NNOMY Newsletter Archive
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NNOMYnews is the newsletter of the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth. NNOMYnews reports on the growing intrusions by the Department of Defense into our public schools in a campaign to normalize perpetual wars with our youth and to promote the recruitment efforts of the Pentagon.
NNOMYnews also features reports on the saturation of militaristic themes in our entertainment, sports, and gaming offerings that have an influence on our society and on the impact of the military on our environment and health.
Please consider subscribing to this important bulletin and staying informed by filling out the subscription form to the right.
We look forward to you joining with the many of us who are concerned about the threats of cultural militarization in our schools and communities that is threatening a civilian based democracy.
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View Back issues below of the monthly NNOMY Newsletter and educate yourself about how U.S. cultural militarization impacts our schools, youth, and our society.
Also support The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth by Donating to our work.
Below are at list of NNOMYnews by edition number, date, and topic: (Click on the date to open the newsletter)
Back Issues | Upcoming
2024
NNOMYnews 1072 - Third Quarter 2024NNOMYnews 1072 - Third Quarter 2024 | Back to Top
- Consent form revives debate over San Diego Unified School District's JROTC program
August 12, 2024 / Katie Hyson - Matthew Bowler / KPBS - The San Diego Unified School District has made changes to its Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps since Chicano students began campaigning for reform in 2008.
Read article - Utah students protest campus military recruitment, stand with Palestine, Lebanon
September 24, 2024 / Utah Students for a Democratic Society / Fight Back News - Salt Lake City, UT – Nearly a dozen student activists gathered outside the University of Utah’s career fair on September 24 to protest military recruiters present on campus.
Read USDS Statement - The US military is embedded in the gaming world. Its target: teen recruits
February 14, 2024 / Rosa Schwartzburg / Guardian - Amid a recruitment struggle, branches are using huge hits like Fortnite as marketing tools. Some veterans see the practice as unethical – especially given the age of the gaming audience. n a small room tucked into a US navy facility outside Memphis, Tennessee, uniformed personnel sit hunched over monitors, their eyes focused on screens as they speak into headsets with clipped efficiency
Read more - Chelsea Uniting Against the War Against Recruitment Efforts at Chelsea High School
September 12, 2024 / Fran Roznowski / Chelsea Uniting Against the War (CUAW) - Chelsea Uniéndose en Contra de la Guerra’s annual anti-military recruitment campaign was launched at Chelsea High School this week. Members and supporters of CUAW distributed over 1300 English/Spanish fliers as students arrived to school on Monday, September 9, 2024.
Read about this action - A Look Back at Counter-recruitment: Growing Movement to Ban the Military from School
March 2005 • Vol 5, No. 3 / Carole Seligman / SocialistViewpoint - As the devastation of Iraq continues, the antiwar movement is sinking roots in localities all around the United States from demonstrations and vigils, teach-ins, ballot measures, and town meetings (such as the recent series of town meetings all over the state of Vermont that voted to end Vermont National Guard Troops from being sent to Iraq.) Now, added to this broad antiwar movement, there is a mushrooming campaign to deny the U.S. military—all branches—the ability to recruit on high school and college campuses through direct recruitment programs and the paralilitary organization, Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC).
Read article - Do you want to help youth in Whatcom County to learn about service and training opportunities that don't rely on war?
Join our volunteers team by signing up to this upcoming training October 6th 1-3pm at our office on 1220 Bay St! Link in bio to RSVP.
Please join us for our Quarterly AMS Volunteer trainings! Our upcoming training will be held in October at the WPJC Office. This is a great opportunity to engage local youth and veterans in a conversations about our future, our rights and non-violence.
Sign up - Connecting Young Adults to Experienced Career Professionals
Peaceful Options for Training & Careers (POTC) is a U.S.-based networking project that will match you with an advisor who can help you find viable alternatives to military service. These advisors have a passion for helping you figure out your next career step, whether a job, internship, apprenticeship, college or service organization. Please reach out to us if you are interested in being connected with an advisor, no matter where in the U.S. you are.
Find out more
NNOMYnews 1071 - Second Quarter 2024 | Back to Top
Admin - June 27th 2024 marked the 20th anniversary of the formation of the National Network Opposing the militarization of Youth which established itself from a coalition of national and regional organizations meeting in 2004 after the national counter-recruitment conference “Stopping War Where it Begins” in Philadelphia. Much good activism has transpired in the intervening years arguably peaking between the years of 2005 and 2011. With the cycle of wars over the last twenty years, NNOMY has seen counter-recruitment efforts shift increasingly to online information activism with "in-school outreach" diminishing from a peak in 2008 of 140+ groups identified active to a current listing on the National Directory of Youth Demilitarization Groups of around 40+. What contributed to this decline is a combination of factors including antiwar activists facing a public normalized to permanent wars and themselves tiring to affect change to a government under the ownership of the military industry lobbies and a political system beholding to that fact.
With the prolonged war in Ukraine, and the U.S. funded genocide in Gaza in the Middle East, the country has witnessed a resurgence of antiwar activism and protests on school and university campuses nationwide. With the outrage associated to these atrocities there has been the insipient stirrings of a new cohort of youth and community support for all things anti-military including a barely visible interest in intervention into the military recruitment complex primarily at the University level with some stirrings within high school aged youth as well.
At the same time military recruitment has plummeted for the Pentagon as young people choose civilian based futures for themselves and lack the basic qualifications to meet military recruitment standards and what some conservative politicians attribute to "wokeism". The U.S. military is desperate to turn this around to meet its minimum troop levels with increasing military recruitment.
At this juncture, in the summer of 2024, the military and their allies in the government, are now trying to expand military based courses legislatively with programs aimed at poorer communities of color such as mandatory student placements into JROTC classes without parental or student consent and Project 2025 ASVAB testing in our public schools while exempting wealthier private schools. How this all works out past the 2024 elections and contributes to changes in the 2025 NDAA policy directives remains to be seen but one thing is certain; that increased demands put on our schools to allow increased military access to indoctrinate our youth is likely to renew interest in counter-military activism inside our public schools in the months and years ahead.
For NNOMY, the challenges are manifold. To make connections with changing times and cultural changes with a new generation of youth, NNOMY will need to connect to their issues directly on environmental concerns, community policing, and rising antiimperialist sentiments that are becoming more prevalent after the witnessing of a genocide in Gaza, all which will become more imperative in order to gain attention to the counter-recruitment narrative. The failure to do so will likely make the CR activist issues less relevant to these youth and may not permit the passing on of this activism to the next generation adequately to keep counter-recruitment alive for the future. NNOMY needs to change with the times and be able to relate to those it is reaching out to more than ever. The time for this change is now at the 20 year mark for NNOMY.
- The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth Turns 20
- Looking back at Twenty Years of NNOMY
- Equal Access Struggle: Counter-Military Recruitment on High School Campuses
- A Turning Point for the Anti-War Movement?
- Pro/con: Should military recruiters be allowed to promote enlistment in high schools?
- The Time for a Ceasefire is Now!
NNOMYnews 1070 - First Quarter 2024 | Back to Top
Thursday, 18 April 2024 / Admin - For the first quarter of 2024. a new look for the NNOMY newsletter, more down to basics in a era of escalating war business . At hand, are changes for NNOMY like for the rest of the world in a time of mounting securitization, collapsing governmental adherance to civil rights and more corporate militarization influencing the spending priorities of our legislators. This environment is impacting our schools with more Pentagon funding at all levels of schooling to push back against falling recruitment numbers with increasing efforts to sell the military to our youth.
- UConn Scholar Chronicles History and Debate over Military Recruitment in American Schools
- California Selective Service Bill Set for Hearing in Sacramento April 9th
- An Experiment with Involuntary JROTC Placement and Microsoft Copilot Ai
- Demilitarizing Civilian Life: Counter Recruitment at East Boston High School
- Latinos Lured to the Military
- Sonia Santiago dedicates her life to educating for peace
- Restrictions on JROTC Introduced in 2024 Defense Authorization Act
- DoD STARBASE: Early Grooming for Military Recruitment
2023
NNOMY News 1069: Fourth Quarter 2023 - Counter-recruitment after October 7 | Back to Top
For counter-recruitment, looking worn from years of groups aging out and COVID eliminating access to students, the year finished out with a devastating war in Israel revealing military service in the worse of lights and associable to American Militarism by recruitment aged youth that view the support of the United States contributing to the devastation of the Palestinian people in Gaza on their social media.
GenZ is not qualifying for or buying the pitch of military recruitment like previous generations did and where GenAlpha factors in is the next question for the future of counter-recruitment activists. Alpha's are claimed to,
"above all, believe helping people is the number one priority for 12-15s (61% say this according to GWI). Plus, over half want to protect people from bullying and for everyone to be treated the same, fueling long-lasting attitudes that create a safer world for all."
