Peace

Empire is an expensive, high-maintenance undertaking. PEACE is far more than the absence of battle. The anti-war movement is large and growing, with conferences, protests, and related programs Be the change you want to see in the world. *Press releases are printed on a white background.* Below you'll find: No Frames News: No Child Left Unrecruited Essays: Draft Creep Advance Preparations for Draft Boards Making Nonviolence Work Organize on Campus Information on Conscientious Objection Draft Resistance Sing Your Peace Allies Links Pagan Institute Report News and Activism Hub
Peace exists in many forms, between nations, in communities, among friends and family, and within an individual's heart and mind. On this page, we'll be collecting materials intended to inform and assist you in living peacefully during wartime. For some of you, that will mean seeking Conscientious Objector status. For others, it might mean various forms of political action. For some, it might even mean serving in the US military with real faithfulness to the US Constitution. For all of us, it means being informed citizens of Gaia, the World Soul, and taking action according to our individual consciences. Please send your recommended resources to the Editor. And may the Goddess Pax/Eirene/Peace dwell among us and guide us all. Christa Landon, ed.
No Child Left Unrecruited
Military Recruiters Demand Names of U.S. High Schoolers Under the No Child Left Behind Act military recruiters have begun demanding lists of all high school students, including names, addresses, and phone numbers. Most school districts have kept student information strictly confidential. But section 9528 requires public secondary schools to provide military recruiters not only with access to school facilities, but also with contact information for every student -- or face a cutoff of all federal aid. See Department of Education website http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg112.html SEC. 9528. ARMED FORCES RECRUITER ACCESS TO STUDENTS AND STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION. (a) POLICY- (1) ACCESS TO STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION- Notwithstanding section 444(a)(5)(B) of the General Education Provisions Act and except as provided in paragraph (2), each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide, on a request made by military recruiters or an institution of higher education, access to secondary school students names, addresses, and telephone listings. Even parental insistence does not protect a child from being recruited all through high school. See also the article on DRAFT CREEP in the Military_and_Paganism section of PAGAN INSTITUTE REPORT.	Help Protect Children from Military Recruiters Buried deep within the No Child Left Behind Act is a provision that requires public high schools to hand over the private contact information of students in public high schools to military recruiters. If a school does not comply, it risks losing vital federal education funds. The good news is, there's a way for parents to Opt Out their children from this list. We need you to help parents exercise their rights and Opt Out their children from No Child Left Behind-mandated military recruiting lists. Here's how you can make a difference. * Plan an Opt Out event in your community on June 1 http://yourvotematters. workingassets.com/ ctt.asp?u=3559686&l=49011 On June 1, concerned parents and citizens across the nation will gather together to fight the military recruiting loophole in No Child Left Behind. Working Assets, The MMOB (Mainstreet Moms) and ACORN have joined forces to create the Web site LeaveMyChildAlone.org and organize Opt Out events in all 50 states as well as the 10 largest school districts in the country. By planning an Opt Out gathering or putting the Leave My Child Alone campaign on the agenda of your progressive Meetup, you will help get individual kids in your community off the military recruitment list while working to change the federal law and improve your local school's implementation policies. And, you will meet neighbors who share your own concerns. It's easy to be an event host -- whether you do it in your home, a cafe or your local library. We provide all the materials you need and your friends and neighbors can sign up to attend at our special event organizing Web site. To learn more about hosting, click here now: http://yourvotematters.workingassets.com/ ctt.asp?u=3559686&l=49011 Can't host an Opt Out event on June 1? Tell a friend who can. If you can't host an Opt Out event on June 1, you can help the campaign by contacting your friends and family and finding someone who can. Who makes a good Opt Out event host? Parents are not the only ones who care about protecting our children from military recruiters. Many people who care deeply about this issue include people concerned about the occupation of Iraq, people who care about privacy issues, teachers, clergy, and others. Take action by forwarding this email to friends and family you think would be concerned about this issue and consider joining our nationwide organizing efforts. Tell your friends about LeaveMyChildAlone.org http://yourvotematters.workingassets.com/ ctt.asp?u=3559686&l=49019 You can also help by simply telling your friends about the Opt Out resources at www.LeaveMyChildAlone.org, a joint project of Working Assets, The MMOB and ACORN. At www.LeaveMyChildAlone.org you can: 1) Sign on as a citizen co-sponsor of US Representative Mike Honda's Student Privacy Protection Act. 2) Opt Out your own child, or learn how the process works so you can tell your friends. 3) Adopt-a-School-Board by downloading the Working Assets AASB toolkit: everything you need to know to help your local schools do it right. 4) Host an event to help others Opt Out on Wednesday, June 1st. 5) Tell your friends how to become a part of our campaign. Click here to tell your friends now. http://yourvotematters. workingassets.com/ ctt.asp?u=3559686&l=49019 Sincerely, Michael Kieschnick President, Working Assets Pagan Politics & Grassroots Campaigns http://groups.yahoo.com/ group/pagan_grassroots/
Sing Your Peace There's nothing better than a good song to help you "keep on keeping on." We've collected a few for you at Activist Songs. We hope you'll send us more links or -- better yet -- your own lyrics.
