SIGN a letter to the NAACP asking it to dis-invite military recruiters from the 2009 NAACP Convention.
Concerning the NAACP’s National Convention and the inclusion of the Army Strong recruiters in its job fair: A letter from a New York City high school student:
June 17, 2009
Benjamin Jealous, President and CEO, NAACP
My name is Iliana C. I am an intern at “The World Can’t Wait,” a national anti-war organization. I recently found out that you hosting the “Army Strong” military recruiters at your 2009 NAACP celebration in New York City the weekend of July 11th.
It is unacceptable that the NAACP, which has historically played such an important role in the struggle for racial equality and human rights, would encourage Black youth to join the military which will turn them into war criminals and cannon fodder for these racist, unjust wars.
Just because we have a president who is African-American, we cannot be sucked into the sugar-coated hypocrisy that the United States is spreading democracy and freedom to the Middle East by murdering, bombing, torturing and terrorizing the countries and the people who live there. For instance, since Obama became president US air strikes have killed hundreds of Afghani and Pakistani civilians, including women and children.
Despite what Obama says, the escalating war in Afghanistan is not the "good" war. It is the same war that started under President Bush, and it is for the same reasons. I demand to know why you are allowing recruiters to come to your celebration. This war goes against NAACP’s whole vision of "ensur(ing) a society in which all individuals have equal rights and there is no racial hatred or racial discrimination" (NAACP vision).
If you want that kind of world you have to fight for it on a global scale, not from only a national perspective. American lives are NOT worth more than Iraqi or Afghani lives! If we truly want to end racism, and ensure a future where all men and women are equal, we must stop thinking like Americans and start thinking about humanity.
I strongly suggest you cancel the military recruiters at your celebration. Please contact me or “The World Can’t Wait” at 866-973-4463.
Sincerely, Iliana C
New York City High School Student
\\\”would encourage Black youth to join the military which will turn them into war criminals and cannon fodder for these racist, unjust wars. \\\”
Stopped reading there.
If you cannot coherently and respectfully get your point across, you don\\\’t even rate the title cannon fodder – more like pots and pans. Rancid, opinion based statements are nothing but CRIMOAR and just more reason for me to laugh at this white-populist cherrybound organization.
We don’t need military recruiters.
What bothers me most about the NAACP inviting the military to a job fair is the message they are reinforcing to young people. Do you folks really want to convince African-Americans that it’s okay not to aspire to a real job involving advanced education or job training? Are you side-stepping the issue that in this recession economy, the first thing going down the tubes is jobs for minority workers? Do you really want to tell people it’s okay that the Army may be the only job or route to college aid they can get? I don’t like that message. In fact, it stinks.
What I find most appalling about the NAACP allowing Army recruiters at its convention is that its leadership apparently learned nothing from Martin Luther King Jr.\’s speech against rampant militarism in Vietnam and its cost to poor people and minorities back home in the U.S. in terms of lost money for vital programs and lost potential and opportunity to create peaceful economic growth that lifts up all poor Americans regardless of race. What he said then about that war is even more true today about Bush II\’s atavistic oil/pipeline colonial wars and their obvious cost to our domestic well-being. MLK Jr. was not a militarist. But we now inhabit a run amok military industrial complex: One that is spending more than twice what we spent per year at the peak of the Cold War (when we faced a nuclear superpower that had the power to incinerate the world 40 times over) to enrich military industrial services contractors, mercenaries, privatized intelligence corporations, heavy arms manufacturers and oil companies with only soaring growth in the numbers of terrorists determined to attack us and the enmity of millions of maimed or displaced civilians–many who have seen their innocent family members killed by the U.S. war machine–to show for it. The NAACP should be demanding that Obama and the Democrats create and present a plan for creating a new, greener middle class industrial job growth engine to replace the tens of millions of middle class industrial jobs that have been off-shored by the unfair \”free trade\” regime–not falling under the siren spell of militarism and encouraging it to engulf their younger generations.
i posted a second comments right after my lst post had been posted, however, it did not pass thru the check point. once the ACLU or any other so called liberal progressive organization run by the Caucasian (a White) they are always sided with white against any and all minorities, especially when your comments are kind of get to their superiority complex (a Barbarian, a robber, a theft, a genocides in truth). they will block your comments to protect the whites. period. a animal run society, can not ever have peace, democracy, freedom, those are mainly the slogan to overthrow, to control, to rob the third world countries’ soft core weapons. That’s why the ACLU promotes the black, Latinos and minorities join the army, it is pure and simple. They are white ruled outposts. I bet you willl not post this comments, I will post on other venues.
