New JROTC Figures for the 2006-07 LAUSD school year on the JROTC page (left column link)

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Great Careers brochure for High School students

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LOS ANGELES:SATURDAY, MAY 31, 2008 Join the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools (CAMS) for a FUNDRAISER CELEBRATION
STUDENTS FREE. Saturday, May 31st, 3:00 - 6:00 PM Home of Former Congressional Candidate Bob McCloskey & Linda Tubach, 360 South Electric Avenue, Monterey Park 91754
$10-$20 - Sliding Scale
For more info call: 626-799-9118
CAMS is stepping up our work, as we remain committed to demilitarize our schools and provide alternatives with our eye on transforming the present school culture. Here are just a few of the many ways we are doing this:
Locally: Our Adopt a School Project will continue to be the foundation of our work, as we work to provide information, resources and "swag" (stickers, buttons and pencils) freely to students at 50 high schools in the greater Los Angeles area. We also will expand our work with Project Great Futures in providing the alternatives systemically to high schools at Career Fairs. CAMS has also recently proposed a pilot volunteer position to LAUSD called Military Career Alternatives to have a weekly presence at 10 to 15 high schools starting in the fall. This Advocate will present information, resources and military enlistment realities to students funded by CAMS (thanks to your support).
Nationally: CAMS is connected to a network of counter recruitment organizations, state and national teacher's unions, veterans and community groups nationally. We have provided training to national leaders and groups, passed resolutions at state and national teachers conventions, and testified in support of student privacy legislation AB 2994 which will be sent to the state assembly in the near future. We are also working with national labor unions such as the AFT and the NEA on ASVAB and other counter-recruitment issues.
Internationally: We have supported the teachers in Japan to victory, as they would not submit to the militarism of their schools. We are also working closely with international teachers from Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rica and throughout the US regarding the militarism in the school culture. Please support our local work by joining us in this FUNDRAISER CELEBRATION on May 31st. And PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO YOUR CONTACTS. And thank you again, for making our work possible.

LOS ANGELES AND THROUGHOUT CALIFORNIA: WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2008 Join us in saying NO! to the Runner Initiative “Safe Neighborhoods Act” CALIFORNIA WIDE ACTIONS MAY 7th 2008 THE RUNNER INITIATIVE …2 PM:  Across the street from the LA County Jail and Twin Towers Correctional Facility; Meet at corner of North Vignes and Bauchet. THE RUNNER INITIATIVE Targets youth to be tried as adults!  Targets undocumented immigrant to report to immigration and deny bail Targets families to push out of public housing!  Targets community input to keep us out of making decisions about community safety! Targets tax payer’s money away from rehabilitation services! CO$$$$TING CALIFORNIA over a half billion dollars, cut from education & health care…! Tell the founder and the funders of the Runner Initiative  we will not be fooled we are organized state wide and we are ready to expose them TO GET DOWN WITH THE COALITION TO DEFEAT THE RUNNER INITIATIVE CONTACT Here is the flyer.

Join the San Francisco leg of the California Caravan for Educational Justice From San Diego to the Bay and Up to Sacramento: Friday, May 9th.

SAN FRANCISCO AND THROUGHOUT CALIFORNIA: MAY 9, 2008 EDUCATION FOR ALL CARAVAN This caravan is being organized by A.R.E. (Association of Raza Educators) and will leave San Diego on Thursday, May 8th, head to L.A. then through the Central Valley and stopping in San Francisco on Friday, May 9th. Join Teachers 4 Social Justice, SFABE (San Francisco Association for Bilingual Ed) and many other community based orgs to welcome them. Rally on the steps of City Hall in San Francisco, and then join the caravan and GET on the BUS to Sacramento for the day to carry our message to the steps of the State Capitol. No cuts to education! Rally at 10:30am. Bus departs for Sacramento @11:45. Return to SF at 8pm. SPACE on the Bus is limited. For more information or to RSVP to this address.

LOS ANGELES: MAY 16-18, 2008 The Soldiers Project Invites You to a Conference: Hidden Wounds of War: Pathways to Healing May 16-18, 2008      Westin Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles The Soldiers Project is part of the Ernest J. Lawrence Trauma Center of the Los Angeles Institute& Society for Psychoanalytic Studies. Since 2004,we have been offering free psychotherapy for veterans, military service members and their families who have been involved in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. For our first national conference, we have invited experts who will speak about the treatment of combat stress, and the psychological challenges of deployment and homecoming for soldiers and families. Those attending will also learn how to initiate and run a pro bono mental health program for veterans, service members and their families. The conference is open to therapists, military, vets; adult loved ones, and those who are working to help soldiers and families. The keynote speakers are: Jonathan Shay, MD, PhD psychiatrist, author of Achilles in Viet Nam, Odysseus in America and a 2008 MacArthur Fellow Congressman Bob Filner, Chair of House Committee on Veterans Affairs. Conference partly funded by grants Ernest Lawrence Trauma Center of LAISPS, International Psychoanalytic Association, American Psychoanalytic Association, Verbena Foundation, and private donors. 12 CEU, CME units available. For more information, and registration call 818 761-7438, or 877-576-5343, or visit the website.

