Your Letters
Learning from Soldiers It was good to read in Mark Rudd’s article (“
WIN Summer 2010
Cover art by Kate Collins
Volume: 27
Number: 3
Mixed Signals
By Sabrina Jones This is an updated page from Sabrina Jones’ comic “Mixed Signals,” available at Jones’ website. Download the pdf.
WRL Affiliate Report: Washington Truth in Recruiting (WaTiR)
Washington Truth in Recruiting (WaTiR) began as a small group meeting in the greater Seattle area to organize counter-recruitment actions in 2003. The group included members of Veterans for Peace and other organizations opposed to the Iraq war. Four had teenage children or grandchildren at risk for recruiter contact and intrusion of privacy rights. An…
Contesting Patriotism: Culture, Power, and Strategy in the Peace Movement
Study War No More: Peace Sociology and Our Messages Contesting Patriotism: Culture, Power, and Strategy in the Peace Movement Lynne M. Woerle, Patrick G. Coy, and Gregory M. Maney Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2009, 244 pages, $24.95 Contesting Patriotism is a bombproof, peer-reviewed academic study on the ways the peace movement has responded to…
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Liberal Militarist Diversion
On May 27, the House of Representatives approved an amendment to the latest military spending bill that would lift the ban on gays in the U.S. military and effectively end the policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), which stipulates that a soldier must be discharged if he or she admits to participating in homosexual…
U.S. Military Recruitment by the Numbers
21.7 Average age of new active-duty Army recruit, 2008 (5) $7.7 billion Amount spent by the federal government on military recruiting and retention programs in 2008, more than double that of the $3.4 billion budget in 2004 (4) 66% Percentage of active-duty service members who thought seriously about leaving the military, 2006 (1) 20%…
Obituaries
Bob Witkowski, 1953–2010 Robert C. “Bob” Witkowski, 57, of Ashley, PA (formally of Wilkes-Barre), passed away on March 20, 2010, unexpectedly at his home. Bob worked passionately over the last four decades for peace and justice issues and was a long-time member and Steering Club member of the Interfaith Resource Center for Peace and Justice…
Maryland Opts Out of ASVAB
Standardized tests have long been the scourge of high school students’ academic careers. New York State students take the dreaded Regents exams, California students take the CSTs, and Texas students take the TAKS. Those preparing to apply to college ready themselves for the PSATs and SATs. Yet, some high school students, voluntarily or not, take…
From Girl to Soldier: Life Before the Military
When Mickiela was 15, her mother was evicted for not paying rent, and the family was out on the street. [Mickiela and her sister] returned to Nana [their grandmother] once again, but this time they only found more trouble. Nana had developed gallbladder cancer, which had metastasized. Soon she began losing weight and her…
Reclaiming Conscience: The Truth Commission on Conscience in War
Conscientious objection is a peril to power and treated accordingly by the military brass. If conscience were allowed to dictate opposition to military service, the U.S. Armed Forces could lose control of the war machine. The Truth Commission on Conscience in War was launched last March in New York City with the goal of…
WIN Letter
Refuse, Resolve, Resist There is a “multidimensional continuum,” as Edward Hasbrouck puts it, of resistance to fighting in war. From young people opposing military recruitment in their high schools to veterans counseling GIs around military bases to conscientious objectors serving time in military prisons for refusing to deploy, those who work for a just and…
Talking About the Draft
But that’s not what I came to tell you about,” Arlo Guthrie famously sang in “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” in 1967. “I came to talk about the draft.” Then, the draft loomed large, and antiwar activists had all they could do to counsel resisters. These days it’s the other way around. Activists go to youth…
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