[Peace-discuss] Recruiting news

[Marti]

I am a parent of a high school student in Champaign. It's common practice in
this area for parents to be given opt-out forms during registration. I
wouldn't be surprised if that is the case in Urbana as well.

-----Original Message-----
From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Robert Naiman
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2007 11:40 AM
To: Barbara kessel
Cc: Peace Discuss List
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Recruiting news

This is quite inspiring.

AFSC provides a generic opt-out form for students or parents who want
to exercise their right to block military recruiters from receiving
their contact information. Has anyone ever tried doing in Urbana what
the activists have done in Puerto Rico?

http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/militarism-in-schools/opt-out.rtf

AFSC background on the issue:
http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/militarism-in-schools/default.htm

On 8/18/07, Barbara kessel <barkes at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Recruiting For Iraq War Undercut in Puerto Rico
>     By Paul Lewis
>     The Washington Post
>
>     Saturday 18 August 2007
>
>     San Juan, Puerto Rico - The political activists, brown envelopes
> tucked under their arms, staked out the high school gates just after
> sunrise. When students emerged from the graffiti-scorched streets of
> the Rio Piedra neighborhood here and began streaming toward their
> school, the pro-independence advocates ripped open the envelopes and
> began handing the teens fliers emblazoned with the slogan: "Our youth
> should not go to war."
>
>     At the bottom of the leaflet was a tear sheet that students could
> sign and later hand to teachers, to request that students' personal
> contact information not be released to the U.S. Defense Department or
> to anyone involved in military recruiting.
>
>     The scene outside the Ramon Vila Mayo high school unfolded at
> schools throughout Puerto Rico this week as the academic year opened.
> On this island with a long tradition of military service,
> pro-independence advocates are tapping the territory's growing
> anti-Iraq war sentiment to revitalize their cause. As a result, 57
> percent of Puerto Rico's 10th-, 11th- and 12th-graders, or their
> parents, have signed forms over the past year withholding contact
> information from the Pentagon - effectively barring U.S. recruiters
> from reaching out to an estimated 65,000 high school students.
>
>     "If the death of a Puerto Rican soldier is tragic, it's more
> tragic if that soldier has no say in that war," said Juan Dalmau,
> secretary general of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP). His
> efforts are saving the island's children from becoming "colonial
> cannon meat," he said.
>
>     Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, all schools receiving
> U.S. federal funding must provide their students' names, addresses and
> phone numbers to the military unless the child or parents sign an
> opt-out form. Puerto Rico received $1.88 billion in U.S. education
> funds this year. For five years, PIP has issued opt-out forms to about
> 120,000 students in Puerto Rico and encouraged them to sign - and
> independista activists expect this year to mark their most successful
> effort yet.
>
>     Such actions come as other antiwar groups on the island are
> seeking to undercut military recruiting, as well. For example, the
> Coalition of Citizens Against Militarism, an association of pacifist
> groups, plans to visit about 70 schools on the island in the coming
> days, meaning that many students will receive two, or even three,
> opt-out forms by the end of August.
>
>     Antiwar advocates have even gained direct access to Puerto Rican
> classrooms under a controversial directive issued last September by
> Rafael Aragunde, the island's education secretary, granting "equal
> access" by pacifist groups and military recruiters.
>
>     Although he will not bar recruiters from schools, Aragunde said,
> he has a "lot of sympathy" for what pacifist groups are trying to
> accomplish. "I've always felt that one of the byproducts of a good
> educational system is that you have citizens who will defend
> pacifism," he said. "I think that just like we have to insist on
> ecological values, we have to insist on pacifist values." Aragunde
> described his relations with military recruiters as "cordial."
>
>     Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel
> policy, acknowledged that the counter-recruiting campaigns are having
> an impact. "We're drawing less than the national average" in Puerto
> Rico, he said.
>
>     In the 2003-06 period, 4,947 Puerto Rican men and women enlisted
> in the Army or Reserves, or approximately 123 people per 100,000
> residents, according to Pentagon data. That is below the average
> contribution of U.S. states, and far below the numbers in states such
> as Alabama, Kansas, Montana and Oklahoma, each of which enlists more
> than 200 men and women per 100,000, according to Army data.
>
>     "We're not taking more than our share from Puerto Rico," Carr
> said. "We're taking less than our share, because that's what they'll
> give us." Carr said he suspects that opt-out rates for states in the
> continental United States rarely break beyond 10 percent - a far cry
> from the nearly 60 percent on the island.
>
>     Reaction outside the gates of the Ramon Vila Mayo school this week
> seem to confirm that suspicion. A few students shrugged off the
> political activists' overtures, while others smiled and declared their
> interest in joining the "Yankee" military. But most of the teens
> politely accepted the forms, nodded and even fetched pens from their
> school bags.
>
>     Calls for Puerto Rico's independence have existed since the days
> of Spanish colonial rule and continued after the United States seized
> control of the island in 1898. In the 1950s, a branch of the movement
> attempted a violent uprising. Although many Puerto Ricans express deep
> patriotism for the island, the independence impulse has never
> translated in the polls - either in elections or in successive
> plebiscites on the status of the territory, in which independence has
> repeatedly been rejected.
>
>     Leaders from the island's two major political parties say that
> their PIP opponents are exploiting young people to advance their
> separatist grievances. And Pentagon officials accuse the activists of
> "manipulating" impressionable young people.
>
>     "What's going on in Puerto Rico is an artificial circumstance,
> where a group is trying to persuade students to take their name off a
> list, and of course that's going to meet in some change in behavior,"
> Carr said. "In the event that someone approaches a young person and
> their voluntary behavior is to take an opt-out card and give it to
> their teacher, there's nothing we can or should do in that case.
> That's free speech. But it's curious speech, because it's manipulating
> the flow of information . . . and that is unhealthy."
>
>     The Pentagon said it is on track to meet its recruiting targets
> for this fiscal year. However, despite a $3.2 billion national
> recruitment campaign, the military was forced to bring back 1,000
> former recruiters to help with the summer months - the peak recruiting
> period - and late last month introduced a $20,000 "quick-ship" bonus
> for recruits willing to enter training before October. Carr said that
> Puerto Rico's anti-military drive could force recruiters to focus on
> states such as Texas, where they meet with less resistance.
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>
_______________________________________________
Peace-discuss mailing list
Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss