Nebraska ReportMAY/JUNE 2004 VOLUME 32, NUMBER 5

There is no Peace without Justice

Nonprofit Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDPermit No. 310

Lincoln, NEADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTEDExtravagant and Inefficient...

LB 775 Is More Than WeCan Afford p. 8

The Peace & Justice Expo p. 10

From the Bottomby Sally Herrin

“Impeach Cheney” p. 12

Nebraska’s Nuclear Reactors:Radioactive ‘Bull’s Eyesfor Terrorists? p. 3

Review of Prophets Without Honor p. 5

Whiteclay Five Years On p. 7

Phone: 402-475-4620/Fax: 475-4624E-mail: nfpstate@redjellyfish.netwww.nebraskansforpeace.orginside:inside:inside:inside:inside:

Nebraskans for Peace941 ‘O’ St., Ste. 1026Lincoln, NE 68508

Speak Out at StratCom

by Cary Vigneri, NFP Omaha Coordinator

Word of a secret meeting at Offutt Air Force Base to plan anew generation of nuclear weapons prompted a group ofarea activists to come together in the spring of 2003 to orga-nize a response. From leaked documents, the group hadlearned that the Stockpile Stewardship Conference (the en-tity charged with maintaining the nation’s nuclear arsenal)was meeting at StratCom to discuss the development andproduction of low-yield “earth penetrating nuclear weap-ons” or “bunker busters” mini-nukes—weapons strictlyforbidden under the terms of both the Comprehensive TestBan Treaty and Article Six of the Nuclear Non-ProliferationTreaty. The sheer effrontery of these Bush Administrationwar planners, nuclear industry contractors and Pentagonofficials to ignore international law generated an ambitiousplan for a three-day protest in Omaha named “SOS SpeakOut at StratCom—No New Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

SOS 2003 was designed to inform American citizensand the world about StratCom, arguably the most powerfuland important military installation in the world. Historically,the U.S. military’s command-and-control center for all nuclearcapabilities, including land, air, sea and now even space-based weapons systems, StratCom has undergone a majorevolution in mission with the launching of the “War onTerrorism.” In addition to its traditional role of nuclear de-terrence, StratCom’s charge now includes “full-spectrumglobal strike” to meet “decisive national security objectives”as defined by the President and the Secretary of Defense.Today, this facility, located in our own backyard just tenminutes south of Omaha, is the nerve system for a globalmilitary empire of at least 725 foreign military bases in some150 countries, plus the literally thousands of installationswithin our own borders.

The personnel at StratCom are assigned the task ofcreating programs that eat up society’s financial and cre-ative resources in the production of increasingly efficient,mass killing devices. The truth of their insidious missionmust be made public, so that citizens can hear, understandand resist the dangers that this poses to the earth’s very

existence. As the purveyors of doom devise methods tovisit the planet with new and more lethal killing schemes, wemust continue in our efforts to expose their black arts.

Last year’s event, which garnered national and interna-tional media, included a political forum, educational work-shops, a commemoration of the bombings of Hiroshima andNagasaki with guests from Hiroshima who survived the firstatomic blasts 58 years ago; a rally with internationally knownspeakers; a concert; all of which culminated with a march toand vigil at StratCom headquarters in Bellevue.

This ambitious initiative will be reprised in 2004, al-though somewhat abbreviated. SOS 2004 will span two days,August 6 and 7, 2004. The events will include opportunitiesto join the Catholic Workers of Des Moines as they againfaithfully sit vigil at Kinney Gate from August 6 throughAugust 9. There will be a separate vigil on August 6 inOmaha in the evening at Gene Leahy Mall that will include atribute to those whose lives were sacrificed in Japan 59years ago. We will also commemorate other “hibakusha,”survivors of the atomic experiments, known collectively asDownwinders. On August 7, SOS 2004 will stage a peacegathering in Everett Park, which is in Bellevue and withineasy walking distance to the base. There will be a morningrally at Kinney Gate at Offutt Air Force Base in solidaritywith the world’s fervent hope for complete nuclear disarma-ment and an end to all war. Speakers for this event have yetto be confirmed and suggestions and ideas for this part ofSOS 2004 are welcome.

The coordinating committee welcomes NFP members,citizens of Nebraska and Iowa, and concerned anti-nuclearand pro-peace activists all over the world to join in the prepa-rations for Speak Out at StratCom 2004. There will be anemphasis this year on creating a visually colorful event,both informational and entertaining, that will be of greatinterest to the people in our local communities.

Committees for this SOS 2004 are currently forming andyou can connect with the people involved by calling eitherNFP office in Lincoln or in Omaha. Those numbers are 402-475-4620 in Lincoln, and 402-453-0776 in Omaha. You canalso contact Steve Thyberg in Omaha at 402-593-1810, whois helping to coordinate the planning for this year’s event.Join us, won’t you, and once again we raise our voice tosay: No more War! No more Occupations! No more Weap-ons of Mass Destruction!

. . . — — — . . .S O S2004

MAY/JUNE 2004 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.2

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Nebraska ReportNebraska ReportNebraska ReportNebraska ReportNebraska ReportThe Nebraska Report is published nine times annually by Nebraskans forPeace. Opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of the directors orstaff of Nebraskans for Peace.

Newspaper Committee: Tim Rinne, EditorMark Vasina, Sarah Disbrow, Bud Narveson, Marsha Fangmeyer

Typesetting and Layout: Michelle AshleyPrinting: Fremont Tribune Circulation: 6,500

Letters, articles, photographs and graphics are welcomed. Deadline is the firstof the month for publication in the following month’s issue. Submit to: Ne-braska Report, c/o Nebraskans for Peace, 941 ‘O’ Street, Suite 1026, Lincoln,NE 68508.

Nebraskans for PeaceNebraskans for PeaceNebraskans for PeaceNebraskans for PeaceNebraskans for PeaceNebraskans for Peace is a statewide grassroots advocacy organization workingnonviolently for peace with justice through community-building, educationand political action.

State Board of DirectorsState Board of DirectorsState Board of DirectorsState Board of DirectorsState Board of DirectorsSayre Andersen, Maureen Connolly, Henry D’Souza, Bob Epp (Treasurer),Marsha Fangmeyer, Michael Gordon, Christy Hargesheimer, Leah Hunter, JohnKrejci (Secretary), Rich Maciejewski, Carol McShane, Frances Mendenhall,Tara Muir, Patrick Murray, Paul Olson, Byron Peterson, Del Roper, DeirdreRoutt, Linda Ruchala, Jay Schmidt, Jeanette Sulzman (Vice President), MarkVasina (President), Sue Ellen Wall, Virginia Walsh. Tim Rinne (State Coordina-tor), Becca Kaiser (Outreach Coordinator & Office Administrator), SusanAlleman (Membership Coordinator), 941 ‘O’ Street, Suite 1026, Lincoln, NE68508, Phone: 402-475 4620, Fax: 402-475-4624, Email: nfpstate@redjellyfish.net;Cary Vigneri (Omaha Coordinator), P.O. Box 3682, Omaha, NE 68103, Phone:402-453-0776, Email: nfpomaha@redjellyfish.net.

The Runaway Best SellerThe Runaway Best SellerThe Runaway Best SellerThe Runaway Best SellerThe Runaway Best Seller on U.S. Military Policyon U.S. Military Policyon U.S. Military Policyon U.S. Military Policyon U.S. Military Policy

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Nebraskans for Peace, 941 “O” Street, Suite 1026, Lincoln, NE 68508

Crete Chapter .................................................... Pat Wikel ............................. 402-826-4818Lincoln Chapter ................................................ State Office ......................... 402-475-4620Omaha Chapter .................................................. Cary Vigneri ........................ 402-453-0776Scottsbluff Chapter .......................................... Byron Peterson .................. 308-783-1412Southwest Nebraska Chapter .......................... Dennis Demmel .................. 308-352-4078Wayne/Wayne State College Chapter ............. Sayre Andersen .................. 402-375-3794Central Nebraska Peace Workers .................... Charles Richardson ........... 402-462-4794 (Grand Island, Hastings, Kearney)Contact the NFP State Office for information on the UNL, UNO, UNK, Creighton Universityand Hastings & Doane College Chapters

Nebraskans for Peace Chapter and Local Nebraskans for Peace Chapter and Local Nebraskans for Peace Chapter and Local Nebraskans for Peace Chapter and Local Nebraskans for Peace Chapter and Local AfAfAfAfAffiliate Contact Informationfiliate Contact Informationfiliate Contact Informationfiliate Contact Informationfiliate Contact Information

MAY/JUNE 2004 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.3

by Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste SpecialistNuclear Information and Resource ServiceWashington, D.C. (kevin@nirs.org;www.nirs.org)

Critics of nuclear power have warned fordecades that atomic reactors represent pre-deployed “dirty bombs” in our midst, a pointdriven home by the 9/11 attacks. The book,Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for theEnemy, was written by Bennett Ramberg inthe mid-1980s. A review entitled, “WhenReactors Become Weapons,” in the NIRSnewsletter “Groundswell” (December 1985)stated, “Ramberg... calls for alternative re-actor siting—underground and/or in veryremote locations [as well as] improvementsin containment effectiveness...[He notes themerit of] an end to centralized energy facili-ties in general and nuclear power plants inparticular... In the long run, this may be theonly way to provide security, because themere existence of nuclear power plants makesus all potential nuclear hostages.”

