Whoever coined the phrase "youth is wasted on the young" never met the members of Philadelphia’s Granny Peace Brigade. A group of spry seniors ranging in age from their mid-sixties to their mid- nineties, the women who comprise the Granny Peace Brigade engage in social activism with the kind of idealism typically reserved for the very young.
But that blend of idealism proves fitting when taking into consideration the Granny Peace Brigade’s main objection: protecting this country’s youth from becoming subscripted into the U.S. military and its involvement in Iraq and Afganahastan. "So many kids lose their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan for no reason," explained Granny Jean Haskell. That’s why the Grannies have successfully launched an Opt Out Program in the city’s public schools. Before the program took-off a few years ago, the Granny’s took issue with the fact that public schools gave the military its students contact information for recruitment purposes. Students do however have the option of telling school officials that they do not want their information passed along to the military through the Opt Out Program. But when the Granny’s approached Philadelphia School System Officials about participating in the Opt Out Program, they realized that the program might not be enough to protect kids from military enrollment.
The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)
NNOMY
November 13, 2011 - Bloomberg Business Week
Dan Beucke -
My post last Friday about the jobless picture for young veterans clearly struck a nerve. The commentary that followed ranges across issues of war, peace, hope, despair, skills training — and, yes, immigration.
Some readers recounted their own experiences coming back from war and their success or failure in finding work. Billy Mo wrote that he “easily” found good-paying work after leaving the Air Force, then got caught in a 2006 downsizing. He has received “zero offers” and wound up “losing my home, car, retirement account and most of my possessions.” He concludes: “No one really seems to care.”
One part of my reporting that was backed up in some of the comments was the suggestion that vets face a cultural barrier coming back to corporate America. “There is (a) great wall against War veterans from corporate America,” writes John A. Mele. But it works both ways, says K. Mark Northrup; he suggests part of the problem is the military style of problem solving:
11/4/2006 - USA TODAY
Judy Keen -
So his parents signed a form that prevents the school from giving his contact information to recruiters. A provision of the No Child Left Behind law requires high schools to share students' names, phone numbers and addresses with military recruiters unless students or their parents choose to opt out.
Recruiters still come to school, he says, and "try to act all friendly." Berman, 18, doesn't buy their pitches about career and educational opportunities. "It's ridiculous," he says. "They're trying to bribe you to enlist."
Pentagon officials say recruiters just want the same information that goes to colleges and companies to make career pitches to students.
If Berman's parents had not signed the form, the school would be required to share his contact information with military recruiters under the 2001 law.
September - October 2011 Opt Out Campaign by Topanga Peace Alliance
In September and October, members of the Topanga Peace Alliance (TPA) distributed 15,000 military opt-out forms to seven high schools; Taft, Palisades, Reseda, Canoga Park, El Camino Real, Cleveland and Chatsworth High School all received the military Opt-out forms for TPA members.
Under the “No Child Left Behind” Federal Legislation, schools are required to share student’s personal information in the 11th and 12th grade with the military for recruitment purposes unless parents of students sign an opt-out form.
While leafleting and talking with students, we found that many of them were unaware that military would have access to their personal information or that opting out was an option for them. While these forms help keep their information away from the military there is another way the government is working on recruiting children. TPA has become aware of JAMRS. JAMRS stands for the ‘Joint Advertising Market Research Studies.’ The JAMRS database is funded by The Department of Defense. It maintains data on 30 million Americans between the ages of 16 and 25 that includes information such as your name, date of birth, gender, mailing address, email address, race and ethnicity, telephone number, high school name, graduation date, grade point average (GPA), college intent, military interest, field of study, and the ASVAB Test score.
Opt out forms for this highly-intrusive data base are not currently supplied to the students, and are not available in Southern California schools. TPA is coordinating an effort with the Los Angeles Unified School District to add JAMRS opt-out forms to the student packets that go home at the beginning of the school year. If anyone is interested in helping with our efforts please contact Sarah Young, TPA Project Coordinator at: 310-562-7866.
