An evening with Aimee and Chris
After some introductory words by Gus, the evening started out with a short anti-recruitment film (available for viewing at notyoursoldier.net) with German subtitles. It is a face-paced, flashy film designed, as Aimee put it, to appeal to the MTV generation. The film unmasked and countered the deceptive tecniques used by military recruiters in the United States.
After the film, which Aimee described as a "subvertizement" to subvert the military's messages to young people, she went on to make a number of major points:
- Every country that builds an empire and fights wars is faced with the problem of finding enough young people to go an fight. With the social fabric in the U.S. crumbling, the costs of higher education skyrocketing, the military PR machine focuses on the career and education prospects offered by signing up. The Army's PR campaign "Army Strong" (which in my day was "Be all you can be" and was later "Army of One") is run by the exact same corporation that invented Tony the Tiger.
- The military also latches onto other structures and institutions, especially schools and colleges, to get their message out: Not only do they have a physical presence on schools and college campuses, most of the advertizing in the public for-high-school TV channel is recruiting propaganda. Recruiters also have a strong presence in MySpace, at sporting events, and even online multi-player video games, including one that the Defense Depart itself bankrolled for $10 million. It is a so-called "ego-shooter" called America's Army with the expressed goal of "deeply penetrating youth culture." In that context, Aimee also mentioned a resistance effort being waged by people who enroll for the video game under the name of "Dead in Iraq" to provoke other players and protest against recruitment and the glorification of the war.
- She described more of what she called the "military recruitment complex", a $4 billion industry in 2006. It involves using all means available, like those above, to create "recruitlandia," the term recruiters use to describe conditions congenial to joining the military - a condition they try to create as early as eight years old and lasting 10 years (until high school graduation). Aimee showed a rock-climbing park sponsored by the Army with an advertizement in Spanish.
- There are 9000 recruiters on the job in the U.S. The recruiters try to build relationships with young people (a tecnique which, I might add, is almost identical to what the Mormons call BRT - building relationships of trust to encourage membership). For some, like the child of Taiwanese immigrants that Aimee told about, the recruiter becomes the only adult in that young person's life who takes time with them.
- The militarization of schools was one of her themes. Not only are recruiters present at schools. She showed a picture of some high school children doing rifle drills with mock wooden rifles, presumably as part of the JROTC program. (She pointed out that the same school has a "zero tolerance policy" for violence!) Aimee also noted that the United States Marine Corps has just opened its own high school in Chicago.
- The military is clearly desparate. Since 2005, they have raised the age of elligibility to join the armed forces up to 45, lowered the required scores on standardized tests, and begun a campaign of recruiting in prisons. The number of "moral waivers" - that is, persmission to join the military despite a criminal record - has increased significantly. There have been more such waivers over the past year than over the past 10 years combined.
- Recruiters never talk about Iraq and, if asked, will sometimes emphasize how unlikely it is that the new recruit will be sent there. Another lie by omission is that they don't talk about what is arguably the main purpose of a soldier: to kill our country's enemies. Chris Capps, the other speaker, stepped in that this point and noted that his sergeant major was quite clear on that aspect - but only after he had joined. Another bit of important information that recruiters don't mention is that about 1/3 of female soldiers are raped during their time in the military and that sexual harassment is rampant.
- Aimee then told the story of a young man - not untypical - who wanted out even before basic training was over. While learning urban combat tecniques in a mock search, he was admonished to fire at a dummy representing a young boy. He told his parents, "I can't learn to kill children."
- Another theme was the cooperation of the corporate mass media with the military establishment. They don't show American casualties, they carefully select their images to put a positive spin on the war (showing clapping children in an intact street in Falludja, for example, instead of showing what the 60% of the city which was destroyed looked like after the battle).