Nebraska’s reactors are neither buriednor remote. The Ft. Calhoun plant is a mere17-mile drive from Omaha, and 36-mile drivefrom Bellevue, home of Offut Air Force Baseand StratCom (Strategic Command). CooperStation in Brownville, just east of the townof Auburn, is a 75-mile drive from Omaha,and only 66 miles from StratCom. Of course,as the crow flies (or wind blows), the dis-tances are even shorter. StratCom, being thenerve center of the U.S. invasion of Iraq (asreported in previous Nebraska Report ar-ticles) and other far-flung military activities(U.S. Space Command, nuclear weapons ar-senal control center, etc.), is in and of itself apotential target for terrorist attack.Stratcom’s proximity to these commercialnuclear reactors, though, makes for a par-ticularly dangerous combination.

Indications abound that reactors aretargets for potentially catastrophic terroristattacks. Three Mile Island Alert, a nuclearpower watchdog group in Pennsylvania,overviews the documented threats atwww.tmia.com/security/airplane.html. Infact, al-Qaida originally planned to attacknuclear facilities. An al-Jazeera reporterquoted the 9/11 mastermind as saying,“About two and a half years before the holyraids on Washington and New York, the mili-tary committee held a meeting during which

we decided to start planning for a martyr-dom operation inside America. As we werediscussing targets, we first thought of strik-ing at a couple of nuclear facilities but de-cided against it for fear it would go out ofcontrol... You do not need to know more thanthat at this stage, and anyway it was even-tually decided to leave out nuclear targetsfor now.” The reporter asked, dumbfounded,

“What do you mean ‘for now’?” The al-Qaida commander replied “For now means‘for now’.” (www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,907062,00.html)

American Airlines Flight #11 flew rightover New York’s Indian Point nuclear powerplant before striking the WTC north tower

on 9/11. The (London) Sunday Times re-ported on October 20, 2001 that the fourthhijacked airplane that crashed in a field inPennsylvania was in the general area of fivecommercial nuclear plants, and that the FBIhad confirmed to British intelligence that a“credible source” had said that the terror-ists might have been planning to hit one; infact, the Three Mile Island nuclear plant

(scene of the infamous reactor melt down 25years ago), had been the subject of surveil-lance by some of the hijackers and their as-sociates in the months before the terroristattacks. Reuters reported on September 10,2002 that Ramzi Yousef, now serving a life

sentence for the first attack on the WorldTrade Center in 1993, had also trained nearThree Mile Island and threatened to attack“nuclear targets” as well.

On October 17, 2001, F-16s werescrambled to protect Three Mile Island afteran e-mail threat from purported al-Qaida op-eratives in Spain stated that it would be hitwith an explosive-laden plane later thatevening. The threat said someone workingat the plant would disable the cooling sys-tem at the same time. The airspace aroundHarrisburg was shutdown for nearly fourhours. The threat was later determined to be“not credible” and airspace was reopened.The public was not made aware of theseevents until later (except for the roar of jetfighter engines). Local officials were alsoleft in the dark and were angered by the lackof communication. (“On high alert, nuclearplants face unknown vulnerability,” Phila-delphia Inquirer, October 19, 2001).

In January 2002, the U.S. Nuclear Regu-latory Commission (NRC) warned U.S.atomic utilities that al-Qaida might be seek-ing to crash an airplane into a reactor. It wasthe 20th security warning by the NRC in justfour months. (“U.S. Warns Nuclear Plantsof Terrorist Threat,” Washington Post, Feb-ruary 1, 2002).

Although the White House has backedaway from George W. Bush’s dramatic state-ment in his January 2002 State of the Unionspeech that U.S. forces had found diagramsof nuclear power plants seized amongst al-Qaida materials in Afghanistan, an NRCCommissioner has said, “I believe that basedon the evidence available there is a generalcredible threat by al-Qaida toward Ameri-can nuclear power plants,” and U.S. intelli-gence warned that members of al-Qaidamight be downloading information on U.S.nuclear reactors from the Internet. (“WhiteHouse Backs Away From Bush ’02 Nuclear-Terror Warning,” Wall Street Journal, Feb-ruary 10, 2004)

A July 2002 National Resource Councilreport titled, “Making The Nation Safer,”states that the potential is high for 9/11 typeattacks on highly radioactive waste storedat nuclear power plants in the next five years.“Such attacks could potentially have severe

NebraskNebraskNebraskNebraskNebraska’s Nuclear Reactorsa’s Nuclear Reactorsa’s Nuclear Reactorsa’s Nuclear Reactorsa’s Nuclear Reactors

Radioactive ‘Bull’s Eyes’ for TRadioactive ‘Bull’s Eyes’ for TRadioactive ‘Bull’s Eyes’ for TRadioactive ‘Bull’s Eyes’ for TRadioactive ‘Bull’s Eyes’ for Terroristserroristserroristserroristserrorists?????

Fort Calhoun PlantOmahaStratCom

Cooper StationPlant at Brownville

As the map above shows, StratCom in Bellevue is sandwiched along the Missouri Riverbetween both the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant (36 miles to the North) and the CooperStation plant (66 miles to the South).A nuclear accident at either reactor site could

easily contaminate an area covering a couple hundred miles.

conclusion on page 6

Target in the Heartland

MAY/JUNE 2004 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.4

Reviewed by John Krejci

“At approximately 10:30 a.m. April 9, 2004,Rev. Carl Kabat, OMI, entered missile siloN-8 nine miles west of New Raymer,Colorado, by means of ladders. Hedestroyed nothing in theprocess. He was wearing histrademark “clown’s outfit,” toprove he is still a ‘fool forGod.’ He was taken intocustody by Weld County lawenforcement at approximately11:45 a.m....

Kabat has spent nearly 16years of his life in jail forvarious protests at nuclearWMD sites which he calls‘evil.’ Since Kabat’s latestrelease from jail in 2002, he hasbeen ministering to theCatholic Worker Community ofSt. Louis.”

This recent prophetic actwas not described in this book,but it does typify what thebook is about. Carl Kabat isbut one of the Catholic priestsand others who, through actsof protest, civil disobedienceand consequent prisonsentences, have given witnessthat the threat to use nuclearweapons is evil, and that thisthreat, in turn, is used tosupport U.S. policies whichenrich us at the expense ofdeveloping countries, that arethemselves controlled byeconomic—and when neces-sary—military might.

If you want to learn moreabout the history of radicalpeacemaking, you should read ProphetsWithout Honor. Nebraskans for PeaceOmaha Coordinator, Cary Vigneri, said ofthe book:

“I found it inspiring. It brought meback to feelings I experienced as a youngand idealistic person, who was convincedthat enough light shed on the truth wouldright the world’s wrongs... I recommendreading and keeping this book if one isserious about finding solutions to thehuge moral and spiritual imbalances thatblock the path of human progress. It is so

rich in detail and in the basics of liberationtheology it is most useful.”

For Nebraskans and Midwesterners,many of the names of the protesters arefamiliar: Frank Cordaro, Daryl Rupiper, hisaunt Sr. Joyce Horbach, Marylyn Felion

and Bill Sulzman (brother of NFP VicePresident Jeanette Sulzman). It featuresnational figures Dan and Phil Berrigan, LizMcAlister, Fr. Roy Bourgeois and IowanMike Palecek himself. Vietnam, the Iranianhostage crisis, Iran-Contra, the School ofthe Americas and the massacre of priests,nuns and peasants by the school’sgraduates are also described and analyzedin the context of an immoral U.S. foreignpolicy, guided by capitalist greed andenforced by violence, deceit and war.

Review of Prophets Without Honor:A Requiem for Moral Patriotism

If the book has shortcomings, itwould be its failure to document the manyrich quotations from participants andwritten references. And for those of uswho are long-time peace activists, it doesnot give insight into what will cause U.S.

foreign policy to change. Thesubtitle of the book “Requiemfor Moral Patriotism” echoessome lack of hope. Thepublicity-seeking behavior andmoral defiance carried out bythe courageous men andwomen have not been enoughto stop the violence. Little haschanged. We are still seekingan effective means to sensitizethe American conscience,especially the young.

In the “Afterword: Is therea way out?,” the authors makethe case that the prophets infact warned our governmentthat 9/11 would eventuallycome if U.S. foreign policy didnot change. In addition to thewarnings from the prophetsthemselves, they quote thewords of an Afghan mullahand Taliban leader: “Youshould know that whateverincidents and sorrow yousuffer... are a result of theerroneous policies of yourgovernment.”

