets, buying their children plastic M-16's and contributing to the American myth that war is fun and no one really dies. "It comes as a great shock around the age of 5, 6, or 7 to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, along with everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, and, although you are rooting for G.Cooper, that the Indians are you." - James Baldwin "Man is a religious animal. Man is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the true religion - several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbors as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight." - Mark Twain _________________________ PROPAGANDHI is: Chris - vocals, guitar Jordan - Drums John - Bass This interview took place in December 1993 at the THD house in Minneapolis in the midst of the flu epidemic from hell. ? - So who here is sick? C - Me and John are kinda sick. Jd - Me, not yet. ? - On your record you said you didn't want to be pigeonholed into one leftist thouhgt.. Jd - Well, the label is really kinda fucking shitty. I think, for myself I could probably take every fucking label in the book and put it on me for certain reasons and other reasons why you couldn't put it on me. So.. I can't really relate to any specific thing in an absolute way. C - We get this question all the time - it is almost like we have to have a written-out answer or something. I think the best way I could sum it up for myself would be.. libertarian socialist, meaning maximum freedom with maximum solidarity. That's how I feel life should be. J - I just label myself an anarchist because I think the principle doctrine of anarchism is having optimism in human nature - and I have that. Jd - I have a lot of optimism in human nature and that is the only thing that keeps me going. I'm also very discouraged because seeing that humanity has created this global shit hole that we have today. But at the same time, our humanity is the only thing that can get us out of this. C - We're not utopians or anything, we are realist - idealists. ? - How long have you guys been in the U.S.? All - Two days, three weeks left. ? - So this is your first time in the U.S.? C - No, we tried this last year. Went for two weeks... ? - What are your impressions of the U.S.? Is it worse than Canada? Or is Canada any better? J - I am kind of surprised when Americans almost rave about how our social programs and everything are so much better.. I don't see Canada as being a hell of a lot better. Jd - On a level of meeting people in scenes and stuff, I think that almost every person we've met or dealt with so far has been really nice. I don't think there's a real national difference in that regard, you meet a lot of really good people. But in respect to politically, I definitely think the U.S. is potentially the worst country in the entire world. C - All the social programs are disappearing in Canada anyway, especially with things like NAFTA. But the bottom line is that Canada makes about as much sense as the U.S. in terms of a nation. It is illogical to have a country this big. J - The regional disparity is just hilarious. Jd - Illogical for our purposes, but it's very logical for the purposes who are in control. S - For the purposes of human happiness... Jd - It's a pretty absurd country. I think a lot of the same stuff that goes on down here is - even as Canadians we hear more about what happens in the U.S. than we do of our own country. A lot of people are looking at the U.S. - there is a common consensus that Canada is one step up on the U.S. so we should stop worrying about the problems down here. But there is a lot of bad shit going on up there as well. J - There are a lot of people who consider themselves so socially aware and cut down Americans for being so patriotic, but they think about burning the Canadian flag and they get all uptight about it.. it's totally illogical. Jd - I think it is getting to be that problems are so bad they aren't national anymore anyway, with all the trans- national companies gaining so much power, it's not Canadian or American anymore. ? - How has the record been doing? The Winnipeg scene, is that pretty good? Jd - Considering it's geographic position I think it is good. C - I anyone cares, from a selling point it is fine, but the way it is being sold in Canada... Jd - You really learn a lot about how fucked up people involved in alternative music are, not for the purpose of doing things for each other, but a lot of people are in it just strictly for profit. I never really thought about it before but if you are just making a buck, or x amount of cents, off of each album sold, the people who make the records are making more, the people who distro the records are making more, the people who actually SELL the records are making, I guess, 100% more than the band is... C - It seems kinda weird. For example, in Canada, Cargo records has an absolute monopoly on all distribution. They got the records from Mike for a certain price and jacked it up to 30 or 40% and resold it and the record stores who got it in Winnipeg jacked it up, in some cases it seemed like 100%! So LPs and CDs were showing up for 20+ dollars in stores. We had to get Mike to send some to us and sell them ourselves just to undersell - sell them for cost. We tried to get this boycott happening and people just kept buying [in the stores.] Cargo Records found out about the boycott and threatened to drop all of our