blog.Objector.us

The First Noble Truth

August 19, 2008 – 8:05 pm
Why should we bother and give our time to try to inform the parents and students of the recruiters preying on their minor  in the public schools?sons and daughters   "Because our sons adore their plastic missile launchers, electronic space bazookas, neutron death-ray guns, a decade down the pike it won't prove difficult to trick them out in combat boots &camouflage fatigues, rouse them with a frenzy of parades, the heady rhetoric of country, camaraderie & God, the drum & bugle & the sudden thunder of the cannon as they march into Hell singing. Which is the order of things. Obedient to a fault, the people will do as they are told. However dispirited by grief at the graves of their fallen, the mother returns at last to her loom, the father to his lathe, & the inconsolable widow home to raise sons ardent for the next imperial bloodbath" "" by Steve Kowit from The First Noble Truth. © University of Tampa Press, 2007. Reprinted with permission. Memorial ...

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Tomas’s Bio

August 18, 2008 – 9:59 pm
Tomas lives in Austin, Texas. He is 62, and has been married for 37 years. He and his wife have three grown children and two new granddaughters. The San Francisco Bay Area was his first home, where he went to school, college, and in 1967 was drafted into the Army. In 1968 he was sent to S. Vietnam assigned to the 199TH Lt. Infantry Brigade. He was released from the military in 1969 and spent many years recovering from that experience. Fortunately, he was befriended by a wonderful group of spiritual seekers, also known as Hippies, who helped him find a better way to live. Together with this group they founded The Farm Community near Summertown, Tennessee in 1971. Since leaving the community in 1981 he has lived in Austin, Tx. where he is a carpenter and a peace activist. Through the years in Austin he worked with South Texas Aid to Refugees of Guatemala, helped ...

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The Only Sermon by Andrea Ayvazian

August 17, 2008 – 2:30 pm
The Only Sermon by Andrea Ayvazian if we dug a huge grave miles wide, miles deep and buried every rifle, pistol, knife, bullet, bomb, bayonet, if we jumped upon fleets of tanks and fighter jets with tool boxes, torches unwelded them dismantled them turned them into scrap metal if every light-skinned man in a silk tie said to every dark-skinned man in a turban I vow not to kill your children and heard the same vow in return if every elected leader agreed to stop lying if every child was fed as well as racehorses bred to win derbies if every person with a second home gave it to a person with no home if every mother buried her parents not her sons and daughters if every person who has enough said out loud I have enough if every person violent in the name of God were to find God we would grow silent, still for a moment, a lifetime we would hear infants nursing at the breast hummingbirds ...

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Group Fights Military Recruiters on Local High School Campuses

August 17, 2008 – 12:35 pm
Group fights military recruiters on local high school campuses http://www.easyread ernews.com/ story.php? StoryID=20033946 by Danny Brown Published August 14, 2008 Paul Wicker of Manhattan Beach, with the support of local high school students and civic activists, is protesting the United States military's recruitment of high school students. Nearly a year ago, Wicker approached the Manhattan Beach Unified School District urging it to limit the armed forces recruitment efforts at Mira Costa High School. As part of his protest, Wicker urged the Manhattan Beach Unified School District to make it more difficult for the military to collect information on students. Previously the school had an opt-in program where students could chose to send their information to the military, but after the military complained, it changed to an opt-out form. Wicker soon discovered there wasn't a strong armed-forces recruitment presence in the Manhattan Beach school district. "Recruiters don't come to the campus much on account of the economics of the area," Wicker said. "They're trying to coerce poorer kids into fighting ...

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Why Soldiers Rape

August 14, 2008 – 7:19 pm
Why Soldiers Rape Culture of misogyny, illegal occupation, fuel sexual violence in military http://www.intheset imes.com/ article/3848/ By Helen Benedict Army Capt. Jennifer Machmer An alarming number of women soldiers are being sexually abused by their comrades-in- arms, both at war and at home. This fact has received a fair amount of attention lately from researchers and the press - and deservedly so. But the attention always focuses on the women: where they were when assaulted, their relations with the assailant, the effects on their mental health and careers, whether they are being adequately helped, and so on. That discussion, as valuable as it is, misses a fundamental point. To understand military sexual assault, let alone know how to stop it, we must focus on the perpetrators. We need to ask: Why do soldiers rape? Rape in civilian life is already unacceptably common. One in six women is raped or sexually assaulted in her lifetime, according to the National Institute of Justice, a number so high it should ...