One thing that seems more clear for young enlistment aged youth inside the United States has been US foreign Policy propaganda, and how contradicted it is and remains apart from the truth on the ground from the war justifying rhetoric of the US State Department.
Joe Biden has cinched those doubts with a two faced policy of funding a 21st century ethnic cleansing of Palestine for its security partner Israel and at the same time dissimulating for the American People that Israel has gone to far.
As can be expected, Israeli resistance is growing in the ranks of its military as witnessing of atrocities finds public voice and world visibility and the left/right divide grows in the country while the settler population is allowed unrestrained violence and occupation on Palestinian lands at the same time.
Compounding this moment is the war producing nature of nationalism, revealing the cost exerted upon dwindling public resources for health, education, and housing. Billions go to support a war largely benefitting American immigration into illegal housing settlements on Palestinian lands while American citizens at home struggle with rapidly escalating homelessness.
Can we say that militarism is the necessity method to maintain the nation-state, especially that type which is now openly identified as settler colonialist? Post October 7th may well be a turning point for the world in how we understand state violence and see our youth retreating from participating in it. This should also open an opportunity for the counter-recruitment community to examine their methodologies of speaking to youth during and after a cataclysmic event ushering in a paradigm shift in public sensibilities towards war making.
In the fourth quarter NNOMY News presents articles that signify the changes now influencing values being challenged going forward and hopefully initiates a deconstructing against historically held perceptions about securitization and militarization confronting the reality of state violence for the US recruitment aged youth and guiding them to choose different courses for their lives than contributing to the damage to lives and a sustainable planet of misplaced nationalisms. #seculartalk | @resistersinfo | @veteransforpeace | @wearenotyoursoldiers | @comdsd | @nnomypeace | @afsc
- Why Recruitment in the Military is Down | Nikki Haley Humiliates Herself Again | The Kyle Kulinski Show
- Would a draft make war less likely? No.
- Veterans for Peace with Dr. Kelly Denton-Borhaug on Moral Injury and US War Culture
- Scheduling Fall Class Visits by Anti-War Veterans
- Drop in Public Trust in Military Officers Portends Danger
- Marine Corps eyes national rebranding of recruiting centers
- Military Running Remedial Programs to Snare Unqualified Applicants
- Why Is Gen Z Rejecting the U.S. Military?
- Military Recruiters Have No Place in Our Schools
- BACK to school one way or another
NNOMY News 1068: Third Quarter 2023 - Stopping War Where it Begins: In Schools | Back to Top
Many cultures teach the nation-state as defined by the loyalty of its citizenry to protect it against real or imagined enemies. Much of this ideology is imparted to children in schools through state-supportive naratives built often around magical ideas that the sanctity of the state is divinely sanctioned by our gods, whether those supreme entities be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist. The lessons imparted in our educational systems within the liberal economic conception of the "democratic" states of the "west", are that the natural freedoms of the priviledged permit them the right to impose service upon average citizens to defend the political or commericial interests of their wealth when powerful interests are threatened by competing states. These appeals are couched in nationalistic rhetoric to defend the nation.
Unfortunately, much what remains hidden in these lessons for children and youth, who are soon to be adult members of their respective nations, is that much of what binds the suprastate nationalism together are private financial interests whether they be mated to extractive industries or in industries that support the defense of the nation itself. The irony of much of these industries are that they are not bound to any single national country themselves and are often multinational in scope as are their investors who benefit from this wealth creation.Who pay the price in sacrifice are the relatively powerless citizenry.
The Third Quarter NNOMY news visits again the subject of the military indoctrination built into our educational system, from kinder to college, that reinforces both the mythological and practical narratives that serve the wealth of the nation. In this moment of escalating wars in Ukraine against Russia and with Palestine struggling with their own national autonomy within Israel, we broach the subject of how many ways we teach our children to accept the inevitability of war and the necesity of spending the commons to finance the costs of engaging in them, even at the risk of our own collective demise.
- Federal Legislation Seeks to Restrict High School Junior ROTC
- Christian González Martell: Be well. Be Careful
- Congress, do not buy more death with my tax dollars
- After 12 Years of Being Taught to Hate, I’m Going to Prison Today to Say ‘No’
- Children of War: The War on Terror and the Battle for Young Minds
- I’m a Peace Teacher. Here’s How Brain Science Helps My Kids Handle Conflict
- WRI executive statement on the escalation of violence in Israel-Palestine, October 2023
- Teacher Education Programs Are Places to Challenge Militarism in Schools
- ENDCOM.ORG: Elective Military Corps Programs in Schools Should Not Be Forced Upon Minority and Low-income Students
- Act to De-Escalate the Violence in Israel and Palestine
NNOMY News 1067: Second Quarter 2023 - Why is the military struggling to recruit? | Back to Top
" The percentage of Americans of service age who are eligible to serve in the armed forces is the lowest it’s ever been. It dropped from 29 percent in recent years to 23 percent last year. Fewer young Americans meet the military basic fitness standards, and more young Americans have used controlled substances. While marijuana is legal in twenty-one states plus the District of Columbia, its use is still disqualifying when it comes to joining the military. The decline in the percentage of Americans eligible to serve in the military has become accompanied by a declining interest in service. Just 9 percent of Americans of service age say they want to serve, down from 23 percent a few years ago. A mix of factors looks to be a work. A robust job market reduces the economic incentive to join the military. The political right has raised concerns of “wokeism,” while the political left has raised concerns about far-right extremism among service members. And the military’s well-documented problems in curbing sexual harassment and assault, epitomized by the murder of Army solider Vanessa Guillén, has likely discouraged many young women from wanting to join the military" - CFR
- Lavender's Purple Heart - Veteran Seaman Gunderson
- Chicano Park Day 2023: Youth Demilitarization Space in the USA
- Senators Warren, Sanders, Hirono Introduce Junior Reserve Officer Training Safety Act Gen Z Targeted with Military Recruitment Propaganda
- Gen Z Targeted with Military Recruitment Propagand
- Protesters Decry Military Recruitment at Bronx School Fair Co-Hosted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
- Bronx antiwar activists respond to AOC's smears
- Senate legislation seeks to boost US military recruitment amid shortfall
- U.S. Army Recruitment Propaganda: EMMA | THE CALLING | GOARMY
- Bronx Antiwar Coalition chases military recruiters out of college career fair
- Memorial Day May 29, 2023
- Stop Deporting Russian War Resisters! Sign the petition NOW!
- Should I Register for the Draft?
- The Patriotism of Killing and Being Killed
- Los Angeles Youth attended summer peace camp for four days from June 19 to June 22 2023 at Terra Madre Gardens
NNOMY News 1066: First Quarter 2023 - Forced JROTC on the Nation's Poorer Students | Back to Top
A series of articles from the New York Times from the summer of 2022 up to the winter of 2022 - 2023 has led to much national and regional press on the issue of Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps abuses in our national public school system of the United States. Those NYC articles, in turn, led to a handful of senators and congress members establishing a congressional investigative committee to call up the Pentagon to answer to student sexual abuse claims against JROTC instructors in their JROTC units.
Other issues also included militarized curriculum in JROTC textbooks, National Rifle Association support for shooting ranges in high schools and most pronouncedly the increasing mandatory placement of freshman students into JROTC corps as a replacement for physical education classes in poorer communities that lack other opportunities, post high school, like college.
While Counter-recruiters had successfully challenged and overturned mandatory JROTC in the Chicago Public School district after a multi year lobbying effort of the district, other schools nationally have been adopting forced placements of students without parental or student consent while the Pentagon asserts that the program is voluntary. With lagging military recruitment for military recruiters having to face systemic changes in the recruiting environment post COVID-19, it is clear that that these mandatory school placements are a strategy to increase military recruitment in the commons of our public schools, with a coercive approach sidestepping national and state laws restricting such demands on our nation’s most vulnerable families and violating basic human rights.
Below are a specific selection of articles that have occurred in the intervening 9 months addressing the concerns and struggle around maintaining a citizen based educational commons and even an article from over seventy years ago where the University of California was facing .the question of forced ROTC upon college students receiving an education at a state sponsored school.
- Thousands of Teens Are Being Pushed Into Military’s Junior R.O.T.C.
- Mandatory military instruction affects Black and Latino high school students most frequently, report says
- JROTC Is Preying on Poor Students
- Congress Expands Scrutiny of Junior R.O.T.C. Programs
- David Harris and the politics of draft resistance
- Freshman JROTC enrollment plunges after overhaul by Chicago Public Schools
- AI Explains About Opposition to JROTC
- Our Children Are Experiencing Militarization of the US Up Close and Personally
- The Political Economy of Systemic U.S. Militarism
- Conscientious Objection and Compulsory R.O.T.C.
