From May 21 to 23, thousands of Wisconsinites attended LZ (“Landing Zone”) Lambeau. Flyers printed in advance urged readers to “Be part of Wisconsin’s official Thank You event at Lambeau Field, honoring our Vietnam veterans for their service and sacrifice.”

Vietnam Army vet Will Williams originally supported the event. He told WLUK television that he turned against it when "The idea of welcoming home Vietnam veterans morphed into a promotion of militarism and support for the current wars and recruitment of young people."

Veterans for Peace echoed Williams. Spokesperson and Army vet Leslie “Buzz” Davis said that attendees would get an incomplete picture of the war: "They won't be presented with the lying politicians, they won't be presented with the power of the military industrial complex."

I believe LZ Lambeau organizers, including Wisconsin Public Television and the Wisconsin Historical Society, sincerely wished only to honor Vietnam vets. WPT’s documentary “Wisconsin Vietnam War Stories” is powerful and deserves a wide audience. Unfortunately and despite good intentions, LZ Lambeau reinforced what has become a disturbing mainstream consensus on the treatment of soldiers in our society. I’ll call it the “Good Soldier Consensus.”

According to the Good Soldier Consensus, the military ought to be able to recruit workers just like any other employer. Especially in de-industrialized and economically depressed parts of the country, military service becomes a way of obtaining education and job training.

Upon signing the dotted line, the new soldier agrees to follow orders. In return, the Good Soldier Consensus holds that the soldier is owed: proper training, modern equipment, nondiscrimination in housing and employment, access to high quality medical facilities and full coverage of treatment, education benefits, and other resources to maximize the chances of survival in war while easing the transition from battlefield back to home.

Virtually all establishment politicians and press adhere to some version of the Good Soldier Consensus. Indeed, establishment propaganda and the promise of good benefits attract thousands of young people to military careers.

The problem with the Good Soldier Consensus, other than the fact that the politicians can’t even guarantee the benefits promised, is that it allows political hacks in the White House and Congress and their corporate press cheerleaders to portray themselves as “pro-soldier.” But can political hacks (many of whom did whatever they could to avoid military service) really be “pro-soldier” if they support the continuance of illegal, immoral, never ending wars? Can press hacks be “pro-soldier” if they continue to minimize or censor the heroic stories of soldiers who refuse to follow orders that their conscience tells them are illegal?

Those who believe it naïve or dangerous to expect soldiers to question their orders don’t understand the lessons of World War II. After the war, the Nazis put on trial at Nuremberg for war crimes repeatedly justified their horrific treatment of civilians on the grounds that they were “just following orders.” In response, the Nuremberg tribunal released a list of principles to guide future conflicts.  Principles IV states "The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”

What happens to a young American who tries to act in accordance to the Nuremberg Principles? The case of Army Lieutenant Ehren Watada is instructive. Watada invoked the Nuremberg Principles in refusing to deploy to Iraq on the grounds of the war’s illegality and immorality. Though the U.S. government eventually dropped its case against him, Military Judge John Head held that the issue of the legality of war is a “nonjustifiable political question.” In other words, American soldiers who act on conscience will not be able to count on the judiciary to challenge abuses of power emanating from the executive and/or legislative branches.

What about the case of Pvt. Travis Bishop? Amnesty International labeled him a “prisoner of conscience” after he was jailed for refusing to fight in Afghanistan. After joining the military, Bishop reflected on his Baptist upbringing and came to the conclusion that Jesus’ message is one of pacifism. He could not fight in Afghanistan because “I had to get right with God in case I died or in case I had to kill someone.” His lawyer wants the courts to order the military to make it mandatory for soldiers to be briefed about conscientious objector status in the same way they are briefed about other benefits.

The website Courage To Resist (couragetoresist.org) includes additional, detailed stories about modern soldiers who refuse to fight unjust wars. Another great resource is the award winning film The Good Soldier (thegoodsoldier.com/).

As for establishment media, we get more of the same: on the front page of the June 14 New York Times, the paper announced the “recent” discovery of a trillion dollars worth of minerals in Afghanistan; that nation could become the “Saudi Arabia of Lithium.” The subtext was that struggle over these materials will provide a pretext for the U.S. to stay in that country for another generation.

Political and press hacks will not end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, but soldiers of conscience and active citizens might. That’s what got us out of Vietnam.

Tony Palmeri ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) is a professor of communication studies at UW Oshkosh and holds a seat on the Oshkosh Common Council.