SHAME ON NAACP. SHAME ON OBAMA. Working people, people of color, people who have been oppressed, used, and forgotten by the USA are the ones who are recruited to fight, to be injured, and die for the empire. Advancement? Maybe for the rich!
The NAACP, as mentioned in the letter, has fought against lynching and other murderous abuse of minorities and all people. So in what way is this different? If our military were doing something other than carrying out the destruction and poisoning of ancient lands and cultures, and participating in the merciless torture, inhuman and inhumane abuse and outright murder of populations innocent of anything but having bred over something the corporations that own our government want, everything would be different and letters like this would be unnecessary.
These letters are desperately necessary!
Allowing military recruiters access to extremely vulnerable youths at ANY NAACP function is handing rope to the hangmen! I am a veteran of an earlier war, the son of two vets and brother of a vet, all of a family of vets who joined when our country called, and I must tell you that every veteran I know views our actions in the Middle East as obscenities that besmirch everything America has ever stood for! The utter inability of a very vocal majority of the electorate to affect our country\’s course in any real way shows that we are no longer in charge of our own country. Our military is a tool of the corporations of the multinational \”Elites\” who have referred to such people as the Army is recruiting as \”dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy\”(Henry Kissinger), \”cannon fodder\” (Baron de Rothschild), and they are and will be treated as such! If you need confirmation, look at the repeated cuts to veteran\’s benefits, demands for repayment of reenlistment bonuses from young people who re-upped and then got injured beyond any ability to continue to serve, promised benefits and bonuses that turn out to be all but impossible to collect, enlisted families on Food Stamps, inferior equipment from crony corporations that needlessly loses lives, the rape and even murder of young women in the military covered up, ignored or ruled \”suicides\”, injured and untreated soldiers forced to return and fight, unconscionable delays of treatment for returned and badly injured vets – the list is all but endless. If you allow these recruiters into this celebration, you are literally handing the hangmen the rope, an unbelievable obscenity for the NAACP!
They put our boys in the jail for population control agenda, resolution signed by Kissinger on 1974. We do not wish to send out left-over boys to become ashes of the military industry complex to turn into ashes to feed someone’s fancy dinner and fancy mansion, and mega toys.
Every time I see one of those \”Army Strong\” commercials, I think to myself, \”Yea, tell that to the guy laid up for life with paralysis, requiring the hourly care of his family just to stay alive, to keep breathing, to \’live\’, if you can call it that. Tell that to all the folk with PTSD, unable to handle civilian life. \”Army Strong\’ is a lie and truth-in-advertising should show what really happens to those sent off to kill others. Karma sucks.\”
According to scientist whistle blower Leuren Moret states in one of her documentation viesos (Google her name) that Kissinger said that; “Code: all the military man is stupid animals, they are served as chess (pawn) for the foreign policy. Un-code” in short, the government uses the soldiers as ashes to serve the financial gain by inventing a war to make money.
July 7, 2009
It is obscene, hypocritical, and utterly reprehensible that the NAACP is apparently allowing itself to be a conduit for allowing military recruiters to insidiously ensnare young people as cannon fodder in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, at its current national convention. The NAACP as a long time so-called \\\”civil rights\\\” organization must surely be cognizant that civil rights is inextricably intertwined with HUMAN RIGHTS, and the war machine of the U.S. corporate / military industrial apparatus (complex) stands in direct, de facto opposition to human rights (at home and abroad), international law, and civil rights.
If anything, the NAACP should be strongly opposing U.S. wars of expansion and empire, just as it struggles for justice inside the United States itself. Moreover, your organization SHOULD in fact be forthrightly reminding Barack Obama that the people want and need that fleeting (and obviously fake)\\\”change they can believe in,\\\” NOT be the continued victims (both nationally & internationally) of the Non-Change They Can Be DECEIVED In!
Both the late Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood in principled opposition to this military madness, and it is incumbent upon the NAACP to do likewise today.
Enough is enough.
Larry Pinkney
Editorial Board Member & Columnist
THE BLACK COMMENTATOR
&
Director, Black Activist Writers Guild
war is and always has been fought for the rich and powerful on the backs of the poor. PLEASE do not encourage anyone especially our precious young to continue this. We should encourage and support this group to be working for real PEACE and violence,power and killing are NOT the way. “WHEN THE POWER OF LOVE OVERCOMES THE LOVE OF POWER THEN WE WILL HAVE PEACE” . I beg you do not support the military for the jobs, instead support our childrens future in a peaceful world.
