The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)

NNOMY

Cultural & Art Activism / NYC

Alternatives by State

Guernica NYC ProtestArt activism has emerged, mainly among urban youth, as a counter-cultural movement of the arts. Identifying itself with social movement themes from the past, counter-militarism, racial and sexual discrimination for example, but focused on addressing these social problems through cultural expression, this type of activism has become a new type of gathering community that did not historically identify with the mainstream arts or social movements. Many of its practitioners integrate multiple art forms like mural and graffiti art, stenciling, music, street theater, poetry, performance, and appropriating temporary locations for events. This movement stands as a more inclusive, populist avenue for disenfranchised youth with opportunities for young people looking to self-identify outside the traditional spaces reserved for them. In this fact it can be listed as a viable military alternative.

New York City

NYC is especially rich in cultural opportunities to form the foundation for exploring alternatives to the military. Much has been lost in the intervening years since the emergence of a more conservative municipal government and the effects of wealth expansion on middle-class and poor New Yorkers but this is a national trend in U.S. cities as the financial markets have replaced real jobs for working people. Yet many work in the struggle for social justice and there is the space for many more to follow as regular people look for new avenues to explore options to survive and to remain free from the over-influence of Wall Street. The movement to drive citizens marginalized by unjust governance into the military serves the long term economical interests at home and abroad of the wealthy but can be opposed by youth who take cultural work as their foundation to oppose cultural militarization. This page submitted by the Ya-Ya Network.

Here are some recommended links available to better inform you about art activism in NYC. 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.

Organizations:

Opportunities:

Activist Art & Artists: (Not necessarily Counter-recruitment related)

Articles on the web: (Not necessarily Counter-recruitment related)

Books & Documentaries: (Not necessarily Counter-recruitment related)

Comic Book Foreign Policy?

The Militarization of U.S. Culture

July 27, 2006

Henry Jenkins -

winter soldier - captain americaThe online edition of The American Prospect published an article comparing the Bush administration's current policy in the Middle East to comic books -- specifically, to the Green Lantern Corps. Here's what they had to say:

The trouble is that a broad swathe of hawkish opinion, taking in most conservatives and a tragically large number of liberals, have bought into a comic book view of how international relations works.

I refer, of course, to the Green Lantern Corps, DC Comics' interstellar police force assembled by the Guardians of Oa. Here's how the Corps works: Each member is equipped with a power ring, the ultimate weapon in the universe. The ring makes green stuff -- energy blasts, force fields, protective bubbles, giant hammers, elephants, chairs, cute rabbits, whatever -- under the control of the bearer. When it's fully charged, the only limits to the ring's power (besides the proviso that the stuff must be green) are the user's will and imagination. Historically, the rings couldn't affect yellow objects, but in recent years it's been revealed that this was the "parallax fear anomaly" (don't ask) and that the problem could be overcome by overcoming fear -- which is to say, with more willpower.

This is an OK premise for a comic book. Sadly, it's a piss-poor premise for a foreign policy.

Without getting into the specifics of Bush's current foreign policy (or for that matter, the current run of Green Lantern), this statement seems grossly unfair -- to comic books. I understand why Bush's world view full of its talk about capturing "evil-Doers" who are hell-bent on destroying the "American way of life" reminds some people of comic book superheroes -- it is colorful, broadly drawn, larger than life, and sometimes a little punch-drunk. But the reality is that contemporary comic books have offered a much more nuanced depiction of our current political realities and have adopted a pretty consistently progressive framing of these events than The American Prospect and its readers might imagine.

Veterans and GIs: 'The only occupations in our interests are here in the U.S.'

Articles

October 25, 2011

March Forward -

Iraq war veteran speaks at Occupy LA Since the Occupy movement started, veterans and active-duty troops in March Forward! have been active organizers and participants in cities all over the country. Our members have been attacked by police, pepper sprayed and arrested at occupations and actions. We have been speaking, camping and helping organize at Occupy events from coast to coast.

We believe that it is essential for our community to be active in this movement, and call on all veterans and GIs to join the encampment nearest you.

