1059: NNOMY News August-September 2021 - Militarizing Our Children

1059: NNOMY News August-September 2021 - Militarizing Our Children

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NNNovember 2023  


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1059: NNOMY News August-September 2021 - Militarizing Our Children

Hello William,


Congress surely meant to do the right thing when, in the fall of 2008, it passed the Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA). The law was designed to protect kids worldwide from being forced to fight the wars of Big Men. From then on, any country that coerced children into becoming soldiers was supposed to lose all U.S. military aid.

It turned out, however, that Congress — in its rare moment of concern for the next generation — had it all wrong. In its greater wisdom, the White House found countries like Chad and Yemen so vital to the national interest of the United States that it preferred to overlook what happened to the children in their midst..
 
#counter-recruitment | #nnomypeace | #peacefulcareers | #jrotc |  www.nnomy.org

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America’s Child Soldiers: JROTC and the Militarizing of America

August 08 2021 / Ann Jones / Tomdispatch Here was a chance for Washington to teach a set of countries to cherish their young people, not lead them to the slaughter. But in October, as it has done every year since CSPA became law, the White House again granted whole or partial “waivers” to five countries on the State Department’s “do not aid” list: Chad, South Sudan, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia.

Too bad for the young — and the future — of those countries. But look at it this way: Why should Washington help the children of Sudan or Yemen escape war when it spares no expense right here at home to press our own impressionable, idealistic, ambitious American kids into military “service”?

It should be no secret that the United States has the biggest, most efficiently organized, most effective system for recruiting child soldiers in the world. With uncharacteristic modesty, however, the Pentagon doesn’t call it that. Its term is “youth development program.”

 


Project YANO, JROTC, and Textbook Project

August 2, 2021  / Law and Disorder - The Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, or JROTC, is a federal program sponsored by the US Armed Forces in high schools and some middle schools across the nation and at US military bases globally. It currently teaches its lessons to more than half a million students in approximately 3,400 high schools nationwide.

In recent years, the military and its supporters have been promoting the idea of a significant increase in the number of high schools with JROTC—one proposal calls for expanding up to 6,000. Because of this, one nonprofit decided it was time to examine the textbooks used in JROTC classes to see what they are teaching.

The Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities, or Project YANO, is a counter-recruitment organization founded in 1984 and based in San Diego country. It released its findings in early July. Their reviewers have backgrounds in classroom teaching or education activists, or special knowledge of subjects JROTC claims to address, such as civil rights, violence prevention, leadership methods, and world history. Team members included current and retired high school teachers, military veterans, and a documentary film producer.

Guest – Rick Jahnkow, a co-founder and board member of Project YANO. Rick worked for 34 years as the organization’s full-time program coordinator. He has researched and organized around the issues of military recruiting, high school Jr. ROTC, and the general militarization of K-12 schools.


 


 

Law - The Push To Include Women In The Draft Draws Polarizing Opinions

August 8, 2021 / Weekend Edition Sunday / National Public Radio - NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with Amy Rutenberg of Iowa State University about the role of the draft in American society and the arguments for and against women registering. The United States hasn't drafted anyone since 1973. That's when the armed forces shifted to an all-voluntary military in the wake of the Vietnam War. But all men ages 18 to 25 are still required by law to register with the Selective Service system, which keeps a list of all those eligible to serve in case of a national emergency. Now there's a push to include women, as well. The Senate Armed Services Committee included the provision in its most recent defense policy bill, a move that has led to strong arguments for those in favor and against. Joining us now to talk about the draft is Amy Rutenberg. She is an associate professor of history at Iowa State University. Welcome to the program.

 


 

Debate Over Women and the Draft Will Turn Politics on Head

December 15, 2015 Sarah Smiley - Some will say that we can’t draft both men and women, because what if a husband and wife from the same family are forced into service through the draft? It’s a very real consideration. But at this point in our evolution, how can we automatically assume, through legislation, that it’s the man’s job to go?

Of course, all of this might be for nothing. If we look at the state of today’s millenials, with their micro-aggressions and need for “safe spaces,” I’m not even sure how our government could pull off an active draft—for either gender.

In case it wasn’t clear before or now: I am not in favor of compulsory Selective Service registration for men or women, despite my family’s long tradition of military service. But for years, no one cared to take up this fight. So I look forward to the possibility of women being considered for the draft, if only because of this: Hell hath no fury like women who think they are facing an injustice. While men have accepted Selective Service for generations, we women have proven that above all else that we like to have choice.

 


 

Chicago automatically funnels some Black and Latino students into military-run courses

June 4, 2021 / S Alex Ruppenthal / Chalkbeat - Trevor Reed didn’t choose to enroll in the new military science class at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep on Chicago’s South Side. But he ended up there anyway.

So did hundreds of other Chicago students from King and at least nine other predominantly Black and Latino high schools who are automatically enrolled each year in JROTC, a class designed in part to recruit students for the military, data and interviews show. That practice is now under investigation by the school district’s inspector general.

Last fall, for example, all 110 students in King’s freshman class were placed in JROTC, which stands for Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps — whether they wanted to be there or not.

 

 


 

JROTC as a substitute for PE: really?

September 2014 / Monica A. F. Lounsbery, Kathryn A. Holt, Shannon A. Monnat, Thomas L. McKenzie, and Brian Funk / Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport - The 2012 Shape of the Nation Report, a survey of physical education coordinators in all 50 state education agencies and the District of Columbia indicated that 65% of respondents (33 of 51) reported permitting school districts or schools to allow students to substitute other programs or activities for required PE credit (NASPE, 2012). The most common substitution allowances were for JROTC (18 states), interscholastic sports (18 states), marching band (13 states), and cheerleading (11 states).

#jrotc  #nnomypeace

 


 

Gamers For Peace

August 2021 / Gamers for Peace / Veterans for Peace - Gamers For Peace is a new initiative of Veterans For Peace!  Gamers For Peace is dedicated to confronting military recruitment in gaming hobby spaces such as video gaming. We hope to use this alternative medium as a way to talk about the intersections of peace and social justice activism with the gaming universe.

The best way to get plugged into our Gamers For Peace project is to join our Discord channel and follow our Twitch page!

Our schedule and programming are developing on Twitch but every other Wednesday we are kicking off live streaming a Dungeons & Dragons (#DnD) game that will dissect themes of militarism and social justice through the creative lens of tabletop roleplaying (#ttrpg).  Every other Wednesday at 8pm (e), 7 (c), 5pm (p)!  


upcoming webinars against the draft‍

In the most significant Congressional debate about compulsory military
service in the U.S. in decades, Congress is now actively considering
multiple proposals related to draft registration and Selective Service.

Upcoming antidraft informational and lobbying webinars:

Wednesday, 8/18/2021, 7 p.m. EDT:
https://www.afsc.org/action/end-selective-service-all-advocacy-webinar-and-phone-zap

Tuesday, 8/24/2021, 7 p.m. EDT:
https://masspeaceaction.org/event/time-to-draft-women-too-a-call-to-end-the-selective-service-system-for-everyone/

Ending draft registration would be one of the most profound victories for
the peace movement in decades, made possible by nonviolent mass direct
action in the form of quiet and spontaneous  but pervasive and sustained
noncompliance by young people that has rendered draft registration
unenforceable and the registration list useless for an actual draft:‍



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