2022
NNOMY News 1065: Fourth Quarter 2022 - The Wages of U.S. Militarism Upon Us | Back to Top
For the last NNOMY newsletter of 2022 we present the dichotomies that counter-recruitment activism finds itself in a still looming and uncertain pandemic culture where our lives and the state of our schools and youth are disrupted. The military’s recruitment efforts likewise find themselves in a dilemma with sagging recruitment numbers and youth not qualifying to meet the standards to be accepted into military service. On the flip side, there appears to be a generational shift going on with GenZ more aware of the pitfalls of military service and concerned about existential issues like climate change and beginning to connect the dots between our resource dependent economies and the devastation extracting them are exacting on our planet’s life forms and natural environments. This concern is not universal however, but between non-compliance with recruitment standards for some and a critical eye towards US wars and conflicts around the world from others, NNOMY is seeing a resurgence of articles questioning the narratives of militarists and nationalism. How this leaves youth demilitarization activism in the lurch is also evident with groups having had a now nearly three year absence from school access and groups either aging out after a nearly thirty year run of counter-recruitment activism and an uncertain generational disconnect with a digitized generation now the object of military recruitment efforts. An upside to NNOMY going into 2023 is the possibility of a potential wave of counter-reaction by young students to conservative attempts to reign in progressive influences in their communities and lives. One of the question in front of us all as we head into the next year is whether the potential for counter-militarism in our culture is a universal instinct across the country and world as youth increasingly are asking for relief from the inconsistencies in the culture between the rhetoric of governments and the circumstances they face in their present lives as they look towards an uncertain future.
- The “Groundhog Day” Syndrome and Progressive Movements in the U.S.The “Groundhog Day” Syndrome and Progressive Movements in the U.S.
- Of Note | Counter-recruitment: The grassroots struggle to demilitarize U.S. schools
- A Counter-recruitment Conversation with High School Students
- Writing on War: And Living in a World from HellMilitary Recruiters are Exploiting High School Students’ Financial Insecurities
- Military Recruiters Should Have No Place in Our Schools
- Decarbonize the military — mandate emissions reporting
- Concentrations of PFAS in groundwater at Fort Ord are more than 20,000 times over EPA limit - Who knew? Who cares?
- Religion and militarism: NNOMY/Compilation
- Los Angeles High School Peace Clubs Gather for Armistice Day Commemoration
NNOMY News 1064: Third Quarter 2022 - Student Loan Forgiveness Threatens Pentagon's Recruitment Efforts | Back to Top
President Biden’s ridiculously small concession to student loan forgiveness has kicked off another tempest in a teapot as the Pentagon stresses that the, already lagging, military recruitment quotas will suffer more because of it, discouraging young people to find educational financial support inside the military. Could anything be more revealing about the level of hubris within the Military Regimes of the United States than to suffer a paltry support to our nation”s youth’s education against the Trillions of dollars blindsided American Citizens allow to be coerced by this endless system of wasteful overreach and political corruption? The upside to this latest development is that it has shone a light on the Pentagon’s Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps program operating in thousands of American public schools revealing the antiquated , racist, misogynistic, and militaristic intent it serves to implant on our most vulnerable youth and in a place where it should not even be tolerated in a civilian society. This quarter’s NNOMY news focused on the latest articles that have come out of this debacle reaching as high in the media food chain as to initiate a congressional investigation. Plus more….
- Military recruiters are increasingly targeting Latinx students for enlistment
- How Counter-Recruiters Take on the U.S. Military
- US Military: Bad Publicity Is Hurting Recruiting. Lawmakers: Fix Your Problems
- ‘I Felt Trapped’: Sexual Abuse of Teens in the Military’s J.R.O.T.C. Program
- How Peace Activists Are Beating the U.S. Military at its Own (Video) Game
- The Military to American Youth: You Belong to Me
- Senate Democrats demand answers over abuse allegations in JROTC program
- What I Discovered in the JROTC Curriculum
- GOP congressman says student loan forgiveness will hurt military recruitment
- Removing JROTC Marksmanship Training from High Schools
NNOMYnews 1063: Apr - June 2022 - Teaching "Cultural Militarization | Back to Top
Besides the investments that are not made in productive or cultural sectors therefore reinforcing what Susan Sontag calls the “brutality of America”, militarism is an ideology and a set of practices which has invaded America in every sector of its economic, political and cultural life. The military-industrial complex has reinforced a culture of war. Nick Turse analyses this phenomenon in his book entitled The Complex; How The Military Invades Our Everyday Lives. From universities where up to 70% of research is funded by the Pentagon to Hollywood where many movies are co-produced or funded by military experts to the links between Big Oil and the military, Turse tracks down all the ramifications of the militarization of America. He gives long lists of companies working for the Defense Department which depend on military funding, and examples of military waste of resources. In a militarized society even useless weapons that are not needed or at times not even requested by the armed forces are produced while millions of children live in starvation or below the poverty line. - Pierre Guerlain
- Teaching Cultural Militarization
- How Militarism Teaches Our Children That Violence Is Normal
- Op-Ed: Schools Aren’t Safe Now and They Weren’t Safe Before
- Unconventional Combat: Intersectional Action in the Veterans’ Peace Movement
- Afghanistan and the U.S. Learning Resource
- Understanding the Russia and Ukraine War Learning Resource
- Mission Creep: The Militarizing of America
- Peace Week for Fleet Week Los Angeles 2022
- Teaching Chris Hedges: America’s Gun Fetish
- In view of multiple school shootings in the United States:
Removing JROTC Marksmanship Training from High Schools
NNOMYnews 1062: Feb - Mar 2022 - Public School Release of Student Information to Military at 20 | Back to Top
Concurrently, in the last 20 years, we have seen a national military counter-recruitment movement diminish in its scope and urgency as groups have “aged out”, not feeling a connection with the succeeding generations of youth and a normalization of militarism in our culture that has made previous concerns for Defense Department over-reach into the civilian society much less urgent and visible. This issue of the NNOMY news, Public School Release of Student Information at 20, explores the challenges and opportunities for change for the next generations to develop an awareness of the implications of expanding militarism for their futures and their world." Concurrently, in the last 20 years, we have seen a national military counter-recruitment movement diminish in its scope and urgency as groups have “aged out”, not feeling a connection with the succeeding generations of youth and a normalization of militarism in our culture that has made previous concerns for Defense Department over-reach into the civilian society much less urgent and visible. This issue of the NNOMY news, Public School Release of Student Information at 20, explores the challenges and opportunities for change for the next generations to develop an awareness of the implications of expanding militarism for their futures and their world."
- The house that war built
- The Militarization of the US Education System: Supporting war with recruiting and research
- Ethnic Studies Take 2: The Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum
- Youth Are Challenging the US War Machine as Tensions Escalate With Russia
- STEM strike for peace
- Venezuelan journalist reflects on pivotal life moments deciding whether to join U.S. military
- Drop in Public Trust in Military Officers Portends Danger
- Can we demilitarize our minds? And our Country? Before it is too late?
- Recruitment, counter-recruitment and critical military studies
NNOMYnews 1061: Dec 2021 - Jan 2022 - Youth Demilitarization Looking Forward | Back to Top
As we begin a new year, still in Pandemic Mode, we add another year to the pandemic of continous militarism in our schools, schools at every level of education, with Pentagon programs like expanding Department of Defense STEM/STEAM, JROTC, and military recruiters playing video games online with minors to sell them on endless war. All this supports aggressive military recruiting. We are also seeing the beginnings of another round of youth activists connecting the dots and pushing back and saying enough to militarized policing, environmental destruction, and an expanding presence of Department of Defense investments and research funding in their schools. As we enter 2022, it has never been as important as now to activate to expose the scope of militarism in our society; in entertainment offerings, corporate news propaganda, in sports representations, and in our schools. Let's get back into our high schools with concerned teachers, parents, and students, with counter-recruitment strategies to promote alternatives to militarism for building our futures. It will be more difficult during and after the pandemic to get our messages out but it must be done to promote a sustainable world for our futures. It is yes or yes. And help the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth this year with a donation to support our national organizing effort to demilitarize our schools. Make a tax deductable donation at The Alliance For Global Justice.
- Dissenters Principles: These are the values and practices that guide all our workDissenters Principles: These are the values and practices that guide all our work.
- Military Recruiters Don’t Belong in High Schools: Schools have become contested territory.