More Essays Making Non-violence Work By Starhawk
To Establish Your Conscientious Objector Status DON'T WAIT!!!! Girls and boys need to have shown that they are bona fide conscientious objectors against ALL war. ,,,,,,,,,,,,, Information on Military Service & Conscientious Objection Fact Sheet on Conscientious Objection UU Resources, including the UUA's registry of COs http://www.uua.org/news/2003/iraq/militaryservicefacts2.html http://www.uua.org/uuawo/issues/respond/military.html Information on Military Service and Conscientious Objection Fact Sheet on Conscientious Objection UUA Statements and Actions Regarding Conscientious Objection,_the Draft, and personal safety in congregations Draft Resistance http://www.draftresistance.org/
Essays Draft Creep by David Wiggins January 9, 2004 - Say hello to "draft creep." Remember "bracket creep," AKA the "sneaky tax increase," whereby inflation and income growth forces people into progressively higher tax brackets? Bracket creep is a way for the government to raise taxes without seeming to be raising taxes. There is no congressional debate, and no new law is passed for the President to sign. Taxes just go up. Similarly, draft creep is a way for the government to initiate the draft without seeming to initiate the draft. Draft creep is a sneaky draft. There is no congressional debate, and no new law is passed for the President to sign. Nonetheless, people are being forced into military service against their will. In other words, they are being drafted, conscripted, or whatever you care to call it. The government chooses to call it "Stop Loss," and it applies to members of the armed forces. After all, what better way is there to initiate a sneaky draft than to start with the group of people least likely to object to a draft, and at the same time, with the least legal rights to fight one? Prior to September 2001, the armed forces last used stop loss in 1990, during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, under then President George H. Bush. President George W. Bush authorized a new Stop Loss policy on September 14, 2001, in Executive Order 13223. Since then, the Army has announced 11 stop-loss orders. On 4 November 2002, a new stop loss policy affected over 60,000 soldiers. With this policy, a typical Ready Reserve soldier could be affected up to 30 months: 3 months during alert, 12-24 months while actually mobilized, and 3 months for demobilization. Ready Reserve soldiers who also possessed a certain skill or specialty could be affected until the later of 90 days after demobilization or the completion of an additional 12 months active duty. Over the past year, the Army alone has blocked the possible retirements and departures of more than 40,000 soldiers. Hundreds more in the Air Force, Navy and Marines were blocked from retiring or departing the military. Under the latest Stop Loss iteration, announced in January 2004, seven thousand additional soldiers will be required to stay in the theater for the duration of their unit's deployment and up to a maximum of 90 days afterward, said Col. Elton Manske. Because the stop-loss order begins 90 days before deployment and lasts for 90 days after a return home, those troops will be prohibited from retiring or leaving the Army at the expiration of their contracts until the spring of 2005, at the earliest. Some Guard troops and reservists complain their release dates have been extended several times and they no longer know when they will be allowed to leave. On their Army paychecks, the expiration date of their military service is now listed sometime after 2030 - the payroll computer's way of saying, "Who knows?" Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Eagle, a member of the West Virginia National Guard, was due to retire last February, but now, draft creep has caught up with him. "I'm furious. I'm aggravated. I feel violated. I feel used," said Eagle. Eagle said he fears his fledgling business in West Virginia may not survive his lengthy absence. The term "draft creep" might also be used to describe the way a full draft is "creeping" up on us. The draft officially ended in 1973. Registration for the draft ended in 1975, and the military reverted to an "all-volunteer" force. It is important to note that the "voluntary" part only extended until a person had signed up for military service. After that, except in unusual circumstances, one was required under threat of imprisonment, to complete their term of service - voluntarily or not. Only 5 years later, in 1980, President Carter reinstated registration for the draft for all men between the ages of 18 and 25 under an amendment to the Military Selective Service Act. It is perhaps relevant to note that no person who voted for or signed this amendment was, according to the language of the amendment, required to register. The law was greeted with overwhelming ambivalence. Millions of men who were required to register for the draft failed to do so. In fact, draft registration has been called the most widely ignored federal law since prohibition. All this indicated that, perhaps, the people who were required to register for the draft did not think that registration was such a great idea. In response, the democratically elected representatives of these people, in other words, those who made themselves exempt from draft registration, decided to impose penalties on those who were subject to registration, but did not register. The Solomon Amendment, passed in 1982, as a part of the Military Selective Service Act, requires draft registration for males 18-25 years old as a precondition for eligibility for Title IV Federal Student Financial Aid. This includes Pell Grants, Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants, College Work-Study, National Direct Student Loans, and Guaranteed Student/Plus Loans. As time goes on, more and more penalties are added for those who fail or refuse to register. In November 1985, the Thurmond