The book concludes withthe statement, “If [the Proph-ets Without Honor’s] visionhad been honored instead ofjailed, the World Trade CenterTowers would still be stand-ing.” All of which makes onewonder when will we ever

learn?This fall Mike Palecek’s newest book

will be released by New Leaf Books ofChicago. “The Last Liberal Outlaw” tellsthe story of a small town [Iowa] newspa-per editor fighting the proposed construc-tion of a corporate federal prison neartown. Palecek lives in northwest Iowa withhis wife Ruth and two kids. Mike is aformer federal prisoner for peace, newspa-per reporter, and was the Iowa DemocraticParty’s nominee for the U.S. House in theFifth Distict, 2000 election. For moreinformation visit www.iowapeace.com

The White HouseWashington, DC 20500Comment Line: 202-456-1111202-456-1414202-456-2993 (FAX)president@whitehouse.govSen. Chuck Hagel346 Russell Senate Office Bldg.Washington, DC 20510202-224-4224202-224-5213 (FAX)402-476-1400 (Lincoln)402-758-8981 (Omaha)308-632-6032 (Scottsbluff)hagel.senate.gov/email/contact.htmlSen. Ben Nelson720 Hart Senate Office Bldg.Washington, D.C. 20510202-224-6551202-228-0012 (FAX)402-391-3411 (Omaha)402-441-4600 (Lincoln)bennnelson.senate.gov/email.htmlRep. Doug Bereuter1st Congressional District2184 Rayburn HOBWashington, DC 20515202-225-4806202-225-5686 (FAX)402-438-1598 (Lincoln)www.house.gov/bereuterRep. Lee Terry1524 Longworth HOBWashington, DC 20515202-225-4155202-226-5452 (FAX)402-397-9944 (Omaha)leeterry.house.gov/contact.aspRep. Tom Osborne507 Cannon HOBWashington, DC 20515202-225-6435202-226-1385 (FAX)308-381-5555 (Grand Island)www.house.gov/writerep/Capitol Hill Switchboard202-224-3121State Capitol Switchboard402-471-2311State Senator, District #State CapitolPO Box 94604Lincoln, NE 68509-4604Governor Mike JohannsPO Box 94848Lincoln, NE 68509-4848402-471-2244402-471-6031 (FAX)mjohanns@notes.state.ne.us

ContactingContactingContactingContactingContactingPoliticiansPoliticiansPoliticiansPoliticiansPoliticians

by William M, Strabala and Michael Palecek, Algora Publishing, New York, 2002

MAY/JUNE 2004 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.5

by Becca KaiserNFP Outreach Coordinator

The last time Howard Zinn came toLincoln, Nebraska, was as a mem-ber of the U.S. Air Force just priorto World War II. When Zinn spoketo a crowd of 300 NebraskaWesleyan University students andLincoln community membersMarch 22, he drew on the lessonshe’s learned about war in a talkentitled, “The Uses of History.”

Given the current war withIraq, Zinn’s words could not havebeen more poignant and direct. Ina brief overview of past U.S. mili-tary endeavors, Zinn noted thathistory has shown time and timeagain the uncertainness of war’soutcome. “War is certain horriblemeans for uncertain ends,” he said.We emphasize the “but” in the sen-tence “War is hell, BUT…” War,he stated though, is horrible, ex-treme and always hell preciselybecause we can never predict howthe sentence will end.

So what are the lessons of warfor the United States? Even WorldWar II, which had admirable andnoble goals, was hell. Zinn remem-bers returning from serving inWWII and gathering his memora-bilia in a folder and almost subcon-sciously scrawling the words“Never Again” on the outside.“War solves nothing fundamen-tal,” he says. It’s like crack—a quick

fix, a high—but six months later,you look back on the world andsee that nothing is really different.The same problems have resur-faced. The “War to End All Wars,”World War I, left 50 million dead,and did not rid the world of fas-cism; just as the “War on Terror-ism” will fail in its mission as well.

Zinn compared the analogy ofwar being like wine, some yearsgood, others bad, with perhaps themore accurate truth from astudent’s paper: “War is like cya-nide; one drop and you’re dead.”

The language of our culture iskey to making the case for war andfor keeping citizens fooled, Zinnargues. We use language to createthe myth that we’re all “in this to-gether.” Examples include phrasessuch as “the national interest,”“national defense,” or “nationalsecurity.” Zinn asks, “Who’s inter-est is the ‘national’s’? Certainly notmine, and not the GI that is servingin Iraq.” Language is used to cre-ate the “us versus them” mental-ity, convincing most that the “Waron Terrorism” is for all of oursakes—but who said that the gov-ernment is “America”? The ideathat being against a U.S. govern-ment decision or action is para-mount to being against “America”is unfounded.

A historical example of thismisuse of language is found on theNixon tapes. When Nixon asked

one of his advisors, “How are wegoing to explain this?”, the quickreply was, “National security.”Zinn adamantly argues that the U.S.government is not America, butrather that everyday active citizensare America’s core. If the Constitu-tion guarantees citizens the rightto alter or abolish the government,then certainly we have the right toopenly criticize it. In the U.S., Zinnexclaims, you question your gov-ernment; this is not a totalitariangovernment.

The “us versus them” mental-ity, he stated, is pushed in all rheto-ric and language to make the casefor war. Zinn recalls the frequencyof parallels being made with thedictator Hitler. “We invoke Hitlerbecause people still have a goodfeeling about World War II,” hesays. With the current war withIraq, we compare Sadaam to Hitler,making it easier to sell the immedi-ate need to rid the world of thesetypes of tyrants. However, the mili-tary actions the U.S. takes on thepeople of Iraq aren’t on the tyrant,but on the people themselves. Zinnquestions the ability of precisionbombing and smart bombs to ac-curately define “military targets.”Again, the history of U.S. foreignpolicy is ripe with examples of “mili-tary targets” turning out to behighly populated by civilians.

With all his critiques of UnitedStates history, Zinn also comes

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down hard on the citizens for ourlack of being informed and our fail-ure to hold the government re-sponsible. He offers examples ofBush and other administration of-ficials misrepresenting the U.S. rolein their accounts of our history—painting pictures of helpfulnessand relief, rather than the terror weoften caused. But the truly sad partof this, he said, is that the Admin-istration knows that the Americanpeople don’t know the facts of theirown history, so any misrepresen-tation simply doesn’t matter. Theploy about “weapons of mass de-struction” in Iraq provided a bittercase in point. The short memoriesof U.S. foreign policy ventures arefertile soil for the government tomislead the populace because wewon’t remember later on. He arguespassionately, “If you know yourhistory, you won’t believe therhetoric of war.” To punctuate thispoint, he asks who is the more emi-nent threat to world security—Iraq,with its missing weapons of massdestruction? Or the United Stateswho we know has a stockpile ofover 10,000 nuclear weapons?

When trying to answer the dif-ficult question of what to do nowwith the war with Iraq, Zinn has asimple answer. “How do you sup-port the troops?” he asks. “You getthem out of there!” From this pointon he argues that we have a cer-tain mess if we remain in Iraq, butwe have probability or possibilityof a mess if we leave. Zinn contin-ues by asking rhetorical questions:“What’s keeping the U.S. therenow? Are we simply too proud toleave? Do we think we’ll look cow-ardly? Are we trying to salvage amacho image?”

Zinn says the U.S. could mini-mize the mess if we get other coun-tries involved in the situation, othercountries that were opposed to the

Howard Zinn Speaks on

“The Uses of History”

war from the beginning. TheUnited State can not fix this messbecause we are tainted from ourinvolvement up to this point.

He offers this definition of fa-naticism to illustrate his point:“When you find that you’re goingin the wrong direction and you runfaster.” He sharply criticizes Demo-cratic presidential candidate JohnKerry’s recommendation of addingmore troops to Iraq, asking him toremember what he learned in Viet-nam: the more people we added,the more bodies came home. TheHippocratic Oath taken by doctorssays that if you don’t know the so-lution or remedy of a problem, thefirst thing to remember is to do noharm. “In Iraq,” Zinn says, “ wehave to stop doing harm.

Zinn is counting on the Ameri-can people to stop the dangerousdirection our government isheaded in. He speaks of a govern-ment and country that is not #1 asa military super-power and #1 innuclear weapons, but rather acountry that helps the world. Acountry that is #1 in foreign aid andrelief, that helps provide medicalcare and higher education to citi-zens of the world. “Our wars arenot about making us more secure,”Zinn says. We need to do some-thing intelligent about terrorism;we need to ask the question whymillions of people across the worldhate us. But more than anything,we need to advocate for citizen in-volvement and real politicalchange. Again, the history of theUnited States paints a clear pictureof when real, systemic changetakes place—the slave revolts, theCivil Rights movement, thewomen’s rights movement, etc.“When millions of people do smallparts,” he said in a paraphrase ofthe famous Margaret Mead quota-tion, “things change.”

