onemilwaukee.org

Alright, let me come right out and say it:

Here we go again.

I saw a blurb* from the Journal/Sentinel editorial board on this new initiative's "kickoff," scheduled at Discovery World downtown on a Thursday afternoon at 1pm. My wife then laughingly mentioned seeing the add described in the op/ed blurb, and I figured it was my duty as a citizen to look further into this. Now, before I discuss what I've found on the website, let me run the red flags up the flagpole and let you know who I think is saluting.

1) It is a "gun violence initiative." This means that it is not anti-violence, it is anti-gun. Otherwise it would simply be a "violence initiative." Now, I'm guessing this made it easier to get money and partner up with groups that already have a political foothold.

2) It had a kickoff meeting scheduled on a weekday in the middle of the working day, and in a place where children congregate. This means that they did not want working class individuals here, and they wanted a youth presence for propaganda purposes.

3) The Journal/Sentinel editorial board likes it. Do I actually have to tell you why you should, 90% of the time, not agree with the J/S editorial board?

Now, I'm an open-minded individual, so despite my reservations (and my wife's snickering - but she was right -ed) I decided to browse their website and check it out:

There are several promising ideas here. Youth mentoring, anti-gang programs, employability development, and the like. This organization is also involved in anti teen pregnancy initiatives as well, and they appear to attack several of the social root causes of both teen pregnancy and inner-city violence. But, as expected, then they go astray. They have links to Joyce-funded WAVE, the largest anti-gun group in the state, as well as a few other smaller groups. Now, they don't have any rhetoric themselves, and their statistics on violence seem to not be skewed. This is why I'm guessing they're playing politics more than actively engaging in anti-gun policy making.

You'll have to forgive me if I'm cynical about this, and don't feel like giving them a free pass. Association is association, and they've teamed up with the enemies of my civil liberties. It's always sad to me to see this kind of thing; a group is trying to actually do something the right way, and then find themselves in need of a few shady friends that have ulterior motives.

I will try to look further into this, and find out if they are also directly funded by the Joyce Foundation. Stay tuned...

*Here it is - JSonline doesn't keep these pages up for long, and I'm too lazy to learn how to archive them myself at this point:

Editorial: Casualties together
One bullet can have many victims, which is why a new campaign to reduce gun violence in metro Milwaukee will attempt to engage everyone in the cause.From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: April 9, 2008

It starts with angry words and shoves exchanged on a city sidewalk between two teenage boys. Suddenly, one takes out a handgun and pulls the trigger. The boy who has been shot falls backward to the ground in slow motion and, one by one, other people fall as well - a waitress, an office worker, a woman in her kitchen, a priest."If we call ourselves a community, maybe it's time we realized gun violence isn't someone else's problem," a woman's voice says. "Eventually, we all feel the impact."

The 30-second public service TV announcement is powerful. Given the gravity of the problem, it had to be. It's part of a larger campaign, to be launched at 1 p.m. Thursday at Discovery World, to motivate everyone in the greater Milwaukee area to get behind efforts to reduce gun violence. Then, the goal is to educate the community about local programs that already have shown success in reducing firearm violence and to motivate business, community leaders and others to fight this insidious problem by helping to provide jobs, funding and willingness to mentor kids at risk for being victims or perpetrators of violence.

Serve, a nonprofit advertising firm, helped put the One Milwaukee Gun Violence Campaign together with the Milwaukee County district attorney's office, the mayor's office and the Milwaukee Police Department. Impressive coalition. Compelling message. We hope it sinks in.