Amendment to the Defense Authorization Act required Selective Service System registration for men who are required to register as a prerequisite for appointment to most federal jobs. Currently, any man who arrived in the United States before his 26th birthday cannot obtain citizenship or get federal job training without first registering for the draft. In the worst case, a man who fails to register may, if prosecuted and convicted, face a fine of up to $250,000 and/or a prison term of up to five years. Most states have added additional penalties for those who fail to register. Perhaps the most onerous of these penalties is the one that requires a man to register for the draft before he can obtain a state driver's license. All these penalties for not registering for the draft tighten the noose around those who do not register, and brings the draft that much closer to reality. Only stop loss, however, actually increases the number of soldiers on active duty. But stop loss does have some limitations. With stop loss, the maximum amount of troops the government can raise is equal to those troops that are on active duty or in the reserves, plus those that have been inactive for less than six years (the inactive reserves), plus those that continue to sign up for military duty. Now that seems like a potential pool of one hell-of-a-lot of troops; more, one would think, than the government would ever need. Think again. Aside from current and ex-military, the government has plans for other specialty drafts. The "Health Care Personnel Delivery System" was authorized by Congress in 1987 to deal with large-scale casualties that outstripped the active-duty military's ability to handle them. If implemented, the bill would require a mass registration of male and female health care workers between the ages of 20 and 45. The Pentagon is considering other "special skills" drafts, .to include military linguists, computer experts, engineers, or other specialties. "We're going to elevate that kind of draft to be a priority," said Lewis Brodsky, acting director of the Selective Service System And what happens when, even with all the specialty drafts, the government cannot satisfy it's voracious desire for "fresh meat?" Universal conscription is reinstated, that's what. A bill before the House Armed Services Committee would require the induction of young men into the military "to receive basic military training and education for a period of up to one year." In 2001, Representatives Nick Smith and Curt Weldon sponsored the bill, called the "Universal Military Training and Service Act." The measure is currently before the Armed Services Committee. On 23 Sept. 2003, the Defense Department web site called "Defend America" posted a notice for people to join local draft boards. The announcement, which ran under the heading "Serve Your Community and the Nation," had read: "The Selective Service System wants to hear from men and women in the community who might be willing to serve as members of a local draft board." It went on to say that, "If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 Local and Appeals Boards throughout America would decide which young men, who submit a claim, receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service, based on Federal guidelines. " That notice started to receive media attention, with articles from the Associated Press, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Oregonian, the Toronto Star, the BBC, and London Guardian. Then, for some unknown reason, the notice suddenly disappeared. But the appeal for draft board members returned shortly thereafter. There was some politically correct fine-tuning and a disclaimer, but there it was, right up front on the home page of the Selective Service System's web site. "Selective Service continues to invite interested citizens to volunteer for service on its local boards that would decide claims from men if a draft were reestablished." Henry "Pete" Van de Putte, husband of State Senator Leticia Van De Putte of Texas, puts all of this into perspective. If the draft were reinstated, Van de Putte says, "This whole system would be up and running full-tilt literally in a matter of a few days." Van De Putte has served on his local draft board in San Antonio since 1991. All this amounts to draft creep, and that brings us back to the current stop loss situation. Here are some questions for all those soldiers who say that, though they personally disagree with some of the things they have been ordered to do, they knew what they were getting into when they signed up. What is your excuse now? You didn't sign up for stop loss. You are now on military assignment involuntarily. Are your actions contributing to suffering, death, and destruction in a war you disagreed with? Will you refuse to continue against your will, or will you magically come up with another reason that rationalizes your continued participation? Here is a message for all those soldiers who insist that they are defending our freedom even though many of us disagree. Here is a message for those soldiers who may have thought us ungrateful when we told them that we believed their participation in this war was doing us a disservice. Here is a message for all those soldiers who thought us unpatriotic, or worse, called us cowards because we insisted that their actions were making us less safe, not safer. We are on your side. We always were. Now, stop loss has taken away your freedom. You had no say in the matter. If you want to defend anyone's freedom, start by defending your own! Refuse this involuntary servitude called stop loss. If you do refuse, you will diminish the chances that draft creep will get the rest of your countrymen. You will, finally, be defending our freedom. For everyone who fears that they just might be engulfed by draft creep, get educated now. To some it may seem ironic that by writing this, I, an advocate of nonviolence, am defending the freedom of