MAY/JUNE 2004 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.6

consequences if the attack were largeenough and, were such an attack success-fully carried out, could do great harm to thenation’s near-term energy security and ci-vilian nuclear power as a long-term energyoption... Complete denial of the means toattack [nuclear power plants] from the air orground using U.S. assets such as aircraft isprobably not feasible... Given the public fearof anything ‘nuclear’ or ‘radioactive,’ evena minor terrorist attack could have greatlymagnified psychological and economic con-sequences.” (http://books.nap.edu/html/stct/39-64.pdf)

Around the beginning of the U.S. inva-

sion of Iraq in March, 2003, U.S. intelligenceagencies warned that the largest nuclearpower plant in the U.S.—the three-reactorPalo Verde complex 50 miles west of Phoe-nix, Arizona—might be targeted for attack.National Guard troops were deployed and aBlack Hawk helicopter patrolled overhead,in addition to enhanced on-site fortifica-tions. (“The Nuclear Industry’s DirtyBombs,” Mother Jones, March 24, 2003)

The Homeland Security Departmentwarned al-Qaida might crash foreign cargojets, which undergo less security than pas-senger planes, into a U.S. nuclear facility(“U.S. Warns of al- Qaida Cargo Plane Plot,”Associated Press, Nov. 8, 2003). North Caro-lina Waste Reduction Network warned thatany one of 70 small private planes identifiedby the U.S. General Accounting Office asstolen over the previous five-year periodcould be loaded with high-explosives anddirected as a “poor man’s cruise missile”against a nuclear reactor (NC WARN NewsRelease, Nov. 13, 2003, www.ncwarn.org).

Shortly after Sept. 11, both the United

Nations International Atomic EnergyAgency (IAEA) and the U.S. NRC admittedthat reactors were not designed to withstanda kamikaze jumbo jetliner crash. (NRC NewsRelease No. 01-112, 9/21/01, “World’s nuclearfacilities vulnerable, warns UN agency,” NewScientist, November 1, 2001) IAEA’s direc-tor general, Mohamed El Baradei, stated,“There is no sanctuary any more, no safetyzone.” Terrorist attacks need not breach therelatively robust (but not invulnerable) con-crete and steel reactor containment dome tocause catastrophic radiation releases. Explo-sions or fires that destroy the control roomor cut off electricity for safety systems couldlead to a meltdown.

High-level radioactive wastes storedon-site are particularly vulnerable, for stor-age pools are often located outside reactorcontainment. Boiling water reactors such asthe one at the Cooper Station plant are es-pecially vulnerable, as the storage pools areelevated several stories in the air and arelocated on the outside wall of the facility.Loss of cooling water in storage pools couldlead to melting or even combustion of thehighly radioactive fuel. The nuclear fuel rodsare encased in zirconium (an ingredient incluster bombs and old-fashioned flashbulbs), which can combust on contact withair. The ensuing fire would be very difficultto extinguish and could deliver fatal dosesof radioactivity as far as 500 miles down-wind, according to an October 2000 NRCtechnical report, entitled “Spent Fuel PoolAccident Risk at Decommissioning NuclearPower Plants.” Such a catastrophic radia-tion release would be comparable to the 1986Chernobyl reactor explosion and fire, whichspread radioactive contamination around theworld, although most fell within a couplehundred miles or so (“Nuke Waste May BeInviting Target,” Associated Press, Aug. 19,2003). However, Chernobyl’s fallout contin-ues, nearly 20 years later, to contaminatethe Dneiper River, used by tens of millionsdownstream. An accident or terrorist attackat either of Nebraska’s reactors could simi-larly contaminate the Missouri River, impact-ing tens of millions living downstream fromthe reactors.

In 1995, Cooper had 175 tons of high-level radioactive waste stored on-site, andFt. Calhoun had 222 tons. By 2011, Cooper

will have 452 tons, and Ft. Calhoun 379 tons.If NRC allows the reactors to operate be-yond their original 40-year licenses, Coopercould generate more than 762 tons of high-level waste, and Ft. Calhoun more than 534tons. (U.S. Department of Energy, Final En-vironmental Impact Statement for YuccaMountain Repository, February 2002, TablesA-7 and A-8).

Incredibly, the NRC has ruled that reac-tor operation and waste storage licensingdecisions need not address terrorist attacksas they are “remote and speculative events.”

But grassroots citizen groups are challeng-ing that in agency hearings, court rooms,and the streets (as in Mothers for Peace v.NRC, “Nation watching Diablo lawsuit: Lo-cal activists want more say in nuclear plantsafety, take case to federal court,” San LuisObispo Tribune, April 18, 2004). To find outmore or sign your group up with the move-ment demanding that security be upgradedat Nebraska’s reactors, contact NIRS Reac-tor Watchdog Project director Paul Gunterat 202-328-0002 ext. 18 or pgunter@nirs.org.

NebraskNebraskNebraskNebraskNebraska’s Nuclear Reactorsa’s Nuclear Reactorsa’s Nuclear Reactorsa’s Nuclear Reactorsa’s Nuclear Reactors

Radioactive ‘Bull’s Eyes’ for TRadioactive ‘Bull’s Eyes’ for TRadioactive ‘Bull’s Eyes’ for TRadioactive ‘Bull’s Eyes’ for TRadioactive ‘Bull’s Eyes’ for Terroristserroristserroristserroristserrorists?????

Most of the discussion regarding the security of nuclear plants has focused onthe reactor containment structures. But the adjacent “spent fuel pools” actuallycontain more highly radioactive fuel than the reactor cores and are much morevulnerable, as they are located outside the more structurally sound containment

building. Boiling water reactors like the Cooper Station plant at Brownville(pictured above) are particularly at risk, as the storage pools are elevated

several stories in the air and are located on the outside wall of the facility. Lossof cooling water in storage pools could lead to melting or even combustion of the

highly radioactive fuel. The nuclear fuel rods are encased in zirconium whichcan combust on contact with air. The ensuing fire would be very difficult to

extinguish and could deliver fatal doses of radioactivity for a couple hundredmiles, such as occurred with the 1986 Chernobyl reactor explosion and fire.

Keough/Lighthawk

The Cooper Station‘Boiling Water’ Reactor

Indications abound thatreactors are targets forpotentially catastrophicterrorist attacks. In fact,

al-Qaida originallyplanned to attacknuclear facilities.

MAY/JUNE 2004 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.7

In a victory of sorts, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission votedthis spring to revoke the license of one of the four off-sale liquor dealersin Whiteclay. Arrowhead Inn owner Donald Schwarting, whose outletwas generally regarded as the most notorious in Whiteclay, lost hislicense after being convicted of a felony offense—though not, it turns out,for anything relating to the illegal alcohol sales in Whiteclay. Schwartingwas convicted of selling used cars without a license, and felons—whatever the crime—are statutorially prohibited from holding a liquorlicense. The commission, to its credit, did show some leadership bysubsequently voting to deny an application by Schwarting’s son,Jason, to take over his father’s license.

Even this ‘victory’ though is likely to be short-lived. JasonSchwarting has already filed suit in Lancaster County District Court toappeal the commission’s decision, and he may well win. Regardlesshow Schwarting’s lawsuit turns out, however, there’s nothing to preventanyone else (so long as they don’t have a felony conviction on theirrecord) from immediately submitting a new application for a license inWhiteclay. And as long as the Legislature refuses to amend state lawand ban the sale of alcohol near dry Indian Reservations, the commis-sion will probably give it to them.

It’s now been five years since the murdered bodies of WilsonBlack Elk, Jr. and Ronald Hard Heart were found in Whiteclay. It’sbeen five years since the State of Nebraska arrested ten Indian menfor crossing the police line into Whiteclay from Pine Ridge during theprotests that summer. And after five years, (save for the short-livedvictory described above) nothing has changed. No legislation has beenpassed. No permanent law enforcement has been provided. And eventhe prospects for a “cross-deputization agreement” between the OglalaSioux Tribe and the State of Nebraska are now dead in the water.

In an April announcement that appeared to take the JohannsAdministration completely by surprise, tribal officials announced thatlaw enforcement from the second-poorest county in America was notgoing to do for free what the Nebraska State Patrol calculated wouldcost $250,000 a year and could not afford. (Two hundred fifty thousanddollars, ironically, matches the sum the State of Nebraska annuallycollects in sales and liquor taxes from the sale of alcohol in Whiteclay).Unless Nebraska is prepared to underwrite the cost of tribal lawenforcement in Whiteclay, Oglala Sioux tribal officials stated, the deal’soff. No money. No deal.

With nothing happening inside the halls of state government,where else can we go then but back to the streets? So, on SaturdayJuly 3, we’ll be back in Whiteclay to commemorate the fifth anniversaryof the arrests of the ten men, the still-unsolved murders of the two menthat spawned the protests leading to the arrests, and the five-year-longfailure of the State of Nebraska to resolve this problem in any meaning-ful way.

As NFP State Board member Byron Peterson documented in histestimony at the April 22 Liquor Control Commission meeting (which isreprinted here), the situation in Whiteclay is as bad as ever. In just anhour and a half the afternoon of April 1, Peterson was able to snapphotos of three separate instances of illegal drinking on the premises atthe Jumping Eagle, one of the three remaining off-sale establishmentsin Whiteclay. Just four citations for this offense, over a four-year period,are grounds for automatic license cancellation. But as Peterson notedin his remarks to the commission, he saw no law enforcement inWhiteclay during the entire time he was there.

