Jorge Mariscal -
When Boston College student Joe Previtera decided to protest the war in Iraq, he headed to the one place that keeps the war machine well stocked with fuel-his local recruiting office. In a clever display of street theater, Previtera put on a black hood and cape, stood on a cardboard box, and attached stereo wires to his hands. The message was clear enough. The recruiters say money for college but the reality of war says Abu Ghraib.
No one signed up that day but Previtera was arrested by Boston police and subsequently charged with two felonies having to do with "making false bomb threats" (charges were later dropped). In his act of grass roots pedagogy, Previtera joined a growing number of activists across the country that are focusing their attention on military recruiting as one of the most important fronts in the struggle against militarism and war. While many people continue to generate fearful predictions about an impending draft, others have realized that the so-called volunteer army is already a form of conscription for those young people with limited economic and educational opportunities.
At the University of Wisconsin in Madison, a group of over fifty people staged an act of civil disobedience outside a recruiting office near campus. Four students and a university employee entered the office and delivered their press release, refusing to leave until the recruiting station was turned into a financial aid office. The four protestors were arrested and charged with trespassing.
The children of Sparta were drilled in battle using knives and swords. At the Army Experience Center in Philadelphia the same kind of training for warfare is taking place, except children use simulated M-16 automatic rifles and M-240B light machine guns. The training in each scenario is appropriate for different kinds of battle -- facing the dreaded Athenians in hand to hand combat during the Peloponnesian War or launching hellfire missiles to "suspected terrorist targets" in Afghanistan by robotic drones controlled from digital war rooms in suburban Maryland and California.