Aimee pointed out that to address all these problems, the peace movement is no longer interested in organizing large protest marches. They are ignored by the media and the leadership and hence, lead to nothing. Instead, grass roots action, "people politics" as Aimee called it, is the approach. Examples:
- Chris Capps and Aimee Allison told about Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW.org), soldiers speaking out against the war both to their local environments and to the broader public. They each told their personal stories of how they changed their own hearts and minds and then went on the road to tell others. Chris put his story in the context of other recent conscientious objectors and deserters such as Watada and Aguayo and showed pictures of them and told their stories as well. Chris left his dead-end job as a pizza delivery boy. His time in Iraq was unspectacular - he was a communications technician at Camp Victory. But doing things like upgrading the communications with Abu Ghraib prison gave him misgivings. He saw rampant corruption and how obvious it was that the U.S. bases there were meant to be permanent. He bolted when the unit he later transfered to in Germany was ordered to deploy to Afghanistan.
- They showed a leaflet campaign in Oakland, CA, to inform high school students and their parents about how the military recruiters get their personal contact information.
- Aimee told about a successful effort in Chicago to shut down the recruiting infrastructure for several days. In operation "Befriend a recruiter", fewer than 20 people managed to engage the recruiters and busy them with appointments and questions, taking up all their time, until they actually cancelled all activity for several days.
- There were other actions like the "raging grannies", old women who tried to sign up to join the military, and the "Insurgent Rebel Clown Army" that disturbed recruiting offices with jokes and silliness. In Chicago, the result of all this was the closing of a recruitment office!
It takes the direct action of only a few determined individuals to make a noticeable difference.
Aimee's presentation included several stories of individual recruits or potential recruits she has worked with. She told about one young lady who was dead set on joining the military because she was a self-described "bad ass." She was tough and strong and she liked the "structure" offered by the military, despite the fact that her father, a 20-year veteran of the USMC, begged her not to join. She stayed in touch with Aimee after seeing one of her presentations. When Aimee suggested she become a firefighter or even a smoke jumper - something requiring strength and courage and offering "structure", the girl had an awakening and cancelled her ticket to boot camp. Counter-recruitment, Aimee said, is about giving people ideas.
They closed their presentation by emphasizing that supporting GI resistance is the best way to stop the war.
The discussion began with a brief exchange about how habeas corpus has been weakened in America. There was disagreement between the speakers and a member of the audience as to how severely it has been curtailed. Then I asked if Aimee was advocating a principled pacifist position, whether she would disband the armed forces for example, or whether she was just opposing this particular war. She answered that her resistance was aimed at the current state of affairs, but with a call to discuss alternatives to traditional defense models (such as "social defense"). Our current system is wrong and must be stopped. She is dead set against our currect program of empire.
There was then a brief policy discussion about what to do in Iraq. Someone in the audience objected to Chris and Aimee's position of an immediate and complete withdrawal from Iraq followed by reparations to the people who have been damaged by the war. Chris - and some from the audience - offered a vigorous defense of withdrawal. The chaos and civil war that are conjured up for a time after withdrawal is already happily. The conversation also revolved around the U.S. role in fueling the conflict there with weapons and money - weapons and money which get "lost" as part of our aid to our allies there. Part of the discussion was also about Iran and the need for an enemy after the Cold War to feed the defense industry.
One of our own TPAers steered the discussion back to peace and counter-recruitment by asking that Chris tell about his participation in the peace efforts against American bases in Italy, which he briefly did. Then he was asked and told about the relationship of IVAW to the earlier Vietnam Veterans Against the War movement of a generation ago.
Asked how dangerous their work is, Chris and Aimee both made it sound safe and easy to be activists. While Chris noted how difficult it can be to speak out while still in the military, the worse Aimee has ever experienced was being told by a Marine Corps member that she is "ruining our country." She went on to tell how she diffused the situation and won over the man's respect, albeit not his complete agreement with her cause. Her luggage never arrives with her when she flies. She has seen black SUVs at events she has attended. But she has never been harassed or abused.
The discussion turned to the media. They related how it has become more favorable over the past six months (I recalled the scathing abuse that Cindy Sheehan got from the right-wing noise machine a few years ago). The discussion included brief questions or remarks from the audience and the speakers about the role of contractors, religion and recruitment (no connection), economic recruitment, and the structure of the IVAW (it has about 500 members from all five branches of the armed forces).