soldiers, soldiers who have had their freedom taken from them under the threat of imprisonment by the government they intended to serve. Stranger still is the knowledge that soldiers who resist this involuntary servitude will probably be arrested, prosecuted and possibly imprisoned by their own comrades in arms. But these ideas should not seem strange or ironic. After all, it was James Madison, the 4th President of the United States, who in August of 1793 wrote: "Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." David Wiggins [send him mail] is a West Point (United States Military Academy) distinguished graduate and an honors graduate of New York Medical College. He left the Army as a Conscientious Objector, resigning his commission as an Army Captain on the Iraqi front lines during Operation Desert Storm. He is currently an Emergency Physician. Copyright (c) 2004, Strait Gate Ministries, All Rights Reserved May be reproduced only in full. Please send questions and comments to info@whtt.org Accessed August 4, 2004 at: http://www.whtt.org/whtt.shtml?rpr/DrftCrp.htm
The Draft (for war) will Start in June 2005 Pending Draft Legislation Targeted for Spring 2005 Capital Advantage There is pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills: S 89 and HR 163) which will time the program's initiation so the draft can begin at early as Spring 2005 -- just after the 2004 presidential election. The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections, so our action on this is needed immediately. $28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System (SSS) budget to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. Selective Service must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which has lain dormant for decades, is ready for activation. Please see website: www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html to view the sss annual performance plan - fiscal year 2004. The pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide.. Though this is an unpopular election year topic, military experts and influential members of congress are suggesting that if Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan [and a permanent state of war on "terrorism"] proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to draft. Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and HR 163 forward [in 2004], http://www.hslda.org/legislation/na...s89/default.asp entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, "to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." These active bills currently sit in the committee on armed services. Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era. College and Canada will not be options. In December 2001, Canada and the U.S. signed a "smart border declaration," which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's minister of foreign affairs, John Manley, and U.S. Homeland Security director, Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their current semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year. Even those voters who currently support US actions abroad may still object to this move, knowing their own children or grandchildren will not have a say about whether to fight. Not that it should make a difference, but this plan, among other things, eliminates higher education as a shelter and includes women in the draft. The public has a right to air their opinions about such an important decision. Please send this on to all the friends, parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and cousins that you know. Let your children know too -- it's their future, and they can be a powerful voice for change! Please also contact your representatives to ask them why they aren't telling their constituents about these bills -- and contact newspapers and other media outlets to ask them why they're not covering this important story. Copyright (c) 2004, Strait Gate Ministries, All Rights Reserved May be reproduced only in full.
ALLIES
UUA Washington Office for Advocacy http://www.uua.org/uuawo/new/
Interfaith Peace Work The Interfaith Alliance and The Interfaith Alliance Foundation are urging the President and Congress to explore all possible non-violent alternatives to military action. Peace, a core value of all major religious traditions, is more than an ideal, but a real strategy for non-violent international relations. Additionally, we believe that pre-emptive unilateral violent action could prove to be more morally destructive to our nation than any other proposed solution to the Iraqi arms build-up. Read statements by various religious leaders on this subject at http://www.interfaithalliance.org/rresource/iraq/statemen.htm Send YOUR letter to President Bush at president@whitehouse.gov Send a letter to your members of Congress at House of Representatives http://www.house.gov/writerep/ Senate: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm Support the work of The Interfaith Alliance at https://www.interfaithalliance.org/ssl/mem-form.htm
MoveOn.org Comprehensive Organizing against the Empire The MoveOn Bulletin is a free, biweekly email bulletin providing information, news, and action ideas on current political issues. You can subscribe to the Bulletin . http://www.actionforum.com/forum/index.html?forum_id=222 MoveOn also has a new international bulletin; subscribe at http://www.peace.moveon.org/bulletin.php3#sub
The Military Machine never stops When the Empire Strikes again, will you know what to do? Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) 310 East 38th Street, Suite 225, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55409 612-827-5364 (phone) 612-827-6433 (fax) Other resources: wamm@mtn.org (email) http://www.worldwidewamm.org. www.unitedforpeace.org www.endthewar.org http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=anti-war+OR+anti-war+washington
Links for Peace and Hope http://www.wideopenwest.com/~bmg/peace.html More Resources Coming Soon!