NNOMY

NCRD Conference 2009

National Counter-Recruitment and Demilitarization Conference Info back

Chicago, July 17-19, 2009

This page is the portal to information on the conference, including conference logistics, travel to the conference, where to stay, etc. We also will be posting the conference packet so you can download it in advance and read it on your way to the conference.

Materials will continue to be added here over the next several weeks, so check back often.

Logistics Housing Transportation
Schedule
   
Contact Informatiion:
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Phone: 312-427-2533
Mail: CRC c/o AFSC
637 Dearborn St. #3
Chicago Illinois 60605
   

Register Online: Click here

CONFERENCE DOCUMENTS:

• Conference packet items

The conference packet contents are available for download here so that you can print it out before the conference and bring it with you. Hard copy packets will also be available at the conference

• Workshops

A workshop list and presenter biographies can be downloaded here. 

Documents that will be distributed by workshop presenters will be posted as they become available: Click here to download the documents.

PLEASE NOTE: Workshop session times are in the conference schedule.

• Conference Presenters

Important notices for all conference presenters: Click here

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* Credits

3 decline to take military test

Cedar Ridge High's principal says they weren't being disciplined in being sent to a suspension classroom

 
HILLSBOROUGH - Three high school students were sent to an in-school suspension classroom after refusing to take a military aptitude test at Cedar Ridge High School on Tuesday.

Principal Gary Thornburg said the students were not being disciplined, but rather that the in-school suspension teacher was the staff person available to supervise them.
 

No Child Left Behind Act - Overview

UNCLE SAM WANTS...
Your Child's Name, Phone Number, and Address

The passage of recent "school reform" legislation intended to improve upon the nation's school systems also allows the military access to private student information.

The No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law by President George Bush on January 8, 2002, is touted by many as a federal bipartisan success story designed to impact the way children learn in school and how schools and states are held accountable to students, parents and educational communities. It is an elaborate reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 that, among other things, initially offered grants to low income school areas and established the federal lunch and milk programs. In spite of the new act’s overwhelming support by Washington legislators and policy makers, it is starting to come under fire for a well-hidden section entitled Sec. 9528. Armed Forces Recruiter Access to Students and Student Recruiting Information.

Recruiter policies and recruiter fraud

Army recruiting policies:
http://www.usarec.army.mil/im/formpub/Pubs.htm

School Recruiting Program Handbook:
http://www.usarec.army.mil/im/formpub/REC_PUBS/p350_13.pdf

Military recruiters are just doing their jobs, as salespeople.  They have quotas to fill and will do what they need to meet their deadlines.  They employ a variety of tactics to convince young people to enlist and help them get around the rules so they can join.  Some of these include:  telling students to lie about medical history and health, encouraging and assisting students in the fabrication of diplomas, driving students to purchase and even paying for detox and signing up students with mental/physical problems. 

The Army says it prosecuted 325 cases of recruiter fraud in 2004.  Thirty-five of those were relieved of duty, hundreds more were given reprimands. 

This article was published in the New York Times May 3rd, 2005.  Interviews with more than two dozen recruiters in 10 states hint at the extent of their concern, if not the exact scope of the transgressions.

Want flyers/brochures?  Click here to go to the resources page .

Introduction to Counter Recruitment Work

Counter recruiting in NYCCounter-recruitment essentials

Counter recruitment (CR) takes many different forms.  At its core the goal is to present alternative views to young people in order to "balance" the narrative of military recruiters'  by discussing the realities of military service and how it could potentially effect their future lives.

Counter recruitment often means that people set up tables in high schools to pass out flyers and talk to students about the military and their options.  "Truth in Recruiting" is a form of CR that often involves veterans (and other activists) sharing their experiences in classrooms.  Other CR activities include: Opt-out campaigns, organizing against JROTC programs, protesting at recruiting stations and most importantly, providing information about alternatives to the military. To counter recruit, you have to know what you are up against and what is appealing about the military and militarism to young people.
 

Taking back our communities from militarism:

Find out who is doing this work in your community:

Related Links:
Study Counter Recruitment:
Downloads:
Historical Information on Counter-recruitment:
 

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 Revised/GDG - 10/05/2023

Why to Join the NNOMY Network

OPPOSE THE MILITARIZATION OF YOUTH

Register Your CR Group Now!

 Join the growing national network of groups working to stop the militarization of schools!

 Counter-recruitment helps slow warThese are times when the Pentagon presence in our schools is expanding. The need for a renewed and active counter military recruitment movement is needed more than ever. Those of us who are proactive in opposing war must help shape the tone of anti-war and peace conversations to be more inclusive of the counter-recruitment analysis. The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY) will be integral in bringing our groups together so we can help the nation understand that providing youth with peaceful and viable alternatives to achieve success in life is an important sign of a civilized society.