Click here if you are a veteran or active-duty GI who supports the Occupy movement!

Here is why we are participating:

1. We are used as pawns in Wall Street’s wars. Over 6,000 of our brothers and sisters are dead; tens of thousands maimed; hundreds of thousands will live the rest of their lives with psychological trauma. Over 1 million Iraqis have been killed, along with tens of thousands of innocent Afghans. The past 10 years have been nothing but constant, repeated deployments to wars waged in the interests of the 1%.

Portland high schools set to permit anti-war protesters to recruit students alongside the military

CR in the News
23 October 2011- Oregonian
Betsy Hammond -
Portland Counter-recruiters win equal access

The Portland school board is set to adopt a rule Monday to give "counter-recruiters" skeptical about the value of joining the military the same access to high school students that military recruiters enjoy under federal law.

Instead of standing out on the school sidewalk waving signs and offering fliers, as they have done regularly outside Portland high schools, anti-war activists will be able to staff recruiting tables and hand out pamphlets in the school career center or cafeteria, just like military recruiters in uniform.

"What we want is a balanced account of military service," said school board member Matt Morton, one of at least four board members lined up behind the new rule. "What's key is giving them all the information they need to make good decisions."

The Militarization of Sports -- And the Sportiness of Military Service

The Militarization of U.S. Culture

7/28/11

William Astore -

Connecting sports to military service and vice versa has a venerable history. The Battle of Waterloo (1815) was won on the playing fields of Eton, Wellington allegedly said. Going over the top at the Battle of the Somme (1916), a few British soldiers kicked soccer balls in the general direction of the German lines. American service academies have historically placed a high value on sports (especially football) for their ability to generate and instill leadership, teamwork and toughness under pressure.

News from the NNOMY Network 10-30-2011

NNOMY Network News

Keep NNOMY aware of the latest news from your organization at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. so we can share it with the national network.

NNOMY on Facebook / Online

NNOMY on Facebook

Online: Visit NNOMY Peace on Facebook to see all our Friends

Online: Visit The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth on Facebook to see who likes us

 

NNOMY News Contents / National

  • New Groups added to the NNOMY Network

    • NJ Youth United Against War and Imperialism
    • Veterans for Truth in Military Recruiting / Safe Passage Network
    • Madres contra la Guerra
    • Yap High School

  • Repeal of DADT: How It Helps and How It Doesn’t

  • Dear LGB Youth… Now that you can enlist, please don’t.

U.S. Army Assaults Its Biggest Fan

Articles

27 October 2011 - War Is a Crime - David Swanson's blog

David Swanson -

AristineOne of the most valuable benefits of putting political action into the form of nonviolent encampments is that we learn each other's stories as we occupy our public parks and squares. Here's a story from the October 2011 occupation in Freedom Plaza, Washington, D.C. There are many more, and we'd like to hear yours when you join us.

Aristine Maharry is 29 years old and now lives in Freedom Plaza. She grew up in a very military family, with members of her family having participated in every major U.S. war going back to the war for independence, and with members of every generation having joined the military.

Maharry's family did not encourage her to aspire to a military career, but -- as in many such stories I've heard -- actions spoke more loudly than words. Maharry was proud of her father's military experience. She hoped from a very young age to join the U.S. Army. She grew up playing at army with her half-brothers. They would flip the couch on its side and toss pretend grenades. She loved the board game Risk. The biggest holiday in Aristine's family was the Fourth of July. She doesn't say she bled red white and blue. She says she bled green, Army green. She wanted to serve her country and other people. She was willing to die for her country. She was proud of her country.

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.

Art & Cultural Activism Article Count:  1

The Militarization of U.S. Culture Article Count:  23

General David Petraeus' rocky first days as a lecturer at the City University of New York 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 SwansonDavid 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 MariscalJorge 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 GuynnMatt 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 JahnkowRick 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 ElderPat 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

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

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.

John Judge -- counselor, C.H.O.I.C.E.S.
 
Articles
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