The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)

January 03, 2012

Report by Pat Elder -

I’m following up from the NNOMY Steering Committee call last week.  We all agreed to come up with ideas for a campaign for the upcoming year. I started researching marksmanship programs associated with JROTC programs in the schools and came up with a heck of a story about the Obama administration allowing a huge shipment of surplus Army guns from Korea.  That led to the eye raising finances of a non-profit set up by Congress to peddle these guns to kids, which brought me to the poisonous nature of these firing ranges.  Be thinking in terms of ways to marshal the energy of a few dozen people reading this.

According to the conservative Human Events magazine, the U.S. State Department announced Dec. 2 that it will re-consider its stance against allowing World War II M-1 Garand rifles into the United States from South Korea.  “The Department will consider a new request from the Republic of Korea (ROK) to transfer its inventory of approximately 87,000 M-1 Garand rifles into the United States for sale on the commercial market,” a spokesperson at the U. S. Department of State told the magazine on Dec. 2.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=47906

I haven't been able to confirm this anywhere on line.

The Obama administration initially approved the sale of the American-made rifles in 2009, but it reversed course and banned the sale in March 2010.  Now, it is apparently reversing course again, if Human Events can be believed.  South Korea also holds 770,160 M1 Carbines in storage.  (We apparently thought we could get more Koreans to shoot Chinese.) Anyway, the M-1 Garands are likely to be made available to the public through the Civilian Marksmanship Program.

The M-1 Garand

According to the Connecticut Post (April 10, 2000) Between 1996 and 1998, the U.S. Army turned over more than 56,000 rifles - mostly World War II-era M-1 Garands - to the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP).

Federal law authorizes CMP to sell surplus .30 and .22 caliber military rifles, parts, and ammunition. The CMP sells the government-surplus M1 Garands, M1 Carbines, .22 caliber target rifles, and small quantities of other rifles to the public.  More research needs to be completed to track CMP's record since 1998.    Buy your rifle here:  http://www.odcmp.com/Sales/rifles.htm

More on CMP

The CMP also assists with the management of firing ranges in public high schools and puts  weapons into the hands of thousands of American youth.  It was initially established by Congress in 1903.  The CMP Mission is to  “promote firearm safety and marksmanship training with an emphasis on youth.”  Their vision is to involve every American child in  marksmanship programs.  There are 4,806 clubs, high schools, teams and other shooting sports organizations currently affiliated with the CMP. 

The program started in 1903 as a way to encourage individuals to develop marksmanship skill to prepare them in the event they were called to serve during wartime.  In 1996 Congress established a non-profit entity, The Corporation for the Promotion of Rifle Practice and Firearms Safety, Inc.  to carry on the work of the Civilian Marksmanship Program, although the organization is commonly known as the CMP

The Corporation for the Promotion of Rifle Practice and Firearms Safety, Inc has total assets of $150 Million and annual revenue topping $29M in 2009.  Their 990 for 2009 shows $124 M owned in publicly traded securities.  They received $20.8 M in government grants last year.

Their chair, vice chair, and COO each make $300,000 a year and they pay their Board of Directors members $13,000-15,000 yearly. They report $9.9 M in sales less $8M in costs of goods sold, although the goods are from government surplus. (FOIA, anyone?)  They claim $597,000 in bank and credit card fees and $259,000 in miscellaneous expenses.

Their 990 says -- at not cost to the government -- they "develop curriculum for marksmanship instruction in the high schools,  train and certify JROTC coaches and inspect high school range facilities."  It's curious because CMP only spent $513,056 on these important items, especially the inspection of the ranges.  If there are 4,806 clubs affiliated with CMP and they only spent $513,056 on curriculum, training and inspections, the cost for all three per facility is a meager $106.

The Lead Issue

Many high schools have shifted from using .22's to pellet guns.  Pellet guns and .22’s use lead bullets that spew lead particulates, but CMP downplays the health risks associated with its facilities in its publication, "Guide for Lead Management for Air Gun Shooting." http://www.odcmp.com/comm/publications/PDFs/LeadMgtGuide.pdf

The publication asserts, "Target shooting with air rifes and smallbore rifes does not create real health risks for shooting sports participants."  There is substantial scientific evidence to refute this.