Whiteclay Five Years OnWhiteclay Five Years OnWhiteclay Five Years OnWhiteclay Five Years OnWhiteclay Five Years OnGood morning, Commission-

ers. My name is Byron Peterson.I’m a retired Social Worker and amember of the State Board of Ne-braskans for Peace.

This afternoon, you will beconsidering an application fromJason Schwarting to take over therecently revoked license held byhis father for the Arrowhead Inn inWhiteclay.

Nebraskans for Peace urgesyou to reject this application. Asan employee at his father’s off-sale

outlet, Jason Schwarting has al-ready brazenly demonstrated hisdisregard for Nebraska liquor lawby selling alcohol on credit. Whilethe sale of alcohol to an intoxicatedperson who didn’t appear drunk,or to a minor who appeared to beof legal age could be an honest mis-take, a ‘good faith’ error in judg-ment, selling alcohol on credit isflat-out illegal. There’s no guess-work involved. And you are know-ingly and deliberately violating thelaw.

Denying this license requestshould be automatic.

But there is larger issue herethat we would like you to consider.

For a number of years now, inresponse to court rulings that haveeroded your discretionary powers,the Liquor Control Commissionhas basically adopted the practiceof granting liquor licenses to anyand all, unless the applicant is aconvicted felon. (Or the applicant,like Jason Schwarting, has alreadydemonstrated blatant disregard.)

Even if the Commission deniesJason Schwarting’s request, how-ever, there is nothing to preventyou from granting a replacementlicense for the Arrowhead Inn tosomeone else with a clean record…

And this unincorporated vil-lage of 14 people, just 200 feet fromthe dry Pine Ridge Reservation,that has no legal place for its In-dian clientele to legally drink whatis sold there—and no local lawenforcement to ensure that state

law is enforced—will once againhave FOUR off-sale liquor licenses.

This is wrong. This is poorpublic policy. And I know youdon’t like it any better than we do.

It’s a recipe for lawlessness.In fact, I have here today three

photos, which I took the first ofthis month in Whiteclay, clearlyshowing alcohol being consumedon the legal premises of the Jump-ing Eagle—an unequivocal viola-tion of an off-sale dealer’s license.

Had there been law enforce-

ment in Whiteclay, the dealerwould clearly have been cited forthese violations. Or perhaps moreto the point, had there been lawenforcement in Whiteclay, thedealer would have policed himselfand refused to tolerate this behav-ior on his premises, for fear of be-ing cited and having his licensecanceled.

To your credit, Commission-ers, in acknowledgement of the

continued on page 11

One of the three incidences of illegal drinking on the premises of an off-sale liquor establishmentcaptured by Byron Peterson at the Jumping Eagle on the afternoon of April 1 in the space of an hour and

a half. Peterson saw no law enforcement in Whiteclay during the entire time that he was there.

MAY/JUNE 2004 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.8

by Mark Vasina, Treasurer$top Big Business $ubsidies—Repeal LB 775

Versions of this article were originally pre-sented as speeches to the Lincoln RotaryClub #14 March 9 and the Lincoln Leagueof Women Voters March 19, 2004.

Imagine you and your spouse are rais-ing a family. You are making house payments,getting by while putting aside somethingeach month into your children’s college fund.

Although both you and your spousehold jobs, you share a single automobile, a2001 Ford Taurus. You get by with one carbecause you both work close to home andthe demands of your jobs have not createdas-yet-insurmountable problems with trans-portation for your family.

But your spouse has decided to ad-vance his career and feels constrained bythe car-sharing arrangement. Jobs locatedfurther from home and requiring workinghours outside a predictable routine seem outof bounds.

You talk it over and agree that yourspouse’s career options are improved if yourfamily has more transportation flexibility. Youdecide to purchase a second family vehicle.

The next day a brand new Hummer pullsinto your driveway. You stare in disbelief asyour spouse gets out of the vehicle. Disbe-lief turns to dismay as he announces thatthe solution to all your problems is nowparked in the driveway. Dismay turns toshock as you learn that you and yourspouse are this Hummer’s new owners.

You protest about the Hummer’s lousymileage and the budget-challenging size ofthe monthly car payments. “We can’t affordthis!” you say. “You have to take it back!”

Your spouse responds with indignation.“Look here,” he says. “We agreed we needtwo cars now. And we agreed I should buyanother one. We need this car so that I canget a better job.”

You tell him that of course you agreedto a second car. “But,” you insist, “we can’tafford this car!” He shouts back, “You don’twant me to have the car I need to advancemy career? I need this car! We need thiscar!”

“Okay,” you say again, lowering yourvoice. “We need a second car. But not thiscar. We can’t afford it. We will have to trimback our lifestyle to pay for it, and stop set-ting aside money for our children’s higher

education. The sensible thing to do is totake it back and purchase a car we can af-ford.”

Your spouse continues to argue thatyou need the Hummer so that he can ad-vance his career and increase your familyincome. If he takes back the Hummer, you

will be sharing one car again, and he willnever get a better job. He even threatens toleave you and the children if you don’t lethim keep the Hummer and help pay for it.

You are unable to make any headwaywith your point of view that a second car isa good idea—but not this one.

What would you do in this situation?You might give in if you felt sufficiently in-timidated. You might consider divorce if youconcluded that your well-being or that ofyour children were at serious risk.

Most of you would likely find your-selves somewhere in between—unwilling toignore either the importance of your rela-tionship with your spouse or the problemsposed by his stubborn behavior. Recogniz-ing the need for a second car, you wouldsearch for a way to replace the Hummer withan affordable vehicle and get your family’sfinances back on track.

The argument advanced by yourspouse (“Keep the Hummer or face the un-desirable consequences of owning only onecar”) is known as the fallacy of false di-

chotomy, or the missing middle.The false dichotomy is a characteriza-

tion of a practical, moral or political problemin such a way that the solution is illogicallyand unnecessarily confined to only twochoices—one of which is unquestionablyundesirable (“one car is not enough”). The

person presenting the false dichotomy ar-gument attempts to restrict the choices sothat the only alternative presented (“buy theHummer”) must be chosen.

In a policy debate, the false dichotomyis sometimes employed to frame the solu-tion in terms that obscure a careful analysisof the issue. Those who advance the fallacyhope the confusion it causes will result inthe policy choice they advocate.

LB 775—the Employment and Invest-ment Growth Act, passed in 1987 by a pan-icky Nebraska legislature when ConAgrathreatened to move its Omaha headquartersout of state—is the Hummer in this story.

LB 775 supporters—the owners andsenior management of businesses receivingLB 775 tax breaks, and their paid lobbyists—are promoting the fallacy of false dichotomyin their interpretation of the role of LB 775 inNebraska’s economic development.

“Nebraskans must either continue tofund LB 775 with tax dollars,” the argumentgoes, “or statewide economic disaster willensue as businesses chase public subsidiesin other states. No other options exist.”

This position is nonsense, of course,for other options clearly do exist. LB 775 canbe modified or scaled back. It can be replacedwith another business tax incentive pro-gram—or a number of them. Funding for LB775 can be redirected to other types of de-velopment programs.

The real policy issue involving LB 775is how to create and fund an effective andaffordable economic development program.If LB 775 truly is unnecessarily expensive,yielding statewide economic benefits ofquestionable value, why not replace it?

This is the goal of the coalition of orga-nizations seeking to place an initiative onthe November ballot to stop the awarding ofnew LB 775 contracts.

These organizations have been clearfrom the outset that they support the publicfunding of development programs—includ-ing business tax incentive programs—whichcan be reasonably expected to create qual-ity jobs and promote economic growth in afiscally responsible manner. Last Decemberthe initiative committee published a detailedplan for reforming—not repealing—LB 775,and distributed it to state senators.

The ballot initiative approach was cho-sen in the face of the legislature’s steadfastrefusal to repair LB 775. Over sixteen years,the legislature has turned down thirteen at-tempts to require program evaluation, tenproposals to increase disclosure of key in-formation, and dozens of other proposals tolimit LB 775’s cost or scope.

Nebraska’s single ballot question ruleprecludes ballot language of sufficient com-plexity to give LB 775 an appropriatemakeover. Initiative coalition members be-lieve that a successful repeal initiative willforce the legislature to devise a superior pro-gram to replace it at the next legislative ses-sion.

Any publicly funded program must jus-tify its cost. As business owners do not ac-cept the notion that they should pay anywage—no matter how high—to fill the jobscreated by their enterprises, taxpayersshould not be forced to fund public pro-grams at literally any cost—no matter howhigh—to provide for job creation. The costof buying jobs with public funds must beaffordable, and should not exceed the pub-lic benefits.

LB 775 fails that simple test.Evidence of any significant positive

contribution by LB 775 to Nebraska’seconomy is lacking. In 1997, Creighton Uni-versity economist Ernie Goss told the Omaha

LB 775 Is MorLB 775 Is MorLB 775 Is MorLB 775 Is MorLB 775 Is More Than We Than We Than We Than We Than We Can Affe Can Affe Can Affe Can Affe Can Affordordordordord

The Hummer of the TaleCostly and wasteful, the gas-guzzling H2 Hummer model has a sticker price of over

$51,000, weighs 8,500 pounds and averages a ridiculous 9-10 mpg.