- Commentary: Abolish draft registration – don’t expand it to include women
- Students Are Pushing US Colleges to Sever Ties With Military-Industrial Complex
- Divest Your School / Codepink
- Georgia: Peace Action Team, new faith-based counter-recruitment group
- NNOMY Conducts National Steering Committtee retreat online to explore strategies for network's future
2021
NNOMYnews 1060: Oct - Nov 2021 - Witnessing for Peace | Back to Top
In this moment of our continuous war economy, groups that push back against the cultural militarism that permeates our society are facing difficult decisions. Peace activists and their organizations are experiencing existential challenges that threaten their continuation while trying to relate to a rapidly changing landscape consumed by digital media distractions and a flailing political structure that more resembles a reality television show every successive season. In the last two decades for activism against war and militarism, whether from mass demonstrations from millions of people globally in 2003 or a handful of people protesting in front of a military recruitment center, those who profit from war, respective of the prosperity for the few or the declining standard of living for the many, are not open to negotiation. Militarization and the justifications for our wars and their enormous expenditures and personal sacrifices are interchangeable and largely meaningless to those who profit. Constant and protracted witnessing to the moral and ethical contradictions of our war economy are our historical response to war makers and still an important role we perform reminding those who can be awakened enough to understand our addiction to war and become influencers themselves for peace. Equally important, activist efforts are there to remind the vast majority who have become normalized to our system of violence for profit, that there is a discontent within the system and powerful arguments against it, whether they are willing to listen or not. Our children and youth are being indoctrinated into a permanent war culture more clearly than ever before and the resources allocated to this banal evil is increasing as our groups pushing back against the militarizing of young minds are diminishing. In the NDAA budget for 2022 military programs like JROTC seek to double the amount of corps programs in our public high schools from 3500 to over 6000. Counter-recruitment activists provide an alternative narrative to challenge military recruiters in public schools because speaking out against our captive war economy and its human costs to our future generations must be done; bottom line. It is time to inspire another generation to take up counter-recruitment activism in schools and online and to innovate ways to keep it relevant and accessable to the same youth that the military has access to. Below are examples of those who have struggled and provided witness against the abuses of our cultural militarism in the last year of 2021.
- Expanding the Military Draft Is Not Feminism. Abolishing Draft Registration Is
- How to Disappear: What happens when pacifist soldiers search for peace in a war video game
- War making as spectacle, entertainment and education
- Time to Question the Militarization of Our Children
- Breaking Cadence: One Woman's War Against the War
- Anti-war veterans explain how US lost Afghanistan while leaders lied, profited
- Northwest Suburban Peace & Education Project
NNOMYnews 1059: Aug - Sept 2021 - Militarizing Our Children | Back to Top
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..
- America’s Child Soldiers: JROTC and the Militarizing of America
- Project YANO, JROTC, and Textbook Project
- Law - The Push To Include Women In The Draft Draws Polarizing Opinions
- Debate Over Women and the Draft Will Turn Politics on Head
- Chicago automatically funnels some Black and Latino students into military-run courses
- JROTC as a substitute for PE: really?
- Gamers For Peace
- Upcoming webinars against the draft
NNOMYnews 1058: June - July 2021 - A Look Back at Council for a Strong America's Mission: Readiness | Back to Top
In 2009 a group of retired military generals formed a "non-governmental" project called "Mission: Readiness" to invoke national alarm that our children were growing up physically unfit to meet the requirements to qualify for military enlistment. Their group, "Council for a Strong America," maintained that this was a "national security issue" and then embarked on organizing interventions into our public pre-school classrooms to promote remedies to the nation. Those children from 2009 in preschools are now of recruitment age and to what result the efforts of these retired generals has been successful is unclear, but what is clearer is that what should have been under the purvue of the National Institute of Health to the exclusion of the Pentagon has gained little community redress and pushback. In this issue of NNOMYnews we re-publish a chapter from the book. War and the Body: militarization, practice and experience by the authors Joseph Burridge and Kevin McSorley that remains the single most extensive analysis of this program and the "banal militarism" that they conclude this program represents.
- Too Fat To Fight? Obesity, Bio-Politics and the Militarization of Children’s Bodies
- Food Allergy Research & Education
- ‘Fighting Weight: How Military Recruiters Take On Obesity, Case By Case
- Supreme Court won't review Constitutionality of current male-only draft registration requirement
- House Hearing on Selective Service
- Will the #US expand draft registration to #women?
- Connecting White Extremism in the Armed Forces to the Military's Culture
NNOMYnews 1057: April - May 2021 - National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 | Back to Top
"The FY21 NDAA comes at a pivotal time in our nation’s history. For the sixtieth consecutive year, Congress will enact timely, important, and essential legislation to fulfill its critical constitutional obligation to “provide for the common defense”and allow on our nation’s military to continue to represent the best that America has to offer: Our leadership and values.
"Our Values? Got that right!
- The NDAA for 2021 expands the programs of the pentagon in our public schools
- ‘Selective Service Repeal Act’ Introduced in Congress
- NDAA’s JROTC STEM Grant Program Must Now be Fully Funded
- The Nuts and Bolts of Pursuing Policy Changes to Counter Recruitment and Demilitarize Schools
- Feminists AgainstTheDraft
- Sole & DJ Pain 1 "National Bird"
- Costs of War Project
NNOMYnews 1056: March 2021 - Resisting Women's Draft Registration | Back to Top
The United States Government is on the verge of requiring women from 18 to 26 years of age to register, like men, for the selective service. The Military Draft. This will be mandatory with the threat of penalties for non-adherence to this demand. The threat of penalties can potentially include huge monetary fines and even imprisonment. In some states of the country, in order to be issued a drivers license, you must register.
The American public is largely ignorant of this legislation and will likely react after the fact of its implementation. The government held public hearings around the country allowing for input by citizens, but largely as a formality, with no intent to consider any reasonable objections to this proposal. The media, as usual, when confronted with any issue relating to the security state or military affairs, went silent or promoted stories in favor of this amendment, supporting it on the basis of gender equality. Below are the groups and activists who have spoken out against extending selective service registration to women, and are promoting that voices of opposition speak out in resistance in-person by video testimony. The basic call is for the abolition of selective service registration, for both women and men, on the basis that it represents a violation of recognized international human rights standards. Let us hope that more voices will rise in opposition to this coersive registration for more soldiers for more wars before and after this flawed policy is enacted.
- The Time for Opposition and Resistance is Now: Likelihood of Legislation to Expand Draft Registration to Women
- Activists fought the US military draft for decades — they may soon have to again
- How Men's Rights Groups Use the Rhetoric of 'Equality' to Punish Women
- Opponents of Military Conscription Call for ‘Full and Fair’ Hearing Before Congress Decides Whether To Expand Selective Service to Women – or To End It
- Watch the ‘Draft Women? Hell No!’ presentation
- Rebuttal to Groups Supporting Female Draft Registration
NNOMYnews 1055: February 26 2021 - Historic Peace Church Peace Activism | Back to Top
Historic Peace Churches have played a consistent and continuing multi-generational role in those movements and within their own organizations that have confronted war and the conscription of youth into those wars. The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth was born, beginning in 2003, when the American Friends Service Committee, a secularized social justice organization of the Religious Society of Friends hosted a gathering in Philadelphia.
In this month’s NNOMYnews for February 2021, we recognize some of those efforts of Peace Churches and the activism and sacrifice that came out of their pacifist principles.
From the website of the Peace Church Alliance: “ “Quakers, Brethren, and Mennonites have been called "Peace Churches" for our shared commitment to non-violence. We don't own these conversations—but we fearlessly hold them—and actively seek to bend the arc of the dialogue toward equity and peace.
Yesterday, we fought for abolition and propelled the Underground Railroad. Today, we invite other individuals and communities to join as Peace Alliance Partners as we work together for "Positive Peace." - https://www.peacechurches.org
- Peace Churches in the Orbit of Youth Demilitarization Activism
- Religion After 9-11: Pacifism on the Record
- Nonresistance under Test
- History of War Tax Resistance
- What Does the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby Decision Mean for War Tax Resisters?
- Behind the Camouflage: A Primer on Military Enlistment for Youth Pastors, Mentors and Counselors
- ‘I Ain’t Marching Anymore’ chronicles 260 years of war resistance and conscientious objection
NNOMYnews 1054: January 18 2021 - The Culture of JROTC | Back to Top
The Junior Reserves Training Corps (JROTC) program is slated to nearly double in the amount of units spread out among our national public high schools. With ample direct and anecdotal evidence of multiple types of abusive behavior located in the culture of JROTC, it is a stretch for the Pentagon to uphold their claim that the program promotes any reasonable definition of building good character and citizenship .