records but they knew they were selling so they kept them and just kept jacking up the cost. J - We put up a poster about the boycott and - we assume it was the one record store that was marking it up the most - called the city of Winnipeg and tried to stop us. Departments of the police and the city of Winnipeg were investigating us because we were trying to sell our own records - because we didn't have a license to sell. C - The thing is then, what we should have thought about before we decided to do a record with Fat Mike, to ask him who is going to distribute, and hopefully next time we can have more control. Then again, we said we don't use Cargo and Mike asked, "Who should I use?" and we couldn't come up with anybody besides ourselves... It is just sad that all these shitty companies have monopolies on punk rock records. J - Especially Cargo. Cargo is like omnipotent in Canada. Jd - Even like the business dominance over CDs - what is it? like EMI makes... C - Every CD made.. even if Born Against put out a CD, EMI gets a percentage because they have a copyright on CDs. Fuck, every time you buy one of our records $$ goes to Thorne - EMI!... ? - I think it is interesting that bands are always preaching to the same people and they are always saying the same thing, but when people come to a show from outside the scene, they [punks] are always looking at them like, "what are they doing here?" What the hell good does that do? C - I don't believe in the preaching to the converted thing. I believe in positive reinforcement. Mark (of Destroy and Cinder fame, joins in) - I totally agree. I think it is ridiculous to say that everyone is converted - it's fucking bullshit. i can say from experience that half the people that I see at shows don't give a shit about anything. C - Even if these things are being reinforced, it is important that you are sharing those ideas with someone you may not even live in the same part of the world as you. I think it is important to know that you are not alone in your ideas. M - If nothing else, with those ideas you are encouraging more communication via saying something, even if two people go home and disagree but start talking about it. J - I also think that we are using the generalized punk scene member who instead of going out to the protest goes home and listens to Born Against. That is really the point that has to be made - that alternative music has to have alternative action or it is just Nirvana. C - That is a lot different coming from Winnipeg. I think it is a lot different in San Francisco or even Minneapolis where the punk scene might be politically active. In Winnipeg, it doesn't exist. The people are young right now. They don't really participate out of the scene, it is all personal right now. I think that statement that the personal _is_ the political has been taken too far. I don't really think it is, it is a starting point. If you actually want social change instead of just personal change you have to go beyond the slogan and start doing things outside the scene. Because the world doesn't hive a shit about a punk rock scene anyway. All the radical ideas, probably none of them originated with the punk scene. ? - Anything else you want to say? C - Boycott Cargo! Boycott DutchEast! Don't buy our records from them. If you buy our record from anybody take off the plastic wrap and send it back to Fat Mike. J - Go Vegan! Propagandhi. po box 3 Winnipeg, Manitoba R3M 353 Canada advocating moral puritanism since 1991. ______________________________________________ ART FOR THE PEOPLE, NOT THE RICH Kathe Kollwitz ( 1867 - 1945 ) As a young girl in Germany, Kathe Kollwitz was influenced by her socialist father and grew to believe social injustice was the greatest of all disorders. She studied printmaking and eventually began creating works about the exploitation of the poor. As Kathe matured she realized her bisexuality and came to believe that such feelings were essential for the creation of her art. Despite the era of male dominance in the home, she married a doctor who worked in an early form of socialized medicine for the poorer classes and they shared a life-long relationship of mutual respect and equality. Together, they spent their lives in the ghetto and worked tirelessly for the poor. Kathe felt she was the protagonist of the poor and the oppressed and that she had a responsibility to keep working until her talent inspired interest in the cause. When her son was killed in WWI, Kathe began a campaign against war. She produced posters calling for the end of war and did many series of prints in which she represented dying soldiers and their grieving families. She battled periods of severe depression and continued this crusade as the Nazis rose to power in the 1930's. As a result of her political stances, Kathe was classified as a "degenerate" artist by the German state. Kathe remained in the ghetto of bomb-raged Germany until her death, near the end of WWII. Throughout Kathe Kollwitz's life, she worked tirelessly for the rights of the downtrodden and the oppressed. She always stressed that art should grip the human heart. She fought the sexism and militarism of her environment in order to use her art to communicate her message of peace and compassion. _____________________ LIFE: AS INSIGNIFICANT AS THE FLIP OF A SWITCH. 