Students picket military recruiters (Seattle!)

[leftchick]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/225552_protest24.html

Angry that military recruiters come to their schools, more than 100 college and high school students marched on recruiting offices in Seattle yesterday.

Chanting "Education not war, kick recruiters out the door" and other slogans, the students blocked the entrances to military offices and pounded on windows in Northgate, the University District and the Central Area. The three neighborhood rallies began simultaneously at noon.

The young demonstrators said they oppose the war in Iraq and don't want recruiters trying to sign up students at their schools. They also were protesting the fact that military spending continues to rise while the nation's public education system struggles financially.

"I don't want to go to war," said Ob Flores, 17, from Mount Rainier High School in Des Moines. "I want to learn; I don't want to die."



Steve Bonkamp, of Seattle, carries a figure representing a U.S. soldier bleeding on top of a barrel of oil Monday, May 23, 2005, during a protest in front of a U.S. Marine Corps recruiting office in Seattle's University District. Several dozen protestors demonstrated at three miltary recruiting locations Monday in opposition to the war in Iraq and military recruiting that takes place on school campuses. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

[Spinzonner]

1. They're abusing the guys at the bottom of the chain

who are stuck with the lousy recruiting climate but the orders to produce by the self-serving incompetents above them and the politicians who have turned military service into road-side roulette.

[MADem]

4. Hey, they are actually helping those guys out

They can lie to their supervisor, and claim that the five appointments they had scheduled were disrupted by the demos...they can claim that their prospects joined the antiwar protest.

True, the poor recruiters, most of whom do not want to be in that shitty job, are taking the surface heat, but they also get a little break from it too. Trust me, I know--leadership will excuse those stations somewhat (I have been in the supervisory position, and cut stations slack that got fake blood dumped on them for a couple of weeks straight--and this was in peacetime, mind you)...it has the odd effect of showing those up the chain of command the context in which the recruiter is working, especially if the protests keep up. A smart recruiter would surreptitiously find someone to organize regular, loud, theatrical protests, as an excuse for not making goal!

[David__77]

9. How is this "abuse?"

Hey, they have a job they signed up for, and it's one that needs opposing. We need to starve the war machine of people if we hope to stop the march towards even-greater aggression.

[chlamor]

10. Nonsense

Just go see ex-recruiter Jimmy Massey as he tours the country talking about the manipulative recruiters or read some of what he has written. Recruiters are predatory.

[MADem]

2. THE NEXT GENERATION---THERE's REAL HOPE THERE!!!!

Wow, good for those kids...they aren't all a bunch of snarky Alex Keatons, after all...I am....HEARTENED!!!!!!!!

That is one helluva costume, too!!!

[goddess40]

3. I'm impressed

I love it when the college and high school students 'get it' and get off their butts and do something constructive about it. They are the ones whose asses are in a harms way and they need to let the country know where they stand.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[TorchTheWitch]

11. what?

"My anti-recruiting idea: Please Enlist so we can Fuck Your Wife"

That's the single most offensive thing I've read on here yet.

[havocmom]

6. The recruiters were getting so disruptive at Tucson High School

the district came down on them about access. They were walking into classes, pulling kids out during class time, testing when kids should have been learning, double teaming and intimidating. District finally told them they played by the same rules as college recruiters and job recriters: one visit to campus per week, stay in one place, no wandering around, no taking up class time for their dog and pony show.

Funny the problems were reported at Tucson, a school with proud traditions but in an economically depressed area serving higher percentage of minority kids. Sabino High, on the other side of town and the other side of the economy did not seem to have recriters bother them, of so the Arizona Daily Star reported at the time.

But there is no class war going on against the lower 98% in America...
harumph... in a pig's eye there isn't!

[geckosfeet]

7. Go Seattle !

[chlamor]

8. This is infinitely more important than filibuster fiddling

This is sort of like shall we say well just a bit WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAN FILIBUSTER COMPROMISE SELL OUT WEAK KNEED POLITICS OF COMFORT stuff.

People are being slaughtered, the treasury being looted, you're tax dollars are funding it, your Slimy Senators keep voting for it-but oh it's all about the filibuster? Come on wake up !!!




"There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

-Mario Savio