Military conceptualizations of honor and duty and the citizenry's compliance to all things military combined with a country addicted to violence in work and leisure are too often blinded to the dangers that young people face in programs that promote military values as the defining measures of good citizenship. At a minimum it is time for activist organizations, concerned citizens, and legislators to withdraw their support of allowing the JROTC expansion in our schools in the next years that are in the planning stages and organize to limit these programs at current levels or even call for a reduction.
- The MAGA Face of JROTCThe MAGA Face of JROTC
- Queens Junior ROTC cadets get two years for disturbing hazing
- Today’s Education Battles: Lessons From A Campaign That Saved JROTC In The Public Schools
- Huntsville gay rights group accuses Grissom High JROTC instructor of bullying 15-year-old
- The Military Invasion of My High School - The role of JROTC
- A society that teaches violence is a violent society. We need to get the JROTC out of our schools.
NNOMY Feature: January 10 2021 - Revisiting Our Outrage | Back to Top
"Revisiting Our Outrage," is a look back to activist reports and news stories in reaction to the Bush era Iraq war mobilizations, and the resultant school demilitarization activism and resistance that took place before we descended into the fog of protracted cultural militarization in the following years. The reports listed below also measure the distance that we have traveled that transformed a counter-recruitment movement into a ongoing proactive peace practice.
- "The United States of America Has Gone Mad": John le Carré on Iraq War, Israel & U.S. Militarism
- Counter-Recruiting Cuts Military Down to Size
- ‘Counter-Recruiter’ Seeks to Block Students’ Data From the Military
- Coalition of the Unwilling
- Not Your Soldier Day of Action
- Georgia: Peace Action Team, new faith-based counter-recruitment group
- Group protests Marine recruiters in Berkeley
- Counter Military Recruiting During a Pandemic - Webinar
2020
NNOMYnews 1053: December 15 2020: Military influencers in our public education | Back to Top
Young people who lacked the resources and scholarship to pursue a college or university education were increasingly predated by military recruitment as the Department of Defense recruitment budgets increased and their "supply" of willing and qualified recruits diminished in preceding years. As we head into 2021 following a year of pandemic, with likely an additional year of returning to normal in our country, many will face terrible job shortages and the offers of a military enlistment could reverse the recent past unwillingness to consider a military career. Influencers and militarized influences permeate our culture. Military recruitment advertising is inserted into sports, movies, and video games. From school teachers and counselors, to parents desperate themselves under financial hardships brought about by the pandemic will motivate enlistments as well. Our militarized culture is about to go into overdrive
- Influencers in the Military Recruitment of Young People
- Educators, teachers from Midwest gear up for Marine Corps Recruit Depot
- My Son Wants to Join the Army
- Who Joins the Military and Why: An Initial Reconnaissance
- "Rape Culture is Military Culture" Pam Campos-palma
- Sec. 516 expands the categories of student contact information that schools are required to release
- Troops to teachers brings service from the battlefield to the classroom
- The Danger of Asking Hard Questions
1052: November 17 2020: Recruiting Soldiers and Society for Permanent Wars | Back to Top
By both design and circumstances, the United States of America is captive to its assigned role as world enforcer of free market capitalism. With military commands now assigned to each sub-continent of the planet, our military industrial intelligence complex has monetized its permanent war economy with arms sales coerced upon its client states under the false rubric of keeping the world free for unrestricted commerce.
How that all will work out for the people and the planet is never clear in the endless rhetorical back and forth of its collapsing democracy and corporate controlled political culture. It is immersed in a morass of militarism normalized since its enculturated victory in WWII and has allowed its own self inflicted fable to permeate every aspect of its commercialized commons.
From a consolidated and complicit media to sports events and every expression of entertainment celebrating our military, the U.S. citizenry is bombarded with this spectacle of uniformed violence now consuming 7 1/2 hours weekly of over 40% of its male youth in ritualized virtual killing understood as harmless play in first-person shooter video games.
We have now made virtual killing a legitimized sport and have employed "experts" to convince any concerned sectors of our society that it is actually a healthy retreat from the pressures of our lives.
As the U.S. population reels under a poorly managed pandemic and businesses and jobs are lost and eliminated in a faltering main street economy, the military see's their recruitment opportunities increase as more young lives get directed into a bloated military serving as an international occupation force ensuring resource access to our industries.
All what is said here is unrecognizable to nearly all of the U.S. citizenry.
- The Permanent Discourse for Endless WarsThe Permanent Discourse for Endless Wars
- The United States of Militarism
- The Soldiers Using Mindfulness to Manage Stress and Become Better Killers
- Secret tactics of successful Army recruiters
- Antiwar - Counter-Recruitment in the Time of Covid
- The Army on its slight increase in recruiting women and minorities: Please clap
- Murder in virtual reality should be illegal
- Podcast: Chris Lombardi’s new book “I Ain’t Marching Anymore…”
1051: October 17 2020: 2020 Elections + Antiwar Politics | Back to Top
As the U.S. Presidential Elections consume all the media and cultural oxygen in the last days of October 2020, the theme has emerged among the two viable party candidates of who is more anti-war. Likely this theme is a cover for the military keynesianism that constructs our economy for both mainstream parties to not explain why we prioritize the majority of discretionary tax funds for military appropriations and not more important civilian needs.
Additionally, this reality show election season distracts us from the hard economic conditions of declining opportunities that many youth are facing.
In this pandemic moment, the opportunities emerging for military recruitment efforts by the United States Department of Defense should not be ignored. The recruitment appeals to youth in the newly minted virtual recruitment outreach strategies being deployed by the Pentagon have a cost to the national psychological health of our youth. Eighty percent of young men in the United States are involved in militarized gaming, online and off, where recruitment appeals are now present on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitch. One important opportunity available to us as counter-recruitment groups is to increase the breadth and consistency of our social media presentations and outreach on accurate Delayed Entry/ Future Soldier information as potential recruits change their minds and need reassurances and counseling on how to get out. It is an opportunity to save lives and an effective counter-recruitment practice in COVID-19 times when our entry to schools is limited or non-existent..
- Trump and Biden want you to believe they’re more anti-war than they are
- Covid and Militarism: Challenges and Controversies
- Call for Submissions: 2020 Elections + Antiwar Politics
- Zara Bamford: What the Military Doesn’t Want You to Know About Video Games
- 41 Questions To Ask A Military Recruiter
- Low lying virtual fruit for Covid Era Counter-recruiting
- Army Recruitment 2.0: Just Like War Except for the Killing and Dying is now 4.0
- The Navy Paid a Marketing Firm $2 Million for Its Esports PR Disaster
1050: September 14 2020: Training Kids to Kill | Back to Top
The United States is immersed in war logic and the imagery of violence and this is purposeful to drive our militarized culture. Like a decades long slow boil, our citizenry is largely normalized to it and either ignores this catastrophe or embraces it in thoughtless and repetitive jingoism. All of this effects our youth negatively and as their video game culture consumes multiple days of their lives in an orgy of violent and contextually militarized "play" they become desensitized to real violence and positioned to accept permanent war as a justifiable reality of life.
- Training Kids To Kill (Army & War Video Games)
- Mike Stern Concert - Dunker Punks Podcast
- The truth about war with Danny Sjursen, combat veteran and West Point graduate
- Lights! Camera! Kill! Hollywood, the Pentagon and Imperial Ambitions.
- We Live in a Culture of Violence
- Reflections from the Monster Factory
- "Welcome to the War Machine" - CodePink Divest Campaign
1049: August 19 2020: Combat soldiers, PTSD, and Moral Injury | Back to Top
With the United States involved in permanent wars in the post 9/11 era fighting supposed continuous terrorism around the world and with the US now seemingly entering a new cold war with russia and china, veterans are increasingly experiencing higher rates of PTSD, toxic exposure injuries, and claims of the effects related to moral injury.
- Poster Girl Movie
- Veterans of Domestic Wars
- A soldier is drawn into a war-game with the neighborhood kids. Then he loses control.
- Moral Injury And The US Veteran | Almost Sunrise
- A Most Unusual 2019-20 School Year!
- No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
1048: July 13 2020: Militarized eSports and Military Recruitment | Back to Top
In this moment of the Coronavirus, the Pentagon's recruiting efforts at national public high schools have stopped as schools are closed in the traditional peak time for recruiters as school ends for the summer. Looking to expand the military recruitment efforts online, the military has turned to engaging in online gaming, much of it military themed, and increasing their outreach on other platforms where youth are to be found like social media.
- Army recruiters pushing more into digital world
- As Military Recruiters Embrace Esports, Marine Corps Says it Won't Turn War into a Game
- Opt Out and Student lists
- New Publication: Counter-Recruitment Campaigns Internationally
- Once Again, the US Military Wants Your Kids
- NNOMY Provides on our website a meme resource page for sharing on your social media.
