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Peace Action: Past,Present, and Future
by Larry Wittner and
Glen Harold Stassen.
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Ban Ki-Moon's Speech at Riverside Church NPT ConferenceI know how much energy it takes to speak out, to protest, to carry the banner of this most noble human aspiration - world peace. Let me begin by saying how humbling it is to speak to you in this famous place, Riverside Church.
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A New Ground Zero
International Herald Tribune (France) [Op-Ed], April 28, 2010
A few weeks ago, traveling in Kazakhstan, I had the sobering experience of standing at Ground Zero. This was the notorious test site at Semipalatinsk, where the Soviet Union detonated 456 nuclear weapons between 1947 and 1989.
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Reaching Zero
The Nation, April 9, 2010
What is the purpose, if any, of the nuclear bomb, that brooding presence that has shadowed all human life for sixty-five years? The question has haunted the nuclear age. It may be that no satisfactory answer has ever been given.
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U.S. Envoy Urges Caution on Forces for Afghanistan
by Elisabeth Bumiller and Mark Landler
The New York Times, November 11, 2009
" WASHINGTON — The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country, three senior American officials said Wednesday."
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SHARED INTERESTS DEFINE OBAMA'S WORLD
In engaging adversaries, the President sometimes unsettles allies
The Washington Post, Monday, November 2, 2009
"... President Obama is applying the same tools to international diplomacy that he once used as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, constructing appeals to shared interests and attempting to bring the government's conduct in line with its ideals.
Obama's approach to the world as a community of nations, more alike than different in outlook and interest, has elevated America's standing abroad and won him the Nobel Peace Prize. But on the farthest-reaching U.S. foreign policy challenges, he is struggling to translate his own popularity into American influence, even with allies that have celebrated his break from the Bush administration's emphasis on military strength, unilateral action and personal chemistry ..."
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REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL SUMMIT ON NUCLEAR
NON-PROLIFERATION AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
"... Today, the Security Council endorsed a global effort to lock down all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. The United States will host a summit next April to advance this goal and help all nations achieve it. This resolution will also help strengthen the institutions and initiatives that combat the smuggling, financing, and theft of proliferation-related materials. It calls on all states to freeze any financial assets that are being used for proliferation. And it calls for stronger safeguards to reduce the likelihood that peaceful nuclear weapons programs can be diverted to a weapons program ..."
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OBAMA'S YOUTHFUL IDEALS SHAPED THE LONG ARC OF HIS NUCLEAR-FREE VISION
The New York Times, July 5, 2009
In the depths of the cold war, in 1983, a senior at Columbia University wrote in a campus newsmagazine, Sundial, about the vision of "a nuclear free world." He railed against discussions of "first- versus second-strike capabilities" that "suit the military-industrial interests" with their "billion-dollar erector sets," and agitated for the elimination of global arsenals holding tens of thousands of deadly warheads.
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U.S. AND RUSSIA SEEK MORE EXTENSIVE WEAPONS CUTS
Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2009
(full article)
As the war in Iraq claims more and more young lives each day, youth and student activists throughout the peace movement are waging a campaign of resistance against the military's increased and misleading targeting of youth in the United States. With opportunities for education and careers being under-funded to afford the war, the Pentagon is particularly and unjustly preying on youth of color and limited-income communities.
Stand up for social justice by challenging military recruiting. Protect your future and your rights-join us in saying NO to recruiters' lies and to the Pentagon's invasion of YOUR privacy!
The Department of Defense has settled the case brought against it by students and the New York Civil Liberties Union, and has announced it will reform and limit military recruiter’s access to students’ private information. Previously, there was no way for students to opt-out of the DoD’s Joint Advertising and Market Research Studies database. The database collected private information from a number of student resources. The settlement has been a victory for students and counter-recruitment activists. The Press Release is at http://www.nyclu.org/milrec_dod_suit_pr_010907.html
The National Priorities Project found that low and middle-income neighborhoods became more over-represented in Army recruiting. Wealthy Search by area on their website at http://database.nationalpriorities.org. The research findings, complete with tables and charts, are at http://nationalpriorities.org/militaryrecruiting05
As the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan drag on, the Pentagon is aggressively collecting personal data on millions of youth and students to help military recruiters target young people for enlistment. The federal legislation of the No Child Left Behind Act's military recruiting provision forces public high schools to give recruiters students' contact information unless they specifically "opt-out." H.R. 551, the Student Privacy Protection Act will prohibit military recruiters from getting student's private information unless they specifically "opt-in." If your representative has not yet signed on to H.R. 551, call and urge them to do so.
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22] Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. [NY-14] Rep. McNulty, Michael R. [NY-21] Rep Meeks, Gregory W. [NY-6] Rep Nadler, Jerrold [NY-8] Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15] Rep Serrano, Jose E. [NY-16] Rep Slaughter, Louise McIntosh [NY-28] Rep Velazquez, Nydia M. [NY-12] Students:
Do you want to opt-out of your school's military recruitment database? Get all the information you need from the Leave My Child Alone Campaign, co-sponsored by Peace Action. www.leavemychildalone.org
Parents:
Your can ensure that your children are not targeted by military recruiters calling your home. Write to the superintendent of your school district. Tell them to remove your child from the military recruitment database.
