Before You Enlist Video - http://beforeyouenlist.org
Researching Pop Culture and Militarism - https://nnomy.org/popcultureandmilitarism/
If you have been Harassed by a Military Recruiter -https://centeronconscience.org/abused-by-recruiters/
Back-to-School Kit for Counter-recruitment and School Demilitarization Organizing is focused on student privacy
WHAT IS IN THIS KIT? - https://nnomy.org/backtoschoolkit/
Click through to find out
Religion and militarism - https://nnomy.org/religionandmilitarism/
‘A Poison in the System’: Military Sexual Assault - New York Times
Change your Mind?
Talk to a Counselor at the GI Rights Hotline
Ask that your child's information is denied to Military Recruiters
And monitor that this request is honored.
Military Recruiters and Programs Target marginalized communities for recruits...
..and the high schools in those same communities

 Militarization of our Schools

The Pentagon is taking over our poorer public schools. This is the reality for disadvantaged youth.

 

What we can do

Corporate/conservative alliances threaten Democracy . Progressives have an important role to play.

 Why does NNOMY matter?

Most are blind or indifferent to the problem.
A few strive to protect our democracy.

NNOMY

DOGE obtiene acceso a la base de datos de registro del Servicio Selectivo

  English

23 de abril de 2025 / Edward Hasbrouck / Blog de Edward Hasbrouck  - El  Sistema de Servicio Selectivo  ha confirmado que, a partir de esta semana, personal del llamado  Departamento de Eficiencia Gubernamental  (DOGE) ha llegado al SSS y ha recibido acceso a la base de datos del SSS de hombres registrados para un posible reclutamiento militar.

Hoy un portavoz de SSS me proporcionó esta respuesta oficial a mis preguntas sobre los registros DOGE y SSS:

Un representante de DOGE visitó nuestra Agencia esta semana. Hemos establecido una excelente relación de trabajo. Nos preguntaron sobre nuestros datos y solicitaron acceso, lo cual otorgamos en cumplimiento con la Orden Ejecutiva Presidencial sobre el Establecimiento e Implementación del Departamento de Eficiencia Gubernamental.

El portavoz del SSS también me informó que DOGE no ha implementado (aún) ningún nuevo programa de cotejo informático con los registros del SSS. Sin embargo, no está claro si el SSS sabría siquiera qué ha hecho DOGE con los datos del SSS, una vez que haya tenido acceso a ellos y posiblemente los haya extraído.  DOGE  y el  SSS  han implementado  programas de cotejo informático  que parecen violar la Ley de Cotejo Informático, por lo que hay pocas razones para esperar que alguno de ellos proporcione la notificación previa requerida sobre nuevos usos de los datos del SSS.

Featured

DOGE gets access to Selective Service registration database

  español

April 23, 2025 / Edward Hasbrouck / Edward Hasbrouck's Blog - The Selective Service System has confirmed that, as of this week, personnel from the so-called Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have arrived at the SSS and have been given access to the SSS database of men registered for a possible military draft.

Today an SSS spokesperson provided me with this official response to my questions about DOGE and SSS records:


A DOGE representative visited our Agency this week. We’ve established a great working relationship. They asked us about our data and requested access, which we gave in compliance with the President’s Executive Order on Establishing and Implementing the Department of Government Efficiency.


The SSS spokesperson also told me that no new computer matching programs involving SSS registration records have been carried out (yet) by DOGE. But it’s not clear whether the SSS would even know what DOGE has done with SSS data, once DOGE has gotten access to it and possibly exfiltrated it. DOGE and the SSS have operated computer matching programs that appear to violate the Computer Matching Act, so there’s little reason to expect that either would provide the required advance notice of new uses of SSS data.

