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For the Holidays: Get Healthy! Eliminate the bad cholesterol of militarism
December 15, 2007 by Gregory Sotir

Recently I watched as one of our elected Representatives and Republican presidential candidate, Duncan Hunter of  the 52nd District of California (San Diego), talked with obvious symptoms of some deep-seated pathology on how the American military is unlike other military forces in the world, that our American military will go places and do jobs that other nations military shy away from, such as Fallujah, where our American forces engaged in atrocities, used white phosphorous weapons, slaughtered countless civilians, and began the roller coaster torture ride that led to the pornographic violence of Abu Gharib. Other nations and their soldiers, according to Hunter, don't have the guts to go and kill as our fine young warriors do.

But I don't want to just hammer on Hunter, obviously the man has other, wealthier, clients whose direction he follows, and my words of advice to him would be wasted ones. That is American democracy as it exists today. But I do think it is important, and essential, to challenge the notion that the US military must engage in inhumane tactics rather than ones based on the rule of international law and cooperation. The chimera of terrorism exists, however, in our minds, buttressed by media and film, enforced by law and mandate. All alternative viewpoints are therefore unrealistic. After all, it is easier to give into fear, that is our most basic autonomic response and what the death weapons manufacturers are counting on, to ensure survival than to actually seek a healing of the whole. This helps us to ignore the concept of the larger picture, of the body of the planet, of global warming and a highly-industrialized planet producing a plague of cheap plastic and toxic products and weapons meant only to kill or control people. And those 'eases', or perhaps 'diseases', are reinforced by a duplicitous media and an labor economy that dismisses critical though and creativity.

This, to me, is the heart of militarism. It is a surrender of fundamental human vitality to a denial that anything is wrong. And as we approach the longest night of the year, it does seem that the dark heart of militarism, with it's accompanied surveillance's and mortgages, it's redundant politician-maintained rationales, and it's stark mechanistic economy has no end. But we are. quite literally, within that heart. We are that heart, our labor and our creativity is the systole and diastole of American progress and accomplishment. We can't stop...that is profoundly counter to our national and cultural impulse of expansiveness. But we can modify the flow, we have to because our very nature to consume and transform requires foresight. We can eliminate the bad cholesterol of militarism. It will be difficult, and it takes a plan, a strategy where we change our diet from the narrow, dumb-downed hatred espoused by Hunter to the comprehension of a larger planetary body.

Beyond modern American militarism, paltry and anemic as it is, with it's twisted logic that poisoning the village well will stop the grumbling villagers, we have youth who want to make America stronger and safer and happier. According to Hunter these kids must be made into unthinking killers. Hunter cannot lose his own past of inflicting death on the Vietnamese, and so perhaps it is appropriate here to end with a passage from Walt Whitman's great poem Reconciliation:

Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world:
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead.
--Reconciliation, Walt Whitman

As we lose our beautiful young people, and sentence others to chronic PTSD and homelessness, and allow more war crimes to be committed, we need to start thinking about how to get through the longest night and become healthier in the New Year.  Challenge militarism everywhere. It is a disease of arrogance and avarice. We should be putting our money and directing our youth elsewhere.

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Solidarity Across Borders
November 15, 2007 Arlene Inouye

Imagine being able to travel across the Pacific to an island where your ancestors came from over 100 years ago.  And there embrace and support Japanese teachers who have chosen to go against a Tokyo School District militarist directive at great personal cost (including suspensions, reassignments and the threat of firing, as well as all the negative consequences of a society that expects conformity.) These courageous teachers refused to honor a Japanese flag that is the symbol used to incite hate, massacre, and mass lynching during World War II.  And they refuse to sing the Kimigayo (His Majesty’s Reign) which led to the aggressive wars that killed 20 million Asians.

These teachers have proclaimed, "Never send another student to war again!"

What an honor and privilege to stand together in unity with these brothers and sisters and to present with them a resolution supporting their struggle on behalf of the 48,000 teachers of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and CAMS.  We also came to support the struggle of the Japanese workers and community as they oppose the expanding military bases in Okinawa and throughout Japan and as they uphold their Article 9 in the Japanese Constitution that says no to war and Yes to peace and a sustainable world for all, and as they oppose the revision of school text books that omit references to historical facts regarding Japan’s brutal killings and mass sexual slavery during World War II. 

