Marquette Center Urges Anti-Gun Protest

From the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking:

March For Our Lives - Milwaukee
Saturday, March 24 | 10 am | Milwaukee County Courthouse (901 N. 9th St.)
Optional: Meet with other MU marchers at 9:30 am outside the Brew in the lower level of the AMU

This Saturday, March 24, the kids and families of March For Our Lives will take to the streets around the world to demand that their lives and safety become a priority and that we end gun violence and mass shootings in our schools today.

You are welcome to join the March For Our Lives in Milwaukee from the Milwaukee County Courthouse to City Hall. If you want to march as a group with other Marquette people, please meet at 9:30 am outside of the Brew in the lower level of the AMU.

On Thursday and Friday you are welcome to visit the Schroeder Complex, 146, the Hartman Literacy and Learning Center, or the Center for Peacemaking (1616 W. Wells St.) to make a poster to carry in the march. Poster board, markers, and space to make your sign are provided at both locations.

Marquette University Center for Peacemaking

So what is wrong with this? Students have a right to protest, don’t they?

The problem, which is endemic among the activists, is that students are encouraged to march, but they are not encouraged to think.

Any idiot can make a poster demanding that “the violence stop.” Knowing what to do about it is a different matter. It involves learning. It involves hearing both sides (or sometimes several sides) of the debate. It involves knowing some of the complexities. It involves thinking.

But to the activist mentality, none of this is necessary. There are no complexities, like the bothersome Second Amendment, or the fact that when the U.S. had an assault weapons ban it did nothing to reduce gun violence.

It’s enough to believe that only the U.S. has mass shootings, and that only the machinations of the NRA and the cowardice of politicians allows shootings to continue.

Marquette’s Role

The Center for Peacemaking is a generally independent center established with money from a leftist alumni couple, so this isn’t something the central administration did. But the central Marquette administration did something about as bad: encouraging potential applicants for admission to violate school rules and walk out of class in an anti-gun protest.

Universities are not generally in the business of promoting virtue and discouraging vice. Mostly, that has to be done by family, society and the church. But one kind of virtue universities should promote is intellectual virtue.

Encouraging self-righteous but thoughtless political action flatly contradicts this.

Mean Spirited Christmas Greeting from the Marquette Center for Peacemaking

While some of their activities are bland enough, a Christmas e-mail from the Center for Peacemaking reminds us that, at root, they are mean-spirited leftists. Here is part of the text:

After four weeks of Advent awaiting the coming of the Savior, December 25th can leave us a bit puzzled, if not disappointed.

Because we need a savior. Doesn’t take much in the way of spirituality to figure that out. We just need to look at the “signs of the times.” With a government pledged to “perpetual war,” and more and more wealth (as the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations constantly remind us) taken from the needs of the many to benefit the very few (and yes, those two facts are related), with ongoing environmental degradation, and with over 17 million US households listed as “food insecure,” our world, our country needs some serious saving.

But what do we get on Christmas day? Not a team of expert economists, not a super committee of legislators, not a war council or a national security organization, but a baby – an infant (root meaning: “can’t talk”), someone insecure, vulnerable and needing assistance, not offering it. What was God THINKING?

So there is no “peace on earth, good will toward men.” Rather, there is class warfare and hatred of the military.

If the people associated with the Center for Peacemaking were morally serious, they might actually know that government in the U.S. spends over two trillion dollars per year to pay social welfare benefits.

If they were morally serious they would actually question why “over 17 million US households listed as ‘food insecure’” notwithstanding the fact that government spends 54 billion dollars per year on the food stamp program.

Morally serious people actually care about the details of public policy. Those who prance and preen and tout their concern for the poor in blissful ignorance of how public policy works are not morally serious. They are simply engaged in a kind of moral masturbation.

That Gaza Flotilla

From Slate, an informative article about who these folks are, and what they are really up to.

Of course, Marquette’s Center for Peacemaking is lobbying for these folks.

Calling flotilla people part of a “peace movement” is as much of a sham as saying organizations that have “peace” in their name actually believe in peace.

What they believe in is surrender for America and America’s allies, and war waged by America’s enemies.

Anti-Israel, Pro-Terrorist Lobbying From the Marquette Center for Peacemaking

We are on the email list of the Marquette Center for Peacemaking, a leftist activist program at Marquette. We got an e-mail today from that organization that contained this message:

Senator Wants US-Israeli Op Against Flotilla

June 29, 2011
Military.com | by Bryant Jordanhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., says the United States should “make available all necessary special operations and naval support to the Israeli Navy to effectively disable flotilla vessels before they can pose a threat to Israeli coastal security or put Israeli lives at risk.”