Featured

Mi rechazo a la guerra y la violencia…

  English

Este fue mi segundo tatuaje a los 18 añosComenzó desde muy pequeña, al nacer y crecer en un entorno de precariedad y dificultades económicas sentí la hostilidad del mundo. La violencia estructural reduce tus oportunidades de superación y hace de tu vida un sinfín de retos cotidianos. Vivir en un hogar pobre donde la violencia y sus distintas manifestaciones estaban presentes, me hizo entender que no era adecuado, ni justo para mí o cualquier otro ser humano. Con el tiempo crecí rechazando toda expresión de violencia, pero al mismo tiempo fortaleciendo mi rebelde, mi pensamiento crítico y mi insaciable necesidad de investigar otras formas de relacionarnos. Desde pequeña tuve la certeza de que la educación era mi única alternativa para superar mi situación de pobreza extrema y me refugié en libros. Tenía una sensibilidad especial ante las injusticias, los desaires y la marginalización de la era víctima, y aunque mi destino parecía ya estar determinado por mi clase social y mi género, seguí como buena rebelde empeñada en lo que tanto anhelaba… A mis 16 años tenía una clara percepción de los postulados de Gandhi, de su resistencia pacífica, de su Satyagraha y de rechazar cualquier imposición social injusta. Las dificultades económicas continuaron y aunque pase por distintas universidades publicas fue en 2018 cuando finalmente alcance graduarme de la Universidad Central de Venezuela como Socióloga, y en 2021 de la Universidad Latinoamericana y del Caribe como Especialista en Derecho Internacional Humanitario.

Apoye nuestro trabajo a nivel nacional

Su donación a NNOMY contribuye a equilibrar el mensaje militar en nuestras escuelas públicas. La Red Nacional Contra la Militarización de la Juventud trabaja para equilibrar el mensaje de los reclutadores militares en nuestras escuelas públicas, donde los menores son reclutados y sometidos a múltiples programas del Departamento de Defensa. Su contribución financiera apoya el trabajo nacional de desmilitarización de NNOMY con organizaciones activistas en escuelas secundarias y preparatorias. Este trabajo estratégico por la paz debe coordinarse a nivel nacional para cumplir eficazmente su misión, y NNOMY es la única entidad en EE. UU. que desempeña un papel de red nacional para el trabajo de contrarreclutamiento y desmilitarización juvenil.

helpPara donar mediante cheque a través de nuestro patrocinador fiscal, Alliance for Global Justice, haga un cheque a nombre de:
 
Alliance for Global Justice y luego escribe NNOMY en el memorando y envíelo por correo a:
 
AFGJ, 225 E. 26th St. Suite 1, Tucson, AZ 85713.
 
 

Su donación es deducible de impuestos en la medida permitida por la ley.

 

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Revisado: 03/01/2023 GDG

Carreras en construcción de paz y cambio social

¿Por qué yo soy un activista por la paz? ¿Por qué tú no?


Escrito para la colección "¿ Por qué la paz ?" | English

 

Más que cualquier otra descripción, salvo quizás la de esposo y padre, durante los últimos seis años he sido un activista por la paz. Sin embargo, dudo en cómo contar mi historia personal sobre la guerra. Recientemente visité Afganistán brevemente para hablar con personas que han vivido la guerra. He hablado con muchos soldados estadounidenses y víctimas de guerra no estadounidenses. Pero no tengo experiencia en la guerra. Estar en Washington, D.C., el 11 de septiembre de 2001, no cambia eso; para cuando un crimen se transformó en guerra, la guerra ya se había trasladado a otro lugar.

Conozco a un veterano de Vietnam que se opuso a esa guerra, pero se cansó tanto de que le dijeran que no estaba cualificado que se alistó. A su regreso, y durante décadas desde entonces, se ha opuesto a las guerras con el aura de alguien que conoce la guerra. Yo no tengo esa aura, y desde luego no la quiero. Valoro la oposición a la guerra de quienes la han vivido, pero también valoro la oposición a la guerra de otros. Y me imagino que todos podemos detectar la falla fatal en cualquier propuesta que haga que la gente experimente guerras antes de poder oponerse a ellas. En 2006, un candidato al Congreso y veterano de Irak en Ohio, que participaba en un panel conmigo, instó a todos los políticos a "servicio" militar para que pudieran oponerse al militarismo con un mayor conocimiento de las fuerzas armadas. Levanten la mano si creen que eso funcionaría.

