From Draft NOtices, January-March 2013
– Paula Hoffman-Villanueva
Just as Americans have, for over four decades, uncomfortably turned their heads when confronted with homeless Vietnam veterans in the street, people now hear of the escalating suicide rates of our current military and go on about their business. We thought recent reports alarming enough to revisit the subject in order to remind ourselves why counter-recruitment organizations are dedicated to informing young people about harsh military realities before they decide to enlist. While experts struggle with this "epidemic" (a word used by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta), it is really quite obvious to peace activists what the problem is. Simply put, the emotional pain of war along with military demands can cause suicide.
This past summer, a Pentagon report obtained by The Associated Press revealed that suicide amongst active duty military members in 2012 was reaching an alarming rate of nearly one suicide a day, more than at any other time during these ten years of war. As of June 3, there were 154 active duty suicides, up 25% from two years ago. The number of 2012 combat deaths in Afghanistan as of the same date totaled 88.
In a November 15, 2012, Department of Defense report, the number of active duty suicides reached 166 by the end of October. This already surpasses the total active duty suicides for 2011. Add to that number the suicides by reserve duty personnel and the total is 247. According to General Raymond Odierno, the Army chief of staff, suicide is the most frequent cause of death among Army forces, surpassing combat deaths and motor vehicle accidents. In a recent statement by General Peter Chiarelli, second in command of the Army, he noted that the suicide rate "has proven to be the most difficult challenge in my 40 years in the military."
Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)
- Rick Jahnkow
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School Governance: Where Electoral Politics Can Really Matter
From Draft NOtices, October-December 2012
– Rick Jahnkow
Some of us who do community organizing have strong doubts about the effectiveness of the ballot box as a way to achieve meaningful change. This is especially the case when we’re called upon to help elect politically progressive candidates to national and state offices controlled by two entrenched political parties, in a system that is dominated by big-money campaign contributors.
Simply put, the higher up you go in the electoral food chain, the more difficult it is to push government institutions toward breaking with the status quo. Even the most well-intentioned progressive candidates who manage to get elected to a state or national office find that it is extremely difficult to remain in office without seriously compromising their principles. And even if they do stay in their seats, it is extremely difficult to form the majorities needed to enact truly progressive changes.
The shortcomings of this electoral approach are underscored when you consider the fact it has now been 50 years since the beginning of the political movements of the 1960s, yet we are still struggling over many of the same issues that caused the social upheavals of that period — such as undeclared wars and wars of choice, discrimination, economic inequality and environmental destruction.
Of course, some important changes have occurred since the 1960s, and I would not devalue those achievements. But it is also disheartening that after so many decades, right-wing politics keep coming back with a vengeance, and we still don’t have progressive political majorities in government or the general public that are capable of stopping those regressive cycles.
The dynamics of local electoral politics, on the other hand, are very different from the state and national levels. Local elections offer us not only a viable chance to establish progressive majorities, but also an opportunity to place such majorities in a position where they can have a direct impact on people’s lives, and in the case of school board races, where they can additionally play a critical role in effecting change on a societal scale.
- Davíd Morales
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The Militarization of High School Students and JROTC in Southern California
From Draft NOtices, October-December 2012
– Davíd Morales
[Note: This article is a condensation of an academic research paper. The names of the district, schools, communities, and interview subjects used in this study have been changed in order to preserve their privacy.]
In recent years, JROTC, or the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, has reached an advanced level of proliferation throughout public high schools in the United States. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the Pentagon’s failure to meet its recruitment quotas in the past have led to an increase in the number of JROTC units across the country. This expansion has been significant in urban, inner-city, and low-income schools. The military science course offered as an elective, or sometimes in lieu of physical education, in public high schools has proven to be an efficient recruiting tool. Although the Department of Defense (DoD) and school districts across the country state otherwise, it has been documented that over 40 percent of students who go through the JROTC program enlist in the military at some point in their lives.
The educational system in the U.S. finds itself in a critical condition — historically disenfranchised students are more underserved than ever before. Many underrepresented students of color and working-class students in urban environments lack equitable educational opportunities at their schools and, as a result, are pushed into the military. This study investigated how students at three high schools in a large and diverse district in southern California are tracked into the JROTC program.
Ninth CIRCUIT COURT RULING: CONFRONTING MILITARISM BY USING EQUAL ACCESS TO HIGH SCHOOLS
When the military comes to your local high school, you have a legal right to give students an opposing view. This has been the position taken by federal district courts in Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois and two federal appellate courts. The most broadly-worded decision came from a case that COMD took to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the 1980s. Here is the background:
