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US Workers Starved Into Service

It was only a matter of time before the nation’s skyrocketing unemployment translated into new recruits for the most powerful military force in the world.

With the official US unemployment rate at 10 percent and climbing (that’s more than 15 million people struggling to put food on the table) and nearly double that number if you include part-time wage-earners who need full-time jobs, never mind all of those ‘discouraged workers,’ it’s little wonder that so many of the nation’s jobless are flocking into its military recruitment offices.

Posted in Economy/Trade, humanity, Militarism, military recruiting

Bleak US Job Market Boosts Military Recruitment

Aided by a bleak job market, the U.S. military met all of its recruitment goals in the past year for the first time since it became an all-volunteer force in 1973, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. (AP File)

WASHINGTON - Aided by a bleak job market, the U.S. military met all of its recruitment goals in the past year for the first time since it became an all-volunteer force in 1973, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

Military services have been stretched thin by conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, giving added weight to recruitment efforts as President Barack Obama considers sending another 40,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year.

Posted in military recruiting

Activists Protest War Simulator

Teens \"killing\" at the Army Experience Center (photo: Counter-Recruitment.org)

PHILADELPHIA - Located across from an indoor skateboarding park in a Northeast Philadelphia outlet mall, the Army Experience Center includes a computer lab that showcases careers as well as the kind of interactive simulators that are irresistible to its target market: the teenage boys recruiters hope will fuel the Army of the future.

Posted in children, military recruiting, protest

Protest of War Games Prompts Arrests

Last Saturday, six members of various anti-war groups, including World Can't Wait and Military Families Speak Out, and an OpedNews journalist, were arrested at a protest organized to shut down The Army Experience Center, a venue at Franklin Mills Mall in Philadelphia that invites young people to engage in simulated war games.

Posted in military recruiting

The Science Fiction of Military Marketing

I'm a video game geek, so as I sat through movie previews a few weeks ago, I was sure I was watching Nintendo ads.

There on the cinema's screen was a supersleek plane flying over a moonscape while communicating with an orbiting satellite. In the next moment, a multicolored topographical map, orders being barked - and in my own mind, memories of Call of Duty graphics. And then, finally, two guys in front of a computer console, and the jarring punch line: "It's not science fiction; it's what we do every day," said the bold type, followed by a U.S. Air Force symbol.

Posted in drones, Militarism, military recruiting, War/Empire

Military Recruiting Rises Among Middle-Class, Suburban Youths in Dallas-Fort Worth Area

Joshua Abele looks through a military rifle scope while holding up the rifle at a Canadian Armed Forces recruitment station at the Edmonton Indy in Edmonton, July 25, 2009. (REUTERS/Todd Korol)

Suburban areas like Collin County are being invaded by the armed forces, which are seeing a new kind of recruit - middle-class kids with high school and even college educations.

Steady income, college funding and heightened recruiting efforts during an economic downturn are attracting more affluent youth in Texas and across the country to the military.

"It just seems right," said Matt Lawson, a 17-year-old who graduated in June from Wakeland High School in Frisco. He and his 22-year-old brother, Zack, enlisted together last month.

Posted in military recruiting

Military Recruiters to Capitalize on Air Show, 'Senior Week'

\"Roxy the Recruiter\" at a Chicago Air and Water Show. (flickr photo by TheeErin)

OCEAN CITY - At this weekend's OC Air Show, you'll hear jet engines scream, helicopters whirr, and the oohs and ahhs of thousands of visitors.

Beneath the din, along the Boardwalk, listen closely and you might also hear an enthusiastic young man or woman asking: "How do I get to fly one of those?"

Posted in military recruiting

Arne Duncan and the Chicago Success Story: Myth or Reality?

When ex-President Bush was elected in 2000, he brought with him former Houston Superintendent of Education Rod Paige to be Secretary of Education. He also brought the "Texas miracle"-supposedly increased test scores attributed to Texas' strict accountability system. All eyes smiled on Texas as those measures quickly became part of No Child Left Behind, passed into law in 2001 by both political parties.

Posted in children, Education, military recruiting

SF School Board Votes to Restore JROTC Program

JROTC students' uniforms hang in a classroom at Balboa High School, which has had a JROTC program for many years. (Brant Ward / The Chronicle)

SAN FRANCISCO - A three-year battle over whether Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps belongs in San Francisco schools ended Tuesday night with a 4-3 vote by the school board to restore the military leadership program weeks before its scheduled expiration.

More than 200 supporters and opponents of the program crowded into the school district headquarters to make their final pleas to the board. And their arguments were as emotionally charged as they were when the fight began in 2006.

Posted in Education, Militarism, military recruiting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 2, 2009
7:16 PM

CONTACT: Peace Action

Jonathan Williams, Coordinator, Student Peace Action Network (SPAN), (443) 474-8919 cell, SPAN@peace-action.org
Pat Elder, Peace Action Montgomery County, 202-210-3467
Paul Kawika Martin, Political Director, 951.217.7285 cell, pmartin@peace-action.org

Seven Arrested at Philadelphia Mall Over Military Recruiting Practices

300 Veterans, military families, religious leaders and voters rallied, marched and closed the "Army Experience Center" to decry the Army pilot program that entices teens with violent video games

PHILADELPHIA - May 2 - Several hundred demonstrators from a coalition of 30 national and regional veteran, youth and peace groups, including the Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action, Student Peace Action Network, protested what they claimed were unethical military recruitment of teenagers at Franklin Mills Mall in northeast Philadelphia.

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Founded in 1957, Peace Action (formerly SANE/Freeze), the United States' largest peace and disarmament organization, with over 100,000 paid members and nearly 100 chapters in 34 states, works to abolish nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs, encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights, and support nonmilitary solutions to the conflicts with Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. http://www.Peace-Action.org

Peace Action Education Fund's, Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) works with students on over 100 campuses nationwide. http://www.StudentPeaceAction.org

PeaceAction Montgomery, Coalition for Peace Action, Peace Action of Staten Island and BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action are all affiliates of Peace Action and helped organize the protest.

Posted in direct action, military recruiting, protest
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