1047: June 15 2020: Delayed Entry Program in the Age of Covid-19 | Back to Top
Changes in the Delayed Entry Program / Future Soldier Program during the Covid-19 pandemic accommodate strategies for distance military recruitment and enlistment. These changes further position those enrolled in DEP to feel further obligated and trapped against changing their minds to enlist due to expanded advance payments and training before boot camp in a moment when there is mass unemployment and economic distress.
- How COVID-19 is impacting the Delayed Entry Program and threatening the health of recruits.
- America's Heroes are always those who are expendable
- Militarism in Gaming: Virtual Future Soldier
- Podcast: Congress leaning towards drafting women for next war
- Why We Still Need a Movement to Keep Youth From Joining the Military
- Delayed Entry Program (DEP/Future Solder Program)
- NNOMY Provides on our website a meme resource page for sharing on your social media.
1046: May 11 2020 - Learning Peace in Times of a Pandemic | Back to Top
This pandemic month we visit different voices around our network talking peacemaking with social distancing. We are featuring the voices of students in peace clubs writing to us, activists from peace groups talking together in webinars, and on Zoom, and others concerned about how should be our society post Covid-19 and post militarism as well.Tracy High School Peace Club
- Tracy High School Peace Club
- Peace Club Report Millikan High School
- The Manenberg Artesia AIDS and Peace Project
- Meet the new generation of tax resisters refusing to pay for war
- Who Follows the NNOMY Network on Twitter?
- Video: Divestment 101
- About the Housmans Peace Resource Project
1045: April 13 2020 - Military Recruitment in Post Covid-19 America | Back to Top
As the Planet Earth confronts a global pandemic, the United States' Military Recruiting Commands adjust to the challenge of isolating their recruitment efforts to virtual military recruitment, now encouraged by the massive national unemployment reality in the country. While most of the citizenry hang on to an uncertain reality for their lives going forward in the remaining 2020 year, and maybe extending into 2021 as well, the Department of Defense takes advantage of the vulnerability of our youth as they try to find a place where they can havea place to provide an income, health benefits, and even food. This is a perfect storm for the Military Industrial Complex that see's its fortunes expand while the civilian sectors retract into recession.Army moves to 100% virtual recruiting as COVID-19 continues to spread
- Army moves to 100% virtual recruiting as COVID-19 continues to spread
- Army Reserve recruiters told to utilize 'this terrible event in our favor' to recruit more soldiers amid COVID-19 spread
- National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service Releases Final Report to Congress and the President
- Statement from Rep. DeFazio on the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service’s Recommendation for Women to Register for the Draft
- De-Militarize CPS: Education Not Militarization!: Poverty Is the New Draft
- Veterans For Peace #035: Please don't equate our struggle with Covid-19 with war
- Looking Back at the Bush Era NNOMY
1044: March 17 2020 - Toxic reasons to not enlist | Back to Top
A campaign by the Earth Democracy Project of the U.S. Section of the Women's International League for
Peace & Freedom, has given an additional argument to Truth in Recruitment activists which is the fact of
military contamination health risks on U.S. military bases nationally and globally.
- Toxic Problems for Military Recruiters
- NNOMY 2020 National Survey
- Groups join forces to fight military toxic exposure
- As burn pit problems linger, advocates worry VA and DoD are moving too slow
- Troops in Afghanistan Have Coronavirus Symptoms but No Tests, Congressman Says
- Why women were told ‘Don’t get pregnant at George Air Force Base’
- WILPF asks – What’s in Our Drinking Water? Why this public health crisis?
- Letter: Parents should know of program's Navy link
- Bob Dylan: With God On Our Side (lyrics video)
1043: February 29, 2020: NNOMY Essentials | Back to Top
This issue of NNOMY News we re-introduce essential issues around counter military recruitment activism in updated versions.
One of the primary functions of the NNOMY network is to provide reliable information and we are in the process of updating
many of our core content issues. Check them out below:
- No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
- Joint Advertising Market Research Studies (JAMRS)
- Opt Out and Student lists
- America's Forever Wars and the Secrecy that Sustains Them: A Citizen's Guide
- Before You Enlist: Military Base Contamination Can Be Dangerous to Your Health
- Highlights: Spatial Imaginaries and Social Justice
- Facing falling enlistment numbers, the U.S. Army takes a new approach to recruitment: Mom and Dad
1042: February 15, 2020: Countering Military Recruitment in California | Back to Top
California has the gratest amount of youth demilitarization groups in the United States. California also is the state with the most
defense spending. This issue of NNOMY News, we feature some of those groups that contribute to informing our youth with a fuller
narrative of what it means to serve in the military and directing young people to alternative careers that are not in the armed forces.
- Understanding the South's unequal contribution of military recruits
- San Pedro Neighbors for Peace and Justice / Los Angeles
- Resource Center for Nonviolence / Santa Cruz
- Project on Youth & Non-Military Opportunities / San Diego
- Truth in Recruitment / Santa Barbara
- Courage to Resist / Oakland
- Long Beach Recruitment Awareness Project - LB RAP / Long Beach
1041: February 1, 2020: Visiting Counter-recruitment Groups around the Internet | Back to Top
This issue of NNOMYnews, we visit Counter-recruitment groups from the NNOMY community of activists and check-in to see
what they are sharing on their social media.
- Is High School Too Soon for Military Recruitment?
- Visit Winsted Area Peace Action
- Talk of War
- Visit Long Beach Area Peace Network
- Airman Challenge
- Visit Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities
- Visit Maine Youth and Militarism Project
- Visit Pat Alviso
- Helping Students Keep Their Humanity by Not Signing Up for War
- Parent Teacher Conference Night – March 7, 2019
- Visit What Everyone Should Know Before Joining the Military
- Visit On Earth Peace
1040: January 18 2020: The New Face of Military Recruiting | Back to Top
The new face of military recruiting looks a lot like the old face issue, wise, only it is gauging what gains the attention
of Generation Z which means the virtual world of computer gaming. The new esports approach of the Department of
Defense is turning better leads and generating greater interest than the traditional high school recruitment strategies of
years prior without the problems of community regulation and counter military recruiting interference. The U.S. Army's
"What's Your Warrior'" campaign is right out of the video game playbook. The question is what does this mean for
Counter-Recruitment activists going forward into the new decade.
- What’s Your Warrior?The Corps is offering big bonus bucks for ground combat Marines in 2020
- The Military Views Poor Kids as Fodder for Its Forever Wars
- Army preys on vulnerable teenagers with misleading new adverts
- The U.S. Navy Will Spend its Advertising Dollars in Esports and YouTube, Dumps Super Bowl
- Elite gaming: Army engages youth in esports
- Army simulator stops at Sapulpa High School
1039: January 3, 2020 Looking Back at Counter-recruitment and NNOMY | Back to Top
In advance of the next NNOMY newsletter themed, January 18 2020: The New Face of Military Recruiting, NNOMY takes a
look back at counter military recruitment practice and issues in the past decade to review where we have been as we
anticipate a new decade ahead for counter recruitment activism. A revealed cyber strategy of the Pentagon recruiting
command's plans to generate military recruits from Generation Z and those youth that have grown up in a world of virtual
realities will confront our struggle forward.
- Making Contact – The New Face of Military Recruiting (2010)
- US pressed on military exam for high school students (2012)
- LAUSD Moves to Protect Student Information (2010)
- Should We End Military Recruiting in High Schools as a Matter of Child Protection and Public Health? (2011)
- O'Reilly & Military Recruiters in Schools (2010)
- Counter-recruitment from Wikipedia
- A 2020 Reminder from NNOMYpeace
2019
1038: December 20, 2019: Militarism and Migration | Back to Top
- Border Militarization Policy
- Debunking Recruitment Myths: Project YANO
- Explosive Report Details Corporate Profiteering and Militarization of US Borders
- 10 Ways that the Climate Crisis and Militarism are Intertwined
- On Human Rights Day, Quaker Organization Releases New Report Highlighting Detrimental Enforcement on Children
- Immigrant recruit stuck in MAVNI limbo
1037: December 7, 2019 Human Rights and Militarism | Back to Top
- Peace Mom: Cindy Sheehan
- Army recruitment today is less "Be all you can be" and more "Call of Duty"
- West Point Professor Builds a Case Against the U.S. Army
- War Abolition 101: How We Create a Peaceful World
(online course registration - War is NOT like a Video Game!
- Podcast: “Very jarring and brutal and dehumanizing” – Gerry Condon
- Watching My Students Turn Into Soldiers of Empire
- Know Your Rights!
