By Joe Winter
Catholic Herald correspondent
Concerns about war prompt music and art fest in Luck
LUCK --What started as a 15th anniversary party for the Anathoth Community Farm near Luck turned into a peace music and art festival that attracted about 800 people.
The festival, prompted by concern over some policies of the Bush administration, was called "War is Over If You Want It: 15 Years of Nonviolence, Sustainability and Community."
"This became our version of an anti-war Woodstock," said Mike Miles, 49, an internationally known peace activist who lives on the farm with his wife, Barb Kass, and two children.
The event, Sept. 27-29, featured 15 bands, including a swing band, made up of mostly high school students, and the Midwest's only Arabic dance band. On Saturday the performers fought through cold and rainstorms to perform one-hour sets. The headliner was a popular Twin Cities rock band Wookie Foot, and the event was promoted at its early September gigs in some of the top clubs in the Cities.
Friday's events included an art show, bonfire, open microphone jam, story-telling, poetry, children's games, music and a drum circle.
On Sunday there was an open house for the farm, which was inspired by social justice activist Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement, and time for strategizing and organizing for peace.
Many patrons covered themselves in large blankets as the rain began in the afternoon, listening to bands such as Floydian Slip from Ashland play on a stage the size and height of a house. It had speakers stacked two decks high -- taller than the band members -- and four sets of colored lights.
Draped over the seven-foot-high front of the stage were banners with a giant peace sign, and criticisms of the Star Wars missile defense system and Project ELF. A sign on the end promoted Peace, Earth, Alternatives, Creativity and Environment -- with the capitalized first letters spelling out the word PEACE.
Various patrons expressed viewpoints against going to war with Iraq, many of them citing the effects on children, both those in Iraq and their own.
The Veterans For Peace organization distributed literature and sold "Wage Peace" T-shirts at a festival booth.
The festival, the first ever held at the farm, was actively promoted, especially to university and high school students, artists and activists. However, people from all walks of life got behind the effort, from business people to rock fans, Miles said. He promised no speeches, just stories of peace.
"This is a mean season. There's a hard reign coming down on the country," Miles said in explaining the reason for the festival. "Bitter winds of war are blowing out of Washington. The icy hand of repression is crushing dissent. Fear is freezing inquiry. Everywhere there is the thick fog of hateful propaganda and the blinding snow of false patriotism."
Camping and staging for the concert was located on 25-plus acres of open land surrounded by woods and wetlands. Miles sounded a bit exasperated when sending e-mails to supporters in the days before the large-scale concert, dealing with everything from sound systems and stages, to mowing 30 acres of grass to accommodate music lovers and provide parking.
"Our hope is that no one is beyond being approached to do the right thing for the common good" Miles said. "Our talents are a gift to be shared. Now, more than ever before, we are all in this together."
Proceeds from the concert will go toward constructing an educational building on the farm.
The farm is a self-sustaining, non-violent community built from the ground up on 57 acres of pristine Wisconsin farmland and woodland, utilizing recycled materials and basic solar technologies.
For information, contact the farm at: 740 Round Lake Rd., Luck, WI 54853; phone 715 472-8721, or e-mail anathoth@lakeland.ws.
© Superior Catholic Herald, 2002