Así que la pregunta obvia es probablemente cómo me convertí en activista por la paz. Sin embargo, en mi opinión, la pregunta siempre ha sido por qué alguien no lo es. Entiendo que no hay muchas vacantes para activistas por la paz profesionales, pero hay un sinfín de puestos de voluntariado a tiempo parcial.

Cuando era niño y crecía en el norte de Virginia, en una familia sin nadie en el ejército ni que se opusiera a él, recibimos la visita de un invitado. Tenía muchas ganas de ver la Academia Naval de los Estados Unidos en Annapolis, Maryland. Así que lo llevamos en coche y se la mostramos. Quedó muy impresionado. Pero me sentí mal físicamente. Allí estaba un hermoso pueblo soleado, lleno de gente disfrutando de la vida y gente entrenada para asesinar a otros en masa. Hasta el día de hoy no logro entender por qué necesito una explicación específica para encontrar eso insoportablemente repugnante. Quiero escuchar una explicación de alguien a quien no le parezca así.

Ah, nos dirán, todos encontramos la guerra preocupante, pero ser adulto significa tener el valor de hacer lo necesario para evitar algo peor.

La cuestión es que nunca confié mucho en los adultos. No me repugnaba la idea de la guerra para mí, aunque sí estaba dispuesto a dejar que otros participaran en ella. Me negaba a creer que un horror como la guerra pudiera justificarse, para nadie. Al fin y al cabo, como a todos los niños, me habían enseñado a resolver los problemas con palabras en lugar de con los puños. Me habían dicho que matar estaba mal. Y, como casi todo el mundo, me sentía visceralmente inclinado a resistirme a la idea de matar a alguien. Si iba a aceptar que en algunos casos era correcto matar a muchísima gente, y que era correcto estar siempre entrenando y construyendo una enorme maquinaria de guerra por si acaso se presentaba una situación así, alguien tendría que demostrármelo.

En mi experiencia, la opinión general a menudo estaba completamente equivocada. Se mantenía una enorme industria de iglesias los domingos para promover ideas que mis padres se tomaban en serio, y la mayoría de la gente también, pero que a mí me parecían un completo disparate. La idea de que la guerra era paz me parecía tan absurda a primera vista, que solo la creía si me la demostraban. Sin embargo, todas esas ideas estaban en mi cabeza. Nunca pensé que trabajaría como activista por la paz hasta que me encontré haciéndolo a los 35 años. Me llevó años viajar, estudiar, abandonar la escuela de arquitectura, dar clases de inglés en Italia, cursar una maestría en Filosofía en la Universidad de Virginia y trabajar como reportera y periodista antes de encontrar mi camino.

Me convertí en activista a finales de mis veintes en temas nacionales de justicia penal, justicia social y derechos laborales. Me convertí en activista profesional a los 30 años cuando empecé a trabajar para ACORN, la asociación de grupos comunitarios que asustó a tanta gente poderosa que fue calumniada en los medios, desfinanciada y destruida varios años después, después de que yo ya había pasado página. Protesté contra la primera Guerra del Golfo y los preparativos para la guerra de Irak de 2003. Pero me convertí en una especie de portavoz y escritor contra la guerra cuando trabajé como secretario de prensa para la campaña presidencial de Dennis Kucinich en 2004. Hizo de la paz el tema principal de su plataforma. Hablamos de paz, comercio y atención médica, y no mucho de comercio o atención médica.