Overall we feel this year’s opt-out drives were successful and we hope next year to be able to supply the standard opt-out forms along with the JAMRS opt-out forms. Thank you to all that have helped and supported this effort! Once again, Topangans are making a difference. - Sarah Young - Topanga Peace Alliance
NNOMY Note: Topanga Peace Alliance (TPA) Opt-out campaign included the following Los Angeles area high schools:
- El Camino Real High, Woodland Hills, California -Los Angeles Unified School District
- Reseda High School, Los Angeles, California - Los Angeles Unified School District
April 4, 2010
Maximilian Forte -
[If anything, this is long overdue, and surprising that it did not come from an anthropologist first -- not that the professional designation ought to be taken too seriously, especially as a lot of good anthropological work on issues of great public significance is now done by many non-anthropologists. I am speaking here of Nick Turse's The Complex, from which I typed the following extract. It almost appears to be a marriage of anthropologist Ralph Linton's classic "100 percent American," and President Eisenhower's farewell address dealing in large part with his warnings of what he called the "military-industrial complex." This extract comes from the Introduction of The Complex, "A Day in the Life."]
June 13, 2010
Maximilian Forte -
“Propaganda is at its most effective when the audience does not know it is being manipulated and one of the best, glitziest examples of that is when propaganda is delivered on the big screen in the guise of a Hollywood blockbuster.”–The Listening Post, 12 June 2010
September/October 2009 Issue - Mother Jones Magazine
David Goodman -
How the No Child Left Behind Act allowed military recruiters to collect info on millions of unsuspecting teens.
John Travers was striding purposefully into the Westfield mall in Wheaton, Maryland, for some back-to-school shopping before starting his junior year at Bowling Green State University. When I asked him whether he'd ever talked to a military recruiter, Travers, a 19-year-old African American with a buzz cut, a crisp white T-shirt, and a diamond stud in his left ear, smiled wryly. "To get to lunch in my high school, you had to pass recruiters," he said. "It was overwhelming." Then he added, "I thought the recruiters had too much information about me. They called me, but I never gave them my phone number."
- Cultural & Art Activism / NYC
- Comic Book Foreign Policy?
- Veterans and GIs: 'The only occupations in our interests are here in the U.S.'
- Portland high schools set to permit anti-war protesters to recruit students alongside the military
- The Militarization of Sports -- And the Sportiness of Military Service
- News from the NNOMY Network 10-30-2011
- U.S. Army Assaults Its Biggest Fan
- Cultural & Art Activism
- What Are Schools For?
- More on U.S. Militarization of Open Access
- The Militarization of U.S. Culture
- Opening Up Borderland Studies: A Review of U.S.-Mexico Border Militarization Discourse
Subcategories
Opinion Article Count: 2
The NNOMY Opinion section is a new feature of our articles section. Writing on youth demilitarization issues is quite rare but we have discovered the beginning articles and notes being offered on this subject so we have decided to present them under an opinion category. The articles presented do not necessarily reflect the views of the NNOMY Steering Committee.
Globalization & Militarization Article Count: 1
Military Presence in Our Schools Article Count: 8
Art & Cultural Activism Article Count: 1
The Militarization of U.S. Culture Article Count: 23
Though the United States of America shares with other nations in a history of modern state militarism, the past 65 years following its consolidation as a world military power after World War II, has seen a shift away from previous democratic characterizations of the state. The last thirty years, with the rise of the neo-conservative Reagan and Bush administrations (2), began the abandonment of moral justifications for democracy building replaced by bellicose proclamations of the need and right to move towards a national project of global security by preemptive military force .
In the process of global military expansion, the US population has been subjected to an internal re-education to accept the role of the U.S. as consolidating its hegemonic rule internationally in the interest of liberal ideals of wealth creation and protectionism.
The average citizen has slowly come to terms with a stealthly increasing campaign of militarization domestically in media offerings; from television, movies and scripted news networks to reinforce the inevitability of a re-configured society as security state. The effect has begun a transformation of how, as citizens, we undertand our roles and viability as workers and families in relation to this security state. This new order has brought with it a shrinking public common and an increasing privatization of publicly held infrustructure; libraries, health clinics, schools and the expectation of diminished social benefits for the poor and middle-class. The national borders are being militarized as are our domestic police forces in the name of Homeland Security but largely in the interest of business. The rate and expansion of research and development for security industries and the government agencies that fund them, now represent the major growth sector of the U.S.economy. Additionally, as the U.S. economy continually shifts from productive capital to financial capital as the engine of growth for wealth creation and development, the corporate culture has seen its fortunes rise politically and its power over the public sector grow relatively unchallenged by a confused citizenry who are watching their social security and jobs diminishing.
