North America

Mon

Jan

2015

There Is No Future in War: Youth Rise Up, a Manifesto

New translation available

A peace sign printed on the American Flag is raised during a protest against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Archive / History Channel)

Submitted by Gary

Statement written by Ben Norton, Tyra Walker, Anastasia Taylor, Alli McCracken, Colleen Moore, Jes Grobman, Ashley Lopez / Codepink -

Once again, US politicians and pundits are beating the drums of...

Sun

Apr

Veterans Push Back Against Military Recruitment in Schools

Submitted by Gary on Sun, 16/04/2023 - 01:35

The branches of the U.S. military have long seen high schools as optimal recruiting grounds. Some veterans are beginning to fight the propaganda and tell students the truth about military service.

Sat

Feb

JROTC Is Preying on Poor Students

Submitted by nnomy on Sat, 18/02/2023 - 01:38

The G. Holmes Braddock Senior High School Naval JROTC Unit cadets at the Miami Beach, Florida Veterans Day Parade, November 11, 2022.

The Pentagon’s signature program for instilling military values in American schools, the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC), has a long history dating to 1916. But it hasn’t endured such bad press since the 1970s. In several damning articles, the New York Times revealed the structure of what’s wrong with high school military training: instructors who use their positions to prey on teenage girls, in-school shooting ranges built with grants from the National Rifle Association, and mandatory enrollment in some of the nation’s largest school districts — all abetted by school officials who fail to adequately monitor a program of such dubious educational value that many instructors lack a college degree.

Fri

Nov

Mennonites Against Militarism seeks volunteers interested in counter-recruitment efforts

Submitted by nnomy on Fri, 04/11/2022 - 05:21

Mennonites Against Militarism – a collaboration of Mennonite Central Committee, U.S. (MCC) and Mennonite Church USA (MC USA) – is seeking to launch an initiative to counter military recruitment of U.S. youth. The vision for the project, Alternatives to Military Enlistment Network (AMEN), is to connect young people with volunteer advisors who can help them find non-military career, service and training opportunities.

Sat

Jul

Congress is again considering proposals to end, or to expand, Selective Service

Submitted by nnomy on Sat, 30/07/2022 - 06:31

Once again in 2022, sooner than we expected, Congress is considering proposals either to finally end the widely disregarded, unenforced, and unenforceable requirement for men ages 18-26 to register and report changes of address to the Selective Service System for use in a future military draft — or to try to expand draft registration to young women as well as young men

Sunday, 10 July 2022 / Edward Hasbrouck / Edward Hasbrouck's blog - Once again in 2022, sooner than we expected, Congress is considering proposals either to finally end the widely disregarded, unenforced, and unenforceable requirement for men ages 18-26 to register and report changes of address to the Selective Service System for use in a future military draft — or to try to expand draft registration to young women as well as young men.

Thu

May

Navy desertions have more than doubled amid suicide concerns, as sailors feel trapped by contracts

Submitted by nnomy on Thu, 19/05/2022 - 21:47

A uniform hat at a Naval Academy graduation in Annapolis, Md., in 2008

The number of sailors who deserted the Navy more than doubled from 2019 to 2021, highlighting the lack of options contract-bound sailors face when they’re desperate to leave.

Melissa Chan | NBC News - The number of sailors who deserted the Navy more than doubled from 2019 to 2021, while desertions in other military branches dropped or stayed flat, pointing to a potential Navy-wide mental health crisis amid a spate of recent suicides, according to experts and federal statistics obtained by NBC News.

Among a fleet of more than 342,000 active sailors, there were 157 new Navy deserters in 2021, compared with 63 in 2019 and 98 in 2020, Navy data shows. The total number of deserters who were still at large in 2021 grew to 166 from 119 in 2019. Most of them were 25 and younger.

“That’s staggering,” said Benjamin Gold, a defense attorney for U.S. service members.

Mon

Nov

US Senate Prepares To Expand Selective Service to Women as Well as Men

Submitted by nnomy on Mon, 22/11/2021 - 23:10

Edward Hasbrouck / Antiwar.com - After months of delay, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced on Sunday that the Senate is "likely" to vote this week on an annual defense [sic] bill which includes a provision – already approved by the House of Representatives in its version of the bill – to extend the President’s authority to order men to register with the Selective Service System for a possible military draft to include

Wed

Sep

House and Senate Armed Services Committees vote to make women register for the draft

Submitted by gdghirardi on Wed, 15/09/2021 - 01:01

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 draft to include young women as well as young men.

Tue

Feb

Supreme Court asked to review Constitutionality of current male-only draft registration requirement

Submitted by nnomy on Tue, 23/02/2021 - 12:35

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.

Sun

Jan

The MAGA Face of JROTC

Submitted by gdghirardi on Sun, 31/01/2021 - 02:23

January 18 2021 / Gary Ghirardi / Op-ed / NNOMY - With the violence witnessed in the beginning of 2021 at the nation's capital, we have been forced to acknowledge the culture war that exists in the United States in full expression. We also witnessed in the subtext of that event, and the emerging crisis that will follow it, the government's promise of increasing securitization as a reaction to it. That process did not start at the "surge on the capital" but has been in a steady progression of growth for many years. This latest event only provides an additional justification for the need to increase the militarization of our "democracy."

Wed

Jan

Poll: Most women oppose registering for draft

Submitted by nnomy on Wed, 27/01/2021 - 19:25

Rasmussen Reports -

Most women said they are opposed to having to register for the draft in a new Rasmussen Reports poll.

In contrast, a majority of men said they would support having women register, according to the poll released Wednesday.

The poll found that 52 percent of women oppose requiring women to register, while 38 percent favor it and 10 percent are undecided.

Sixty-one percent of male respondents favored requiring that women register.

Overall, the split was more even, with 49 percent supporting and 44 percent opposing.

Most Republicans, 53 percent, said they oppose making women register for the draft, while 49 percent of Democrats said they favor it.

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Countering Military Recruitment

WRI's new booklet, Countering Military Recruitment: Learning the lessons of counter-recruitment campaigns internationally, is out now. The booklet includes examples of campaigning against youth militarisation across different countries with the contribution of grassroot activists.

You can order a paperback version here.