The CMP also claims, "When air gun range cleaning is performed according to prescribed range management guidelines, lead residues from air gun firing can be effectively removed from the range floor.  This is probably a correct assertion, but can we safely assume guidelines are being adhered to at all 4,806 CMP clubs?

In air rife shooting, projectiles made of lead are placed in the breech end of the rifle barrel and are propelled towards the target by bursts of compressed gas. Lead management issues arise from handling pellets, the passage of pellets through the barrel and the fragmentation of pellets that occurs when pellets strike backstops.  All of this may occur in the school gym after school hours.

Direction for a new campaign

There have been numerous studies and press reports documenting health risks associated with firing ranges, but little activism to exploit the issue.  We need to come together to brainstorm on ways to do this. Following are some snippets from the press.

The Sheboygan Rifle & Pistol Club, an organization affiliated with the CMP recently moved its shooting range out of a Wisconsin middle school after parents raised concerns about exposing students to lead.  The club had an October, 2011 deadline to either upgrade the range's ventilation system or move out. Parents raised concerns about how the children were being protected from the range's lead residue. http://www.nbc26.com/news/local/130574288.html

In 2002, Youth shooting programs at the Tanana Valley  (AK) Sportsmen's Association, an organization affiliated with the CMP, shooting range have been halted after 10 members of the Lathrop High School rifle team were found to have high concentrations of lead in their blood.

http://www.shootersforum.com/general-discussion/4292-indoor-shooting-ranges-proper-ventilation.html

A Lynnbrook, NY school closed its firing range in the basement due to high levels of airborn lead  http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/12/nyregion/lead-detected-in-rifle-range-brings-closing-of-li-school.html?scp=1&sq=lead%20detected%20in%20rifle%20range&st=cse
>Blood lead screening in Alaska shows dangerous levels associated with school firing ranges.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5423a1.htm

"The U.S. Center for Disease Control recognizes blood lead levels (BLLs) of >25 µg/dL in adults and >10 µg/dL in children aged <6 years as levels of concern; no similar level has been set for older children and adolescents (1,2). During 2002--2004, the Alaska Environmental Public Health Program (EPHP) conducted lead-exposure assessments of school-based indoor shooting teams in the state, after a BLL of 44 µg/dL was reported in a man aged 62 years who coached a high school shooting team in central Alaska. This report summarizes the results of the EPHP investigation of potential lead exposure in 66 members of shooting teams, aged 7--19 years, who used five indoor firing ranges. The findings suggest that improper design, operation, and maintenance of ranges were the likely cause of elevated BLLs among team members at four of the five firing ranges. Public health officials should identify indoor firing ranges that have not implemented lead-safety measures and offer consultation to reduce the risk for lead exposure among shooters, coaches, and employees."

Although outdoor firing ranges put more lead into the environment than nearly any other major industrial sector in the United States, they remain almost entirely unregulated. In just two years a typical outdoor firing range can have lead contamination equivalent to a five-acre Superfund site.

http://noflac.org/http:/noflac.org/lead/

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Why Am I A Peace Activist? Why Aren't You?

Written for the collection, "Why Peace?"

More than any other description, except for perhaps husband and father, I have been for the past six years a peace activist. Yet, I hesitate on the question of how to tell my personal story of experience with war. I recently visited Afghanistan briefly, in order to speak with people who have experienced war. I've spoken with many U.S. soldiers and non-U.S. victims of war. But I have no experience of war. Being in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, doesn't change that; by the time a crime had been transformed into a war, the war had been moved elsewhere.

I know a Vietnam veteran who opposed that war but grew so tired of being told he wasn't qualified to do so that he joined up. When he got back, and for decades since, he's been opposing wars with the benefit of the aura of someone who knows war. I don't have that, and I certainly do not want it. I value war opposition by those who have known war, but I value other war opposition as well. And I imagine we can all spot the fatal flaw in any proposal that would have people experience wars before they could oppose them. In 2006 a congressional candidate and Iraq veteran in Ohio who was speaking on a panel with me urged military "service" on all politicians so that they could oppose militarism with greater knowledge of the military. Raise your hand if you think that would work.