4,000 AND COUNTING... The purpose of this article is to question the notion that in the US, a country where the majority of its people (naively) pride themselves on being self-ruled and free, the government is given the right to murder its citizens. It is written from the standpoint that we are part of a society where, whether we like it or not, those who break the laws of the state are punished as the government sees fit. As far as anarchism, whether the state should exist, or has a right to dictate laws and punishments upon its people is another debate and one which I will not discuss here. The death penalty has been around as long as the human race and the earliest capital punishment laws were religious in nature. The mosaic code required death for many offenses, as did many early civilizations. Enforcement of laws with the threat of death has continued for many centuries and the death penalty remained deeply connected to religion throughout the 19th century. During the industrial revolution, England had death sentences for over 200 crimes, including the theft of bread. By 1807, public hangings had become such a popular event that over 40,000 people crowded around to witness them. The major religious denominations uniformly supported the notion of capital punishment. Clergy from the congretationalist and presbyterian denominations went so far as to publicly oppose the abolition of capital punishment by citing the Christian bible verse, Genesis 9:6: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." In the U.S., the death penalty has been a constant occurence, reaching its peak in the 1930's, a decade where the annual average of executions was 167. State-endorsed killing in the U.S. has dropped off considerably in the last 60 years and there has been a shift in the number of religious denominations willing to support it. Many churches have reversed their position and now oppose capital punishment, although often very quietly. Today, religious groups that still support capital punishment include Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and certain fundamentalist Christian and orthodox Jewish groups. Internationally, support of the death penalty has waned, leaving the U.S. as one of only 30 nations in the world who institute the death penalty. Of NATO countries, the U.S. shares the status of executing its people only with Turkey. Between 1930 and 1980 there were 3,860 recorded executions in the United States. Although executions have occurred steadily throughout this time, there was a lull beginning in June 1972 when the supreme court ruled that there was a lack of standards in the selection process of what offenders would be singled out for death. As a result, the death penalty was banned pending a restructuring of this system. In July of 1976, the supreme court again released a decision. It said that capital punishment for the crime of murder was neither cruel or unusual punishment and released new standards for the enactment of the death penalty. After this supreme court decision, states restructured their justice systems and resumed giving the sentence of death. Between 1977 and 1989, 120 people were put to death. The restructuring has allowed the return of state executions, and also created a trap where the condemned sit for years waiting for the newly established safeguards and appeals to decide their fate. Today, 99% of those on death row are male. About 50% of them were unemployed at the time of imprisonment. And, while blacks are 12% of the U.S. population, they constitute 40% of the death row population. In 1988, there were 2, 048 inmates on death row. This number is steadily increasing due to the new appeals process which has reduced the number of executions, while the number of annual death sentences given has risen. As a result, we inhumanely leave thousands of people locked in solitary confinement, pondering their death for years. For those people more concerned with the nations economy than "the death of a few criminals," an economic argument can also be made against capital punishment. The execution of one human being is far more expensive than to imprison that one person for life. The lengthy appeals process required for the execution of an individual often costs 10 times that of a regular case. During this appeals period, the prisoners are held in special cells, requiring extra supervision and costing more to maintain. In fact, incarceration of a prisoner for 40 years is substantially less costly than going through the full legal process necessary to put that person to death. In 1987, two law professors published a study of death sentences in the 20th century. They found that between 1990 and 1985, 349 persons were incorrectly convicted of capital offenses. As a result, 23 innocent prisoners were actually put to death. Another study, released in 1988, found that in the previous decade, for every 30 persons sentenced to death, 10 had left death row and one was executed. In effect, a person is sentenced to death, left to think about it for a few years, and then we decide to let them live. Americans held hostage in Iran that endured mock executions can tell you how inhumane even the suggestion of such action is. As for the arbitrariness of the executions we allow, more than 20,000 homicides are punishable by the death penalty each year in the U.S. But, in the '70's, the ratio of murders to death sentences was 117:1. Today this ratio is even higher. The apparent randomness in selection for a death sentence reveals a system of racism and classism. Minorities and the