Extravagant and InefExtravagant and InefExtravagant and InefExtravagant and InefExtravagant and Inefficient...ficient...ficient...ficient...ficient...

MAY/JUNE 2004 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.9

World-Herald that LB 775 had no positiveimpact on personal income growth in Ne-braska during its first ten years of opera-tion.

On the other hand, reliable evidenceindicates that LB 775 has resulted in expen-sive tax burden and spending shifts withinthe state.

LB 775 tax breaks currently divert $77million on average from our state treasuryeach year, after accounting for new tax rev-enues generated by LB 775 projects. Thiswas reported in a 2001 study by the Legisla-tive Fiscal Office, the budget researchagency of the Nebraska legislature.

Additional sales tax and property taxrevenues are lost to many municipalities andschool districts due to LB 775.

To pay for LB 775, elected officials raisetaxes on other taxpayers—working people,farmers and small business owners. With ourstate budget in crisis, they also cut spend-ing on other public programs, including es-sential funding for K-12 and higher educa-tion.

A comparative study was prepared forSen. Chris Beutler by Nebraska’s Legisla-tive Research Division and presented to theRevenue Committee last session. The studyshows a significant disproportion betweenLB 775 as a percentage of state personalincome (a measure of a state’s total tax base)and similar business incentive programs inother states.

Nebraska pays many times more on thisbasis than any other state, including itsneighbors.

Sen. Beutler stated, “The data indicatesthat we should seriously rethink our busi-ness incentive program to make it more tar-geted and less burdensome on the taxpayer.… [W]e cannot continue to under fundhigher education in order to over fund taxincentive programs. Business is better offin the long term with a solid research uni-versity and less lavish tax incentives.”

Recapturing only three years of taxrevenue losses due to LB 775 would havepaid for all cuts to education in the statebudget since 2001.

The organizations that have joined to-gether in the initiative repeal campaign be-lieve we must put our state spending pri-orities in order. It is a mistake to sacrificepublic education for tax incentives, becausestate and local tax incentives alone do notcreate jobs in the American economy.

Businesses may allocate jobs amongstates and communities in part due to taxincentives, but no new U.S. jobs are cre-ated as a result.

Education, on the other hand, is thekey to job creation. As Federal ReserveChairman Alan Greenspan told Omaha busi-ness leaders in February, education is es-sential to provide Americans with the skillsneeded for the next generation of jobs.

Federal Reserve Bank economists haveargued for at least a decade that the race

among states to influence business site de-cisions with tax incentives is harmful to theparticipating states—which divert tax rev-enues from essential public services to sub-sidize local private sector expansion.

And it is harmful to the U.S. economyas a whole—as states and municipalitiesnationwide suffer tax incentive-induced rev-enue losses while unsubsidized businessesare forced to compete with higher expenses.

The fairy tale of the Union Pacific taxbreaks-for-jobs swap perfectly illustrates thefiction of “new jobs” coupled with real eco-nomic damage.

In January, U.P. management an-nounced they were shifting 1,038 jobs fromSt. Louis to the railroad’s new Omaha head-quarters, built with the assistance of taxbreaks. LB 775 supporters hailed the an-nouncement as a victory for Nebraska andproof of the effectiveness of Nebraska’s taxincentive programs.

But what is really going on here? Forevery job transferred to Omaha, an equiva-lent job is lost in St. Louis. For every dollarspent in the Omaha metro area by the trans-ferred U.P. workers, the St. Louis economytakes a hit by an equivalent amount. No newrailroad jobs are created. No new jobs arecreated in the Great Plains. No new jobs arecreated in the United States.

In exchange for shifting the jobs toOmaha, U.P. will receive an estimated $75million in tax breaks from the people of Ne-braska, not counting additional local incen-tives paid by Omaha taxpayers. The Legis-

lative Fiscal Office reported in 2001 that thestate will only ever recover less than 20 per-cent of the tax revenues lost through theU.P. tax breaks.

With Nebraska facing such large hits tostate revenues, the real question about theU.P. deal isn’t “Who won?”—U.P. share-

holders and senior management clearlywon—but rather “Who lost the least?”

Missourians will give up 1,038 jobs andsuffer the negative impact of those lostwages on their economy. Nebraskans willabsorb those jobs into the Omaha economy,but at the cost of massive tax revenue losses.

Paid LB 775 boosters tell Nebraskansthat we must grudgingly accept LB 775 as a“necessary evil” in our ever-escalating com-petition with the residents of neighboringstates for the economic goodies providedby business expansion. Without LB 775, weare told, Nebraska cannot compete withother states offering taxpayer-funded sub-sidies to businesses as enticements to move,expand or remain there.

Clearly, executives of Fortune 500 com-panies benefiting from LB 775 are cynicallyplaying states against each other. They crycrocodile tears for the sacrifices Nebraskataxpayers must make to pay for LB 775 whileat the same time warning taxpayers in otherstates of the threat to their economies posedby Nebraska’s tax incentive programs.

And if the governor and other politicalleaders in Nebraska and other states weretruly concerned about the harm to state bud-gets caused by tax incentive programs likeLB 775, they would place the issue on theagenda of the National Governors Associa-tion and other national and regional non-partisan political organizations.

Sadly, we the people have allowed thewell-funded pro-LB 775 lobby to define theterms of the public debate over the suc-

cesses and failures of LB 775. LB 775 sup-porters have deployed the fallacy of falsedichotomy (“LB 775 or economic death”) andhave been allowed to get away without pro-viding any sound statistics whatsoever to

back up their assertions that LB 775 is effec-tive and affordable.

In March the Department of Revenueissued its latest report on LB 775, for theyear ended December 31, 2003. The reportshows that LB 775 gave businesses morethan $130 million in tax breaks last year, butthose businesses added only 262 new jobs.

Ignoring the question of whether mostof those jobs would have been added any-way, this amounts to taxpayers doling outnearly half a million dollars last year for eachnew LB 775 job. The cost of LB 775 appearsto be escalating wildly.

This isn’t exactly what is going on here.The reality is both better and worse.

If we average the cumulative amount ofLB 775 tax breaks earned since the program’sinception over the total number of true newLB 775 jobs (as estimated by the Depart-ment of Revenue), the average taxpayer costper job is $115,000, up from $108,000 a yearearlier.

The cost of LB 775 is indeed increas-ing, although at a slower pace than indicatedby the 2003 numbers alone. That’s the goodnews.

For the bad news we need only look atthe reasons why the average taxpayer costper true new LB 775 job is going up. Thereare two.

First, LB 775 tax breaks given out lastyear are subsidies for jobs added not onlyduring 2003, but in previous years also. LB775 jobs earn tax credits for their employersfor up to six years after LB 775 projectsqualify for tax breaks. LB 775 beneficiariescan also cash in earned tax credits whichhave been carried over unused from previ-ous years.

Unused tax credits already earned total$838 million at year-end 2003. Add estimatedtax breaks still to be earned by existing LB775 projects, and Nebraska taxpayers’ fu-ture obligations to current LB 775 benefi-ciaries is $1.5 billion. If we add the $1.5 bil-lion in tax breaks already paid out since1987, the total bill for LB 775—if no newprojects are added—is over $3 billion.

The second reason for the increase inthe average taxpayer cost per job is theprogram’s ineffectiveness, particularly in theface of the recent economic downturn.

As Nebraska participated in the eco-nomic expansion of the 1990s, LB 775projects had the appearance, at least, of cre-ating jobs. Now that Nebraska’s job growthhas faltered, LB 775 is clearly failing to pro-duce the intended results.

This, of course, suggests that the eco-nomic boom of the 1990s—not LB 775—wasthe real impetus for the 240,000 jobs addedto the Nebraska economy since 1987. Otherstatistical evidence indicates that this is so.

The chart shows the number of new

conclusion on page 11

Measuring Business Tax Incentive Credits Used inRelation with the “Whole Tax Base” (Personal Income)

Large Scale, Broad-based Business Tax Incentive Credits as a % of Personal Income

0.0000%

0.0200%

0.0400%

0.0600%

0.0800%

0.1000%

0.1200%

0.1400%

0.1600%

0.1800%

0.2000%

AL GA CO CT IA IL KS LA MA MI NE* NY NC SC WA**

Select States FY 1999-2000

Stephen Moore, Analyst, LRD, Nebraska Legislature

MAY/JUNE 2004 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.10

by Steve Thyberg, EXPO Coordinator

There is so much peace and justice workhappening in the greater Omaha area by somany good people! Our dream for the OmahaPeace & Justice EXPO was to bring togetherall of these wonderful efforts and organiza-tions, celebrate them and show them off. Wewanted to give people a real opportunity tosee what is right here in the Omaha area andto learn how they can get involved. It wouldbe a time to bring people together, feel con-nected, feel the enthusiasm and empowereach other to create a more peaceful andjust world. And a time to just feel at home inthe midst of this awesome community!

