Military Recruitment

By David Swanson

It's hard to imagine a desirable and sustainable world with the world's largest naval base still in it, but it's hard for a lot of people in Norfolk, Virginia, to imagine it gone. The military is not just the force of good that selflessly patrols the world, slaughtering evildoers for the betterment of humanity, but it's also the primary source of jobs. » read more »

By David Swanson
The Army Experience Center, an amusement hall built in a Philadelphia area shopping mall to make killing and dying look like fun to kids, has been the focus of repeated protests and criticism.  This past weekend hundreds again protested at the AEC, and police arrested six protesters and one journalist.  The journalist was not with the protesters, and was picked out of a crowd, apparently because of her professional camera.
Days prior to this long-planned and publicly announced protest, the Army announced that it would probably be closing the AEC and not opening others in other shopping malls, as had been planned.  The reason?  Are you ready to hear this?  Wait for it ...
The Army doesn't need any more recruits, because the bad economy has driven up recruitment significantly.
Now, the grain of truth in there is that the economy has driven up recruitment.  The whopper of a lie is that the Army could ever be satisfied with its recruitment numbers and not want more.  And the glaring omission is the protests.  Protesters should not fall for this.  The Army will not announce our victories for us.  We have to claim them.  We drove Alberto Gonzales out of town, we made the Iraq War illegal by turning the United Nations against it, we have held back military recruitment, we have prevented an attack on Iran by exposing the lies about Iraq, we scared Bush away from pardoning his subordinates' crimes, we have turned the American people against wars of empire, and we have made the Army Experience Center a bad experience for the Army. » read more »

By David Swanson

Here is the perfect Mother's Day gift for your mother, your mother in law, your grandmothers, and in fact for the men in their lives as well - who ought to be shamed into action. Joan Wile has published a book called "Grandmothers Against the War: Getting Off Our Fannies and Standing Up for Peace." As far as I know, this is her first book. It is very much an account of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. If more people did the same, we would put an end to war. » read more »

By David Swanson

Citizens in a number of school districts around the country have dramatically reduced military recruitment through simple procedures that anyone can do. No marching or civil disobedience is required. You might, however, have to chat with a principal at a football game or write a couple of letters. Why aren't more of us doing more of this? » read more »

By David Swanson

During an endless airplane trip from hell yesterday that included an extended stay in Chicago's scenic O'Hare airport, I had the misfortune to read one book about where our tax dollars go and another book that was, indirectly, about where they do not go.

Nick Turse has done something pretty amazing in producing an entertaining account of the almost limitless variety of ways in which our money is wasted by what he calls the military industrial technological entertainment academic media corporate matrix, or "The Complex" for short, and that's the book's title. This mammoth beast is funded by about half of your tax dollar combined with the borrowing of trillions of dollars, largely from China, a nation which - incidentally - represents the closet thing to a military rival to the United States and which as late as September 10, 2001, was being hyped by right-wing pundits as the Enemy, and which is about as much a threat to the so-called American "homeland" as Switzerland is. » read more »