 

Your NNOMY Registered Account...

...gives your organization a user page with features to help inform the national CR community about your activism such as:

Keeping Connected

Submitting reports about the activities of your CR work in your region helps share your information with other CR orgs and provides the opportunity for inter-organizational support and collaborations.

Upload and Share your CR Documents

The NNOMY Materials and Training section provides the largest online resource of Articles about CR issues, government documents, materials for CR activists for reproduction and distribution, and video reports available on the web. Submit your own materials to add to this archive and help advance the learning and networking tools to assist in counter-recruitment activism.

Your Listing in the National Counter-recruitment Database

The NNOMY National & Regional C-R Organizations Database provides essential information about national and regional CR organizations and their focus areas of work and services. This is a resource that covers issues such as the scope of your organization, your organizational base, and issues you are working on as well as a description of your mission. The database provides access to CR activists to the people who can assist them in their work, and additionally, helps youth find the information to make informed choices about their futures. Please list your organization with NNOMY.
 

REGISTER Now!

Your NNOMY registered account gives your organization a user page with features such as submitting reports about the activities of your CR work in your region.

Subcategories

The NNOMY Opinion section is a new feature of our articles section. Writing on youth demilitarization issues is quite rare but we have discovered the beginning articles and notes being offered on this subject so we have decided to present them under an opinion category.  The articles presented do not necessarily reflect the views of the NNOMY Steering Committee.

General David Petraeus' rocky first days as a lecturer at the City University of New York Though the United States of America shares with other nations in a history of modern state militarism, the past 65 years following its consolidation as a world military power after World War II, has seen a shift away from previous democratic characterizations of the state.  The last thirty years, with the rise of the neo-conservative Reagan and Bush administrations (2), began the abandonment of moral justifications for democracy building replaced by  bellicose proclamations of the need and right to move towards a national project of global security by preemptive military force .

In the process of global military expansion, the US population has been subjected to an internal re-education to accept the role of the U.S. as consolidating its hegemonic rule internationally in the interest of liberal ideals of wealth creation and protectionism.

The average citizen has slowly come to terms with a stealthly increasing campaign of militarization domestically in media offerings; from television, movies and scripted news networks to reinforce the inevitability of a re-configured society as security state. The effect has begun a transformation of how, as citizens, we undertand our roles and viability as workers and families in relation to this security state. This new order has brought with it a shrinking public common and an increasing privatization of publicly held infrustructure; libraries, health clinics, schools and the expectation of diminished social benefits for the poor and middle-class. The national borders are being militarized as are our domestic police forces in the name of Homeland Security but largely in the interest of business. The rate and expansion of research and development for security industries and the government agencies that fund them, now represent the major growth sector of the U.S.economy. Additionally, as the U.S. economy continually shifts from productive capital to financial capital as the engine of growth for wealth creation and development, the corporate culture has seen its fortunes rise politically and its power over the public sector grow relatively unchallenged by a confused citizenry who are watching their social security and jobs diminishing.

How increasing cultural militarization effects our common future will likely manifest in increased public dissatisfaction with political leadership and economic strictures. Social movements within the peace community, like NNOMY, will need to expand their role of addressing the dangers of  militarists predating youth for military recruitment in school to giving more visibility to the additional dangers of the role of an influential militarized media, violent entertainment and play offerings effecting our youth in formation and a general increase and influence of the military complex in all aspects of our lives. We are confronted with a demand for a greater awareness of the inter-relationships of militarism in the entire landscape of domestic U.S. society.  Where once we could ignore the impacts of U.S. military adventurisms abroad, we are now faced with the transformation of our domestic comfort zone with the impacts of militarism in our day to day lives.

How this warning can be imparted in a meaningful way by a movement seeking to continue with the stated goals of counter-recruitment and public policy activism, and not loose itself in the process, will be the test for those activists, past and future, who take up the call to protect our youth from the cultural violence of militarism.

The "militarization of US culture" category will be an archive of editorials and articles about the increasing dangers we face as a people from those who are invested in the business of war. This page will serve as a resource for the NNOMY community of activists and the movement they represent moving into the future. The arguments presented in this archive will offer important realizations for those who are receptive to NNOMY's message of protecting our youth, and thus our entire society, of the abuses militarism plays upon our hopes for a sustainable and truly democratic society.

NNOMY

 

The Resources section covers the following topics:

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

Reports from counter-recruitment groups and activists from the field. Includes information about action reports at recruiting centers and career fairs, school tabling, and actions in relation to school boards and state legislatures.