Bust the Military Industrial Complex!
It is the urban and rural youth who preyed upon, lied to and sacrificed by the military recruiters.
Bust the Military Industrial Complex! We can have no wars, if they have no one to fight. It is the urban youth who the recruiters prey upon and are lied to and sacrificed.
Military recruiters are like quack medicine. Worse than the fact that they don’t get people real cures or real jobs, is that quacks DELAY real cures and put off kids getting REAL jobs that would help them AND society for the better.
When I foolishly joined the Marines in the 1960s, I put off getting a real job for several years. Even though I never went to war, I was still subjected to vicious, racist, anti-Semitic hazing during training.
E. Markson
former LT
USMCR
[quote name=”Joe Urgo”]Let us not mince words here. The Army coming to the NAACP convention must be seen a major insult to the program and legacy of an organization that has fought for the civil rights of Black people and all people. The Obama administration is leaving the many US bases in Iraq to “protect US interests”, while continuing to bomb Afghani people in their villages. The US military wants our kids because the “job” is to kill the people of the world for profit and empire. The majority of our youth ONLY have four or five choices: prison, drugs and the street life, McDonalds, and the US military. The military understands that, and spends 5 billion dollars on video games and sports events, and a hundred other ways to manipulate young minds into their bloody war machine. Watch the ARMY STRONG video to see how careful and calculated is the manipulation. If you want the truth go on the Iraq Veterans Against the War website and watch veterans describe what they were ordered, trained or unleashed to do to the Iraqui and Afghani people. Talk to these vets about the drugs the military gives them and the psychiatrists who counsel them– all to keep them brutalizing and killing the people. Then, if you still don’t believe any of this go to the new mass recruiting center in Philadelphia (Army Experience Center) and watch 13 year old kids play video games like the one where you can shoot Mexicans coming over the border or fly a helicopter simulator that kills from on high.Find a way to learn about the running songs used in training that are all about shooting women and children “Look at all the people in the square. Look at all the children down there. Mow them down, mow them down.” There is another one called “Napalm Sticks to Kids”
This is only a small fraction of what the US military is about on its 737 military bases around the world. But, there is one more choice that our youth have and that is to hear the truth and become part of the resistance movement to expose and stop these recruiters from getting away with their lies. That is why this needs to become a big deal at the NAACP convention. Spread the word and get more people to sign this statement. This is why we need you to support and build the We Are Not Your Soldiers Tour in high schools and campuses around the country.[/quote]
Ms. Wagner is the one who is mistaken. Once the ‘opt out’ letter has been dispatched the school officials are required to honor this parental request. Furthermore, if a recruiter contacts said child, they CAN be brought up on charges. The school officials are required to stop any recruiter attempting to contact a child who’s parents issue an ‘opt out’ letter. The school and the state DESE maintain this list. This isn’t about databases; its about confidentiality rights of minor students. It is true that parents should be more aware of these illegitimate practices. As for Ms. Wagner’s further assertions concerning recruiters approaching children on the streets, well such students usually are more aware of recruiters and tell them to go away. I was the subject of such recruiting tactics and I FORCEFULLY ordered the recruiter to cease and desist or I was going to have him arrested on the spot. I was only 16 years old at the time. My high school had administered the ASFAB to some of us and apparently I had high scores. Don’t underestimate the strength of our youth. These recruiters aren’t that intelligent and the kids aren’t all that helpless.
I agree that our students need more opportunities, and that must be pushed for by all of us. However, this need should not serve as an excuse to surrender to the ‘inevitability’ of recruitment. I can’t help wondering if Ms. Wagner works as a recruiter trolling this and similar sites. Just a thought.
In any event; parents DEMAND YOUR OPT OUT FORMS FROM THE SCHOOL. IF SCHOOL OFFICIALS STONEWALL THEN REPORT THEM TO YOUR RESPECTIVE STATE DESE (DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION) AS A CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION OF YOUR CHILD. THEY MUST COMPLY.
The districts wind up in trouble if these recruiters fail to make thier ‘quota.’ A certain fascist General has been known to visit problem schools as an intimidation tactic. If it were me–I would HAVE THE GENERAL ARRESTED. Its doable.
Have a nice day Ms. Wagner, or whichever recruiter/propagandist you are, trolling this site trying to convey a sense of hopelessness to anyone who would dare to fight back against the Pentagon hydra.
Military Recruiters should be banned.