En 2005 me encontré trabajando en una campaña para destituir y procesar al presidente George W. Bush por mentir a la nación para que entrara en guerra. Esto significó trabajar estrechamente con el movimiento por la paz y formar parte de él, incluso mientras participaba en algo menos que pacífico: intentar enjuiciar a alguien y encarcelarlo. Me sumergí en el activismo en línea y en el mundo real, organizando, educando y protestando. Planifiqué estrategias, presioné, planifiqué, escribí, protesté, fui a la cárcel, di entrevistas y presioné por la paz.

El movimiento por la paz tiene sus desventajas y una aparente hipocresía. No siempre nos comportamos pacíficamente. No siempre compartimos la misma visión. Algunos grupos favorecen la paz cuando al hacerlo benefician a un partido político en particular y, por lo demás, aceptan con entusiasmo la guerra. Algunos creen sinceramente que ciertas guerras son crímenes, pero otras están justificadas. Algunos intentan colaborar con figuras corruptas. Algunos intentan presionar desde fuera del poder. Algunos intentan, con gran dificultad, superar algunas de esas brechas.

Pero mi experiencia en el movimiento por la paz, en general, ha sido increíblemente positiva. He hecho buenos amigos a los que veo un par de veces al año, en escenarios o en la calle, y con frecuencia en furgonetas policiales. Los activistas por la paz a tiempo completo, la mayoría de los cuales tienen otro empleo remunerado a tiempo completo, aquellos que no sirven a ninguna organización en particular, pero que mantienen unido el movimiento con su espíritu y fiabilidad: estas son personas con más historias grandiosas que las que cualquier escritor plasmará jamás en papel o pantalla. Estas son las personas por las que, fuera de mi familia, estoy más agradecido. Si alguno de ellos hubiera sido visible como lo son los reclutadores militares y los soldados de plomo, quizás me habría unido al movimiento por la paz antes.

Mi enfoque puede evolucionar, pero no me imagino abandonándolo jamás. En 2009 y 2010 escribí dos libros; el segundo, sobre la cuestión de si alguna guerra había estado justificada. El título revela la conclusión a la que llegué: «La guerra es una mentira». Y no es una mentira cualquiera. Es la justificación de lo peor que nadie haya ideado jamás. Acabar con ella ya no es solo cuestión de hacer un mundo más agradable, sino de supervivencia. Proliferación armamentística, repercusiones, colapso económico, colapso ambiental, colapso político: elige tu veneno; la guerra nos destruirá de una o más de estas maneras a menos que le pongamos fin. ¿Por qué no querría alguien hacerlo?

Fuente: David Swanson - La guerra es un crimen

Featured

DOGE gets access to Selective Service registration database

U.S. Selective Service SystemApril 17, 2025 / Edward Hasbrouck / Edward Hasbrouck's Blog - The Selective Service System has confirmed that, as of this week, personnel from the so-called Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have arrived at the SSS and have been given access to the SSS database of men registered for a possible military draft.

Today an SSS spokesperson provided me with this official response to my questions about DOGE and SSS records:

A DOGE representative visited our Agency this week. We’ve established a great working relationship. They asked us about our data and requested access, which we gave in compliance with the President’s Executive Order on Establishing and Implementing the Department of Government Efficiency.

The SSS spokesperson also told me that no new computer matching programs involving SSS registration records have been carried out (yet) by DOGE. But it’s not clear whether the SSS would even know what DOGE has done with SSS data, once DOGE has gotten access to it and possibly exfiltrated it. DOGE and the SSS have operated computer matching programs that appear to violate the Computer Matching Act, so there’s little reason to expect that either would provide the required advance notice of new uses of SSS data.

The SSS registration database contains information on all those male U.S. citizens or residents born on or after 1 January 1960 who have registered with the SSS or have been registered by state driver’s license agencies. Compliance is low, many men in these cohorts never registered, and few of the addresses, even for draft-age men, are up to date. But the database is still huge and vulnerable to abuse. Because SSS registration records are so inaccurate and incomplete, matching them against other databases would produce large numbers of mis-matches, with unknown consequences.

Subcategories

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.