What came together was an unprec-edented gathering of local organizationsdedicated to peace and justice locally andglobally. On May 2, 2004 from 1:00-6:00 p.m.at the UNO Milo Bail Student Center, that isexactly what happened and more. Sixty eightorganizations active in peace and justice inthe Omaha area shared their goals and show-cased the projects of their organizations.EXPO attendees got acquainted with thesegroups and made connections as well as sign-ing up for volunteer opportunities. Theywere able to engage in lively talks formally,through workshops, and informally, whilevisiting the booths, as well as listening towonderful speakers share the ways nonvio-lence has been and can be a force for changein the community.

This first Omaha Peace & Justice EXPOfeatured the work of area organizations fromthe Prairie Peace Park and Amnesty Interna-tional to the United Nations Association andthe Social Ministry Commission of the Arch-diocese. Political parties and churches withpeace and justice committees also partici-pated. There were 33 informative workshopsto learn about everything from the situationin the Middle East, “Faithful Citizenship”,“Grassroots & Policy Advocacy” to “Non-violence Training” and “Instant Runoff Vot-ing.”

There are many who do this work froma religious conviction, so we started the daywith an Interfaith Prayer Service. The RiverCity Mixed Chorus shared several songs,including We Shall Overcome. This was fol-lowed by prayers from a Native AmericanChurch prayer leader and a representativeof the Baha’i Faith, and humorous and mov-ing messages from a United Methodist min-ister and a Catholic priest. Together wejoined in one of the Dances of UniversalPeace, Mir, and we sang My Sweet Lord.

The Main Stage featured community

leaders such as Tim Butz of ACLU Nebraskaspeaking about USA Patriot Act, Musa al-Hindi of Al-Awda and Nebraskans for Jus-tice in Palestine described how the war onIraq has prompted much action, and FrankCordaro, Des Moines Catholic Worker Com-munity, shared about the direct action ef-

forts at Offutt AFB. The promise of the pro-posed Department of Peace was outlined bySteve Thyberg and NFP’s own Tim Rinneshared the challenges of LB 775–“Nebraska’s Corporate Welfare?” Theseengaging and enlightening speakers werejoined by the perspective, wit and passionof Omaha SLAM poets and musiciansMichael Murphy & Nils Anders Erickson.For a directory of participating organizationsand a complete list of workshops and speak-ers, just e-mail Steve Thyberg atincompassion@yahoo.com

The EXPO was a real expression ofcommunity supported from many directions.Five UNO organizations sponsored theEXPO, welcoming the event to their cam-pus, and provided the five emcees for ourMain Stage. The brand new website“progressiveomaha.com” put all of our infoon their website to get the informationonline. Six of our participating organizationsshared copying costs for the entire program,which included listings of speakers, work-shops and the directory of the 68 participat-ing organizations. What a gift! Creighton’sSpirit of Peace Community created our ban-ner, which we stretched across Dodge Streetthat last week before Expo day. All of theparticipating organizations helped get theword out by distributing Expo flyers, emails,putting us on there websites and in articlesin their groups’ newsletters. McFosters andThe Grainery both put up event table tents.We had a lot of volunteers involved, somestarting as early as December. So many vol-

unteers calling organizations, distributingflyers, holding banners and doing all thosethings that make an event flow smoothly.Thanks a ton volunteers!

To feel that we are in this together andto feel the support of community at the endof the day people came together in a Com-

munity Ceremony. Each organization wasasked to contribute to the series of thoughtsthat were shared—words of gratitude for thecoming together and for the progress thatwe have made in peace and justice; wordsof grieving for the pain and for the lossesthat humanity has brought upon itself; andwords of hope for the future that each per-son was asked to write on colored strips ofpaper. These strips were then linked togetherinto a beautiful chain, just as we link ourhopes together into an effort that will changethe world.

Finally we shared pledges of what eachof us would do to make a more peaceful andjust world. All this was celebrated in songas we raised our voices in We Shall Over-come, Imagine, Give Peace a Chance andWe Are Family. Participants described theceremony as moving and fitting conclusionto an important afternoon.

Where do we go from here? As you allknow, there is a lot of work to do, but thisisn’t a problem. What we are involved in isthe recreating of our culture. The selfish andthe frightened are only in the drivers seatUNTIL the people stand up and become theleaders. When enough of us wake up andrealize what we need to do, it will be a brandnew day! Let’s all come together and nur-ture participatory democracy through com-munity dialogue and networking. Build onthe connections made at the 2004 EXPO andjoin us next year for an even more amazingcelebration of community and education.

See you next spring!

The Peace & Justice EXPOThe Peace & Justice EXPOThe Peace & Justice EXPOThe Peace & Justice EXPOThe Peace & Justice EXPOEXPO Participating Organizations 2004:ACLU NebraskaAct to Stop War CoalitionAdvocates For Justice, Inc.Al-Awda - the Palestine Right to Return CoalitionAmerican Association of University WomenAmnesty International - Creighton UniversityAmnesty International – UNOAnti-Defamation LeagueCentral Nebraska Peace WorkersChicano Awareness CenterCitizens for Equal ProtectionCity SproutsThe Phil Berrigan Catholic Worker House - Frank CordaroConcord CenterCreighton Center for Service and JusticeCreighton Prep High School – Awareness Workshop &Operation OthersDana College Social Work DepartmentDignity CooperativeEarth Day OmahaFamily Federation for World Peace and UnificationFeminist Majority Leadership Alliance – UNOFood Not BombsFree the Innocent IncGather the WomenThe GROVE – UNO (Religion/Diversity Club)Humanity International for Peace & Prosperity, Inc.Immigrant Rights Network of Iowa and NebraskaInterfaith Immigration Services of NebraskaLarrick for CongressLatina Resource CenterLibertarian Party of NebraskaMetro Omaha Tobacco Action Coalition (MOTAC)The National Conference for Community and JusticeNational Association of Social Workers - NE ChapterNebraska AIDS ProjectNebraska Coalition for PeaceNebraska Criminal Justice ReviewNebraska Green PartyNebraska International-language AssociationNebraskans for Justice in PalestineNebraska Young DemocratsNebraskans Against the Death PenaltyNebraskans For PeaceNebraskans For Peace - UNONew Covenant Justice and Peace CenterNorthside Family Christian Center - MennoniteOmaha Baha’i FaithOmaha Friends Meeting - QuakersOmaha Family & Friends of InmatesPeacemakers Potluck and VigilPeaces of OmahaPrairie BreakersPhysicians for Social ResponsibilityPrairie Peace ParkP.U.L.S.E. Inc.Rainbow Outreach GLBT Resource CenterR.E.A.S.O.N. Rationalists, Empiricists, And SkepticsOf NebraskaSecond Unitarian ChurchSGI-USA Omaha (Buddhism)SOAWatch - CreightonSocial Ministry Com. of the Archdiocese of OmahaSocialist Workers PartyState of Nebraska Equal Opportunity CommissionTheatre of the Oppressed - UNOUnited Methodists for Mission & Justice, Inc.United Nations Association of the USA – Lincoln Ch.UNO School of Social WorkWilliam Brennan Institute For Labor Studies – UNO

Expo attendees visiting the booths of some of the 68 organizations participating in the2004 Peace & Justice Expo in Omaha May 2 at the Milo Bail UNO Student Center.

MAY/JUNE 2004 NEBRASKA REPORT, P.11

Carlton B. Paine, Ph.D.CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST

SUITE 110US BANK BUILDING

TELEPHONE: 100 NORTH 56TH STREET

402-466-4668 LINCOLN, NE 68504

Whiteclay Five Years OnWhiteclay Five Years OnWhiteclay Five Years OnWhiteclay Five Years OnWhiteclay Five Years Onconclusionconclusionconclusionconclusionconclusion

LB 775 Is MorLB 775 Is MorLB 775 Is MorLB 775 Is MorLB 775 Is More Than We Than We Than We Than We Than We Can Affe Can Affe Can Affe Can Affe Can Afford, ord, ord, ord, ord, conclusionconclusionconclusionconclusionconclusion

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Nebraska Department of Revenue

NEBRASKA: New Non-Farm Jobs 1976-2002

-15,000

-10,000

-5,000

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

OTHER

LB 775 JOBS

problems in Whiteclay, you have been onrecord in support of law enforcement “dur-ing all the hours that alcohol is sold” theredating back to January 2001. And each ofthe last two legislative sessions, you havepublicly requested that the Legislature actto provide such full-time law enforcement.

The Legislature, I am sorry to report,however, has refused to act on your re-quests.

In fact, not one legislative measure re-lating to Whiteclay—either to provide fund-ing for law enforcement there or to prohibitthe sale of alcohol within five miles of a dryIndian Reservation—has ever even made itout of committee.

The Legislature has ignored your ad-vice and, we have discovered, even failed toprovide you a statutory definition of “ad-equate” law enforcement, even though theadequacy of law enforcement is one of thecriteria for whether to grant a license.

While you may not be able to legallydefine what “adequate” law enforcement is,the fact that you are on record in support oflaw enforcement “during all the hours alco-hol is sold” in Whiteclay argues that what’sthere now is “inadequate.”