Aimee closed again by emphasizing her "Army of None" approach: build on the power of relationships, "people politics", to make a difference at the bottom in your locality.
After the film, which Aimee described as a "subvertizement" to subvert the military's messages to young people, she went on to make a number of major points:
- Every country that builds an empire and fights wars is faced with the problem of finding enough young people to go an fight. With the social fabric in the U.S. crumbling, the costs of higher education skyrocketing, the military PR machine focuses on the career and education prospects offered by signing up. The Army's PR campaign "Army Strong" (which in my day was "Be all you can be" and was later "Army of One") is run by the exact same corporation that invented Tony the Tiger.
- The military also latches onto other structures and institutions, especially schools and colleges, to get their message out: Not only do they have a physical presence on schools and college campuses, most of the advertizing in the public for-high-school TV channel is recruiting propaganda. Recruiters also have a strong presence in MySpace, at sporting events, and even online multi-player video games, including one that the Defense Depart itself bankrolled for $10 million. It is a so-called "ego-shooter" called America's Army with the expressed goal of "deeply penetrating youth culture." In that context, Aimee also mentioned a resistance effort being waged by people who enroll for the video game under the name of "Dead in Iraq" to provoke other players and protest against recruitment and the glorification of the war.
- She described more of what she called the "military recruitment complex", a $4 billion industry in 2006. It involves using all means available, like those above, to create "recruitlandia," the term recruiters use to describe conditions congenial to joining the military - a condition they try to create as early as eight years old and lasting 10 years (until high school graduation). Aimee showed a rock-climbing park sponsored by the Army with an advertizement in Spanish.
- There are 9000 recruiters on the job in the U.S. The recruiters try to build relationships with young people (a tecnique which, I might add, is almost identical to what the Mormons call BRT - building relationships of trust to encourage membership). For some, like the child of Taiwanese immigrants that Aimee told about, the recruiter becomes the only adult in that young person's life who takes time with them.
- The militarization of schools was one of her themes. Not only are recruiters present at schools. She showed a picture of some high school children doing rifle drills with mock wooden rifles, presumably as part of the JROTC program. (She pointed out that the same school has a "zero tolerance policy" for violence!) Aimee also noted that the United States Marine Corps has just opened its own high school in Chicago.
- The military is clearly desparate. Since 2005, they have raised the age of elligibility to join the armed forces up to 45, lowered the required scores on standardized tests, and begun a campaign of recruiting in prisons. The number of "moral waivers" - that is, persmission to join the military despite a criminal record - has increased significantly. There have been more such waivers over the past year than over the past 10 years combined.
- Recruiters never talk about Iraq and, if asked, will sometimes emphasize how unlikely it is that the new recruit will be sent there. Another lie by omission is that they don't talk about what is arguably the main purpose of a soldier: to kill our country's enemies. Chris Capps, the other speaker, stepped in that this point and noted that his sergeant major was quite clear on that aspect - but only after he had joined. Another bit of important information that recruiters don't mention is that about 1/3 of female soldiers are raped during their time in the military and that sexual harassment is rampant.
- Aimee then told the story of a young man - not untypical - who wanted out even before basic training was over. While learning urban combat tecniques in a mock search, he was admonished to fire at a dummy representing a young boy. He told his parents, "I can't learn to kill children."
- Another theme was the cooperation of the corporate mass media with the military establishment. They don't show American casualties, they carefully select their images to put a positive spin on the war (showing clapping children in an intact street in Falludja, for example, instead of showing what the 60% of the city which was destroyed looked like after the battle).
Aimee pointed out that to address all these problems, the peace movement is no longer interested in organizing large protest marches. They are ignored by the media and the leadership and hence, lead to nothing. Instead, grass roots action, "people politics" as Aimee called it, is the approach. Examples:
- Chris Capps and Aimee Allison told about Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW.org), soldiers speaking out against the war both to their local environments and to the broader public. They each told their personal stories of how they changed their own hearts and minds and then went on the road to tell others. Chris put his story in the context of other recent conscientious objectors and deserters such as Watada and Aguayo and showed pictures of them and told their stories as well. Chris left his dead-end job as a pizza delivery boy. His time in Iraq was unspectacular - he was a communications technician at Camp Victory. But doing things like upgrading the communications with Abu Ghraib prison gave him misgivings. He saw rampant corruption and how obvious it was that the U.S. bases there were meant to be permanent. He bolted when the unit he later transfered to in Germany was ordered to deploy to Afghanistan.
