Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

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From Draft NOtices, July-September 2020

Attempt to Extend Draft Registration to Women Falls Short, for Now

— Rick Jahnkow

On July 1, a proposal was made, and then withdrawn without a vote, to add the entire “Inspire to Serve Act” to the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that is being formulated in the U.S. House of Representatives. It was proposed by Representative Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) during the House Armed Services Committee’s consideration of amendments to the 2021 NDAA.

The Inspire to Serve Act, introduced in the House as H.R. 6415, was drafted by the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service (NCMNPS). It is a wide-ranging proposal that includes, among other things, language to require women to register with the Selective Service System for any future military draft. No committee hearings have been scheduled yet for H.R. 6415.

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From Draft NOtices, July-September 2020

Who Joins the Military and Why: An Initial Reconnaissance

Research with potential implications for counter-recruitment work

— Isidro D. Ortiz, Ph.D.

Change: gentrification

The demographic composition of the American military has been a subject of interest to scholars, journalists and counter-recruitment activists. Some of the last have contended that the composition reflects a “poverty draft.” A recent study provides insight into the issue. “A Mercenary Army of the poor? Technological Change and the Demographic Composition of post-9/11 U.S. Military” by Andrea Asoni et. al, sheds new light on the controversial notion that the “the American military is a mercenary army of the poor.” The investigators break methodological ground by analyzing individual-level data on two national samples covering the period 1979-2005. Their analyses of the data reveal, they claim, that “contrary to accepted wisdom, the U.S. military no longer primarily recruits individuals from the most disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds.” They also found that, in contrast to the past, those who join the American armed forces are at or above the median with respect to socio-economic indicators such as parental income, parental wealth and cognitive abilities — exactly the opposite of what other studies maintain. In other words, the armed forces recruited primarily from the middle-class sector of society. According to the investigators, at the roots of the change — which some have described as the “gentrification” of the military — are increases in the requirements of the “modern capital-intensive, information dominant, expeditionary American military.” According to the researchers, “the less affluent are less likely to meet such requirements.”

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From Draft NOtices, April-June 2020

 

The Resistance Continues: Building on the Legacy of the 1970 Chicano Anti-war Moratorium

 

 — Isidro D. Ortiz, Ph.D.

On August 29, 1970, the sounds of “¡Raza Sí, Guerra No!,” and “Chale, No we Won’t Go!” thundered across East Los Angeles as an estimated 30,000 Chicana/os marched to protest the war in Vietnam. The march was one of the events of the Chicano Moratorium (CM). Organized and spearheaded by the National Chicano Moratorium Committee, the CM was the capstone in the Chicano anti-war movement that surged in 1969 and 1970 throughout Aztlán, the mythical Chicano homeland.

Today the Moratorium still stands as the largest protest against the war in Vietnam by Chicanos. In some circles, it has achieved “iconic” status. A catalyst to the emergence of the movement were the findings of a study by political scientist Ralph Guzman. His research revealed that Chicanos were experiencing disproportionate casualties in the war in Vietnam, suffering twenty percent of the casualties at a time when they comprised only ten percent of the population of the Southwestern United States and when oppression and inequality were parts of the everyday experience of Chicanos, especially Chicano youth. In the public schools, for example, Chicano students were marginalized via segregation in the schools and tracking into vocational courses and away from curricula that would prepare them for college, feeding a school-to-military pipeline. They were also subjected to punishment for speaking Spanish and denied proper counseling services. Consequently, by 1970 the dropout rate, or as Chicano activists called it “the pushout rate,” hovered around fifty-five percent in East Los Angeles and elsewhere. And, like other draft-eligible youth, many were ensnared in the web of the draft and faced the prospect of death in Vietnam.

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Ninth CIRCUIT COURT RULING: CONFRONTING MILITARISM BY USING EQUAL ACCESS TO HIGH SCHOOLS

When the military comes to your local high school, you have a legal right to give students an opposing view. This has been the position taken by federal district courts in Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois and two federal appellate courts. The most broadly-worded decision came from a case that COMD took to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the 1980s. Here is the background:

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