 

Activists Demilitarizing Our Public Schools

The NNOMY CAMPUS page is a resource for activists wishing to understand how to more effectively intervene in our public schools against the increasing influence of Pentagon programs to indoctrinate our youth for war. A series of webinars are being planned on different successful strategies to effect policy changes in school districts that better protect student privacy from military recruiters, to organize access to counter-recruit on campus, and to monitor the activities of military personnel on public school campuses. Topics are listed by series and subject. NNOMY webinar based workshops are a more effective method to instruct how to proceed with curbing the number of youth that make the choice to join into military service, or do so with a more informed picture of what this service will entail.  This page will be updated periodically as additional webinars are conducted and new materials are produced to support these trainings. NNOMY will maintain these educational resources with the most up-to-date information and informed opinions as possible in order to keep the practice of national counter'recruitment efforts viable into the future.

 

Available Webinars:    

Michael FlynnThe warning, given to me 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global, Christian empire. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible. - Chris Hedges (From his article: The Christian Right and the Rise of American Fascism, 2011)

Revised 04/17/2016

  https://www.nnomy.org/militarizedculture | Versión en español

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks to Department of Defense personnel, with President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 2021. (DoD photo by Lisa Ferdinando)

Though the United States of America shares with other nations in a history of modern state militarism, the past 78 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 forty years, with the rise of the neo-conservative Reagan and  Bush (2) administrations, 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. Even with the return of eight years of the, so called, Liberal Obama administrations we saw the further erosion of long held human right protections with the suspension of habeas corpus and the increased usage of extra-judicial drone bombing killings of claimed combatants in multiple conflicts worldwide. Now with the Trump and Biden administrations, these programs have increased unbeknownst to the general public as the mainstream media silenced and normalized perpetual wars.

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.

U.S. Air Force airmen acting as extras during the filming of the 2007 film Transformers at Holloman Air Force Base. A camera operator on an ATV can be seen filming them on the right.The average citizen has slowly come to terms with stealthily increasing campaigns of militarization domestically in media offerings; from television, movies, militarized video games,  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 understand 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 infrastructure; 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.

Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team members, some armed with assault rifles, preparing for an exerciseHow 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 where we are witnessing militarized police forces in all our cities.

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.

Counter-recruitment poster.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

 

 

 

 Please consider becoming a supporter of The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth
And our work to demilitarize our schools and youth.
Donate Here

 

###

Revised / 11/04/2023 - GDG

 

The Resources section covers the following topics:

 

NNOMYpeace has organized the following resources for our own staff of activists to promote our campaigns on different social media platforms. Many are formatted for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds. 

We also welcome those activists inside our network of groups doing Truth in Recruitment and Counter-recruiting activism to utilize there resources for their own social media channels.

If you are not a group associated to NNOMYpeace, and would like to utilize these resources on your own channels, we encourage your groups to integrate to NNOMY on our National Directory of Youth Demilitarization Groups to help support the national community of youth demilitarization groups to know you and the scope of your activism. You can share your information to list your group by submitting an organizational form at the following LINK.

We have distributed the following graphics by campaign. Click on the categories below to see those that support different campaign themes by NNOMY

__________________________________________

 

The Divest “Your Body” from the War Machine graphics are campaigning resources for social media for the Divest campaign that NNOMY is collaborating with CodePink. NNOMY focuses on asking youth to "Divest of their Bodies" from military service with the war machine. These are strictly to be utilized with counter-recruitment only and not with TIR.

These social media resources are to be utilized with the "Winning the Peace" campaign in cooperation with the palm cards developed by War Resisters League and the support website created for smart phones, "What Everyone Should Know Before Joining the Military / Lo que deberías saber entres de enrolarte en las Fuerzas Armadas (FF.AA.) ,"  to answer questions for youth about what military service really involves for them.

