Nonviolence.Org

In a move sure to be a surprise no one, I'm shuttering up my Nonviolence.org site. Sure it's a great domain, sure it still gets more traffic than all of my other sites combined, but I just don't have the time to keep it going in any kind of coherent way. It's always surprised me that I could never get substantive financial support for a project that has reached millions. It seems particularly ironic to shut it down in the midst of one of the longest wars in U.S. history.

For those wanting good activist news, the Dave the Quaker Agitator is always on top of current events and the Fellowship of Reconciliation's new'ish group blog at FORPeace.net is a great addition to the peace blogging scene. Archive posts from Nonviolence.org have been migrated here to the Ranter.

Just a quick heads-up that I'm moving the Nonviolence.org server. A few emails to martink at nonviolence dot org might get lost in the transition. Please resend any if you get error messages or don't hear back from me within a few days. Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience!

Back in the late 1980s when I was a Villanova University undergrad, sexual assault didn't happen. True story.

It will surprise no one to learn that I co-edited an alternative, "underground" weekly junior and senior year. We called it The VACUUM, a name whose acronym changed every issue. Reading about an early "date rape" study in my feminist studies class I extrapolated how many rapes should reasonably be expected to occur on a campus of Villanova's size. I added a few anecdotes from my all-male dorm experience and published it in The VACUUM. A short while later some friends of mine who edited the official student paper picked up the story and even cited an anonymous quotation from me in what is probably the only official documentation of the VACUUM's existence in the V.U. archives.

Right around this time a female student brought her allegations of an on-campus sexual assault to the local police. Campus officials feigned surprise and provided the local media with parroted quotes: "In all my xyz years working here I have never ever heard of an allegation of rape." Chief of Security, Dean of Students, etc., all delivered the same line, clearly coached by a public relations team, with only the years changed to reflect their campus tenure. Thousands of students, dozens of years, hundreds of frat parties, tanker-fulls of cheap beer and not a hint of impropriety.

Last night I chanced on my alma mater's website and saw a link right there on the homepage to an article mysterious titled Recent Campus Incident (generic URL, probably designed to disappear soon). It documented an alleged assault on a female student by three members of the football team last month. The announcement reports that the University found them in violation of the campus's Code of Conduct and "rescinded the admission of the three young men."

A Google News search turns up that this has been extensively covered by the media with almost 500 hits. The Delco Times reports that the 1990 Clery Act and its amendments have made university cover-ups illegal and required reports and specific protocols for responding to campus crimes. The current media spotlight and long-standing federal laws certainly account for much of Villanova's 2007 enlightenment. Whatever the source of change, it's nice to see. Even three players from the beloved football team can get the boot (sorry, have their admissions rescinded) for criminal behavior. Better still, the university can fess up to the crime and take some responsibility. The times, they have a' changed.

Just a little note to everyone that I've blogged a couple of posts over on Nonviolence.org. They're both based on "peace mom" Cindy Sheeran's "resignation" from the peace movement yesterday.

It's all a bit strange to see this from a long-time peace activist perspective. The movement that Sheehan's talking about and now critiquing is not movement I've worked with for the last fifteen-plus years. The organizations I've known have all been housed in crumbling buildings, with too-old carpets and furniture lifted as often as not from going out of business sales. Money's tight and careers potentially sacrificed to help build a world of sharing, caring and understanding.

The movement Sheehan talks about is fueled by millions of dollars of Democratic Party-related money, with campaigns designed to mesh well with Party goals via the so-called 527 groups and other indirect mechanisms. Big Media likes to crown these organizations as the antiwar movement, but as Sheehan and Amy Goodman discuss in today's Democracy Now interview, corporate media will end up with much of the tens of millions of dollars candidates are now raising. Sheehan makes an impassioned plea for people to support those grassroots campaigns that aren't supported by the "peace movement" but this reinforces the notion that its the moneyed interests that make up the movement. I'm sure she knows better but it's hard to work for so long and to make so many sacrifices and still be so casually dismissed--not just me but thousands of committed activists I've known over the years.

There are a few peace organizations in that happy medium between toadying and poverty (nice carpets, souls still intact) but it mystifies me why there isn't a broader base of support for grassroots activism. I myself decided to leave professional peace work almost a decade ago after the my Nonviolence.org project raised such pitiful sums. At some point I decided to stop whining about this phenomenon and just look for better-paying employment elsewhere but it still fascinates me from a sociological perspective.

I've teamed up with ChipIn.com to launch a small fundraising campaign. I'm looking to raise $500 by the end of May, which is enough to cover Nonviolence.org and its sister sites for about six months. I'm between jobs and need supporters to step up and cover expenses for awhile. Whatever you can do to raise the thermometer graphic would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Martin Kelley, publisher

Three thousand faces of American military casualties. Is the world safer yet. Our prayers for the families of the dead of all nationalities.

Things have been quiet here on Nonviolence.org. The simple truth is that I'm increasingly needing to focus on income-generating work (two kids will do that!). If you like what you see here, please consider hiring me as a webmaster. The better my personal finances, the more time I'll have to devote to side projects like Nonviolence.org. Information about my web design services is located on the new martinkelley.com.

Direct donations are also always welcome and will help insure that the lights don't go out when the next bill comes due (it costs about $65/month to keep the Nonviolence.org cluster of sites going).

A new poll out there shows that only 64% of Americans believe that the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. One wonders what the numbers would have been if "people living in the United States" were replaced by "Americans." Even so, 64% approval is pretty low in these fear of terrorism times.

Some random chatter on the blogs: Americablog's New domestic spying poll numbers are very bad for Bush, Ezra Klein's Trust, But Verify & Stephen Kaus at Huffington's Popping the Wrong Question, Instapundit's cryptic I guess Kaus was right and Michelle Malkin's Sorry NYTimes: America is OK with the NSA.

Hi QuakerRanter friends: I've been busy today covering the Quaker response to the Christian Peacemakers Teams hostages. Two sites with a lot of overlapping content:

• Quaker Blog Watch page focused on the hostages
• Nonviolence.org statement and list of responses

Both of these feature a mix of mainstream news and Quaker views on the situation. I'll keep them updated. I'm not the only busy Friend: Chuck Fager and John Stephens have a site called Free the Captives -- check it out.

It's always interesting to see the moments that I explictly identify as a Friend on Nonviolence.org. As I saythere, it seems quite appropriate. We need to explain to the world why a Quaker and three other Christians would needlessly put themselves in such danger. This is witness time, Friends. The real deal. We're all being tested. This is one of those times for which those endless committee meetings and boilerplate peace statements have prepared us.

It's time to tell the world that we live in the power that takes away the occasion for war and overcomes our fear of death (well, or at least mutes it enough that four brave souls would travel to dangerous lands to witness our faith).

I've moved Nonviolence.org onto a new server this week. There were some glitches but I think everything's back to normal now. For those keeping track, this makes the fourth server in Nonviolence.org's ten year history. Please let me know if problems remain and please considering contributing today to help defray the $50/month cost of this site. Thanks!
Martin Kelley, Nonviolence.org