[Read More]

1.) Please call Senator Kirk’s office and encourage him to rethink his position regarding using US Navy forces to stop the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. Instead, ask him to protest the flotilla so they can deliver aid and goodwill to the people of Gaza.

Contact Senator Kirk

2.) Midwest activists please call and e-mail the Greek Consulate in Chicago at (312) 335-3915 and tell them (in a civil manner): LET THE BOATS IN THE FREEDOM FLOTILLA SAIL! If you do not live in the Midwest you can find the nearest Greek Consulate by doing a search on Google.

You may also send them an e-mail using this link

Of course, the purpose of the “flotilla” is to aid the terroist regime of Hamas, which controls Gaza.

Which shows something (not that this hasn’t been obvious for ages) about “peace” as a political slogan.

The people who cry “peace” really mean that the side they don’t like should quit fighting and surrender. During the Cold War, they wanted America to disarm, but showed only slight and pro-forma disapproval of Soviet arms buildups.

And here, “peace” is interpreted as support for Hamas. For these folks, peace does not mean that Hamas should stop lobbing rockets into Israel. To them, it has never meant that Palestinians should stop terrorist acts against Israel.

They aren’t about peace at all, but about leftist politics, and their use of the word “peace” is absurdly hypocritical.

Simon Harak: Leftist Marquette Faculty “Peace” Activist Against Military Robots

Simon Harak is a hard left “peace activist” ensconced in Marquette’s Center for Peacemaking.

In fact, his notion of “peace” is that America should never fight anybody. He has little bad to say about America’s enemies, and has even defended Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

He is much more a leftist than a peace activist.

At any rate, Harak is recently been vocal in opposing the U.S. military’s use of robots in combat.

Some argue that military robotics will also increase the threat of terrorism. “If people know that they are going to be killed by these robots,” argues Fr. G. Simon Harak, director of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking, “then why would they not therefore retaliate against civilian centers in the United States? It only makes military sense that they’ll find where we are vulnerable.”

Of course, they have been trying to do this for a couple of decades now, and without much success since the Bush Administration’s clamp down on terrorism in the wake of 9/11.

More than anything else, the prospect of U.S. troops dying on some far-off battlefield limits public support for military force. Therefore, if the number of soldiers coming home in body bags can be significantly reduced, then the public will probably pay even less attention to foreign policy and future wars. This will in turn make it easier for politicians to start wars.

For instance, John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, recently wrote in the Washington Post that robots would allow the United States to intervene militarily in Darfur or other hot spots where politicians are currently reluctant to send flesh-and-blood soldiers.

Another hard-left periodical, Mother Jones also quotes Harak.

The Rev. G. Simon Harak, an ethicist and the director of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking, says, “Effectively, what these remote control robots are doing is removing people farther and farther from the consequences of their actions.”

Translation: if America goes to war, fewer Americans will be killed. For Harak, this is a bad thing.

Moreover, the similarity that the robots have to the life-like video games that young people grow up playing will blur reality further.

“If guys in the field already have difficulties distinguishing between civilians and combatants,” Harak asks, “what about when they are looking through a video screen?”

It is not only possible but likely that a surge of armed robots would lead to an increase in the number of civilian casualties, not a decrease.

The supposed conversation-ender that armed robots will save U.S. lives isn’t nearly as clear as it is often presented, either. “If you take a narrow view, fewer soldiers would die,” Harak says, “but that would be only on the battlefield.”

As happens in every war, however, those facing new technology will adapt to them.

“If those people being attacked feel helpless to strike at the robots themselves, they will try to strike at their command centers,” Harak says, “which might well be back in the United States or among civilian centers. That would then displace the battlefield to manufacturing plants and research facilities at universities where such things are being invented or assembled… The whole notion that we can be invulnerable is just a delusion.”

Harak somehow believes that terrorists, who have been trying to strike the American homeland, and dearly want to strike the Amercan homeland, would somehow gain the capability of doing so if the U.S. military uses robots.

Of course, under Obama, they may very well gain that capability. But if so, they will use it, robots or no robots.

Harak, it seems, is so anti-American that he actually wants any American intervention to create more American casualties. “Peace” is no part of his agenda. Hating America is.

A “Peace” Offering

The rather controversial Marquette Center for Peacemaking is holding an event, announced in a university e-mail.