We also joined together with international labor workers from Japan, Korea and the United States who endure inhumane conditions, and are abused by corporate interests. This includes farmers whose land have been stolen, immigrants and refugees facing discrimination without rights, and workers who are treated as indentured slaves.  Hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder we marched through the Ginza, the downtown streets of Tokyo.  We stood with the Korean union workers, who said,“Today American political and military order and its hegemony are crumbling around the world; our hope exists in workers and people who oppose war and resist poverty and discrimination."  Comrades, keep fighting with stronger solidarity.

The fight against privatization, corporate take-over's, and military buildup in these countries and others around the globe reinforces our connection to each other.  Our struggles are the same.  We will not be deceived, and fragmented while those with power push more people into poverty and powerlessness.  International solidarity!  The human spirit of caring, love and support is universal; the hope for peace, love, justice and freedom is a human longing everywhere.  Gambaron!  (Japanese word for “fight”) We fight in unity. Gambaron!

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Whose war is the war on humanity?
by Gregory Sotir
November 15, 2007

Whether conscious or not, traveling expands ones sense of being and thought. Traveling is, by nature of the experiences of the new, an educative process. Going to Japan for the first time during the early weeks of November I learned a few things. The first thing I learned is the commonality of struggle. The fight for freedom of expression and defending conscience against the insect logic of corporate warmongering is a common one shared by activists, teachers and workers in America, and in Japan, and Korea too. Insulated as we are in America, by our moat of junk consumerism, and the constant white noise buzz of media lies and over-simplifications, it is easy to forget that the struggles of people around the world against war and American arrogance are just as important as, and in many cases more vibrant than, our own. Of course, this worldwide anger and activism at American-inspired corporate hegemony isn't something you will hear on CNN. The corporate media functions best when it keeps us disconnected.

The second thing I learned is that privatization and globalization battles are going on in many places, and are affecting teachers in many countries. NCLB, as damaging as it is, is being exported. Testing and curriculum control, militarization of public schools, turning students into thoughtless servants, and teachers into robotic deliverers of pre-cooked tasteless and colorless slop are global, not just national, effects of allowing privatization forces to determine curriculum.  The 'accountability' club is used to beat down the teaching of free, independent thought. It is a one-sided accountability, of course, that will never affect or be applied to those who would destroy the earth.

The third thing I learned is that I am lucky to have a strong union behind me (UTLA), because if I did not, than my attempts to educate a sense of wonder and a sense of freedom in my students would be hopeless, and in fact I would probably be punished severely for trying to teach such things as the Bill of Rights, critical thinking, anti-racism, and conscientious objection - that is, teaching such things as Peace and Justice.

The forces of laissez-faire capitalism, driven only by the bottom-line and ignoring the stark warnings of ecological collapse have seemingly declared a 'war on humanity'. Whether conscious or not, these trans-national corporations now have greater power than mere human beings or the outdated republic. They laugh at our attempts to create peace, calling them unrealistic, and will not cease to drive our planet and species into oblivion. The representative politicians have become so divorced from their electors that they have allowed democracy to cease to function as an institution to better the lot of humanity. Rather democracy now ultimately exists for the greater amassing of power within the corporate mechanism. Taking their cues from the corporate and militarist multi-billionaires our representative 'leaders' have sacrificed the equity of fair and rational civilization for a potential semi-feudalism based on ignorance, slave-labor, and endless war.We need to end our war on humanity. I write 'our' here because we allow it to happen. We work for the destroyers. We train youth to become the new destroyer. NCLB narrows opportunity to only that potential. And so, we become the destroyers, the warriors fighting, whether consciously or not, against humanity in this war on humanity.

Unless we refuse. To my brothers and sisters internationally who refuse this dehumanization and who fight for collective bargaining and worldpeace I say "Solidarity! Solidarity forever!"