Urge your local school administrators to include an "opt out" form in packet of information sent home to parents and guardians at the beginning of the school year.
Oppose the Pentagon's Massive National Database The Pentagon has started an even more aggressive database than the one they compiled through the No Child Left Behind Act.
Pentagon contractors are now obtaining private data on young people's race, ethnicity, income, extracurricular interests, academic record, family background, spending habits and more to store in a national recruitment database, which violates the federal Privacy Act. This costs taxpayers more than $350 million and gravely undermines young people's civil liberties. Unlike the military recruitment of the No Child Left Behind Act, there is no way for young people to "Opt-out" of this database. Call your Congressperson and Senators. Tell them to put an end to this illegal and expansive database!
JROTC Programs in high schools
3,500 schools have JROTC programs (mainly in low-income, minority areas). 50% or more of the $222 million necessary to pay JROTC instructors in American high schools comes straight from the school budgets of local communities (the Pentagon pays the other half). This drains money from crucial academic subjects such as math, science, and English. One JROTC unit costs, on average, $76,000, more than enough to pay two new teachers of academic subjects and/or at least one college counselor. In the 1995-96 school year alone, New York City spent nearly $400,000 on JROTC, while Atlanta spent $1.5 million.
JROTC is working, although not for the at-risk students the program claims to help. Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen called JROTC "one of the best recruitment programs we could have," and he's right: as many as 40% of every year's recruits come from the program.
What's more, JROTC prepares teenagers not to become officers (as in the college ROTC programs) but to serve as soldiers of the lowest rank (E4) -- those who are most likely serve (and to die) on the front lines of military conflicts.
The military's claim that JROTC provides at-risk students with job skills is largely a myth: less than 12% veterans report utilizing the skills they gained in the military in their non-military jobs. The Veterans Administration statistics suggest that veterans generally have lower incomes than non-veterans. Perhaps Dick Cheney said it best: "The reason to have a military is to be prepared to fight and win wars. That is our basic fundamental mission. The military is not a social welfare agency, it's not a jobs program."
Other things you can do:
If and when military recruiters come to your school, you can set up a counter-recruitment effort, giving your fellow students information (verbally, in fliers or brochures) about the military's plans for them and about alternatives to military service. This is your legal right. Check out these websites for sample brochures and more information:
www.comdsd.org
www.afsc.org
www.objector.org
CO status: You can protect yourself by attaining conscientious objector (CO) status. While this is a long process, it will effectively protect you from being forced to fight in the military should there be a draft. Obtain a CO handbook from the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors at www.objectors.com to learn more.
Parents, teachers and community members:
Parents can ensure that their children are not targeted by military recruiters calling their home by submitting an "opt out" statement to their school superintendents in order to withhold their personal information from the military. There are national "opt out" efforts in motion and many sample "opt-out" forms available online.
Urge your local school administrators to include an "opt out" form in packet of information sent home to parents and guardians at the beginning of the school year.
Recruitment van schedules are posted on the internet. Parents can check to see if one of these vans will visit their child's school this year. You can call the school to request this visit be cancelled.
Talk to the school's career counselor to find out what role military recruitment plays in career fairs and career advice.
U.S. ARMY RAISES MAXIMUM AGE FOR ENLISTMENT
MINING FOR KIDS: CHILDREN CAN'T "OPT OUT" OF PENTAGON RECRUITMENT DATABASE
US ARMY ACHIEVES MINIMAL DECEMBER RECRUITING GOAL
JUSTICES HEAR MILITARY RECRUITING CASE
THE RECRUITERS' WAR
War Times/Tiempo de Guerras, the antiwar newspaper, has just published two new downloadable educational flyers:
Be
All You Can Be: Don't Enlist
lets young people know what the U.S. Armed Forces really
want from them. Iraq:
"Stay the Course" or Get Out Now?
addresses the concerns that keep many people from translating
their belief that invading Iraq was wrong into active
opposition to the continuing U.S. occupation.Counter-recruitment flyer for educators and school counselors at www.warresisters.org
Click on the PDF links below for more counter-recruitment flyers and related information.
It's
Time To Teach Peace (AFSC) Do
You Know Enough to Enlist? (AFSC) Do You Know Enough to Enlist? (Español) JROTC:
Sending the Wrong Message about Weapons and Violence (AFSC) Careers
in Peace Making and Social Change (YANO) The
Military's Not Just a Job... (YANO) Aviso
A Los Padres de Familia (YANO) Financing
College Without Joining the Military (objector.org) Ten
Points to Consider Before You Sign a Military Enlistment
Agreement (AFSC) Ten
Points to Consider (Español) Examples
of Careers in Peacemaking and Social Change (English and
Español) (YANO) Draft
Registration - Steps Young People Can Take (AFSC) War.
Possible Draft. What You Can Do. (COMD) The
Poverty Draft (AFSC) Options
for Controlling Military Recruiter Access to Secondary
Schools (YANO) High School Students' Rights Regarding Free Speech (COMD) Opt
Out Form (AFSC)