David SwansonDavid Swanson is the author of the new book, Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union, by Seven Stories Press and of the introduction to The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. Bush by Dennis Kucinich. In addition to cofounding AfterDowningStreet.org, he is the Washington director of Democrats.com and sits on the boards of a number of progressive organizations in Washington, DC.


Charlottesville Right Now: 11-10-11 David Swanson
David Swanson joins Coy to discuss Occupy Charlottesville, protesting Dick Cheney's visit to the University of Virginia, and his new book. -  Listen

Jorge MariscalJorge Mariscal is the grandson of Mexican immigrants and the son of a U.S. Marine who fought in World War II. He served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and currently teaches at the University of California, San Diego.

Matt GuynnMatt Guynn plays the dual role of program director and coordinator for congregational organizing for On Earth Peace, building peace and nonviolence leadership within the 1000+ congregations of the Church of the Brethren across the United States and Puerto Rico. He previously served a co-coordinator of training for Christian Peacemaker Teams, serving as an unarmed accompanier with political refugees in Chiapas, Mexico, and offering or supporting trainings in the US and Mexico.

Rick JahnkowRick Jahnkow works for two San Diego-based anti-militarist organizations, the Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities and the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft. He can be reached at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Pat ElderPat Elder was a co-founder of the DC Antiwar Network (DAWN) and a member of the Steering Committee of the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth, (NNOMY).  Pat is currently involved in a national campaign with the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom project, Military Poisons,  investigating on U.S. military base contamination domestically and internationally.  Pat’s work has prominently appeared in NSA documents tracking domestic peace groups.

 

All Documents:

Pat Elder - National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth

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

The Counter-recruitment Essentials section of the NNOMY web site covers the issues and actions spanning this type of activism. Bridging the difficult chasms between religious, veteran, educator, student, and community based activism is no small task. In this section you will find information on how to engage in CR activism in your school and community with the support of the knowledge of others who have been working to inform youth considering enlisting in the military. You will also find resources for those already in the military that are looking for some guidance on how to actively resist injustices  as a soldier or how to choose a path as a conscientious objector.

John Judge was a co-founder of the Committee for High School Options and Information on Careers, Education and Self-Improvement (CHOICES) in Washington DC, an organization engaged since 1985 in countering military recruitment in DC area high schools and educating young people about their options with regard to the military. Beginning with the war in Viet Nam, Judge was a life-long anti-war activist and tireless supporter of active-duty soldiers and veterans.

 

"It is our view that military enlistment puts youth, especially African American youth, at special risk, not only for combat duty, injury and fatality, but for military discipline and less than honorable discharge, which can ruin their chances for employment once they get out. There are other options available to them."


In the 1970's the Selective Service System and the paper draft became unworkable, requiring four induction orders to get one report. Boards  were under siege by anti-war and anti-draft forces, resistance of many kinds was rampant. The lottery system failed to dampen the dissent, since people who knew they were going to be drafted ahead of time became all the more active. Local draft board members quit in such numbers that even I was approached, as a knowledgeable draft counselor to join the board. I refused on the grounds that I could never vote anyone 1-A or eligible to go since I opposed conscription and the war.

At this point the Pentagon decided to replace the paper draft with a poverty draft, based on economic incentive and coercion. It has been working since then to draw in between 200-400,000 enlisted members annually. Soon after, they began to recruit larger numbers of women to "do the jobs men don't want to". Currently recruitment quotas are falling short, especially in Black communities, and reluctant parents are seen as part of the problem. The hidden problem is retention, since the military would have quadrupled by this time at that rate of enlistment, but the percentage who never finish their first time of enlistment drop out at a staggering rate.

I began bringing veterans of the Vietnam War into high schools in Dayton, Ohio in the late 1960s, and have continued since then to expose young people to the realities of military life, the recruiters' false claims and the risks in combat or out. I did it first through Vietnam Veterans Against the War/Winter Soldier Organization, then Dayton Draft & Military Counseling, and since 1985 in DC through C.H.O.I.C.E.S.

The key is to address the broader issues of militarization of the schools and privacy rights for students in community forums and at meetings of the school board and city council. Good counter-recruitment also provides alternatives in the civilian sector to help the poor and people of color, who are the first targets of the poverty draft, to find ways to break into the job market, go to a trade school, join an apprenticeship program, get job skills and placement help, and find money for college without enlisting in the military.

John Judge -- counselor, C.H.O.I.C.E.S.
 
Articles
References:
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This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of issues connected with militarism and resistance. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Your donation to NNOMY works to balance the military's message in our public schools. Our national network of activists go into schools and inform youth considering military service the risks about military service that recruiters leave out.

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