Jeanine Molloff is mistaken. She says “the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) also has a provision allowing parents to FORBID THE MILITARY’S ACCESS TO THEIR MINOR CHILDREN.”
All a parent (or student…They CAN sign for themselves, even if they are under 18) can do is keep the school from giving their info to recruiters. “Opting out” does NOTHING to keep recruiters from approaching kids in school or in the neighborhood. It also does nothing to keep kids info out of JAMRS, teh HUGE database that the military buys from other sources like fastweb.
Mr. Jealous, this is a big mistake. Don\\\’t do it. You are destroying the name of the NAACP connecting to the military and you are risking losing your membership. My husband and I aare so upseet you have done this that we are dropping out of the NAACP after so many years of service to this fine organization. I rather strive for peade than have the blood of our children on my hands.
Let us not mince words here. The Army coming to the NAACP convention must be seen a major insult to the program and legacy of an organization that has fought for the civil rights of Black people and all people. The Obama administration is leaving the many US bases in Iraq to “protect US interests”, while continuing to bomb Afghani people in their villages. The US military wants our kids because the “job” is to kill the people of the world for profit and empire. The majority of our youth ONLY have four or five choices: prison, drugs and the street life, McDonalds, and the US military. The military understands that, and spends 5 billion dollars on video games and sports events, and a hundred other ways to manipulate young minds into their bloody war machine. Watch the ARMY STRONG video to see how careful and calculated is the manipulation. If you want the truth go on the Iraq Veterans Against the War website and watch veterans describe what they were ordered, trained or unleashed to do to the Iraqui and Afghani people. Talk to these vets about the drugs the military gives them and the psychiatrists who counsel them– all to keep them brutalizing and killing the people. Then, if you still don’t believe any of this go to the new mass recruiting center in Philadelphia (Army Experience Center) and watch 13 year old kids play video games like the one where you can shoot Mexicans coming over the border or fly a helicopter simulator that kills from on high.Find a way to learn about the running songs used in training that are all about shooting women and children “Look at all the people in the square. Look at all the children down there. Mow them down, mow them down.” There is another one called “Napalm Sticks to Kids”
This is only a small fraction of what the US military is about on its 737 military bases around the world. But, there is one more choice that our youth have and that is to hear the truth and become part of the resistance movement to expose and stop these recruiters from getting away with their lies. That is why this needs to become a big deal at the NAACP convention. Spread the word and get more people to sign this statement. This is why we need you to support and build the We Are Not Your Soldiers Tour in high schools and campuses around the country.
The NAACP should ban the recruiters from coming, they are not welcome, because it is sending the wrong message.
Jeanine gives good advice. To protect their child’s contact info, parents should fill out and send to the school officials a so-called opt-out form, which schools are supposed to provide to parents but often do not. Such forms are available online from AFSC and Project YANO, for example.
I would add that the military has a second chance to get this info, and that is when the student takes the ASVAB test provided by the US military establishment, a “vocational aptitude” test often administered by schools in lieu of real vocational aptitude tests for which the district would have to pay. Students cannot be forced to take this test, and wise parents will notify the school officials that they in fact do not want their child to take it.
These two steps should keep a student’s personal contact info out of the hands of recruiters.
Allowing military recruiters the opportunity to present their ‘case’ to students, many of whom are STILL MINORS, constitutes possible illegal access to these same student, regardless of provisions in the hapless NCLB legislation. No other group is allowed such unfettered access without parental notification and APPROVAL. What many parents do not realize, is that the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) also has a provision allowing parents to FORBID THE MILITARY’S ACCESS TO THEIR MINOR CHILDREN. ALL A PARENT HAS TO DO IS ISSUE A LETTER FORBIDDING THE TRANSMISSION OF THEIR MINOR CHILD’S INFORMATION TO THE MILITARY. It’s in the NCLB act. Sample letters are available by googling this topic. If a school or district then sends such information on a minor child, the parent can then sue. If recruiters contact a minor child after such a letter forbidding such contact has been issued, then the recruiters could be criminally prosecuted for illegal contact of a minor child. Please spread this information.
Sincerely,
Jeanine Molloff
I work in a public high school and have watched recruiters corner students and put intense pressure on them. Students of color are usually the first to sign up because the recruiters offer them a paid education and a chance to “see the world.” Unfortunately, until they get to basic training there is no mention of the word “kill.” Once they are there, it’s a different story. Young people have NO IDEA what they’re getting in to when they sign that form. Can’t believe the NAACP has become an instrument for the government in using their children as cannon fodder.