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FIGHTING THE BOTTLE AT HOME

August 14, 2008 – 7:19 pm
Fighting the Bottle at Home http://www.nytimes. com/2008/ 07/08/us/ 08vets.html? _r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin By LIZETTE ALVAREZ Most nights when Anthony Klecker, a former marine, finally slept, he found himself back on the battlefields of Iraq. He would awake in a panic, and struggle futilely to return to sleep. Days were scarcely better. Car alarms shattered his nerves. Flashbacks came unexpectedly, at the whiff of certain cleaning chemicals. Bar fights seemed unavoidable; he nearly attacked a man for not washing his hands in the bathroom. Desperate for sleep and relief, Mr. Klecker, 30, drank heavily. One morning, his parents found him in the driveway slumped over the wheel of his car, the door wide open, wipers scraping back and forth. Another time, they found him curled in a fetal position in his closet. Yet only after his drunken driving caused the death of a 16-year-old cheerleader did Mr. Klecker acknowledge the depth of his problem: His eight months at war ...

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Drinking Problems Greater Among Returning Combat Veterans

August 13, 2008 – 8:13 pm
Drinking Problems Greater Among Returning Combat Veterans http://www.forbes. com/forbeslife/ health/feeds/ hscout/2008/ 08/12/hscout6183 96.html TUESDAY, Aug. 12 (HealthDay News) -- A host of new studies confirm that the effects of war linger long after the conflict ends.The Aug. 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association is a special themed issue on violence and human rights, and three studies published in that issue found that various mental health issues, such as alcohol misuse and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), were more common after exposure to violent conflicts. The one bright spot was a study that found suicide rates weren't higher for returning combat veterans. The first study found that veterans coming home from combat were 63 percent more likely to report new-onset heavy drinking than were military personnel that hadn't been deployed to combat zones. "Our study found that combat deployment in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was significantly associated with ...

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Military recruiters use lies and threats

August 10, 2008 – 11:35 am
Military recruiters use lies, threats http://seattlepi. nwsource. com/opinion/ 374037_amy08. html http://www.truthdig .com/report/ item/20080806_ threats_lies_ and_audiotape/ By AMY GOODMAN SYNDICATED COLUMNIST August 7, 2008 It was like an action movie. A young man held at night in a hotel, threatened with prison. He is to be shipped off to war in the morning. His friends desperately trying to find him. The "down" button on the elevator had been disabled. He considered jumping from the window. When his friends arrive, they encounter military personnel patrolling the grounds. One sneaks in, gets his friend out, and they drive off into the night. This was real life for 17-year-old Eric Martinez, a student at Aldine High School in a poor neighborhood of Houston. He responded to an Army recruitment pitch, called the Delayed Enlistment Program. But then, as 17-year-olds are wont to do, Eric changed his mind. When the recruiter came to his house and threatened his mother, she went to the recruiting station to meet with the officer in charge: "She talked ...

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The Military Lies

August 7, 2008 – 8:08 pm
The Military Lies http://www.lewrockw ell.com/orig6/ young-r4. html by Roger Young August 6, 2008 Not exactly a bold, controversial statement, right? Even the most ardent supporter will agree that the military lies during its day-to-day mission of "defending" the country, in part to confuse the enemy de jour. But the far greater deceit lies in justifying the reasons for this organization' s mere existence. My recent piece asked honest, logical questions disputing certain rationalizations pertaining to the military. The response from readers was overwhelmingly positive and the vast majority of those respondents were veterans! Among the small minority of dissenters, only a few made polite, thoughtful rebuttals. Not surprisingly, their arguments failed to convince me. However, their points did cause me to realize that the military's claim of "defending my freedom" was not only untrue but an impossible task for the military to accomplish. Military supporters certainly claim the organization "protects my freedom." Does the military make identical, documented claims? The Army sees itself as "protecting America's freedoms at home ...

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Bipartisan Bill To Halt Rape and Sexual Assult in the Military

July 29, 2008 – 9:38 pm
  PRESS RELEASE 2400 Rayburn Building, Washington, DC 20515 http://www.house. gov/harman FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Max Weihe July 29, 2008 (202) 225-2156 HARMAN INTRODUCES BIPARTISAN BILL TO HALT RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT IN THE MILITARY ~ Lawmaker says "a female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire" ~ Washington, DC - Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), Chair of the Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee, together with Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), today introduced legislation calling on the Department of Defense to develop a comprehensive strategy to prevent rape and sexual assault in the military.          "That a female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire is sickening," said Harman. "This crisis has reached epidemic proportions and threatens our national security.  Better training and rigorous prosecutions are needed to make clear to soldiers, and the command structure, that bright red lines have been drawn."         Since 2002, 59,690 female veterans reported being raped, sexual assaulted, or ...

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