1036: November 25, 2019 Mission: Readiness - Citizens or Soldiers | Back to Top
- Mission: Readiness at Year Ten
- New Publication: Counter-Recruitment Campaigns InternationallyNew Publication: Counter-Recruitment Campaigns Internationally
- Meet the Retired Generals Working to End Childhood Obesity for a Fitter Force
- TV Fallout / A Commitment to Peace - Out of the Furnace
- Project YANO counter-recruitment workshops
- The Pentagon: Exposing the Hidden Polluter of Water” Receives Substantial Grant
- Mission: Readiness is preparing Pre-Kinders for War
- Too Fat to Fight? Obesity, Biopolitics and the Militarisation of Children's Bodies
- Action is starting here : 6th International Week of Action Against the Militarisation of Youth, 23-29 November
1035: November 8, 2019 ASVAB Data Mining in America | Back to Top
- Opt out of war!: Granny Peace BrigadeOpt out of war!: Granny Peace Brigade
- The Secretary of the Navy Lied to Congress
- The antiwar movement no one can see
- NNOMY Communications Staff Person talks about NNOMY on KZFR
- SURVIVING HOME | Official HD Trailer (2018) | DOCUMENTARY
- The Great Con of American Patriotism
- Social media Memes from NNOMYpeace
1034: October 25, 2019 Teaching invasion: The Army JROTC "Raider Nationals" | Back to Top
- Teaching Invasion: U.S. Army National Raider ChampionshipsTruth in Recruitment's (TIR)
- Summit on Youth and the Military: Thank you Summit attendees!
- New NNOMY Series: TV FALLOUT
- Podcast: Mike Wong, “All of a sudden, this all became very real”
- Waging Peace in Vietnam
- High school with highest death rate in Vietnam embraces its legacy
- We Are Not Your Soldiers tour to high schools and colleges for the Fall 2019 semester: Seeking invitations…
1033: October 12, 2019 Confronting militarism at your High School | Back to Top
- Local Efforts Towards Military Counter-recruitment in Boston
- Truth in Recruitment Summit on Youth and the Military
- Pat Elder at #NoWar2019 World Beyond War Conference in Limerick 10-5-19
- Excerpts from Student Papers
- Moral and Safe?: War, Peace, Drone Warfare & the Religious Community
- New Graphic Novels Honor Hero Medal of Honor Recipients
- Inner and Outer Peace - Thich Nhat Hanh (Banned by Youtube)
1032: September 28, 2019: Theme: Climate Justice and Militarism | Back to Top
- Teach Climate Justice Campaign
- Indoctrination & Education:Who's Really Brainwashing Our Children?
- 10 Ways that the Climate Crisis and Militarism are Intertwined
- California Takes on PFAS Contamination While the Military is a Primary Source of the Pollution
- Profit, Power, and Poison
1031: September 15, 2019: Theme: Intersectionality and Cultural Militarism | Back to Top
- We Need to Get the US Army Out of High Schools
- The Role of Militarism in BSA Rhetoric
- Deconstructing the Military’s Hegemonic Masculinity: An Intersectional Observation of the Combat Soldier
- The Militarization of the American Youth (March 1930)
- Transform US from a culture of violence to a culture of peace
- Refusing militarism is not possible without refusing hegemonic masculinity
1030: August 30, 2019: Theme: Military CO's and Resisters | Back to Top
- International objectors: Spotlight on the Dundee men who refused to fight in the First World War
- Interview - Dahr Jamail - Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan
- When refusing to kill has a higher sentence than murder
- US army deserters flee Iraq
- "I refuse to fight for Queen & Country!", Ben Griffin, former SAS-trooper (Special-forces)
- IAM a conscientious objector
- S Korea wants to know if conscientious objectors play violent video games
- International Youth Day - Betty Reardon
1029: August 16, 2019 Climate Justice and Militarism | Back to Top
- Talk Nation Radio: Pat Elder on Military Bases Poisoning Ground Water
- Groups join forces to fight military toxic exposure
- Pentagon’s endless war brings endless pollution
- Navy Contaminates Local Groundwater and Sewer System in Maryland
- Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice
- This chemical is in our water. Here are 15 things you should know if you drink Dayton water.
- Help NNOMY fund an intern for our San Diego Office
1028: August 2, 2019 How Militarism controls Our National Sports in America| Back to Top
- Dave Zirin: Debunking the Myth that Sports and Politics Don't Overlap
- The Militarization Of Sports And The Redefinition Of Patriotism
- MLB Gets in Bed With the Pentagon
- The Movement Against War
- Op-Ed: Football is America’s war game
- Athletes and activism: The long, defiant history of sports protests
- Americans Who Tell The Truth
1027: July 22 2019 Religious Militarism in America | Back to Top
- Peace Pill: White Supremacy and Apartheid
- Militarism in American Churches
- War and Christian Militarism
- The Cross and American Militarism
- Birth of the Christian Soldier: How Evangelicals Infiltrated the American Military
- How to be a Christian in Military, Law Enforcement, or EMS
1026: July 5 2019 How Militarism controls Our Political Culture in America | Back to Top
- NNOMY Video: The Sanctification of John McCain
- Doubling Down: The Military, Big Bankers and Big Oil Are Not In Climate Denial, They Are in Control and Plan to Keep It That Way.
- Eisenhower called it the ‘military-industrial complex.’ It’s vastly bigger now
- Introducing VFP's new Executive Director!
- How U.S. Presidential Candidates Answer 20 Basic Questions
- Your Say: Is the U.S. too quick to threaten military action?
- Military contractors unfazed by Democratic gains as GOP deficit hawks lose influence
- Department of Defense and Its Effect on the Economy
- Don't Go: The Ballad of Ho Chang
1025: June 23 2019 Peace Veterans talk to our Youth | Back to Top
- Podcast: “It was a bit crazy.” Andy Berman on enlisting to stop the war
- “ALMOST SUNRISE” is Resonating with High School Students too what Teachers are Saying
- War Photography: A Tool for Peace
- U.S. Army: 0 — Internet: 1
- Vietnam veteran speaks to Binghamton high school students about war experience
- Truth in Recruitment in Spokane Washington
1024: June 8 2019 Guns in Our Schools | Back to Top
- ‘Rational Fears’: Dozens speak on Nashua North JROTC air rifle course
- JROTC Shooting Ranges Removed from Two Schools
- No, Teachers Should Not Carry Guns
- High School Shooting Teams Are Getting Wildly Popular — And the NRA Is Helping
- Selective Service Registration Comes Under Fire Again
- “It Is the Young People Who Will Free Us”: Resisting Militarized Violence, from Honduras to Chicago
- The 2019 Peace Prize nominees
- Demilitarist School: Report Back from Chicago
1023: May 24, 2019 Student Activism in High Schools | Back to Top
- What do Game of Thrones and boxing have in common?
- Why do the media ignore high school activism?
- High School Student Activism
- High School Students March For Peace From Northwest Pasadena to City Hall
- Military and Public Service Testimony in Washington DC
- #DropTheMIC campaign momentum is building!
1022: May 10 2019 The militarization of STEM | Back to Top
- 4 Steps to Liberation: Paulo Freire and Pedagogy of the Oppressed
- “Toward What Ends? A Critical Analysis of Militarism, Equity, and STEM Education”
- Why Is U.S. Military Pushing K-12 Students to Build Drones In Dayton?
- Navy Steals: The military's new interest in STEM education
- Drones Are a Military Recruiting Issue
- Our Commitment to STEM Education...and Permanent War
- Resistance: STEM Strikes the War Machine
- STEM Strikes for Peace
1021: April 26 2019 Domestic Violence in the Military | Back to Top
- Homefront 911: How Families of Veterans are Wounded by Our Wars
- NNOMY's The Domino Effect
- The Facts About Abuse in Military Families
- A Message From the Future with the Green New Deal
- Domestic Violence in the Military
- For the first time, domestic violence will be a crime under military law
- Edward Hasbrouck, anti-draft testimony at National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (NCMNPS)
- The women killed on one day around the world
- Megaciph
1020: April 12 2019 Divest from the War Machine | Back to Top
- Divestment from Weapons and Fossil Fuels at Charlottesville City Council
- Sarojini Naidu: Colonialism and Militarization
- Is High School Too Soon for Military Recruitment?
- The Army Is Fielding Hundreds Of More Recruiters After Failing To Bring In New Soldiers
- Divesting Our Youth from the War Machine: A Guide to Countering and Resisting the Militarization of Youth 2017-2018
- Tom Hayden: The Winter Soldier
- Report: War Profiteers, US Arming Of Repressive Regimes
1019: March 29 2019 | Back to Top
- Video: A Soldier's Life
- Counter Recruiter Access to High Schools
- High School Students and Peace Making
- Can Pop Culture Normalize Militarism/Militarization?