Stevens’ uneven legacy

Disgust with the Supreme Court’s rightist RATS (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia) often leads leftish legal pundits to exaggerate the accomplishments of the Court’s so-called liberal bloc.

Nowhere is this tendency clearer than in the reactions to Justice John Paul Stevens’ retirement announcement. Senator Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) comments were typical:  ''Justice Stevens' commitment to expanding freedom, safeguarding our rights and liberties, and understanding the challenges faced by ordinary Americans will be his legal legacy. He has had no judicial agenda other than fidelity to the law and the Constitution."

Appointed by President Ford in 1975, Stevens labeled himself a “centrist” and early in his term authored conservative opinions on affirmative action, the death penalty and other hot button issues. His views on the death penalty and coercive state power in general evolved over time, so that by the 1990s media depictions almost unanimously recognized him as the Court’s liberal leader. Indeed, Stevens deserves kudos for being a voice of reason against Bush-era executive branch excesses in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006).

As regards freedom of speech and the First Amendment, Stevens’ legacy is mixed. I believe his passionate and superbly argued dissenting opinion in the recent Citizens United v. FEC case will in future years have an impact not typical of minority opinions. In that case, the RATS were joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy in outlawing virtually all restrictions on corporate involvement in elections. Wrote Stevens: “The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.”

Even more powerfully, Stevens’ dissent featured a rare example of a judge questioning the “personhood” of corporations:

“The fact that corporations are different from human beings might seem to need no elaboration, except that the majority opinion almost completely elides it . . .  It might also be added that corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their ‘personhood’ often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.”

Should the Supreme Court ever break free of its dominant RATS/moderates coalition, Stevens’ cogent understanding of the nature of corporations might serve as a foundation on which to reclaim the Constitution for “We the People.”

Stevens’ First Amendment contribution with the most practical and positive impact is probably his majority opinion in Sony Corporation of America v. University City Studios (1984). In that case, a court majority led by Stevens rebuffed Hollywood’s attempt to outlaw video tape recorders on the grounds that they could be used for copyright infringement. In a victory for consumers, Stevens wrote: "the sale of copying equipment...does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes, or, indeed, is merely capable of substantial noninfringing uses."

Unfortunately Stevens did not apply the same logic in MGM Studios v. Grokster (2005), joining the majority in refusing to apply the Sony standard to file-sharing technology. Holding narrowly that file-sharing technology was legitimate but that Grokster’s “crime” was in encouraging copyright infringement, the Court guaranteed only that entertainment companies would continue to use the courts to stifle what they perceive as illegal downloading. The result? Tens of thousands of lawsuits filed against music fans – everyone from teen students to grandmothers.

Stevens’ two worst First Amendment opinions dealt with flag desecration and “indecent” media, respectively. In Texas v. Johnson (1989), Stevens was one of four justices disagreeing with the majority opinion that flag desecration constituted expression worthy of First Amendment protection. In a dissent that sounded more like Archie Bunker than a great civil libertarian, Stevens insisted that requiring he who desires to burn a flag use an alternative method for expressing his ideas is a “trivial burden” on free expression.

Stevens’ First Amendment opinion with the most negative impact can be found in Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation (1978). The case dealt with the FCC’s  power to prevent broadcasters from airing “indecent” material such as George Carlin’s famous “Filthy Words” monologue. Writing for the majority, Stevens insisted that the pervasiveness of mass media, along with government’s legitimate interest in protecting children, allowed the FCC to restrain the broadcast of “indecent” materials without violating the First Amendment.

Thanks to this decision, we’ve now lived through almost 30 years of the FCC in the role of a boorish Big Brother, eager to level fines at broadcasts featuring penis jokes or anything else deemed “indecent” by bureaucrats and judges. 

Justice Brennan’s dissent aptly smacked down the Court majority, finding in Stevens’ opinion “a depressing inability to appreciate that in our land of cultural pluralism, there are many who think, act, and talk differently from the Members of this Court, and who do not share their fragile sensibilities.”

At his best, John Paul Stevens defended the Constitution against government and corporate attempts to bend and subvert it for their own purposes. Should Elena Kagan be confirmed as his replacement, let’s hope she is Stevens 2.0 instead of a RATS clone or Stevens-lite.

Tony Palmeri ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) is a professor of communication at UW Oshkosh and holds a seat on the Oshkosh Common Council.