español - 

NOTE: As a corrupt landlord repurposed as a president prepares to abolish a government that dared to use its resources to alleviate its poverty, it is a good moment to look back at a story from 2017 at the system of militarism that so dominates U.S. America's culture and how it indoctrinates youth to the cause of liberal hegemony.

December 1, 2017 / Alexa Keefe / Photographs: Sarah Blesener / National Geographic - Over the past year, photographer Sarah Blesener has been visiting patriotic youth groups around the country, from teens being trained as border guards in Texas, ROTC chapters in New York, a patriotic church camp in Utah, and a young woman in Nebraska preparing to head to the military once she graduates from high school. Her aim has been to explore how different combinations of religion, love of country, and military-style training come together in the teaching of “new Americanism,” which Blesener defines as a renewed embrace of the centuries-old theme of American exceptionalism and manifest destiny.

One group that Blesener followed was the Hanover, Pennsylvania chapter of the Young Marines, a nonprofit group which has 300 clubs around the country. Participation is open to boys and girls ages 8 and up as an after school program. The recruits take part in a military-style boot camp, fitness drills, and weekend encampments, as well as engaging in recreational activities like dances and visiting theme parks and historic sites.

  español -

December 9, 2025 / Edward Hasbrouck /  Edward Hasbrouck's Blog - An amendment to the Military Selective Service Act to direct the Selective Service System (SSS) to try to register all potential draftees in the USA automatically has been included in the version of this year’s military authorization bill agreed to by a House-Senate conference committee and likely to be enacted into law within the next few weeks.

This doesn’t mean that a draft is being activated right away, or that any or all of those “automatically” registered will be sent induction orders — although preparing to do so is the sole purpose of registration with or by the SSS. This will, however, be the largest change in Selective Service law since 1980. More importantly, it will move the USA closer to activation of a draft, or at least to being able to claim to be ready to activate a draft “on demand” of Congress and the President, than at any time in the half century since draft registration was suspended and draft boards were deactivated in 1975.

The provision of the NDAA for automatic draft registration will take effect one year after the bill is signed into law. The clock will start running soon. We’ll only have a year to get the Military Selective Service Act repealed if we are to avert this new threat of both stepped-up preparations for a military draft and sweeping abuse of young Americans’ personal information.

  español - 

November 24, 2025 / NNOMY - Counter-recruitment activism has diminished primarily due to a decline in public and progressive support, which has led to reduced funding and participation. The movement has historically ebbed and flowed in response to active wartime periods, and the current era of "perpetual war-fighting" has desensitized the public to aggressive military recruitment tactics, weakening the urgency for counter-recruitment efforts.

Despite the U.S. being engaged in two controversial wars for 15 years, support for counter-recruitment has waned, even among progressive circles. This decline is exacerbated by the fact that many military recruitment promises have become more credible over time, reducing the perceived need for intervention. As a result, full-time counter-recruitment work is now largely conducted on a volunteer basis, with organizations struggling to maintain operations and secure resources.

 Steve Mason and The Wall Within

  español -

Steve Mason was a decorated Vietnam War veteran whose poem “The Wall Within” became a powerful voice of healing at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedication in 1984.

Steve Mason, born in Brooklyn in 1940, served as a U.S. Army captain during the Vietnam War. After returning home, he became a poet and advocate for peace, channeling the trauma and complexity of war into verse that resonated deeply with veterans and their families.

I met him in 1976 at the India Street Poets Theater gatherings at what was called the India Street Artist's Colony at Five Points in San Diego. Those at the readings knew him as Vito and his contributions to those evenings stood out from his strength of character and the demons that were residing in him that echoed through his poetry. I only knew that he had been a special forces soldier in Vietnam. He became a regular and a friend to poets David and Paula Banks that hosted the readings in their home in the colony perched over the Five Points on India and Washington streets.

By 1980, with the death of David from lung cancer, he showed up and read a poem for David at the inauguration of the Installation Gallery at 417 Fifth Avenue on skid-row in Downtown San Diego.  Skid-row was soon to become the Gaslamp district. That was the last time I saw him.

At that time I did not know who he was beyond his voice as a poet and twenty-five years later I found out he was the poet laureate of the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC.
-Gary Ghirardi

 An 11-month investigation reveals culture of violence, criminality and sexual abuse at army training centre for teens

  español - 

November 14, 2025 / Sian Norris / openDemocracy - The British Army is the only military in Europe that still recruits 16-year-olds.

That’s how old Hamish* was when he joined last year. As is required of all 16- and 17-year-old sign-ups, who are legally still children but are given the titles of ‘junior soldiers’, he moved into the residential Army Foundation College Harrogate in the north of England to begin his military training.

“In the first couple of weeks, it’s brilliant,” he said of his early days in the army, explaining that most teenage recruits “see it as a brilliant way of earning money”, particularly “if you haven’t really got any GCSEs”.

“But then things start to break down,” he said. Hamish soon witnessed boys being repeatedly punched in the head during fights with their peers or whipped with belts during initiation rituals, as well as other physical violence, including extreme bullying. Junior members of staff, he said, told the teenage recruits they did not need to know about such incidents, even encouraging them to physically “fight it out”.