Marquette’s Center for Peacemaking will hold an open house Tuesday, Jan. 15, from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., in the Academic Support Building, room 201.

Director G. Simon Harak, S.J., and Associate Director Deidre Hughes will be delighted by the presence of all who attend, but visitors are also invited to bring a “peace offering” — anything they think will help promote peacemaking. Chocolate, juice, soda, coffee, hot chocolate, books, DVDs, videos, CDs, framed posters, and contacts with area peace and justice groups are particularly welcome offerings. They will also be interested in talents and time that attendees would be willing to donate to the center’s peacemaking efforts.

Yes, these folks really seem to believe that hot chocolate can make a contribution to “peace.”

We are sure that the Kurds that Saddam gassed would have felt much better had Milwaukee area leftists been there to serve them juice, soda and coffee.

And we are sure that, if we had a time machine and could go back to the late 1930s, these books, DVDs, videos, CDs and framed posters would have put the fear of God into Hitler.

We suggest that somebody go and take a U.S. Army recruiting poster.

Simon Harak, “Peace” Center Target of Harassment Campaign, Journalistic Bias?

Inflammatory leftist Father Simon Harak, who recently came to Marquette to head a “Center for Peacemaking” has taken his lumps in the Marquette conservative blogosphere.

We reported on his extreme statements. And GOP3 has also chronicled his antics and positions.

But Harak and his supporters have largely ignored the blogosphere.

Not so when Milwaukee Magazine decided to report on the controversy surrounding Harak and the Center for Peacemaking. Harak’s fellow leftists in the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice went ballistic. An entry on their web page informed readers:

The Marquette Center for Peacemaking and its director, Father Simon Harak, are the targets of a harrassment [sic] campaign by two Marquette students who oppose the Center’s peacemaking mission. The students have leafletted [sic] Father Harak’s classes with flyers calling Father Harak “deranged” and urging students to “Drop this class!”

Of course, this “harrassment” [sic] campaign actually amounted to only one student (Brian Collar) exercising his free speech rights.

The web page complained that the article:

. . . did not quote any Marquette students who were not critical of Father Harak. . . . Father Harak provided us with these responses, from attendees at various Center events.

In reality, the “responses” are mostly not from students but from community members, and are not about Harak’s classes but rather about a workshop he conducted. Attendees at such workshops are a highly self-selected bunch who agree with the organizer’s viewpoint.

Their special ire was directed at a graphic that accompanied the story. It was an image of Harak with the crosshairs of a telescopic sight centered on his forehead. How did Harak respond?

In response to the photo, Father Harak says, “I’ve tried, but I just can’t take it lightly, because violence is not academic or symbolic to me (or ‘clever’ as I believe they were trying to be here). Even if I were to just think about Milwaukee, the problem of violence (and gun violence) here is serious enough not to be made light of like this. If I look at where they put the bullseye’ of this target, and if I were to imagine someone holding a gun, what would this image ‘invite?’” Father Harak’s concern is motivated by the fact that, since 9/11, Arab-Americans like Father Harak have been the targets of racially-motivated violence.

In reality, the photo seemed to show a pro-Harak bias, implying that those of us who have been critical of the leftist cleric want to assassinate him or something.

In reality, all we have done is criticize him.

But Harak can’t seem to resist playing the victim card and invoking violence against Arab-Americans. In fact, such violence has been extremely rare, and nobody who wrote about Harak (and this includes both Marquette bloggers and Milwaukee Magazine) knew he was Arab-American.

What was in the Milwaukee Magazine article that the Wisconsin Network did not report? The fact that blogger Daniel Suhr discovered that the foundation that funded the Center for Peacemaking has a portfolio laced with stocks of defense contractors -- the people Harak calls the “Merchants of Death.”

When we asked for a response from Harak sponsor and cohort Michael Duffy (who is also associated with the Center), Duffy appeared to be grateful for the information and promised to look into the issue.

The Wisconsin Network web page urged readers to bombard Milwaukee Magazine with e-mails complaining about the article. Apparently they did so, since a more recent posting says that “Many of you have responded to the Milwaukee Magazine article and photo of Father Simon Harak, director of Marquette University’s Center for Peacemaking Studies, and to our report on the controversy . . . .”

Of course, the local “peace” movement has a right to bombard Milwaukee Magazine with e-mails if they want to. But some responses are simply lame. The graphic they objected to was a bit “edgy” but in no way advocated or encouraged violence.