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"We will never send our children to the battlefields again."
by Gregory Sotir
October 5, 2007

A few months ago CAMS was invited to express solidarity with Sister Nezu and 388 teachers of the Japan Teachers Union. These teachers have been disciplined and at times suspended for refusing to follow a new directive requiring them to sing the national anthem while standing in front of the Japanese flag, the "Hinomaru and Kimigayo," that previously symbolized Japanese military aggression. In this time where militarism intrudes into the daily life of all, wreaking havoc on most and offering great cash payout's to some, it seems an almost quaint form of rebellion. Yet in Japan, with  Constitutional amendments that reject war in all it's forms (Article 9) and guarantee "freedom of thought and conscience" (Article 19), theteachers refusal shows that still the modern human spirit cannot be completely consumed by nationalism, militarism, and the forces that hurtle the planet towards endless war.

Here in America, where mercenaries are expanding their operations and the death weapons manufactures continue to earn huge profits from tax-based corporate welfare, where military testing (ASVAB) invades high schools and kids are forced to wear army uniforms to signify their dedication to the principles of education, it seems quaint that school teachers in Japan, a nation conquered by American will and transformed into a modern democratic nation from a royal empire, protest the hyper-militarization of their already hyper-charged society. It is a quaintness that we should all follow and model. In the words of Kaearai Junko of Metropolitan East Hachioji School for the Handicapped: "'War starts from classrooms.' We should not forgetthis. Let’s continue our daily practice of bringing up children in a peaceful world and defending human rights with the pride of education workers against every kind of difficulties. Never give up fight!"

CAMS stands with these teachers as they attempt to maintain the integrity of their constitution and the sanity of conscience. At times it seems that the forces arrayed against us are too strong, that the corruption that supports the forces who seek endless war too deep and too entrenched. And then we notice how far away, in a completely different land with a different history, a different language and a different culture, how in a land that has learned the futility of using war to solve problems, that there a group of teachers and their union still has to fight against the return to the discredited war-as-foreign-policy mindset. In replacement for war and bitter xenophobia they seek to join hands with us. I will remember this gesture of peace and transnationalsolidarity when I look into the eyes of the 12 year-olds I work with who are forced to wear military uniforms, and stand at attention and answer "Yes sir!" "No, sir" so they can feel that they really are Americans and really can become a success.

 

REFLECTIONS on 2007
December 31, 2007 Arlene Inouye

As the 2007 year comes to a close, we thank you for your support.  Truly the work of CAMS  is because of the hundreds of dedicated volunteers, that make it possible.  I reflect back on the past year with mixed emotions.  We have made a difference in hundreds and perhaps thousands of young lives, as we presented the truth and realities of military enlistment and had greater opportunities in LA high schools.  School Staff and students in the CAMS Adopt a school project have initiated successful actions to keep military recruiters restricted on high school campuses throughout the city.  And we have led the nation in drawing attention to student privacy issues, and how to effectively protect student privacy information especially on the ASVAB exam.    Recently released Opt Out numbers in LAUSD were the highest ever, with the number of juniors and seniors in LAUSD at 26.1% or 20, 317 who resisted the school district’s releasing their contact information to military recruiters.  Thanks to the many grassroots volunteers and activists, we have had many significant victories over the past year.

We have also made connections across the borders with the world community in addressing the broader issues of privatization, globalization and militarism.  Our support for the teachers in Japan who are being punished for resisting militaristic mandates by their government has strengthened and encouraged them.  Ms. Kimiko Nezu writes, “We share the cause and aspiration of Sister Arlene Inouye and Brother Gregory Sotir who have been fighting to stop sending children to the battlefield to die.  They told us that they will never shut their mouth in front of unjust things and that it is their duty as human being s to do what they thought right.  It is exactly my own credo.  I am determined to carry on struggle against unjust things together with you.”

But the war continues, every day another young person enlists in the military for the same reasons- wanting to serve their country, lack of options, misinformation, and more and more for the bonus money offered.  And along with the increasing militarism in our society the links to administrative secrecy and spying, torture, an economic downturn and growing poverty, profit over people, and the heartless denial of basic human needs and social services confronts us all, with the greatest impact falling on those on the fringes of society.    