These social media resources focus on groups nationally and regionally that take part in some form of youth demilitarization activism. That can include themes such as Truth in Recruitment or Counter-recruitment activism or participate in outreach to schools as veteral or antiwar speakers. Those using them should be cognizant of the limits that your location and context present before you decide to select the appropriate images and appeals for your use.

The Misc. social media image resources category are designed around various appeals encompassing general counter-recruitment messages and antiwar themes. They should be utilized judiciously with attention paid to the moment and situation of which they are applied. Some of these may be themed along specific important dates in the peace calendar of on specific subject relating to militarization especially those themes that effect youth. Those found in this category are not specific to a campaign.

Back to School Against War & Militarism! Get the 2018-19 Back-to-school Kit for Counter-recruiting and School De-militarization Organizing from The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth and find out how you can help keep our youth safer and send a message to school officials and your government... military recruiters should be monitored in local high school and minor-aged youth deserve a balanced narrative on military service! Act Now to activate in your child's public school against Pentagon intrusions into our community youth.

The "Eliminate Selective Service for Everyone" campaign category addresses the antiquated Selective Service system and the demand for its elimination. With the issue of women now being qualified for combat duties including fighting, the issue has been brought before the congress and senate of the United States to require women to register, like men, in the years when young adults are typically drafted into the services to fight wars if the draft needs to be re-initiated in the event of a national crisis where there are not sufficient troops to meet the troop requirement.

This campaign, "Eliminate Selective Service for Everyone," asks for the elimination of this demand based on it being a violation of basic and internationally recognized human rights protocols including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

https://nnomy.org/selectiveservice

The "Costs of War" campaign category came from the Watson Institute for International Affairs website of Brown University in Providence, RI. This institute has made their research into the economic, social, political, and human costs of U.S. wars their research focus. Their mission statement explains the following:

The Costs of War Project is a team of 50 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners, and physicians, which began its work in 2010. We use research and a public website to facilitate debate about the costs of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the related violence in Pakistan and Syria. There are many hidden or unacknowledged costs of the United States’ decision to respond to the 9/11 attacks with military force. We aim to foster democratic discussion of these wars by providing the fullest possible account of their human, economic, and political costs, and to foster better informed public policies.

This campaign, "Costs of War," asks for the public to be aware that our post 9/11 foreign policy has an effect on the U.S.'s international relations that are increasingly coming under question domestically and internationally and how those policies align with the stated goals of the U.S. State Department and its allied governments..

https://nnomy.org/costsofwar

NNOMY Peace produces workshops to assist groups in understanding the tactics of military recruiters in the school and the community and create community and strategies for groups envolved in youth demilitarization efforts.

NNOMYpeace produces printable and viewable resources to support the practice of Truth in Recruitment and Counter-recruitment activism.

News reports from the groups associated to the NNOMY Network including Social Media.

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.

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 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 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

Rick Jahnkow has worked 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. Rick Jahnkow, one of both organization’s founders, first became active organizing draft resistance and opposition to the Vietnam War. He can be reached at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Counter-recruitment and school demilitarization work in the U.S. has gone through several cycles of expansion and contraction during the last few decades. The first expansion was during the early 1980s when it was supported by a small number of national organizations, such as the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), War Resisters League, Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO) and National Lawyers Guild. Most grassroots activities at the time were carried out by chapters of these organizations and a number of independent community peace groups (including COMD and, eventually, Project YANO).

Many counter-recruitment organizers in the 1980s came from the Vietnam-era anti-draft movement, so it was common for them to include draft counseling information as they also worked to counter the presence of military recruiters in schools. This dual emphasis was encouraged by the return of Selective Service registration in 1980 and the government’s various efforts to coerce young men into compliance. Frequently, organizers saw no distinction between the issues of recruiting and Selective Service registration, which had both positive and negative consequences. It was positive in the sense that fear of a possible return to the draft fueled more youth-focused organizing and helped increase awareness of recruiting and militarism in schools. But on the negative side, the frequent focus on Selective Service kept many activists from fully comprehending that economics had become the primary factor driving the militarization of young people, and that draft counseling was not an effective approach to the problem. Another negative consequence was that as concern about conscription diminished in the late 1980s, the overall level of counter-recruitment work also fell considerably.

