Dear School Board Members,

This is information you need to have. Please read it. Please protect our children. The "Spirit of
America" is coming to the Pepsi Arena, Friday 24 and Saturday 25 of September. School
children are actively recruited and they are taken out of school and miss important time in
school. This is wrong. War is not entertainment. Propaganda is not education. Please do what
you can to prevent the exploitation of our children. Thank you. John Amidon


Worcester Students Protest "Spirit of America" Tour
by Chris Caesar
Email: ChrisCaesar (nospam) hotmail.com(unverified!) 10 Sep 2004

I arrived at the Worcester Centrum with a contingent of Clark students around 930 that morning,
and the peace presence was already quite conspicuous, who would Jesus bomb, etc. A Marines
jeep sat on the sidewalk, with a phone number stenciled on the side for those hoping to secure
[their] futures in the military. Recruiters in full attire greeted the students in the lobby of the
Centrum, passing out pamphlets on all the so-called benefits that accompany military service,
and imploring them to sign up.

Lacking a live-action laser show extravaganza of our own, we assembled peacefully on the
sidewalk, armed with pamphlets about the risks of military service and instructions on
preventing your personal information from being disclosed to military recruiters. This, it seems,
was not entirely cool.

One officer, who could consistently be found two feet from my group for the duration of the
event, quickly confronted me when I approached the children with my flyers.

You cant do that here he said, shaking his head disapprovingly and pointing.
I cant do what? You cant obstruct traffic, lets go. I politely reminded the officer that I have the
right to flyer on public property, and informed him that as long as I didnt obstruct anything, I
was going to continue to exercise the right. I stood as far back from the incoming students as I
could, arm outstretched with a pamphlet, as he looked on disapprovingly.

Students came from varying directions towards the entrance, and when another group came from
behind us, we proceeded to approach the line and flyer. Eventually, one officer (who seemed
relatively legitimate and courteous) politely asked us to back up because we were on private
property, and we complied. This would be the first of three times we were accused of congesting
the sidewalk.

After the initial tension with the police, the general mood seemed to relax a bit as it became
apparent that we werent antagonists. Some of the kids were receptive, others were belligerent,
but generally they seemed ambivalent towards the entire spectacle, not unusual for
middle-schoolers on a field trip.

The teachers were also a mixed bag. Some took flyers, thanked us for coming out, or gave a
thumbs up. Others were not as affable:
As the radical cheerleaders were performing for some of the queuing students, one teacher, a
short woman, seemed particularly freaked out.
DONT LOOK AT THEM she insisted, drawing each word out for its full re-education camp
effect. DONTLOOKAT THEM. This, of course, egged on the protestors to a considerable
degree.

Be careful in there theyre lying a little bit! Dude, if you go to war, it will be so awesome et al.
The woman eventually stopped telling students to ignore us.

Other teachers confiscated literature that the students took and harassed protestors. In one
instance, a teacher accepted some of our flyers, and sardonically replied Oh, this is wonderful,
were doing a study on propaganda in my class! to which the student (predictably) replied Oh,
well then youve come to the right place, huh?

I think I found the teachers reactions to be the most unnerving aspect of the event. Its certainly
one thing for the military to lie and aggrandize itself, but for teachers (those who are supposedly
nourishing a childs intellectual curiosity and promoting their self-interests) to willfully disallow
their students from receiving information on preserving their own privacy is deplorable.

I also spoke to School Committee Member Joe OBrien, who told me that, as recruitment
literature was being distributed at the event, it was legally a recruitment event, and thus peace
groups potentially had the legal right to equal time. Some were discussing a field trip to the
Peace Abbey or other similar ideas. Anyone who is interested in countering this diet of
militarism should attend the Worcester School Committee meeting this Thursday night (Im
unsure of the time, isnt that terrible) and vocalize your support.

Thanks to everyone that came out, it was totally rockin.

iacboston.org (unverified) 12 Sep 2004
By Bryan G. Pfeifer
Massachusetts

The city of Worcester welcomed the Army with open arms to recruit youth/students en masse
through its Sprit of America road show spectacle Sept. 10-11.

About 400 soldiers, members of the U.S. Armys elite ceremonial units, the 3rd Infantry
Regiment (The Old Guard) and the U.S. Army Band (Pershings Own) participated in the
two-hour show which drew thousands of people in two shows each day from throughout the
Northeast.

The shows intent is to ratchet up support for U.S. imperialism through patriotic multi-media
theatre techniques and to present a thoroughly revisionist version of U.S. history. The show
glorifies imperialist plunder beginning with Native people in North America to the current
occupation of Iraq (spiritofamerica.mdw.army.mil).

Many of the attendees were elementary and high-school aged students that had received free
tickets and a day off school Friday, Sept. 10 by Worcesters School Administration to attend.
Some media reports estimate as many as 10,000 students attended Fridays morning show.

