NJ - Activists take aim at military recruiting; Antiwar forum stirs emotions over Iraq
- Originally published in the Herald News (Passaic County, NJ) February 27, 2005
Copyright 2005 North Jersey Media Group Inc.,
By TOM MEAGHER, Herald News, North Jersey Media Group
Now
that the president has won re-election and the war in Iraq looks
unlikely to end soon, North Jersey antiwar activists are turning their
attention to frustrating the military's recruiting efforts, especially
in high schools and colleges.
More than 40
antiwar agitators gathered Saturday at William Paterson University for
a forum on opposing recruitment. During one panel discussion, Dustin
Langley, a Navy veteran and antiwar organizer for the New York group
SNAFU, told the audience that recruiters often make promises to
potential enlistees they can't keep.
"We
have an obligation to keep those bastards off our campus," Langley
said. "They're liars. They're predators. They will say anything."
Primarily
composed of college-age young adults, the audience also included
educators and middle-aged peace activists. Sandy Shevack, a public
school social worker and a member of Paterson's Inclusive Democracy
Project, argued that the burden of military service unfairly falls most
heavily on the poor and minorities.
"It's
all right for kids from Paterson and Passaic and other depressed areas
to go to war," Shevack said. "Let the rich people's sons and daughters
fight it."
Saturday's conference, organized by members of North Jersey Anti-Racist
Action, took place in the auditorium of the David and Lorraine Cheng
Library. Tom Keenan, who led one of the panel discussions, said that he
has confronted recruiters on the William Paterson campus.
"I think this is almost a culture war," Keenan said.
"Either
we're going to foster a culture of militarism among our children, or
we're going to foster a culture of dissent and freedom."
During
an open question-and-answer session early in the afternoon's events,
some attendees asked for advice on how to keep public schools, required
by the federal No Child Left Behind act to allow recruiters access to
their campus, from giving students information on the military.
"More
importantly, we need to mobilize to stop the war," Langley told the
audience. "The politicians aren't going to do it. The people in the
streets are going to do it."