You can see a list of all the PDF files on this web site by going here. Opt Out Forms, material for organizing and distribution, Iraqi history timetable and more

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CAMS Fundraiser ::: We need your support ::: Please help us continue to protect youth from endless war! Use your economic stimulus check refund to protect youth from endless wars. Contribute here.

CAMS Youth Brochure

Updated CAMS Brochure Page 1 Page 2

Please print clearly...military recruiters want more than your test scores.
May 4, 2008 by Gregory Sotir

The ASVAB test is given to hundreds of thousands of high schoolers every year. Yet educators are not informed about how this 'Career-test' ties directly into the marketing agendas of military recruiting. It should be clear from the title, ASVAB stands for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, yet the connection from 'test' to 'war; is often missed. And while teachers and counselors are told that the test is a free career-placement test for teens, many of whom are unsure as to their futures, test givers and test takers may be unaware that the ASVAB places students into pre-assigned categories for today's military infrastructure.

Why is this a problem? There is a need to help direct young adults towards meaningful career choices. While we educators may all work tirelessly we know that all of our students are not going to apply for higher education. Our counselors, often over-burdened with administrative tasks, welcome additional free resources towards this end. And we all suspect that the budget cuts will only make the situation more difficult but ASVAB is free. So what's the problem? Students and teachers need to know where the numbers go.

Let's place it in a hypothetical construct. Say you go into a store. You are shopping for a new chair for your writing desk. You know you want something comfortable, but also something that will encourage you to produce rather than just fall asleep. A salesmen eyes you eying the ergonomic hairs and saunters over clipboard in hand. He hands you a form, telling you it has been scientifically designed to help you choose the chair that best suits your needs. Interested in this novel survey you agree to fill in the colorful user-friendly form. When you have completed the survey you wander the aisles while awaiting the results. A nice harvest-wheat colored chair grabs your eye. You move towards it, noticing the care put into it's design. The salesmen intercepts you and directs you towards another chair. But you don't want that chair. The salesman is confused, pointing to the survey results. Unhappy with the experience you decide to leave and find another, more traditional store. Driving towards the freeway your cell phone lights up. It's a chair salesman. A chair salesman? How did they get your cell number? You ask them firmly to not call back. At a boutique you buy an well-made antique chair that suits your needs fine. But the phone calls continue, and continue, always trying to sell you a chair.

Granted the above example is a bit reaching.  But the real events that the ASVAB compel are quite similar. Once a student is assigned a numbered career potential, the information is forwarded to military recruiters, as well as student phone number, home addresses, and demographic information. The student is transformed from someone seeking a fulfilling life-path into a lead for military recruiters using high-pressure sales tactics. And the phone calls begin.

In LAUSD in 2004 ten students at Fremont HS could not be fooled. When marshaled with a large group of other students into the auditorium for a career information test they noticed recruiters in military garb standing along the side. The students quickly surmised the real nature of the ASVAB and ten of them refused to take the exam. The site administrator reacted by initially suspending the students. But teacher and UTLA outcry forced the site administrator to back down and the students were reinstated without consequence for refusing to take the 'voluntary' ASVAB.

In negotiations with LAUSD in late autumn 2007 teachers from the Coalition Against Militarism In Our Schools petitioned the District to use an information reporting option within ASVAB to with-hold all student data from the Pentagon and military recruiters. This is known as Option 8 and educators and counselors at schools where the ASVAB is given should push for the choosing of this option. CAMS petitions to LAUSD were granted and LAUSD is now a blanket Option 8 district!

In April 2008 at the 66th California Federation of Teachers Convention in Oakland a resolution was introduced by Local 1021/UTLA and passed by the body encouraging all CFT locals to make Option 8 the standard: "Therefore be it resolved that the California Federation of Teachers encourage and promote all ASVAB testing schools to use Option 8 to protect student privacy and publicize the use of Option 8 in all ASVAB testing scenarios." (CFT Resolution 31, passed April 13, 08)

Finding direction towards making career choices is a complicated and ever-evolving process. It is not one where people should be pushed into an assigned job. And having military recruiters calling and visiting our students at home as a consequence for taking a test, any test, is unacceptable and has no place in the American public education setting. Let's all make Option 8 the standard reporting option wherever ASVAB is administered.