So, the obvious question is probably how I became a peace activist. To my mind, however, the question has always been why anybody is not. I understand there are not a lot of job openings for professional peace activists, but there are unlimited part-time volunteer positions.

When I was a kid growing up in Northern Virginia in a family that had no one in the military and no one opposing the military, we had a guest visit. He very much wanted to see the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. So we drove him over there and showed him around. He was quite impressed. But I became physically ill. Here was a beautiful sunny town full of people enjoying life and people being trained to murder other people in large numbers. To this day I cannot imagine why I need a particular explanation for finding that unbearably revolting. I want to hear an explanation from someone who doesn't find it so.

Oh, they'll tell us, we all find war to be troubling, but being a grown up means having the stomach to do what's needed to prevent something worse.

The thing is, I never much trusted grown ups. I wasn't revolted by the idea of war for myself, while willing to let others engage in it. I refused to take it on faith that such a horror as war could be justified -- for anyone. After all, like all kids, I had been taught to work out problems with words rather than fists. I had been told that it was wrong to kill. And, like almost all people, I was viscerally inclined to resist the idea of killing anyone. If I was going to accept that in some cases it was right to kill lots and lots of people, and that it was right to always be training and building a huge war machine just in case such a situation arose, then someone was going to have to prove that claim to me.

In my experience, common wisdom was often wildly wrong. A huge industry of churches was maintained on Sundays to promote ideas that my parents took seriously, and most people took seriously, but which struck me as utter nonsense. The idea that war was peace came to seem to me so nonsensical on its face, that I'd only believe it if offered proof. Yet, all such thinking was in the back of my head. I never thought I'd work as a peace activist until the moment I found myself doing so at age 35. It took me years of traveling, studying, dropping out of architecture school, teaching English in Italy, picking up a Master's in Philosophy at the University of Virginia, and working as a reporter and a press person before I found my way.

I became an activist in my late 20s on domestic issues of criminal justice, social justice, and labor rights. I became a professional activist at age 30 when I went to work for ACORN, the association of community groups that scared so many powerful people that it was slandered in the media, defunded, and destroyed several years later, after I had moved on. I protested the first Gulf War and the build up to a 2003 war on Iraq. But I became something of a spokesperson and writer against war when I worked as press-secretary for Dennis Kucinich's presidential campaign in 2004. He made peace the number one issue in his platform. We talked about peace, trade, and healthcare -- and not much on trade or healthcare.

In 2005 I found myself working on a campaign to impeach and prosecute President George W. Bush for lying the nation into war. This meant working closely with and becoming a part of the peace movement, even while engaged in something less than peaceful: seeking to put someone on trial and imprison him. I immersed myself in online and real-world activism, organizing, educating, and protesting. I strategized, lobbied, planned, wrote, protested, went to jail, did interviews, and pressed for peace.

There are downsides and seeming hypocrisy to the peace movement. We don't always behave peacefully toward each other. We don't always share the same vision. Some groups favor peace when doing so helps a particular political party and are otherwise very accepting of war. Some honestly think particular wars are crimes but others justified. Some try to work with corrupted insiders. Some try to bring pressure from outside the halls of power. Some try, with great difficulty, to bridge some of those gaps.

But my peace movement experience overall has been incredibly positive. I've made good friends that I see a handful of times a year, on stages or in streets, and as often as not in police vans. The fulltime peace activists, most of whom have other fulltime paid employment, those who serve no particular organization, but who hold the movement together with their spirit and reliability: these are people with more great stories than any writer will ever get onto paper or computer screens. These are the people for whom, outside of my family, I am most grateful. If any of them had ever been visible in the way that military recruiters and toy soldiers are visible, perhaps I would have found my way to the peace movement sooner.

My focus or approach may evolve, but I cannot imagine ever leaving. In 2009 and 2010, I wrote two books, the second one on the question of whether any war had ever been justified. The title is a giveaway of the conclusion I reached: "War Is A Lie." And it isn't just any lie. It is the justification of the worst thing anyone has ever devised. Ending it now is no longer just a question of making the world more pleasant, but a question of survival. Weapons proliferation, blowback, economic collapse, environmental collapse, political collapse: choose your poison; war will destroy us in one or more of these manners unless we put an end to it. Why in the world would anyone not want to?