According to Worcester School Committee member Joseph C. OBrien, on two previous
occasions the administration denied requests for students to attend an anti-war teach-in and an
educational event celebrating the day LGBT marriage became legal in Massachusetts.

In an open letter to the Worcester School Committee, OBrien wrote, .So, lets get this straight. If
you want to go on a trip to learn about peaceful alternatives to war run by academics, or if you
want to take part in activities centered around a historic day in the communitys struggle for Civil
Rights you cant go. But if you want to go to a pro-military rally run by the Department of
Defense, take the whole school day. This is simply wrong.

Before and after being subjected to the Spirit of Americas jingoist, racist, super-aggressive,
pro-heterosexual, misogynist and patriarchal show, students were preyed upon by Army JROTC
officers attempting to recruit them. Recruitment officers obtained students contact information,
took pictures of them and encouraged them to inspect Army vehicles.

Despite this siege progressive and revolutionary students and their allies fought back.

Armed with counter-recruitment literature, banners, and placards declaring War is not
entertainment, Bring the troops home now, and other slogans dozens of protesters stood their
ground despite intimidation by Army personnel and chauvinists.

I dont think its acceptable to have students take a field trip and miss class time to watch,
essentially, a recruitment spectacle, said student organizer Chris Caesar.

Alex Gould, member of the youth/student organization FIST (Fight Imperialism Stand Together)
and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 328, Providence, agreed.

This macabre extravaganza recruitment tour should settle the issue for our generation once and
for all -- that the system of imperialism has spent itself and has nothing to offer the youth, even
in the United States.

War on youth/students

A working-class city with a long history of union and other progressive struggles, Worcester is
the third-largest city in New England with a population of 172,000 of which 30 percent are
people of color and 35 percent are under the age of 24 (www.census.gov).

Instead of building a jobs-creation and other social-service programs for youth/students affected
by deindustrialization and the scientific-technological revolution, the citys ruling class, like
others nationwide, is sacrificing them to the poverty draft.

According to the United States Army Junior ROTC website, JROTC is a continuing success
story. Of course it doesnt specify for whom. (www.usarmyjrotc.com).

The United States Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) came into being with
the passage of the National Defense Act of 1916. Under the provisions of the Act, high schools
were authorized the loan of federal military equipment and the assignment of active duty
military personnel as instructors. In 1964, the Vitalization Act opened JROTC up to the other
services and replaced most of the active duty instructors with retirees who worked for and were
cost shared by the schools.

From six units in 1916, Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp has expanded to 1555 schools
today, the largest of the armed forces reserve units. JROTC exists in every state in the U.S. and
countries with a U.S. presence including Guam, Germany and South Korea. Presently 300,000
high school students aged 13-18 and up are taught by 3,900 active duty Army retirees

In 1992, George Bush Sr., in response to the L.A. Rebellion, pushed an initiative to double the
number of JROTC programs in the U.S. from 1,500 to 3,000. In the absence of a draft, George
Bush Jr. is continuing the expansion. In 2002 he oversaw the passage of the Defense
Authorization Bill which removed the 1992 federal limit of 3,500 JROTC programs. The
Congressional Budget Office expects the number of JROTC units to surpass 3,500 by 2005.
Students of color are a particular target of recruiters according to a 1999 report Junior Reserve
Officers Training Corps: Contributions to Americas Communities, published by the imperialist
think-tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In the academic year 1995-96 African American students made up approximately 15 percent of
the U.S. high school population. But African American JROTC enrollment rose from 25 percent
in 1994-95 to 33 percent in 1996-97 and the percentages are increasing. Similar statistics reveal
the same pattern for Latino/a and other oppressed students. And although the report claims
percentages of white recruitment have stabilized or are decreasing, the Pentagon, like terrorist
organizations such as the Klu Klux Klan, also prey on disaffected white youth in working-class
communities like Worcester.

The Army is increasing its use of more sophisticated techniques to recruit such as Campus
Combat which targets colleges and universities with large populations of students of color. This
capitalist marketing ploy uses hip-hop music, multi-media techniques and free-giveaway
gimmicks.

The hip-hop market has a vast fan base, said Col. Thomas Nickerson, the Armys national
advertising director in an October 2003 Newsweek interview. It covers all
segments-African-American, Hispanic, Asian, Caucasian, anyone who is interested in hip hop.
But as proven at the RNC demonstrations and elsewhere theres also a large and growing
movement of multinational youth/students fighting back.

No draft, no recruitment, no way!

They used to say we could work to save up for college. Now the high school students who work
part-time at my supermarket borrow spare change so they can eat lunch at the end of the week.
So now, they tell us to die in some hole in the sand for college money, says Gould.

We've got to help other young people see through the lies now and organize against this recruitment because if the war makers don't snare enough of us with this they're coming after
us with the draft next. Now's the time to fight back! Union yes, war no!

Youth/students will have a few major opportunities to fight back in the coming weeks.