And the local leftists don’t seem to want to discuss other important issues such as the fact that the Center for Peacemaking is funded with money obtained from the “Merchants of Death” (Harak’s term) or the fact that Harak said that Saddam Hussein was justified in invading Kuwait in 1991.

Thus we find a typical tactic. Harak and his supporters are attacking the messenger to avoid dealing with serious questions about their “peacemaking” project.

Marquette “Peace” Center Profiting From “Merchants of Death:” A Reply

We recently linked to and commented on a post by Daniel Suhr on GOP3.COM.

Suhr noted that the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking, a leftist anti-defense operation, is being funded by a foundation with substantial investments in firms that do defense contracting.

In other words, investments in firms that Simon Harak, Director of the Center, calls “war profiteers.”

We sent a copy of Suhr’s post to Michael Duffy, long-time Marquette faculty member and cohort of Harak, and asked for comment. He responds as follows:

The Members of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking are impressed with the efforts that went into researching this opinion piece.

For all its research, however, the article overlooks the distinctions between having a contract with the Department of Defense, manufacturing weapons, and war profiteering.

First, almost any company can have a contract with the Department of Defense – from selling gasoline to providing health care for veterans. One nonviolent strategy for keeping a moral check on such corporations is called “stockholder engagement.” Stockholders can work from the “inside,” making sure that companies who contract with the Department of Defense conduct their practices ethically, and “whistle blowing” if they “cross the line.” Another is to protest by divesting one’s portfolio of investment in such companies.

Second, the Rynnes had instructed their financial counselors not to invest money in arms manufacturers or in tobacco companies. (In that regard, it is interesting to note that after more than twenty years of vigorous and creative nonviolent protest – including stockholder engagement – Honeywell “spun off” its weapons manufacturing subsidiary in 1990.)

Finally, war profiteering is defined as taking advantage of war to make excessive profits. Historically, Americans have shown resistance to that morally repugnant practice. It is specifically the practice of war profiteering that Fr. Harak has consistently critiqued as well. We hope that the GOP3 also share this opposition.

In the latter two areas, we are most grateful for the work of the authors of this piece, and request that they continue and sharpen their research. If the GOP3 discovers that the financial counselors of the Rynne’s Foundation have invested in corporations that manufacture weapons, we want to be informed so that we can immediately undertake an appropriate nonviolent response. Similarly, we also expect that the GOP3 will alert the Center immediately if their research uncovers solid proof of unethical practices or war profiteering in the companies the Rynne Foundation has stock in. Again, we will then immediately undertake the appropriate nonviolent action to redress the wrongdoing.

We hope that we can also find other ways to work together for justice and peace.

We’ll refrain from commenting on this right now, and let readers draw their own conclusions.

Fr. Simon Harak: Anti-War Leftist Takes Money From War Profiteers

Simon Harak, Lecturer in Theology at Marquette, is a leftist who came to Marquette last year to head a “Center for Peacemaking.”

Harak’s extreme political views have been exposed by GOP3.COM, as well as right here on the Marquette Warrior.

Harak specializes in rhetoric about the evils of “War Profiteers” and his motto appears to be “Stop the Merchants of Death.”

But in a splendid piece of investigative reporting, Daniel Suhr of GOP3.COM has discovered that Harak appears to be a beneficiary of the Merchants of Death.

Specifically, the Sally and Terry Rynne Foundation, which is funding the Center for Peacemaking, has large investments in defense contractors. As Suhr points out:

Honeywell is listed as one of the fifteen largest defense contractors in the nation, doing $4.2 billion in US defense contractors in 2004. 3M does a fair amount of defense contracting as well. Shell was once a top 50 defense contractor. Microsoft, not surprisingly, does some defense business, as does Chevron. Exxon Mobil and BP Amaco are top 50 defense contractors. Bell South and Wells Fargo are on the Army Pays list, which the “Stop the Merchants of Death” campaign identified as a way for non-military contractor corporations to support war and violence.

Suhr could have added Du Pont, historically one of the great “Merchants of Death” but fallen to 87th place in a 2001 listing.

Suhr draws the logical conclusion from all this.

Given that Fr. Harak has defined the last several years of his life in opposition to the corporations that profit on war, I think the only way he can maintain any measure of integrity and intellectual consistency is to refuse the gift from the Rynne Foundation. If he allows Marquette to keep the gift, he would, arguably, be making Marquette complicit in this nasty business of war profiteering.

It seems that Harak and his cohort Michael Duffey are in a tough spot. It’s easy to be self-righteous if you are criticizing the way other people get their money.

Just how serious are they in their claims that profits from defense contractors are immoral?