How increasing cultural militarization effects our common future will likely manifest in increased public dissatisfaction with political leadership and economic strictures. Social movements within the peace community, like NNOMY, will need to expand their role of addressing the dangers of militarists predating youth for military recruitment in school to giving more visibility to the additional dangers of the role of an influential militarized media, violent entertainment and play offerings effecting our youth in formation and a general increase and influence of the military complex in all aspects of our lives. We are confronted with a demand for a greater awareness of the inter-relationships of militarism in the entire landscape of domestic U.S. society. Where once we could ignore the impacts of U.S. military adventurisms abroad, we are now faced with the transformation of our domestic comfort zone with the impacts of militarism in our day to day lives.
How this warning can be imparted in a meaningful way by a movement seeking to continue with the stated goals of counter-recruitment and public policy activism, and not loose itself in the process, will be the test for those activists, past and future, who take up the call to protect our youth from the cultural violence of militarism.
The "militarization of US culture" category will be an archive of editorials and articles about the increasing dangers we face as a people from those who are invested in the business of war. This page will serve as a resource for the NNOMY community of activists and the movement they represent moving into the future. The arguments presented in this archive will offer important realizations for those who are receptive to NNOMY's message of protecting our youth, and thus our entire society, of the abuses militarism plays upon our hopes for a sustainable and truly democratic society.
NNOMY
Resources Article Count: 2
The Resources section covers the following topics:
International Networking Article Count: 1
Book Reviews Article Count: 5
NNOMY Network News Article Count: 12
News reports from the groups associated to the NNOMY Network including Social Media.
CR Reports Article Count: 5
Reports from counter-recruitment groups and activists from the field. Includes information about action reports at recruiting centers and career fairs, school tabling, and actions in relation to school boards and state legislatures.
CR in the News Article Count: 8
David Swanson Article Count: 6
David Swanson is the author of the new book, Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union, by Seven Stories Press and of the introduction to The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. Bush by Dennis Kucinich. In addition to cofounding AfterDowningStreet.org, he is the Washington director of Democrats.com and sits on the boards of a number of progressive organizations in Washington, DC.
Charlottesville Right Now: 11-10-11 David Swanson
David Swanson joins Coy to discuss Occupy Charlottesville, protesting Dick Cheney's visit to the University of Virginia, and his new book. - Listen
Jorge Mariscal Article Count: 2
Jorge Mariscal is the grandson of Mexican immigrants and the son of a U.S. Marine who fought in World War II. He served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and currently teaches at the University of California, San Diego.
Matt Guynn Article Count: 1
Matt Guynn plays the dual role of program director and coordinator for congregational organizing for On Earth Peace, building peace and nonviolence leadership within the 1000+ congregations of the Church of the Brethren across the United States and Puerto Rico. He previously served a co-coordinator of training for Christian Peacemaker Teams, serving as an unarmed accompanier with political refugees in Chiapas, Mexico, and offering or supporting trainings in the US and Mexico.
Rick Jahnkow Article Count: 8
Rick Jahnkow works for two San Diego-based anti-militarist organizations, the Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities and the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft. He can be reached at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Pat Elder Article Count: 12
Pat Elder was a co-founder of the DC Antiwar Network (DAWN) and a member of the Steering Committee of the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth, (NNOMY). Pat is currently involved in a national campaign with the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom project, Military Poisons, investigating on U.S. military base contamination domestically and internationally. Pat’s work has prominently appeared in NSA documents tracking domestic peace groups.
All Documents:
Pat Elder - National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth
COMMUNITY ACTION Article Count: 2
Network Actions Article Count: 5
EVENTS & CONFERENCES Article Count: 4
NNOMY periodically participates in or organizes events(e.i. conferences, rallies) with other organizations.