- Your Military: 16 cancer cases in one family: Base water contamination fight moves to Congress
- ALERT: Your chance to be heard on the future of the military draft
- Counter Recruiting at Boscobel, Wisconsin High School
1018: March 15 2019 | Back to Top
- The Military Targets Youth for Recruitment, Especially at Poor Schools
- VENEZUELA UNDER ATTACK: 7 NOTES ON ELECTRIC SHOCK (SPECIAL REPORT)
- Global Commodity Chains and the New Imperialism
- When Military Recruiting Goes Bad
- "A modern-day draft, if marketed carefully and cleverly, could foster patriotism via the investment of every family in the nation."
- Federal court declares current military draft registration requirement unconstitutional
1017: March 1, 2019 | Back to Top
- NNOMY Video: What Were the Student Sit-ins?
- The parking lot suicides
- Tell the U.S. Congress and President to Finally Allow Ending the Korean War
- Draft Registration Will Be Either Ended or Imposed on Women
- We’re Asking Charlottesville to Divest from Weapons and Fossil Fuels
- Targeted Messaging: Military Recruiters Getting Creative to Reach Gen Z
1016: February 15 2019 | Back to Top
- The History of the Peace Symbol
- The Resistance Center steps into national counter recruitment conversation with NNOMY
- United States Foreign Policy History & Resource Guide
- The Objector Church
- Activist or protester Surveillance Self-Defense
- The Long Road Home
- Maryland Bill Would Ban Lead Ammo in the Schools
1015: February 1 2019 | Back to Top
- Martin Luther King's Legacy - Peace Pill
- SOY tabling on MLK's 90th Birthday
- Militarism in the Media
- Killology 101: How Media Violence is Consuming Our Children
- Longtime Reporter Leaves NBC Saying Media Is “Trump Circus” That Encourages Perpetual War
- U.S. Army associates a peace leader in support of an institution of U.S. militarism
- From Arizona to Yemen: The Journey of an American Bomb
- It's an exciting time
- Should women be required to register for the draft? Commission likely to recommend big changes
1014: January 18 2019 | Back to Top
- Peace Pill Presents a Series of Short Videos
- General Dynamics Corp:The world's fifth–largest military company
- The Army, in Need of Recruits, Turns Focus to Liberal-Leaning Cities
- Killed the Messenger: The Killing Game
- Youth camps shape new generations with patriotism, pushups and prayer
- NewsGuard Launches War on Alternative Media
- MSM Celebrates Women in the War Machine
1013: January 4 2019 | Back to Top
- Military Recruiting in the United States | Chapter 9 | The Civilian Marksmanship Program Introduces American School Children To The Intoxicating Use Of Firearms
- Education Not Militarization
- El ejército no es solo un trabajo. . . ¡Son ocho años de tu vida!
- Webinar: Militarism in the Media
- Repression of Student Free Speech at Cal Poly
- How to Get Involved in Activism for the First Time
- Peace Pill Project
2018
1012: December 21 2018 | Back to Top
- Military Recruiting in the United States | Chapter 8 | Video Games Recruit & Train Killers
- Why women were told ‘Don’t get pregnant at George Air Force Base’
- Fake military recruiting websites duped millions of students, potential recruits
- Controlling Military Recruiter Access on High School Campuses
- Billboards to End War Going Up and Not Going Up
- “Alexa, Drop a Bomb”: Amazon Wants in on US Warfare
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Teach Your Children (Official Music Video)
- Military Recruiters, Get the Hell Away
- Back to Top
1011: December 17, 2018 | Back to Top
- Military Recruiting in the United States | Chapter 6 | Madison Avenue Joins the Army
- How the Pentagon Censors Military Mental Illness in Hollywood
- The Security Archipelago: Human-Security States, Sexuality Politics, and the End of Neo-liberalism
- Another Reason Young Americans Don’t Revolt Against Being Screwed
- I never expected to become a conscientious objector
- The University's Complicity in the War in Yemen
- Divest from War Coalition Digest
1010: November 23 2018 | Back to Top
- The Stories War Tells Me
- New Section: Edward Hasbrouck
- Resistance to Mandatory Registration for Military Service
- Military Recruiting in the United States | Chapter 6 | Love Our Enemies? Or Kill Them?
- Military Recruiting in the United States | Chapter 5 | Hollywood Pledges Allegiance to the Dollar
- Does "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" have a hidden message?
- How Military Recruiters Prey on At-Risk Students
- Understanding Mass Killings
1009: November 9, 2018 | Back to Top
- Military recruiting in public schools can be disruptive
- A military expert explains why social media is the new battlefield
- Divest “Your Body” from the War Machine
- Guns Out of Our Schools, Propaganda Out of Our Classrooms
- Update on military conscription & compulsory "service"
- Another Amazing Coincidence: Man Trained to Mass Murder Commits Mass Murder
- War School (A Film by Mic Dixon)
- Veterans For Peace and other anti-war groups want Americans to remember that the holiday was originally meant to celebrate peace, not militarism
1008: October 26 2018 | Back to Top
- Trailer Women's March on Pentagon
- Here’s What We Could Have If We Slashed the Military Budget
- The Plumed Horn: poetry, life and resistance
- Here's What Happened When the Supreme Court Ruled on Whether Students Can Protest During School
- Whither the San Diego Peace Movement?
- Just-War or Pacifism? Where should a Christian stand?
- We Need to Stop War Where it Begins
1007: October 12 2018 | Back to Top
- 2018/9 Back‐to‐school Kit for Counter‐recruitment and School Demilitarization Organizing
- It’s Time to Transform the War Economy
- Invest your values
- Truth in Recruiting
- Rethinking School Safety in the Age of Empire: Militarization, Mental Health, and State Violence
- 10 steps to world peace
- The Poor People’s Campaign
- The Militarization of Prayer in America
- Evidence of religious objections to U.S. militarism.
- Stand up to Endless U.S. Militarism
1006: September 25 2018 | Back to Top
- Military Recruiting in Public Schools
- The Military is Not Just a Job, It's 8 Years of Your Life
- Women’s March on the Pentagon to Confront the Bipartisan War Machine? An Interview with Cindy Sheehan
- Merchants of Death: How the Military-Industrial Complex Profits from Endless War
- Must Read: Corporate Power and Expansive U.S. Military Policy
- When Homeland Security Goes To School
- Meet the peacemakers
- Captain Marvel is an Air Force recruiter's dream come true
- Demilitarize Our Community
1005: September 14 2018 | Back to Top
- Should Marksmanship Training be taught in schools?
- Military Recruitment Report: Third Edition: The Resistance Center for Peace and Justice
- We Are Not Your Soldiers School Visits for the 2018 - 19 School Year
- National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (NCMNPS)
- World Beyond War Webinar September 27 & October 24 2018
- On the Right to Peace and the Environment
1004: August 31 2018 | Back to Top
- Recent Trends in Military Recruitment
- The rise of militainment
- 3 rd Annual L.A. Harbor Peace Week 2018
- Dr. Seuss’ forgotten anti-war book made him an enemy of the right
- German military turns to under 18s to boost recruitment
- Military should take its tweeting a little more seriously
- Praying for peace at the Pentagon
1003: August 10 2018 | Back to Top
- Militarism Mapped/ World Beyond War
- First National Military Alternatives Website Peaceful Career Alternatives
- Congressional amendment moves to Senate to add coursework to prepare JROTC youth to fight Cyber-terrorism.
- #NoWar 2018
- Podcast Knitting the Network, Episode 3: Interview with Center for Food Safety Digital Manager, Joey Lee
- NNOMY Office Photo Album
1002: July 27 2018 | Back to Top
- Chicago Counter Recruitment Strategy Summit Summary
- Henry A. Giroux: "War Culture, Militarism and Racist Violence Under Trump"
- "This is Iraq" - I-NZ
- Edward Hasbrouck Podcast: The Future of Draft Registration in the United States
- This month's video essay... Teaching Character
1001: July 13 2018 | Back to Top
- Strategy Summit 2018 Chicago Coming Up
- “It Is the Young People Who Will Free Us”: Resisting Militarized Violence, from Honduras to Chicago
- Recruiting commander seeks to bridge civilian-military divide
- “Bring the War Home”: A Timely Investigation of the White Power Movement
- Military steps up recruitment as summer ‘surge’ starts
- The Pentagon Looks to Videogames for the Future of War
- Knitting the Network: Interview with Chicago activist Libby Frank
- Nutrition is a matter of national security as Orlando military recruiters say obesity rates are on the rise
- Alternatives To The Military
Upcoming
1073: Fourth Quarter 2024
Update: 11/05/2024 GG
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