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February 11, 2009
Marisela Guzman with Service Women's Action Network (SWAN) and Arlene Inouye, with Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools (CAMS) join us this morning to address their Peace work.
Special thanks to General Manager Sean Heitkemper and Producer/Host Aura Bogado for joining us this morning.
Today’s show was engineered by Nadia and produced by Angela Ruiz and Gabriel Gutierrez. Special thanks to CSUN’s Center for the Study of the Peoples of the Americas for production assistance. Email us at themorningreview@yahoo.com.
Today’s premiums were:
SOLDIERS OF PEACE – DVD - $100.00
We are bombarded with images of war. On the TV news, in our newspapers. The pictures pile up, and with them some solid assumptions. We assume that war is human nature. That there's an epidemic of war and it's only getting worse. That it's too profitable for some businesses to be stopped. And too effective for some governments to give up. That war will be with us forever. None of these things is true. The world is changing. We are changing. The astonishing and astonishingly little-known fact is that the number of wars across the world is in fact dropping. Dramatically. We are actually in the grip of an outbreak of peace. Away from the cameras, ordinary people everywhere are taking amazing steps to force peace out of trouble and violence. Even business - long assumed to be the dark driving force behind war - has worked out that there's more money to be made in peace. The enterprises that profiteer from war are in the minority, and they're shrinking.
And if those positive forces aren't enough, there's one very big reason already compelling us to evolve beyond our ancient human impulse to war: the planet. The challenges of global warming confront humankind with an absolute crossroads in our development as a species. The problems are by their nature, global - they cannot be solved by individual countries. And their solutions necessarily demand co-operation at a level we have yet to experience in human history. War cannot solve these problems. It can only make them insoluble. The only way to survive is to evolve, and become peaceful. Narrated by Michael Douglas and features Desmond Tutu and others.
MILITARY MYTHS – DVD - $75.00
Military Myths examines the persuasive tactics used by the military to enlist youth - and the reality of serving in the armed forces. The video exposes the failure of the US Military to live up to its promises of education, security and benefits for veterans, and offers alternatives for youth who might think that joining the military is their only option. While the military spends millions of dollars a year touting their motto of an "Army of One", this video clearly explains the reality of military life. A must see for anyone considering enlisting. Produced by Paper Tiger Television in partnership with youth from the program formerly called ROOTS (the youth component of the War Resisters League). Military Myths has been utilized by hundreds of parents, teachers, churches and community organizers seeking to offer an alternative perspective to youth considering military service. In summer 2001 (before 9/11), Paper Tiger created a counter-recruitment video called Military Myths in partnership with ROOTS (then, the youth component of the War Resisters League.) Since it was produced, the video has been used in at least 500 national community organizations, peace groups, schools, and churches to support Counter Recruitment. Several organizations use the video as a center point of their workshops including Ya Ya Network, NYCoRE, CCCO and the War Resisters League Youth and the Military Program. Military Myths is an organizing tool to educate the public on the military's aggressive recruitment of low income youth and youth of color. Featuring interviews with youth, activists and people of color who have served in military, the video gives an alternative viewpoint exposing the tactics military representatives use to engage youth - and the video exposes the reality of military service. (It's not all trips around the world and a free education.) The producers contrast media representations of war and military life with the personal experiences of veterans who have gone to war. Interviews with activists and students are also presented along with statistics from the Veterans Administration, CCCO, SLDN, and recent Pentagon studies that lay clear the myths of military life.
PTTV updated the video in 2006 with more recent statistics, Spanish subtitles and added a curriculum guide and counter-recruitment resources. Thanks to a generous grant from ADCO, Paper Tiger is now engaged in a concerted outreach campaign to continue to spread the word about Military Myths and further the impact of this valuable resource! For more information about this project, or for help organizing a screening near you.