- They showed a leaflet campaign in Oakland, CA, to inform high school students and their parents about how the military recruiters get their personal contact information.
- Aimee told about a successful effort in Chicago to shut down the recruiting infrastructure for several days. In operation "Befriend a recruiter", fewer than 20 people managed to engage the recruiters and busy them with appointments and questions, taking up all their time, until they actually cancelled all activity for several days.
- There were other actions like the "raging grannies", old women who tried to sign up to join the military, and the "Insurgent Rebel Clown Army" that disturbed recruiting offices with jokes and silliness. In Chicago, the result of all this was the closing of a recruitment office!
It takes the direct action of only a few determined individuals to make a noticeable difference.
Aimee's presentation included several stories of individual recruits or potential recruits she has worked with. She told about one young lady who was dead set on joining the military because she was a self-described "bad ass." She was tough and strong and she liked the "structure" offered by the military, despite the fact that her father, a 20-year veteran of the USMC, begged her not to join. She stayed in touch with Aimee after seeing one of her presentations. When Aimee suggested she become a firefighter or even a smoke jumper - something requiring strength and courage and offering "structure", the girl had an awakening and cancelled her ticket to boot camp. Counter-recruitment, Aimee said, is about giving people ideas.
They closed their presentation by emphasizing that supporting GI resistance is the best way to stop the war.
The discussion began with a brief exchange about how habeas corpus has been weakened in America. There was disagreement between the speakers and a member of the audience as to how severely it has been curtailed. Then I asked if Aimee was advocating a principled pacifist position, whether she would disband the armed forces for example, or whether she was just opposing this particular war. She answered that her resistance was aimed at the current state of affairs, but with a call to discuss alternatives to traditional defense models (such as "social defense"). Our current system is wrong and must be stopped. She is dead set against our currect program of empire.
There was then a brief policy discussion about what to do in Iraq. Someone in the audience objected to Chris and Aimee's position of an immediate and complete withdrawal from Iraq followed by reparations to the people who have been damaged by the war. Chris - and some from the audience - offered a vigorous defense of withdrawal. The chaos and civil war that are conjured up for a time after withdrawal is already happily. The conversation also revolved around the U.S. role in fueling the conflict there with weapons and money - weapons and money which get "lost" as part of our aid to our allies there. Part of the discussion was also about Iran and the need for an enemy after the Cold War to feed the defense industry.
One of our own TPAers steered the discussion back to peace and counter-recruitment by asking that Chris tell about his participation in the peace efforts against American bases in Italy, which he briefly did. Then he was asked and told about the relationship of IVAW to the earlier Vietnam Veterans Against the War movement of a generation ago.
Asked how dangerous their work is, Chris and Aimee both made it sound safe and easy to be activists. While Chris noted how difficult it can be to speak out while still in the military, the worse Aimee has ever experienced was being told by a Marine Corps member that she is "ruining our country." She went on to tell how she diffused the situation and won over the man's respect, albeit not his complete agreement with her cause. Her luggage never arrives with her when she flies. She has seen black SUVs at events she has attended. But she has never been harassed or abused.
The discussion turned to the media. They related how it has become more favorable over the past six months (I recalled the scathing abuse that Cindy Sheehan got from the right-wing noise machine a few years ago). The discussion included brief questions or remarks from the audience and the speakers about the role of contractors, religion and recruitment (no connection), economic recruitment, and the structure of the IVAW (it has about 500 members from all five branches of the armed forces).
Aimee closed again by emphasizing her "Army of None" approach: build on the power of relationships, "people politics", to make a difference at the bottom in your locality.
mhatlie - 27. Oct, 12:55