Starting an anti-recruiting movement

[Sir_No_Sir]

So, my school is extremely good on the recruiting thing. I've never seen a recruiter in our school, and i've been promised that no information is ever turned over to the military.

BUT

We host this paintball tournament every year, its the third year, and I just noticed that they have a recruiters tent.

How to fight it?

I talked to my dad, we're gonna file a complaint on saturday...he wants to come with me.

So, what would be great is to start a movement, but how?

[Edgar]

Make the rest of the students in your school aware that there will be a recruiter there, and explain why it's necessary to oppose the recruiter's presence. Print up a consice, single sheet flyer on the subject and distribute it throughout the school. Once you have a sizable number of students involved, hold regular meetings where you can discuss further tactics.

Organized protests can be an option, as can a student-wide boycott of the paintball tournament.

Make sure to get as many progressive parents involved as possible, making calls, attending school parent-teacher meetings; the school is much more likely to respond to pressure from parents than from students.

And try to find out if there are any leftists on the school newspaper that might be willing to spill some ink for the cause.

And if you really want to irk the school administration, contact local communist and anarchist organizations in your area and see if they'd be willing to help out in terms of protests, passing out flyers, getting media attention, ect.

[Sir_No_Sir]

Well, it ends on sunday...so, actually, we won't really be able to do anything for it this year, but i might try to get something going for next year...
As far as tactics go, we might do a giant'shit-in' (an idea originated by Saul Alinsky), or set up a counter-table...or maybe just a total boycott of it. But the real focus, for now, is how to build a year-long movement culminating in a big thing going down next summer.

[BlessedBesse]

on boycotting the event:

I'm amused by the notion of skipping an event you want to attend because there'll be a guy there who will unsuccessfully try to recruit you.

By skipping it entirely, you'd be giving him a free channel to communicate with those who don't feel as strongly as you.

[Sir_No_Sir]

Not many people go to it....itd be great if there was literally no crowd....and there's this pretty big park district waterpark by me, and we could have people even boycott that. Usually 500-1000 can flock there on a hot day, but we might be able to get it down to 100...

[Janus]

Once a year? :blink: Your school is pretty lucky though I can definitely see why they would want to target paintballers.

As for counter-recruitment tactics, there are various flyers and pamphlets available which you can print and give out to your fellow students while talking with them. It might also be advantageous to talk with the local peace group to see if they'll come out and give experienced advice at the event.

Previous threads:
1 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=58013&hl=counter-recruitment), 2 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=57294&hl=counter-recruitment), 3 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=41758&hl=counter-recruitment)