We have a greater urgency and resolve to continue and expand the work of CAMS in the next year. We are privileged to be living in a time of history where we have the benefit of learning from our past, and the technology to be a part of a global community working for a common purpose.  Let us push forward in 2008 with a zeal for peace, and justice where human dignity is honored everywhere.   Peace to all.

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Boot Camp:  The Rite of Passage
December 15, 2007 Arlene Inouye

The recent conviction of a former Marine Corps Drill Instructor, or DI, Sergeant Jerrod Glass, has brought new attention to the relationship between the Marine Corps Drill Instructor and the Recruit.  This relationship is forged through sweat and strain under the motto "Semper Fi" or "Always Faithful."  But that faithfulness itself should be questioned. You see Glass is convicted of abusing two dozen Recruits by hitting them, by destroying their property and by making them drink liquids until they vomited in nausea and sickness.  This 'honor' graduate of his DI class beat a 19-year old over the head with a tent pole because the Recruit could not remember the combination to his foot locker.

The standard manual for Boot Camp states that improperly touching a Recruit, degrading nicknames, homophobic or racial slurs are not allowed.  But it’s no secret that in Boot Camp, these otherwise unacceptable behaviors are common practice.   In fact, even reporters covering the Glass case stated that they received emails and comments from former Marines who expressed astonishment, even disgust, that the Corps would punish a DI for what they viewed as trivial transgressions.  Larry Bangert, who remembered his Boot Camp experience in 1966 said, “They thumped us, kicked us, and called us names.  I have a knot on the back of my head for not holding my rifle straight.”  But later, after surviving fifteen months in Viet Nam, he thanked his DI saying, “you really made Boot Camp hard, and I respect you for it.”

But not everyone is so grateful.  I have heard stories of Enlistees who became injured and traumatized from Boot Camp, and more than a few have actually died, and were pushed to their deaths.  I met a 20-year old Recruit who developed severe and chronic back injuries from his Boot Camp experience and was discharged.  He spoke to me about the everyday mistreatment he endured.  If the DI was in a bad mood, objects would be hurled at the Recruits head and face, causing bruises and a broken nose.  He was ordered to do degrading tasks and hard labor bordering on severe self-deprivation.  He said with a look of pain, “This is not what I signed up for, to be degraded and abused.”

I have a problem when the rites of passage for a society includes beating, thumping, yelling, screaming, injuring and dehumanizing 19-year old Recruits.  I have a problem with terrorizing and brutally abusing young people as we rationalize this behavior to sustain war.  If we object to an adult treating a youth this way right in front of us, then we should object to everything about Boot Camp and how it is run. Another thing, I also have a problem with  a society that allows this cruelty to our young to continue….. in the name of patriotism.

Stop the militarism of our young.

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A California teacher union passes antirecruitment resolution
by Gregory Sotir
June 3, 2007 originally published in Rethinking Schools

The British navy used to use trapdoors in barrooms to capture  recruits to maintain its colonial empire. The U.S. military doesn't  need these tricks. It has No Child Left Behind.

Section 9528, the 300 or so words buried within the act's 670 pages,  cement militarism in public schools. This section's provisions funnel  private student data such as telephone numbers and home addresses  into the Pentagon for military recruitment purposes and also mandate  access for military recruiters to students in public secondary schools.

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged on, recruiters have  become increasingly aggressive on campus. Data from student  information provided via Section 9528 are used for recruiter home  visits and repetitive phone calls to students. Military recruiters  also use high-pressure sales techniques, flashy videos, and eye-candy  trinkets, and bring he-man danger mobiles such as Hummers and  helicopters onto school grounds to attract students, especially young males.

At the beginning of this school year, the Los Angeles-based Coalition  Against Militarism In Our Schools (CAMS), a group that I work with,  decided to get the word out about Section 9528.