 

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May 1st International Worker’s March: Green Card Soldiers
May 3, 2008 by Arlene Inouye

On May 1st, a unity of organizations across the globe held rallies and marches to call for dignity and peace for all workers.  Along the west coast the International Longshoreman Workers union held a work stoppage in opposition to the war in Iraq, in solidarity with the Port Workers Union of Iraq.  A march in Los Angeles proclaimed Legalization For All and Stop the ICE raids that are terrorizing our community.   

I find it ironic that while immigrant workers are being denied the right to work and are terrorized by government raids at their places of employment, that on the other hand there is a job that they are being sought after for, manipulated for and even lied to in order to apply- and that is the US military.

Recruiting foreign nationals into the US military is a practice as old as the military itself.  They fought the British in the Continental Army and have served in nearly every conflict. Today there are tens of thousands of foreign-born members in the US armed services, with an estimated 39,000 who have been naturalized. They represent about 7% of the military, with the largest share coming from Mexico.  Since 9-11 there has been a surge in recruitment, with many immigrants hoping to secure citizenship via fighting wars. Immigrant rights and counter-recruitment organizations report that military recruiters are misleading and sometimes blatantly lying to green card soldiers, playing upon their desire to become Americans.

One obvious drawback to this attempt to gain citizenship is not surviving this route to a green card.  Case in point are the 109 foreign born members of the US military who earned American citizenship by dying in Iraq.  The first to be killed was Jose Gutierrez, a homeless child who immigrated to the US from Guatemala.  His foster mother agonized: Why did Jose have to die for America in order to truly belong?  Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles who presided over Jose’s funeral service wrote to President Bush in April 2003 and said, “There’s something terribly wrong with our immigration policies if it takes death on the battlefield in order to earn citizenship.” 

We of CAMS are opposed to the military recruitment of minors, and believe that green card youth and their families face greater risks, are more likely to be misled and taken advantage of.  Their citizenship status is being exploited and they are being used to fill the ranks in an immoral war that is murdering innocent victims of color.  We join in solidarity saying:

Dignidad y paz para todo!  Legalizacion para todos!  Alto a las redadas! Paz y justicia siempre. (Dignity and peace for all! Legalization for all! Stop the raids! Peace and justice forever.)

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Public Education Not for Sale: Stop the Militarism in our Schools
April 20, 2008 by Arlene Inouye

CAMS was honored to be a part in the 8th Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education hosted by the United Teachers Los Angeles on April 18-20th, 2008. Concerned educators representing numerous countries including Mexico, Canada, the US along with Puerto Rico, and Guatemala gathered to focus on the roots of the attacks on public education, part of a neo-liberal agenda connected to NAFTA the No Child Left Behind Act and the corporate movement to privatize public schools.  We came together to develop strategic and coordinated actions across borders while acknowledging and honoring the educators and community of Oaxaca whose struggle has resulted in the murders and kidnappings of progressive educators and activists, and sustained state violence.

CAMS seeks to make connections between militarism and the issues impacting education.  In the US, militarized school environments and 'border' fences surround school campuses, while students are criminalized and policed to maintain an authoritarian school structure. The No Child Left Behind Act has taken the joy out of learning, with its mandated testing regime, pushing out struggling students, and creating further inequalities and barriers for youth of color, students from economically depressed communities, students with learning disabilities, and those learning English as a second language. A military budget truly leaves every child behind as over 50 cents to the tax dollar goes for war, while public dollars for education has been slashed, and higher education costs have skyrocketed leaving students more vulnerable to consider military enlistment.

            The Canadian and Mexican delegations noted that in their own countries there was an increasing military presence.  But they were stunned to witness and hear about the pervasiveness of militarism in US schools. They found it shocking to see the steel-meshed and barred campuses and hear of the extent of the military recruitment of minors.  Perhaps, they feared, it is a glimpse of what may be heading their way.

The Tri National Conference affirmed the important role that teachers and educators have with students in shaping the future. We also embraced the philosophy that to be members of teachers unions is synonymous with taking on the fight for social justice.  As teachers it is our responsibility to speak out against the forces that crush public education and those in power who are profiting off the backs of our children.  CAMS  is committed to international solidarity in this struggle and joins  the world community in saying:   No to privatization! No to corporate globalization! End deregulation! Stop union-busting and attacks on civil liberties and forced militarism   And Yes to an international solidarity for peace, justice, responding to human needs and education as a  civil right.

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Archive of past commentary

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Los Angeles Times article on CAMS from February 19, 2007 frames the issue “Junior ROTC takes a hit in LA, Adele Siegel's follow up letter is on the JROTC and Press Pages.

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