PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

video: Pittsburgh: Army of None Presentation
by vincent / blastfurnace radio & tv Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008 at 12:58 AM
vincenteirene@gmail.com

video location: http://youtube.com/watch?v=wueSAT7w1tw

Uniformed U.S. Army Officers lunch with students in elementary school cafeterias. Army training programs including rifle and pistol instruction replace physical education in middle schools. Like never before, military recruiters are entering the halls of U.S. schools with unchecked access in an attempt to bolster a military in crisis.

Even as these destructive efforts to militarize youth accelerate, so do the creative and powerful efforts of students, community members, and veterans to challenge them. Today, the counter recruitment movement—from counseling to poetry slams to citywide lobbying efforts—has become one of the most practical ways to tangibly resist U.S. policy that cuts funding for education and social programs while promoting war and occupation. Without enough soldiers, the U.S. cannot sustain its empire.

Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World exposes the real story behind the military-recruitment complex, and offers guides, tools, and resources for education and action, and people power strategies to win.

Anti-war, global justice and arts organizer DAVID SOLNIT was a main organizer in the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 and in San Francisco the day after Iraq was invaded in 2003. He is the editor of Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World. Army veteran Aimee Allison has led school and community counter-recruitment activities over the last decade. She is a contributor to 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military. She was recruited out of high school and became a Conscientious Objector to the Gulf War. She actively supports veterans that are healing from their war experiences.

Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World is now available from Seven Stories Press. Individual books are available for a $20 donation to Courage to Resist—that's $5 more than the cover price, but that includes all shipping, handling, and tax.

Authors Aimee Allison and David Solnit will be touring extensively this fall and winter to support counter-recruitment organizing efforts around the United States, and educating students, parents, and young people about the truth behind military recruitment. Please email if you would like them to come to your community. Contact Aimee and David by emailing armynone (at) gmail.com.

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