Edward Hasbrouck
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.
Articles:
- National Commission on Military Service To Release Interim Report in January, Edward Hasbrouck, Antiwar Blog, November 6, 2018
Resources:
- Resistance Info
- Edward Hasbrouck on Twitter
- Books by Edward Hasbrouck on Amazon
- Podcast (35 min.): "The Future of Draft Registration in the U.S." (Courage to Resist)
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Playbook for a military draft
July 8, 2024 / Edward Hasbrouck's blog - A new report released 18 June 2024 by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) provides a remarkably candid window into the flawed and dangerous thinking of military strategists who support continual “readiness” for an on-demand military draft, even while they claim — perhaps truthfully — not to prefer a draft, even as Plan B, but only as Plan F for ...
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Congress moves toward stepped-up registration for a military draft
Friday, 14 June 2024 / Edward Hasbrouck / Edward Hasbrouck's blog - A proposal to expand registration for a possible military draft to young women as well as young men is moving forward again this ...
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California Senate to vote on sign-up for military draft
5/22/2024 / Edward Hasbrouck / Resisters.info - The California Senate will vote this week on a bill to automatically register register draft-age applicants for driver’s licenses and state IDs with ...
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House and Senate Armed Services Committees vote to make women register for the draft
Edward Hasbrouck / Antiwar - On September 1st, 2021, the House Armed Services Committee joined the Senate Armed Services Committee in voting 35-24 to expand registration for a possible military ...
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House Hearing on Selective Service
May 19, 2021 / Edward Hasbrouck / Antiwar.com - A House Armed Service Committee (HASC) hearing on May 19th heard from witnesses on only one side of the debate over whether to end draft registration ...
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‘Selective Service Repeal Act’ Introduced in Congress
16/04.2021 / Edward Hasbrouck / Antiwar.com - The Selective Service Repeal Act of 2021 (H.R. 2509 and S. 1139) was introduced in Congress on April 14th 2021 with bipartisan support in both the House ...
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El registro de servicio selectivo merece una audiencia completa en el Congreso
English / Edward Hasbrouck / Counterpunch - Un caso de la Corte Suprema que desafía el requisito de que los hombres, pero no las mujeres, se registren en el Sistema de Servicio Selectivo para un ...
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Selective Service Registration Deserves a Full Hearing in Congress
Español / March 2, 2021 / Edward Hasbrouck / Counterpunch - A Supreme Court case challenging the requirement for men, but not women, to register with the Selective Service System for a possible ...
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Se solicita a la Corte Suprema que revise la constitucionalidad del requisito actual de registro de reclutamiento solo para hombres
English / Edward Hasbrouck / Resisters.info - El 8 de enero de 2021, la Coalición Nacional para Hombres, una organización de derechos de los hombres representada por la Unión Estadounidense de ...
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Supreme Court asked to review Constitutionality of current male-only draft registration requirement
Español / Edward Hasbrouck / Resisters.info - On January 8, 2021 the National Coalition For Men, a men’s rights organization represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, petitioned the U.S. ...