As NCLB reauthorization neared, we began spreading the word about  Section 9528 to the blogosphere, via e-mails, websites, and letter  writing campaigns to congressional representatives. In contacts with  legislators, we encouraged activists to express the need to carefully  review the excesses of NCLB, and to eliminate Section 9528 from any  NCLB reauthorization. CAMS activists thought that citizen contacts with legislators would  be only marginally effective. So we committed ourselves to working at  the grassroots, with parents, students, and educators, to build  concern about Section 9528 and military recruitment abuse. We  initiated counter-recruitment conferences where Section 9528 was  explained. We produced documents written in ways that youth could  understand, and distributed them through our Adopt-A-School  volunteers at over 35 high school campuses in Los Angeles just before  the students enter school.

CAMS has organized at the district level to place limits on  recruiters, with some success, and has spread the word to students,  with better success. A February 19 Los Angeles Times article reported  that JROTC enrollment in LAUSD had declined 24 percent in the last  four years compared to an 8 percent growth nationwide, due in part to  CAMS organizing teachers and students. CAMS also counters military  recruiters by setting up tables at school events such as Career Day  Fairs and Community Fairs.

We concentrated our teacher union work within the Human Rights  Committee of United Teachers Los Angeles, a joint National Education  Association and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) local. As a  member of the California Federation of Teachers (CFT), the AFT  statewide teacher union affiliate, I drafted a resolution to put the  union on record for the removal of NCLB's Section 9528. UTLA  introduced the resolution at the CFT convention and delegates  approved it overwhelmingly on March 18, one day before the 4th  anniversary of the Iraqi invasion. (See NCLB page text of the resolution.)

So where do we go from here? CAMS suggests a variety of activities,  locally and nationally:

· Inform yourself about NCLB, particularly Section 9528.

· Hold an NCLB discussion meeting with fellow educators.

· Reach out beyond the people who are already opposed to the  war. Conservatives do not like federal mandates regarding the release  of citizens' private information and Big Brother style governance.

· Write and pass anti-9528 resolutions in your unions.

· Call, write, or better yet, visit your congressional  representative and voice your concerns. Support H.R. 1346, which  removes Section 9528 from NCLB. Let Senators and Congresspeople know  that you oppose NCLB's provision that orders schools to support  military recruitment in our public schools.

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A message from Peter Dudar and Sally Marr, the producers of the Arlington West film
April 20, 2007

We want to thank you all again for the amazing support you are giving us.  Next week we have three, maybe four, schools lined up for showing the film ARLINGTON WEST. More teachers are calling.  This week we saw 350 at-risk students in a high school and community college. The film ARLINGTON WEST changed  34 student's decisions for joining the military.  One student, at the end of the film, stood up and said that he had decided not to join and asked any other student considering it not to as well, but to go to college and have a future.  That was a real success! The film went out to many students and we have heard that it affected their brother's, sister's, and friend's decisions.

Another alternative school recently invited us in and as we were setting up, talking about censorship in the  media for military and family voices,  the new principal came in, challenged the screening, then cancelled the presentation. The students were horrified  and the teacher told the students: "Take note, this is what censorship looks like!"  A student stood up, announced he had seen ARLINGTON WEST, and that everyone  needed to see it!  All the students, who had now filled the room with standing room only, came up for a film to take home and share.

As we left, the students apologized and asked us back. They then petitioned the principal to bring us back and HAVE A DEBATE WITH RECRUITERS!!! ( the principal had a large photo of an F-16 in the office and has recruiters in EVERY DAY.)  Since then we have heard that several  family members, after watching the film, changed their minds! (Then on the following Sunday, the students came to Arlington West by Santa Monica Pier to help set up crosses.)

This week ARLINGTON WEST invited to Sao Paolo, Brazil and to Budapest, Hungary to human rights film festivals. TV producers called also to request ARLINGTON WEST footage for a debut show on the cost of war.

We couldn't do this without you all.  Every Sunday the ARLINGTON WEST project next to Santa Monica Pier and on film saves countless young lives.

YOU ARE ALL HEROES.    peace,  sally and peter

The film ARLINGTON WEST is available on our video page or by going to
www.arlingtonwestfilms.com
ARLINGTON WEST is set up each Sunday by Veterans for Peace next to Santa Monica Pier to commemorate the 3300+ members of the US military who have lost their lives fighting the Bush wars.