ABOUT PIGSTOCK, WI On July 18th, 2009, the 7th Annual Pigstock: A Gathering for Peace will take place at Windbeam Farm in Hager City WI. Pigstock is a mixture of music, speakers, and community for peace in an idylic location near the Mississippi, just one hour's drive from the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Pigstock is sponsored by Veterans for Peace, Chapter 115 and has a peace-themed agenda. This year we welcome journalists Chris Hedges and Helen Benedict as speakers. See here for more information about our speakers and panels. And we welcome Junkyard Empire, Pocket of Resistance and a variety of local musicians to our campfire stage to rock us into the wee hours. See here for more information about our musical program. Facebook users: Please RSVP on our 7th Annual Pigstock 2009 Facebook Event page! Bill Habedank remembers Pigstock 2008 This past summer has been a very busy one for Chapter 115 in Red Wing, MN.   We again hosted the sixth annual Pigstock event on July 12th  at VFP member Paul ( and Trudi) Schaefer's Windbeam Farm in Hager City, WI which is just across the Mississippi River from Red Wing, MN. Over seventy people attended the event and many expressed their appreciation of Chapter 115 again hosting this outstanding event. The program began with area peace organizations reporting on recent and upcoming events they had been working on.  Professor David M. Green from Hofstra University, NY, NY then spoke on the mistakes made leading up to the Iraq War and he discussed a seven point plan on how we can work to end this war. After lunch a panel of Iraq Veterans Against the War led by Wes Davies and moderated by Michael and Cynthia Orange gave a terrific discussion of their experiences in Iraq.  It was like a small version of the earlier Winter Soldier event.  People were very moved by the discussion and of the advice of what we can do to help our returning veterans. Following that, Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt Col. USAF, retired, gave her presentation Will the Anitwar Movement Strangle the State?   Her presentation was very interesting and was different than many of the things we had heard before as she took a very Libertarian approach to the Iraq War problem.  You can view the transcript of her presentation at www. LewRockwell.com. Following that was our famous pigroast and discussions around a large campfire and some more lively discussions took place in a much more informal atmosphere. Chapter 115 then jumped into intense preparations for the Veterans Silent March which was to take place on August 31st just prior to the Republican National Convention.   A great deal of time was spent promoting this even and working on logistics and in making the commerative cardboard tombstones.  We also had members volunteer for the VFP National  convention in Bloomington, MN.  Finally we just recently participated in the annual Red Wing, MN Diversity Festival.  We promoted Veterans for Peace by passing out literature and having people learn about the costs of war by playing our "Cost of War Quiz Game".  The game was very popular and many people learned things about the Iraq War that they did not know before.  Yes, a very busy summer but one we look back on with great memories. Who spoke at Pigstock 2007? On July 14, 2007, the 5th Annual Pigstock took place. Speakers included: Elizabeth de la Vega: former Federal Prosecutor, including a stint as Assistant U.S. Attorney in Minneapolis; has written articles published in The Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Salon and Mother Jones; author of United States vs. George Bush, et al, a book which presents in hypothetical form the background and legal case for a grand jury indictment of the Bush Administration on the criminal charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Copies will be on sale at our retreat. Ms. De la Vega will speak on The Case for Impeachment. Steven Miles, MD: Professor of Medicine and Bioethics, U. of MN; Miles' new book, Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and the War on Terror, examines the practice of military medicine in "War On Terror" prisons. Using 60,000 pages of declassified documents, Miles shows how investigations of abuses have been designed to protect the generals in charge. Copies will be on sale at our retreat. The title of Dr. Miles' talk is: Command Responsibility for the Abuses at Abu Ghraib. Coleen Rowley: former FBI Agent, celebrated as the whistleblower who exposed the failure of the FBI to properly address information about the 9/11 plots, testified regarding her concerns before the U.S. Senate, gave information to the Dept. of Justice and the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry which helped lead to the 9/11 Commission; one of the original protesters of the Bush Administration with Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, Texas; recent Democratic candidate for Congress in the MN 2nd District, losing to incumbent John Kline. Ms. Rowley will speak on Truth, the First Casualty in the "War On Terror". Ann Wright: retired Colonel, U.S. Army and State Dept. Diplomat, one of three Diplomatic Corps officials to resign in direct protest of U.S. invasion of Iraq. Since her resignation, she has become a full-time anti-war activist, frequently cited, arrested, and convicted for her outspoken actions. Ann has been an active participant in Veterans for Peace and with the Iraq Veterans Against the War, who will join her in this presentation. She was one of the five judges in the January, 2006, International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration. The title of Ms. Wright's speech will be, The Role of Dissent in a Modern Democracy.