For some people, just asking a critical question smacks of being unpatriotic. Well, can't help that. So, best we could do is create a public space where young people can ask any question they want without fear of being harangued or judged. While PWH is inviting diverse groups (religious, political, academic, etc.) to have free information tables, the main speeches are meant to confront a thorny and controversial issue of today.

PWH's approach to the speakers is to develop their presentation as if a young draft age person had walked up to them and said, e.g., "Professor Noble, I live on Starship Earth. Mine is the digital age. I live in a multi-cultural word. I've real and virtual identities. Given all this, is America still God's chosen nation?" And the professor is to provide an historical framework showing how America positioned itself vis a vis other world powers from Colonial times to Starship Earth time. Likewise, to their spiritual elders, "I really think the draft will be re-instated. So let me ask, if I'm called up, how does God want me to serve the State? What does my faith tradition state? See, I get different and contradictory answers. Help me out." So, we came up with the notion of the Human Village.

Do you think Congress will pass the Universal National Service Act of 2006? Look at the Selective Service website www.sss.gov  They have over 90% of names of all 18-25 years old in their virtual database. 11000 volunteers trained in an 8 hour program. Annual retraining. Mark Twain said that if you describe a gun setting over the fireplace that you had to fire it by the end of the story.

Peace and War in the Heartland www.pwh-mn.org is a project inspired by the events surrounding the draft board raiding trials of a 1970s group of anti-war activists, dubbed the "Minnesota 8" by the press. More info at www.minnesota8.net

At trial, the 8 forwarded a Defense of Necessity. One argued from the Roman Catholic moral tradition and even had the "Documents of Vatican Council II" accepted as evidence. The 8 claimed a Higher Allegiance than that given to the State. As you will discover, they considered draft raids as both practical - in that the draft was a paper based system and if a potential draftee's 1-A files was destroyed he disappeared from the system. He could re-register ... and symbolic - registering for the draft is the only act every American male must do. There are no exceptions to registering - five years and/or a $250,000.00 penalty await non-registrants. There are deferments, but they come after Registration. The draft card and especially the 1-A draft file is symbolic of the power that the State has over every male in America.

Consider this: what do you consider a symbol of power? The American flag? The Bible? The Koran? The bread of Holy Communion? Whatever. If you took one of these symbols and stood on a streetcorner and destroyed them, defiled them, what would happen? Very little. Oh, a passerby might curse you. Someone try to punch you - but they risk being arrested. In point of fact, not much would happen.

Stand there and take out the wallet size draft card. Raise it high. Burn it. What happens? Agents pop out from behind bushes. At times helicopters swoop down. Cops rush you. You're thrown to the ground, kneed in the back, arms wrench backwards, wrist cuffed, and you're escorted off to a waiting paddy-wagon. Jail. Then facing five years in prison for destroying government property. Hmmm. A powerful symbol.

Consider: why don't they issue draft cards, anymore? And why, in 41 states at present, is your Driver's License actually your symbolic draft card? Answer: find out about the SSS and its "Virtual Draft." See, www.pwh-mn.org and "Lottery."

At present, 2007, if you're 18-25, you're in the "virtual draft." See www.sss.gov for the Selective Service System. You're in an offline database just a mouse-click away from going online and being drafted. More, without your present compliance with the SSS, the government could not and would not be planning future wars. Iran, anyone?

PWH hosts events that include an enactment of The Lottery, the way you can experience what it will feel like to be drafted. You get your Lottery number, e.g., "Number 45, birthdate August 6th," means you're 45th in line. Pack your bags, etc. Then you get a "What happened to you in the war" true story written by veterans. Just so you can begin to feel the impact of the draft and the war on your life.

PWH wants draft age men and women to begin thinking about and feeling how they would respond to being drafted before it falls upon them like a ton of bricks. So, at various events, the thorny and controversial issues around war-making and peace-making are discussed. Democracy only works if its citizens are informed, and act based upon their heartfelt beliefs.

Various PWH event participants will blog here. Events kick off in Minnesota on January 15, 2008 with a poetry reading. Then February is filling up with many other campus events. The play, "Peace Crimes: the Minnesota 8 vs. the war" starts February 21, 2008.

As one of the "Minnesota 8," let me say that I was like most of you. A young guy from a middle-class East Coast Roman Catholic Republican family who never went to a protest while in college. I did not resist the draft! Actually, I served my two years of Alternative Service as a Conscientious Objector. But then, I raided draft boards? And served 14 months on a five year sentence in federal prison. How did all this happen? Why? What were the influences on my moral decisions? Read the websites. Come to the play.

Let me just say that all heartfelt moral commitments are grounded in personal relationships. (You don't go to war to protect "America," rather, you do so for your family and loved ones.) I leave you with two quotes. One from a Catholic pope whose life impacted mine. The other from a Vietnam veteran who told me his story and then asked, "Frank, what are you going to do to stop this war?"

"Since the right to command is required by the moral order and has its source in God, it follows that, if civil authorities legislate for or allow anything that is contrary to the will of God, neither the laws made nor the authorizations granted can be binding on the consciences of the citizens, since we must obey God rather than men. Otherwise authority breaks down completely and results in shameful abuse." Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), Part II, par.51

"In dealing with myself, coming back and thinking I was right. And thinking that the things I had done were right because it was what I had been taught in boot camp, and then viewing it from the other side, instead of a gook, it was a human being. Instead of a hootch, it was a home. That really socked it to my head. It really blew my mind. Because I had never thought of a hootch being a home, it was an old grass hootch. And they were peasants, they weren't people." Gordy Nielsen, Vietnam Veteran, testifying at the trial of the Minnesota 8.