NNOMY News September 15 2020: Training Kids To Kill

NNOMY News September 15 2020: Training Kids To Kill

 

You are part of the national network of peace groups working to stop the militarization of schools and young people! #counterrecruitment

#NNOMYnews | Please Subscribe | Donate

 

NNOMYnews 1050: September 14 2020:
Training Kids to Kill

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)

Pat Elder  - “Where does a 14-year-old boy who never fired a gun before get the skill and the will to kill? - Video games and media violence”

Violent video games conspire to make Americans warlike, especially extraordinarily graphic games where the player holds a weapon-like game controller. At least that’s what about half of the country believes. A 2010 Rasmussen survey finds that 54% of Americans believe violent video games lead to more violence in society.1

Some studies link violent video games to aggressive and risky behavior among teens while others show that violent video games may have a calming effect on youth.

Believe what you want to believe.

After all, this is America, where free enterprise creates “research” that substantiates and disseminates pretty much anything for a price. Red meat doesn’t lead to heart disease and climate change is not caused by human activity. There’s research to “prove” it.


Read More | Watch Video

https://nnomy.org/en/resources/blog/pat-elder-series/item/779-video-games-recruit-train-killers.html

 

 
 
---
 
 

 

Mike Stern Concert - Dunker Punks Podcast

Church of the Brethren - Peace, social justice, and music are added expressions to this podcast interview series. We find all these ingredients and more in our first ever Dunker Punks Podcast Concert featuring talented songwriter, Mike Stern. Listen to his music and a deep dive interview by Tori Bateman on this episode recorded in front of a live studio audience in D.C.! There are also counter-recruitment songs performed here.

Listen Now

https://arlingtoncob.org/91-mike-stern-concert/

 

 
 
---
 
 

 

The truth about war with Danny Sjursen, combat veteran and West Point graduate.

Chris Hedges discusses Ghost RIders of the Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge, with author Danny Sjursen, combat veteran and West Point graduate. To all the young people in America, Please stop voluntarily enlisting in the military, the whole world is begging you to Please Stop Enlisting, for the love of All the Planet. Thank you Chris and Danny and Tulsi.

Watch Now

https://youtu.be/LsYmD8kpGVc

 

 
---
 
 

 

Lights! Camera! Kill! Hollywood, the Pentagon and Imperial Ambitions.

Counterpunch / Matthew Hoh - There’s a sickness that comes with the certainty of those who view the world in so black and white, so good and bad, so us versus them terms, that killing is often a morally defensible act. More so, such killing often goes beyond just simple self defense, to a level of retributive necessity, a preventive act that makes the act of killing practically an act of altruism. “If I hadn’t killed the bad guy, the bad guy would have killed other people” so the reasoning goes. The myth of redemptive violence, is clearly espoused and expressed in our explanations of American history: we had to kill the British to be free; in America’s majority Christian religion: Jesus had to die in the most painful way possible, on the cross, for mankind to be saved; and in the United State’s greatest popular culture: Luke had to destroy the Death Star to save the galaxy…

Such redemptive violence fails to exist in the real world, and in the individual life experiences of those involved, on both sides of the killing. Even now readers will say “what about Hitler?” It seems silly to have to remind Americans that Hitler did not spring from a historical vacuum, that history and Adolf Hitler did not start in 1933, but that rather Hitler, the Nazis and the Second World War, were a consequence and continuation of the violence and the killing of the First World War and that is the lesson of both wars.* However, Hitler and the Second World War, in the years and decades after its end, and the deaths of over 50 million people, became the casus belli for massive armaments, tens of thousands of world-ending nuclear weapons, proxy wars, and bombings, invasions and occupations that killed, wounded, poisoned, psychologically scarred, and left homeless tens and tens of millions of people world-wide. With each successive threat, perceived or real, the United States government imagined, concocted, and faced, the imagery of Hitler, Nazis and a morally simplistic, but well accepted description of an enemy that personified Evil, and allowed Americans to be defined as Good, was presented to the American public as a justification for war, neo-colonialism, obscene weapons budgets, economic inequality, and the many other trappings of Empire.


Read More

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/14/lights-camera-kill-hollywood-the-pentagon-and-imperial-ambitions/

 

 
     
---
 
 

 

We Live in a Culture of Violence

Psychology Today - It’s hard to believe that every time we hear about another mass shooting, nothing was able to prevent it. Tragically, we know those mass shootings will continue to occur, be it a result of international terrorism or through the hands of a neighbor. Although the aggressor or group of aggressors may feel anger towards a specific group of persons, their acts of violence most often result in victims of different ages, ethnicities, and religions.

An Everytown for Gun Safety analysis of data between 2009 to 2016 from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Vital Statistics System, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) reveals many disturbing facts.


Read More

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/family-secrets/201801/we-live-in-culture-violence

 

 
 
---
 
 

 

Reflections from the Monster Factory

Gary Ghirardi Op-ed – 9-15-2020 - First disclosures: This Op-ed of the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth, themed: Teaching Kids to Kill, is a vehicle of NNOMY's communications efforts to give voice to the few who stand up to endless wars and largely public ignorance and indifference to what is done in their names. It in no way reflects the opinions of the diversity of those organizations that collectively represent the bulk of groups, large and small, who offer up youth demilitarization efforts nationally in the not so United States of America.

Read More

https://nnomypeace.net/406-flexicontent/opinion/779-gary-ghirardi.html

 

 
 
---
 
 

 

"Welcome to the War Machine"
  CodePink Divest Campaign


What are the dangers military enlistment poses to young people? How is JROTC, the Marksmanship Program, the ASVAB, and High School military recruiters related to the militarization of youth?  

Find out more by visiting our website https://www.nnomy.org/divestyourbody and by considering divesting your money, your body, and your mind from the war machine! Visit https://www.divestfromwarmachine.org to find out what more you can do to help curve militarization in our society!


Watch Now | 2:42 minutes

https://youtu.be/aN4uhBHHE5Y

 

 
---
 

NNOMY Provides on our website an images resource page for sharing on your social media.

Sharing these images helps get out the message about the pressures directed at our youth to accept militarization as normal and to recruit them into military service.


Please feel free to utilize these social media resources from NNOMY on your Facebook and Instagram accounts. The more the message about demilitarization gets out the better.

How to use these Memes:

To share on Facebook, click on the image and you will generate a share window

To copy, right click with your mouse on image and "save image as" to your images folder


Click to Visit our Resources Page and Share our Message

https://nnomy.org/en/resources/item/790-social-media-memes.html

 
 
---
Visit the NNOMYnews Archive and remember to...
 

Please Donate to fund counter-recruitment nationally


Help Fund NNOMY to De-Militarize SchoolsHelp Fund NNOMY to De-Militarize Schools. Your donation to NNOMY supports the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth's efforts to balance the message of military recruiters in our public schools where minors are routinely primed for recruitment through Department of Defense school programs designed for youth.

Making a financial contribution supports NNOMY's national demilitarization work with activist organizations inside middle and high schools.

Click to Make Your Donation

(Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.) through our fiscal sponsor Alliance for Global Justice. Make sure you select from the causes list, The National Network Opposing he Militarization of Youth (NNOMY), or make a check out to:"NNOMY/AFGJ" and mail it to: AFGJ, 225 E. 26th St. Suite 1, Tucson, AZ 85713

 
--
www.nnomy.org | Contact | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Visit our website: https://www.nnomy.org

Follow us on social media: https://www.facebook.com/NNOMYfriends/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nnomynetwork

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nnomypeace/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/NNOMYnetwork

The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY). 2020

--

Not interested any more? Unsubscribe