poor are statistically more likely to be executed as they are unable to afford the defense required to fight such a sentence. Making things even more unjust, a recent supreme court decision ruled that states are not constitutionally required to provide counsel for penniless death row inmates who continue their appeal in state courts. In effect, the government has once again effectively narrowed the means by which defendants can appeal and made it easier for them to be put to death. This is especially ture of those accused from the lower classes. The late Supreme Court Justice William L. Douglas, one of the few justices against the death penalty, declared, "One searches our chronicles in vain for the execution of any member of the affluent strata of our society." Despite all these executions there is still a debate over the effectiveness of capital punishment as a crime deterrent. The majority of murders are committed in the heat of passion when the thought of punishment is the last thing on the murderer's mind. And, if the murder was in fact premeditated, the person has planned the murder to the point where he or she feels they will not be caught. Statistically, people convicted of murder are among the most unlikely to to commit violent crimes again in, or outside of, prison. The fear of sentencing a person to the death penalty often influences a jury to convict the individual of a lesser crime; resulting in early release rather than a life sentence. So few executions actually take place and the appeals process is so drawn out that any amount of deterrent value that capital punishment could have is surely lost. And, there is some evidence to show that executions only encourage crime. Why shouldn't potential killers see executions as evidence that lethal vengeance is justified? "Are more atrocities committed in those countries where such punishments are unknown? Certainly not: the most savage bandits are always found under laws most severe, and it is no more than what might be expected. The fate with which they are threatened hardens them to the sufferings of others as well as to their own. They know that they can expect no lenity, and they consider such acts of cruelty as retaliations." ( - Jeremy Bentham) Certainty of punishment such as imprisonment is a much stronger deterrent than severity. In 1976, Canada abolished the death penalty, subsituting it with mandatory minimum sentences. The homicide rate did not rise and has fallen a bit as a result. This pattern has also been observed in France. A comprehensive UN report found that abolition of the death penalty has no effect on murder rates. The U.S. government has ignored these studies and continues the killing for apparently no other reason than a twisted form of retribution and spite. This spiteful attitude affects the way we view violence. Some studies have found that capital punishment may have a "brutalizing effect" on our society that increases the level of violence. We begin to see violence as acceptable; as state-sanctioned. We lose sight of the fact that the persons we have imprisoned are human beings. "It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind." - B. Shaw Furthermore, the act of executions as committed by the state does not treat the condemned as human beings. I will spare you the many step by step descriptions of the various ways the state executes its citizens. All but one... In April of 1982, John Louis was to be executed by electrocution in the electric chair. He was given a 1,900 volt surge of electricity of 1/2 minute. In the process, the electrode broke on his leg and had to be reattached. A second shock failed to kill him, and smoke was seen rising from his mouth and leg. He was then given a third shock of 1,900 volts until his death. He was slowly and inhumanely put to death in what was a toal of 14 minutes. This is nothing but state-sanctioned torture and should not be viewed as just and effective punishment. Even if the condemned person had committed heinous crimes, why should we further cheapen life? the execution of a criminal cannot reverse the damage done by crimes already committed. It simply adds to the death toll and further dehumanizes society. If we were to ask those involved with the act of execution, many will agree. "Revulsion at the duty to supervise and witness executions is one reason why so many prison wardens, people unsentimental about crime and criminals, are opponents of capital punishment." - Hugo A. Bedlan Despite all the funds spent to kill an individual, we cannot be certain an error will not be made. How can "the penalty of death... be imposed given the limitations of our minds and institutions, without considerable measures of both arbitrariness and mistake?" ( - unknown.) While our justice system is said to be much more safeguarded today, humankind is not infallible - especially where the government is concerned! Even if we were a society free of error and truly just, to kill another human being in the name of government order would still do little more than legitimate violence. By democratically supporting the murder of a portion of our populace, we are effectively limiting our own freedom. "The power to permanently eliminate from society any of its citizens who deviate from the state government line or policy is an absolute necessity for the survival of every repressive government known to man." - Wyatt Espy. Why support a step toward such a future? - end -