Source: David Swanson - War is a Crime

Here are some recommended links available to better inform you about careers in Peacemaking and Social Change. This is a work in progress and NNOMY will be adding new documents as they are prepared and as policies change that effect enlistment. Check back periodically.

Links:

• The Militarization of U.S. Culture
• Info for Students
• Cultural & Art Activism / NYC

Curricula:

• Making Effective Change: Social Movement Organizing and Activism - Evergreen College - Oregon - Spring 2012 . (PDF)
• TEACHING peace - A Guide for the Classroom & Everyday Life - Nuclear Age Peace Foundation -  (PDF)
• Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS) - New Hampshire
• National Advanced Peacemaker Training Institute - Fellowship of Reconciliation (USA)
• Christian Peacemaker Teams - English | Español
• Manchester College Peace Studies Institute and Program in Conflict Resolution -  Indiana
• Psychology for Peace Activists - by David Adams - Copyright 1987, 1995 - Advocate Press, New Haven CT
• Sparticus Educational | Education on the Internet - United Kingdom
• Peacekeeping - New England Nonviolence Trainers Network
• Notes On Being A Peace Monitor - Peace Resource Center of San Diego (PDF)
• Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns - War Resisters' International

Training:

• Peace, Anti-War - The Alliance for Global Justice has a long history of advocacy for just peace that is  manifested in our various projects and campaigns. For instance, we actively support the peace process in Colombia, oppose US intervention in Venezuela via military and financial support for violent golpistas, emphasize the role of US Empire and militarism in climate change, and oppose the blockade of Cuba and occupation of Guantánamo. AfGJ has participated in and even co-founded some of the major anti-war coalitions and networks opposing US wars. While we don’t have an ongoing peace/anti-war committee, project or campaign, we will continue to support the movement to end wars and militarism and will periodically post relevant links, announcements and resources on this page.
  
  
• DC Trainer's Network
  

  The DC Trainers’ Network monthly skillshare is a structured, interactive space where people can share skills and gain confidence in their training abilities and everybody is both a teacher and a learner. We strive to provide an inclusive practice space to experiment with different approaches for learning and teaching. This skillshare seeks to strengthen the DC activist community’s ability to meet the needs of progressive social movements.  Organized by the Washington Peace Center.

• Highlander Center 
  Highlander serves Appalachia and the South with programs designed to build strong and successful social-change activism and community organizing led by the people who suffer most from the injustices of society. Highlander helps activists to become more effective community educators and organizers, informed about the important issues driving conditions in communities today. Highlander was founded in 1932 and has a long and powerful history, particularly in the labor and civil rights movements.

• DART Center (Direct Action and Research Training Center)
  DART’s mission is to engage congregations in a process of building congregation-based community organizations that have the power to pursue and win justice. The DART Organizers Institute is a paid, field school created to recruit and train great community organizers, as well as strengthen DART’s mission to build power and win justice.

• Midwest Academy 
  Midwest Academy is a leading national training institute for the progressive movement. The Academy advances the movements for social change by teaching a strategic, rigorous, results-oriented approach to social action and organization building. The Academy provides training (introductory and advanced level) and consulting, equipping organizers, leaders, and their organizations to think and act strategically to win justice for all.

• Training for Change
  Since 1992, Training for Change has been committed to increasing capacity around the world for activist training, specializing in training for trainers. When they say activist training, they mean training that helps groups stand up more effectively for justice, peace and the environment. They deliver skills directly that people working for social change can use in their daily work. Their website also has a lot of great resources for leading your own trainings on a variety of topics.

• Green Corps
  Green Corps’ Field School for Environmental Organizing trains college graduates to run environmental campaigns, from building a core group of activists to convincing decision-makers to pass laws, change policies and create reforms to protect our environment. It is a one-year, full-time, paid program that includes intensive classroom training, hands-on field experience running urgent environmental and public health campaigns, and career placement in positions with leading environmental groups.