Fortunately, those groups that did continue to organize deepened their analysis and developed more appropriate and effective organizing approaches. For example, they focused on addressing the “poverty draft” by compiling and distributing literature on alternatives to enlistment. At the same time, they sought to either eliminate recruiters from schools or at least secure equal access to give students alternative information. As the tactics evolved and improved, there were a number of important achievements. For example:


The principle of equal school access for counter-recruiters was realized in many places, thanks to a combination of effective organizing and a few successful lawsuits decided in the late 1980s. The broadest legal precedent for equal access came in a 1986 ruling won by COMD in the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.


  • Solid research produced high-quality tools for grassroots organizing, including a professionally produced slide show that eventually evolved into a powerful educational DVD, “Before You Enlist,” which is used widely today.
  • In many places, school policies were passed that severely curtailed, or completely banned, recruiter access to students.
  • Opportunities for successful cross-community and cross-issue organizing developed that had not been available to the traditional U.S. antiwar movement.

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Special Collections & University Archives:

  • Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft Records
    1979-2021 Bulk: 1980-1987
    http://scua.library.umass.edu › category › social-change › draft-resistan…
    Draft resistance – Special Collections & University Archives
    Formed in 1979 in the wake of a congressional vote on reinstating the draft, the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD) was formed by San Diego-based anti-war activists Bill Roe, Hoppy Chandler, Norm Lewis, Fritz Sands, and Rick Jahnkow.

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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.

 

Documents:

audio  Pat Elder - National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth

NNOMY periodically participates in or organizes events(e.i. conferences, rallies) with other organizations.

News articles reposted about NNOMY. Includes news reports about our work with associated groups and conferences.

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.

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.
 
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https://nnomy.org/popcultureandmilitarism/

Selene Rivas presents for the International Week of Action Against the Militarisation of Youth a series of brief articles exploring how the U.S. citizenry has been normalized to accept a permanent state of militarism through popular culture: Movies, video games and comic books. From Monday, November 20th and continuing through Sunday the 26th of November, 2017, a new segment of this series of short articles will be featured each day. Select from the articles below.

You can find out more about the Week Of Action at War Resisters' International.

Edward Hasbrouck grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He considers myself primarily a political activist. Hasbrouck began his resistance to the violence of illegitimate authority as an elected but nonvoting student representative to the local school board and as an activist for peace, disarmament, and students' rights. His first book was a handbook for high school students on their legal rights co-authored in the summer of 1977, between high school and college, as an intern for the student service bureau of the Massachusetts Department of Education. He majored in political science at the University of Chicago until leaving school to pursue direct involvement in political activism.

 

 


Conscription of young people to fight old people's wars is one of the ultimate expressions of ageism, and for me, resistance to an ageist draft was first and foremost a component and continuation of the struggle for youth liberation. The religious and authoritarian justifications for conscription and war are remarkably similar to the religious and authoritarian rationales for violence against children and for slavery. - Edward Hasbrouck


In 1980, after a five-year hiatus, the U.S. government reinstated the requirement that all young men register for military conscription with the Selective Service System. In 1982, Hasbrouck was selected for criminal prosecution by the U.S. Department of "Justice" (specifically, by William Weld and Robert Mueller) as one of the people they considered the most vocal of the several million nonregistrants for the draft. As one of 20 nonregistrants who were prosecuted before the government abandoned the enforcement of draft registration, Hasbrouck was convicted and "served" four and a half months in a Federal Prison Camp in 1983-1984. The high-profile trials of resistance organizers proved counterproductive for the government. These trials served only to call attention to the government's inability to prosecute more than a token number of nonregistrants, and reassured nonregistrants that they were not alone in their resistance and were in no danger of prosecution unless they called attention to themselves.

 

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