And to grant a replacement license inWhiteclay for the Arrowhead Inn, underthese circumstances, is not only promotinglawlessness. It is flirting with tragedy. Noth-

ing good can come of the sale of over 11,000cans of beer a day to a Pine Ridge clientelethat has no legal place to drink it in an unin-corporated village with no local law enforce-ment.

It was an utter fluke that DonaldSchwarting got convicted of a felony andlost his license. With all the alcohol viola-tions that daily go on in Whiteclay, who’dhave ever guessed that selling used carswithout a license would be what got himbanned from the liquor business.

But however it came about, it’s an op-portunity to stop the abuses in Whiteclayonce and for all.

Nebraskans for Peace asks that youdeny not only Jason Schwarting’s applica-tion, but the applications of anyone elsewho applies to sell alcohol in Whiteclay.

The Legislature has shirked its respon-sibility. Use this situation as opportunity toforce the Legislature to both define “ad-equate” law enforcement and to ensure thatNebraska’s liquor laws are not routinely ig-nored and that a double-standard is not tol-erated when the State of Nebraska deals withIndians.

Let it come to lawsuit if that’s whatneeded to get the Legislature to act.

But whatever you do, don’t exacerbatethe problem in Whiteclay by issuing yet an-other license there.

non-farm jobs in Nebraska since 1976, withthe 72,000 jobs attributed to LB 775 brokenout. The economic stagnation of the early1980s is readily apparent, when job growthwas negative for three consecutive years.

Also notice that the first jobs associ-ated with LB 775 did not appear until 1988,one year after LB 775 was passed. Yet al-ready by 1987 job growth had reboundedfrom the weak performance of the prioryear—without any help from LB 775.Strong job growth continued into 1988, withLB 775 playing only a tiny part, at best.

In the best of times LB 775 is highlyinefficient.

The Department of Revenue reportsyear after year that 70 percent of jobs earn-ing LB 775 tax credits would have been cre-ated anyway. This means that the propor-tion of true new LB 775 jobs is considerablyless than that represented in this chart—less than ten percent of all new jobs since1987.

The evidence suggests that LB 775 taxbreaks simply reward business-as-usual bythe corporations with the largest investmentprojects in the state. This is why our esti-mates show that only 23 companies receive50 percent of total LB 775 tax benefits.

Last year, UNL economists RichardPerrin and F. Gregory Hayden examined jobgrowth in Nebraska since 1987 and foundlittle to distinguish Nebraska’s performancefrom that of its neighboring states. Theyconcluded that LB 775 contributed little toNebraska’s job growth experience.

Dr. Perrin wrote in the February 18, 2004issue of Cornhusker Economics that LB 775“is far too expensive per job, and far toosignificant in the state budget, to be a rea-sonable economic development tool.”

LB 775 in its current incarnation is sim-ply too expensive and too ineffective.

Can we afford to replace LB 775?More and more Nebraskans are coming

to realize that we can’t afford not to.

From the Bottom From the Bottom From the Bottom From the Bottom From the Bottom by Sally Herby Sally Herby Sally Herby Sally Herby Sally HerrinrinrinrinrinThe real political spectrum isn’t right to left… it’s top to bottom.The real political spectrum isn’t right to left… it’s top to bottom.The real political spectrum isn’t right to left… it’s top to bottom.The real political spectrum isn’t right to left… it’s top to bottom.The real political spectrum isn’t right to left… it’s top to bottom.

IMPEAIMPEAIMPEAIMPEAIMPEACH CHENEYCH CHENEYCH CHENEYCH CHENEYCH CHENEYI am not the first to say that theUnited States Constitution is in gravedanger today, due to the tirelessactivity of Vice President DickCheney. Not since Nixon, whomCheney served beginning in 1969,has an administration so arrogantlystiffed Congress—elected by thepeople to oversee the executivebranch—nor cloaked itself in somuch secrecy.

John Dean, who also servedNixon as White House counsel,traces the shaping of Cheney’spolitical agenda in an essay for theHistory News Network. Cheney sawfirsthand what Nixon called his “epicbattle” for executive power: im-pounding funds Congress passed forprograms he didn’t like, expandingthe war in Vietnam when Congresswas in recess despite the pressure bythe public and Congress to scaleback or end that war, and defyingCongressional demands for informa-tion.

After Watergate and Nixon’sresignation, Dean continues, Con-gress passed important legislationwhich prevents a president fromrefusing to spend money appropri-ated by Congress, which requires apresident to secure Congressionalapproval before sending U.S. soldiersto war, and which limits a president’sexecutive privilege when it conflictswith Congress’s duty to know andoversee.

Cheney views these actions toprotect the historic balance of federalpowers as a pure andsimple erosion ofexecutivepower. He hasdedicated hisprofessionallife sincethen

towards moving the structure of U.S.government from the system framed bythe Founders to a business model whereso-called efficiency is a priority and theCEO is boss, period. During his time inCongress, Cheney defended Reagan andhis administration against the Iran-Contra Committee’s charges of “se-crecy, deception and disdain for law.”

As Vice President, Dick Cheney hasexpressed a similar pattern of secrecy,deception and disdain for law.

Cheney has famously stonewalledCongress and the GAO for more than ayear on demands for informationregarding the development of the BushAdministration’s energy policy. Cheneyis not really protecting identities here,since the policy itself reflects theindustry bias of the group that put theplan together. Cheney clearly came intooffice ready to draw the line of execu-tive privilege in the sand early. Andoften.

Cheney’s record of deception goesback to 1990, when he was Secretaryof Defense under Bush senior. It isalleged that the Pentagon doctored eventhen evidence to justify an invasion ofIraq, specifically U.S. photos (classifiedto this day) of an Iraqi troop buildup onthe shared border that seemed to posean eminent threat to Saudi Arabia.Commercial Soviet satellite photos takenat the same time show empty desert.

In justification of the current Bushwar in Iraq, Cheney claimed publiclythat Saddam Hussein was trying to buyuranium in Niger, at least seven monthsafter retired Ambassador Joseph Wilsonreported to the CIA and the StateDepartment that the deal was a fake andthe information “unequivocally wrong.”After the war was in progress, Cheneyclaimed on “Meet the Press” in Septem-ber 2003 that the administration hadevidence of links between al-Qaida and

Saddam Hussein, such a whopper that

Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice all wereforced to publicly repudiate that claim.

After Cheney stated publicly that hehad no financial interest in defensecontractor Halliburton “of any kind andhaven’t now for over three years,”public documents surfaced showingthat Cheney continues to receive a six-figure “deferred salary” through 2006and holds options on hundreds ofthousands of shares of Halliburtonstock.

Cheney continues to insist that hisoffice is above any influence onprocurement contracts, but in late May2004, TIME Magazine obtained adamning internal Pentagon email fromMarch 2003, dated less than two weeksbefore the Night of Shock and Awe,which says that “action” on a hugecontract to “RIO” (that is, Restore IraqiOil) had been coordinated throughCheney’s office.

Cheney’s disdain for law may evenhave led his staff to out a CIA operative,Valerie Plame, wife of Joseph Wilsonwho discredited the Niger uraniumstory, after Wilson published an opinionpiece in the Washington Post critical ofthe Bush Administration’s misrepresen-tation of facts. Plame’s cover wasbroken; her career is at an end. Reveal-ing the identity of a U.S. intelligenceagent is a federal crime.

The Articles of Impeachment in theU.S. Constitution provide for removinga President or Vice President (or othercivil officer) who has acted or threat-ened to take action that seriouslythreatens the Constitution, the U.S.system of government or the rule oflaw, or who has committed othercrimes so serious that the Presidencycould be injured.

The Constitution itself names“Treason, Bribery [and] other highCrimes and Misdemeanors” as cause

for the removal of a Vice Presidentfrom office. Is outing a valuable CIAagent treason? Is it treason topromote false evidence to exaggeratethe threat posed by a foreign powerin order to lead your country intowar? If you stand to make enormousamounts of money from the pros-ecution of such a war, is that briberyin fact or just in spirit?

I can’t say whether the Consti-tution came to us from God orsimply reflects the best that humanscan be. But please understand thatwhat holds together this amazing,beautiful, cock-eyed, flawed,terrible-except-compared-to-every-other-system, richest and mostpowerful ever on Earth country is anIdea. And the vessel that containsthat Idea is the Constitution.

Impeachment is the power toprotect the Constitution and thepeople from despots, lawless or alaw unto themselves. The top tenreasons to impeach Vice PresidentCheney? Trust me, we don’t knowthe half. Cheney is a real crook—notan embarrassed husband caughtstraying with a White House intern.

But it’s worse than that.

I agree with John Dean thatDick Cheney wants to permanentlyalter the balance of federal power.The Vice President is waging war onthe Constitution. Think it can’thappen here? Leave Cheney un-checked, and we will see martial lawin the U.S. within the decade. Youread it here first.

The Vice President, far morethan punks like bin Laden orHussein, is a grave, credible threat,both immediately and down the road.For this reason, the House ofRepresentatives should begin at onceto impeach.