NNOMY News October 12, 2018


 

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

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2018/9 Back‐to‐school Kit for Counter‐recruitment and School Demilitarization Organizing

A catalog of basic material useful to educating young people and school personnel about the realities of military enlistment and war. The catalog also includes some information on alternatives to enlistment, as well as items written for organizers seeking to reach out to local schools.


All of the material in this catalog was carefully reviewed for relevancy and accuracy as of the spring of 2018. A task force of knowledgeable organizers did the research. It does not include all of the available literature on this topic because much of what exists is out of date or is no longer being produced by the original sources.  Consequently, we focused on identifying items that we felt were basic and most useful for effective organizing and educating. New items may be added to future kits as they become available.


Go to Download Page

 
 
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It’s Time to Transform the War Economy


The Poor People's Campaign offers an antidote to a poisoned and militarized culture that has perverted the national agenda.


I’m here to speak to you today about one of Dr. King’s triple evils: militarism. As an Afghanistan War veteran, I’d like to highlight an aspect of his warning about militarism, when he said, “This way of… injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane… cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.”


I’d like to tell you all about the precise moment I realized there was poison in me. I’m the child of a nurse and a factory worker in the heartland of Illinois, the family of blue-collar and service workers. At the height of the Iraq War, military recruiters at my high school attracted me with sign up bonuses and college assistance that some saw as their ticket out—for me, I hoped it was my ticket up, providing opportunities that once felt out of reach.


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Invest your values

Investors, communities, and individuals can align their values with their actions, and take responsibility for the resources they control.

For individuals – Aligning investments with values requires that you know what you own – but it’s almost impossible to know what individual companies you own if you’re invested through mutual funds. We’re starting to change that. It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of giant corporations, but you can harness your personal economic power to confront big business.

For institutions and activists - Use this tool to help you dig in to institutional investments, including cities, towns, universities, colleges, or even your faith community. Understanding institutional investments means that we can move the money in our communities out of war and weapons.

Search Your Investments for War Related Industries

 
 
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Truth in Recruiting


A poster at an Army recruiting office reveals::: "You might die, or get your arms or legs blown off." From a series of 8 antiwar comedy shorts shot in 2016 and 2017. Two of these did the festival circuit, winning 11 awards and being selected in 79 festivals.

The purpose of these films is to help people to think a bit more deeply about this thing we call war, which is the killing and maiming of our fellows, and the death and suffering of young people in uniform in the name of lofty goals, but which always involves money and power and greed. But rather than convey my message through the dark lens of gritty documentaries, I choose to use humor. https://www.antiwarcomedyshorts.com/   

It is not my intention to disparage soldiers or veterans. I hope to one day explore the experiences of veterans in a feature-length film, and I welcome comments from all veterans (but especially those whose beliefs have changed after their service).

Watch Truth in Recruiting

 
     
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Rethinking School Safety in the Age of Empire: Militarization, Mental Health, and State Violence

Laura Jordan Jaffee - Calls for stricter gun control and mental health screening often come on the heels of school shootings, which have raised national concerns about school safety. The implication is that people with psychiatric disabilities are dangerous or threatening, and that preventing them from owning guns will make schools safer. This paper challenges this assumption by considering dominant discourses about school safety and mental health alongside the increasing militarization of U.S. schools. Advocating reducing violence by identifying individuals with psychiatric disabilities—or those labelled with mental illnesses presumed to render them dangerous—erases the profound state violence schools engender in the service of empire while perpetuating ableist assumptions about people with psychiatric disabilities. In the age of empire and endless imperialist war, we need to challenge prevailing conceptions of both school safety and mental health.

Read More

 
 
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10 steps to world peace

The pressures on our world are serious, and expected to grow. Humankind must ditch the military habit - and tackle conflict at its roots, Hazel Healy writes. Short-term anti-war movements have taken the place of active and permanent peace movements. We need to promote nonviolent alternatives and successes; peace campaigner Phyllis Bennis believes peace must be woven into other social movements, giving the example of the Poor People’s Campaign in the US last March, which attacked the war economy and linked it to poverty at home.

Read More

 
 
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  The Poor People’s Campaign

A National Call for Moral Revival is uniting tens of thousands of people across the country to challenge the evils of systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, ecological devastation and the nation’s distorted morality. Their focus on both the war economy and the poor intrinsically involves the population that is impacted by economic conscription and thus an important potential ally for NNOMY. We need to pay attention to this and affiliate to their struggle.

Learn More
 
 
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The Militarization of Prayer in America


Elizabeth McAlister - This article examines how militarism has come to be one of the generative forces of the prayer practices of millions of Christians across the globe. To understand this process, I focus on the articulation between militarization and aggressive forms of prayer, especially the evangelical warfare prayer developed by North Americans since the 1980s. Against the backdrop of the rise in military spending and neoliberal economic policies, spiritual warfare evangelicals have taken on the project of defending the United States on the “spiritual” plane. They have elaborated a complex theology and prayer practice with a highly militarized discourse and set of rituals for doing “spiritual battle” and conducting “prayer strikes” on the “prayer battlefield”.


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Evidence of religious objections to U.S. militarism.

Catholics Against Militarism (CAM) is an informal, grassroots, Internet-based movement founded to challenge militaristic attitudes in the U.S. Catholic Church in small but concrete and meaningful ways. Our focus in the fall of 2013 was on discouraging donations to the first-ever nationwide collection for the Archdiocese of Military Services in November, and moreover encouraging Catholics to voice their objection to this collection by placing statements of protest in the collection plate on that day.

Learn More about CAM

 
 
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Stand up to Endless U.S. Militarism

The Women's March on the Pentagon is coming up Sunday the 21st of October 2018. Check out the Action Kit for this event and prepare to take part. Those who demand a culture of peace will struggle for a just and sustainable culture without endless war and adherence to expanding cultural militarism. Stand with these courageous women and men who will make their voices heard next Sunday.

Read the Digital Action Kit

 
   
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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

 
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The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY). 2018
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