• New Organizing Institute (NOI)
  The New Organizing Institute was created by organizers who use all available new (and "seasoned") technologies to spark and coordinate activity both online and offline.  By training new online organizers and technologists, our goal is to infuse this new field with talented staff, to connect and energize a new generation of progressive activists, and to solidify long-term progressive power.

• Rockwood Leadership Institute 
  Rockwood teaches skills and tools that help grassroots and policy reform leaders overcome organizational challenges; inspire and align individuals and organizations toward producing quality outcomes; develop collaborative skills; decrease "burn-out"; and create organizations that celebrate sustainability and diversity.

• Wellstone Action!
  This national network trains progressive activists, organizers, and candidates in communities all over the country.

• Center for Progressive Leadership
  The CPL provides leadership trainings for activists and potential electoral candidates and staff, and connects young people with paid internships at progressive organizations.

• Washington Peace Center - If you can't find what you're looking for, get in touch with the Peace Center and we'll help you get trained in whatever you need to know.
  

  
  
  Where to find help for leading your own training:
  
  Network for Good 
  Website that offers online nonprofit fundraising trainings and a large archive of past trainings.
  
  RANT Collective 
  The Root Activist Network of Trainers is a small collective that provides training, action planning, and support for various social justice groups and mobilizations across the world. Their website has a fantastic collection of invaluable educational materials dealing with action planning, anti-oppression, and consensus decision-making.
  
  Organizing for Power 
  Lisa Fithian has been organizing for 35 years between the global justice, anti-war, student, labor, and environmental movements, and has collected all her resources and knowledge here on her website. Look here for some excellent conceptual tools to think about power, strategy, and organizing for social change and liberation.
  
  
  Materials to download:

  Accessible Organizing/Facilitation - Resources for accessible organizing and movement-building

  Media Training - prep a group for interviews, press events and press releases 
  
  Media Workshop Handout - reviewing press tips and template for press releases
  
  Legal Support Training - train a group on how to do legal support for direct action
  
  Legal Support/Affinity Group Role Play - a great tool to use in a training on the importance of setting up a legal support system for direct actions
  
  Nonviolent Direct Action Training Agenda - a 4 hour agenda that can be adjusted for your training slot

  Social Media Prep for Actions - Prep work and tips for using social media to compliment and advance your actions

  Social Media Resources - Websites, tools, resources, and helpful guides on social media for activists

Source: Washington Peace Center

Actions & Networks

• Black Lives Matter
• United National Antiwar Coalition
• Campaign Nonviolence . Pace e Bene
• World Beyond War
• Stop The War Coalition
• International Solidarity Movement - Nonviolence. Justice. Peace.
• On Earth Peace Intern Program

Conferences:

• Left Forum
• United National Antiwar Coalition Conference
• Democracy Convention 2017
• No To NATO Summit 2017
• Veterans For Peace National Convention 2017 "Education Not Militarization!"
• International Week of Action Against the Militarisation of Youth . War Resisters International
• 2018 Labor Notes Conference

Activist Resources:

• Campus Activism - Tools for Activists
• Action PA - Activism Training Materials & Resources
• Resources and Toolkit for the Palestinian Activist
• Cafe Progressive: Online Activism Tools & Community Activism Resources
• Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns - War Resisters' International
• International Center on Non-violent Conflict

Research:

• The Housmans World Peace Database

Resources for Children:

• Children's Peace Education project
• Rethinking Early Childhood Education - Rethinking Schools
• The Alliance for Childhood - Eight Steps To Teach Kids Peace
• SoundOut - Student Voice in Schools
• Reach & Teach - Peace & Social Justice Learning Products

Websources for Peace Education by Teaching For Peace

• Peace Makers
• Peace Movements
• Peace Keepers
• Peace Organizations
• Peace and Education Resources
• Peace & Indigenous Peoples
• Peace and Women
• Peace and Children

Funders of Peacemaking

• The International Peacemakers Fund (IPF) - Fellowship of Reconciliation, England (FoRE)
• Abe Keller Peace Education Fund - Redman, Washington
• Blue Ribbon Campaign - Electric Frontier Foundation
• RESIST - seeks to fund organizations that are actively part of a movement for social change