CR Activist Reports Article Count: 2
CR Discussion List Article Count: 1
NNOMY in the News Article Count: 13
National CR Database Article Count: 1
GI Resistance Article Count: 1
Conscientious Objection Article Count: 1
NNOMY National Conference Article Count: 11
Materials/Training Article Count: 1
For Educators/Guidance Counselors Article Count: 2
Recruiting on College Campuses Article Count: 1
Model Programs Article Count: 1
School Policies Article Count: 5
EN ESPAÑOL Article Count: 1
Equal access Article Count: 1
NCLB Article Count: 1
MILITARISM & WAR Article Count: 3
FOR ENLISTED PERSONNEL Article Count: 1
FOR PARENTS Article Count: 1
CONSIDERING ENLISTING? Article Count: 1
RECRUITING IN SPECIFIC COMMUNITIES Article Count: 1
MILITARY RECRUITING TOOLS & METHODS Article Count: 3
SCHOOL BASED COUNTER RECRUITMENT Article Count: 6
Know Your Rights Article Count: 2
Delayed Entry Program/DEP Article Count: 1
Alternatives by State Article Count: 1
NNOMY Article Count: 13
ALTERNATIVES TO THE MILITARY Article Count: 3
Facts & Figures Article Count: 1
COUNTER RECRUITING ESSENTIALS Article Count: 1
The Counter-recruitment Essentials section of the NNOMY web site covers the issues and actions spanning this type of activism. Bridging the difficult chasms between religious, veteran, educator, student, and community based activism is no small task. In this section you will find information on how to engage in CR activism in your school and community with the support of the knowledge of others who have been working to inform youth considering enlisting in the military. You will also find resources for those already in the military that are looking for some guidance on how to actively resist injustices as a soldier or how to choose a path as a conscientious objector.
Steering Committee Article Count: 1
Articles Article Count: 227
John Judge Article Count: 5
John Judge was a co-founder of the Committee for High School Options and Information on Careers, Education and Self-Improvement (CHOICES) in Washington DC, an organization engaged since 1985 in countering military recruitment in DC area high schools and educating young people about their options with regard to the military. Beginning with the war in Viet Nam, Judge was a life-long anti-war activist and tireless supporter of active-duty soldiers and veterans.
"It is our view that military enlistment puts youth, especially African American youth, at special risk, not only for combat duty, injury and fatality, but for military discipline and less than honorable discharge, which can ruin their chances for employment once they get out. There are other options available to them."
In the 1970's the Selective Service System and the paper draft became unworkable, requiring four induction orders to get one report. Boards were under siege by anti-war and anti-draft forces, resistance of many kinds was rampant. The lottery system failed to dampen the dissent, since people who knew they were going to be drafted ahead of time became all the more active. Local draft board members quit in such numbers that even I was approached, as a knowledgeable draft counselor to join the board. I refused on the grounds that I could never vote anyone 1-A or eligible to go since I opposed conscription and the war.
At this point the Pentagon decided to replace the paper draft with a poverty draft, based on economic incentive and coercion. It has been working since then to draw in between 200-400,000 enlisted members annually. Soon after, they began to recruit larger numbers of women to "do the jobs men don't want to". Currently recruitment quotas are falling short, especially in Black communities, and reluctant parents are seen as part of the problem. The hidden problem is retention, since the military would have quadrupled by this time at that rate of enlistment, but the percentage who never finish their first time of enlistment drop out at a staggering rate.
I began bringing veterans of the Vietnam War into high schools in Dayton, Ohio in the late 1960s, and have continued since then to expose young people to the realities of military life, the recruiters' false claims and the risks in combat or out. I did it first through Vietnam Veterans Against the War/Winter Soldier Organization, then Dayton Draft & Military Counseling, and since 1985 in DC through C.H.O.I.C.E.S.
The key is to address the broader issues of militarization of the schools and privacy rights for students in community forums and at meetings of the school board and city council. Good counter-recruitment also provides alternatives in the civilian sector to help the poor and people of color, who are the first targets of the poverty draft, to find ways to break into the job market, go to a trade school, join an apprenticeship program, get job skills and placement help, and find money for college without enlisting in the military.
- War Opponents Train For Visits to Area Schools And Recruitment Centers, Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post
- Counter-Recruitment and the Campaign to Demilitarize Public Schools - Scott Harding, Seth Kershner
- C.H.O.I.C.E.S., John Judge
- Interview - John Judge - U.S. Wars & Military Recruitment
- Military and your Schools
- A Celebration of the Life of John Judge May 31, 2014
- In Memory of John Judge - Washington Peace Center
- John Judge- Obituary and request for reflections - Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA)
- The Loss of John Judge Hits Hard - David Swanson
- John Judge, Leading Change: A Transformational, Quiet Servant Leader, David Ratcliffe
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