Fellowship and Career Opportunities for Social Justice:

• Echoing Green
• GOOD WORKS is a national directory of social change organizations
• The Young Nonprofit Professionals Network

Organizations you should know

• Peace Magazine
• Military Families Speak Out
• Vietnam Veterans Against War
• Project YANO
• Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee
• Voices for Creative Nonviolence
• Physicians for Global Survival
• Quakers in Britain
• Peace Brigades International
• Antiwar
• International Peace Bureau
• MoveOn
• Peace Pledge Union
• Peace is Possible  
• Amnesty International
• Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers
• Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
• M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence
• Krishnamurti Foundation of America
• Peace Action
• The Compassionate Listening Project
• Stop The War Coalition
• American Friends Service Committee
• Clean Clothes Campaign
• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
• 50 Years is Enough
• Independent Media Centre
• Corporate Accountability International
• Institute for Global Communications
• International Rivers Network
• Jobs With Justice
• Global Goals 2030
• United for a Fair Economy
• Stop the War Machine
• Non Violent Peace Force
• Courage to Resist
• World Peace Prayer Society
• Le Mouvement De La Paix
• Sept.11 Families for a Peaceful Tomorrow
• Conscience and Peace Tax
• Peace Tax Seven
• Project Ploughshares
• Pax Service Civil International
• Friends United Meeting
• New York Quakers
• Philadelphia Quakers
• Peace Brigades International
• International Peace Bureau
• Pax Service Civil International

Source: Teaching For Peace

Articles on the web:

• The Art of Protest: From Vietnam to AIDS
• How to Make War Protest Art
• The Anti-War Movement in the United States
• Students advocate artful, peaceful alternative to war
• National Days of Student Action Against the Iraq War
• The art of making protest art

###

Revised 06/28/2017

December 18, 2011

NNOMY is a national network that serves to unite national, regional and local organizations that oppose the growing intrusion of the military in young people's lives. We seek to promote the importance of counter-recruitment organizing. NNOMY is not intended to function as an independent national organization, but rather as a coalition that strengthens the work of participating groups.

We stand in absolute solidarity with our sisters and brothers in the Occupy/(Un)occupy movement. We embrace the notion that we are the 99% and we refuse to tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We recognize that it is the interests of the 1% that dominate military policy and the spread of militarism in our society. We feel, therefore, that confronting militarism and countering military recruitment of youth deserve a high priority in the movements sweeping the country that are aimed at reducing the power and influence of the 1%.

18 Nov 2011 — warresisters

International Study Conference Germany 2012

Darmstadt, 8-10 June 2012

"In Europe, and to some degree on a global level, there are presently two trends which both contribute to an increased militarisation of youth. The first is the end (or, more exactly, the suspension) of conscription in most European countries. The second is an increasing “normalisation of war” stemming from the 'war on terror and the use of military force as a means of politics. Both trends reinforce each other in strengthening the militarisation of youth from an early age- something we are committed to working against.”

The project, which includes an international meeting in Germany, and a post-conference publication, hopes to bringing together activists from all over the world.

The aim is to foster an ongoing regional and multi-regional network of cooperating anti-militarist organisations. The overarching objective of the conference is strengthening the work against the militarisation of youth in Europe (and beyond) by providing opportunities for people to exchange skills and experience of working in this field and to create/strengthen networks and relationships across the region.

December 6, 2011

David Swanson -

Please take some time to look through the new website of the new National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy: www.studentprivacy.org

I've just joined the board because I believe a great deal of good can be done.

The National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy is a one-trick pony and that trick is the ASVAB Campaign. In short, we call for the universal selection of Option 8 for students taking the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB in high schools across the country, thereby prohibiting the automatic release of test data to military recruiting services.

Sounds pretty obscure and technical, I suppose.  But this is a relatively easy and proven model of denying the U.S. military what it needs in order to kill our young people by using them to kill others.  Namely, it denies the military the illegal right to violate the privacy of our young people in furthering its recruitment efforts.