From: shomer@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.men,soc.women
Subject: The Anti-Draft Movement Today
Summary: sorry, no organizations
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 92 12:39:49 PDT
Reply-To: shomer@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us

In article <MUFFY.92Sep25134542@remarque.berkeley.edu>, 
> 
> Well, you may be new, but I have heard a *lot* about this issue on the
> net in the last few years, so it seems to be one of general concern to
> men.  Does *anyone* know of an organization that has been formed to try
> to eliminate the draft?  If none has been, why not, given that it is
> clearly a large issue to many men?  Is it really just because it's hard
> to talk about?:

There were many organizations formed to work against draft registration in
1980, both at the national level and locally. All of the national 
organizations are defunct, and so far as I know only one local organization
still has a paid staff person: the Committee Oppossed to Militarism and
the Draft in San Diego, CA. A lot of existing organizations made 
draft registration a priority: War Resisters League, Fellowship of
Reconciliation, WILPF, and so forth. Students for a Libertarian Society
put a lot of energy (and money) into anti-registration work. Socialists
jumped on the anti-registration bandwagon out of expedience: it was a
good way to get young men involved in anti-imperialist political work.

After a few factional splinterings, the Committee Against Registration
and the Draft became the socialist anti-draft group, and
the National Resistance Committee (the group I've worked with) was
the national group linking up anarchist and resistance-oriented people.
(CARD never advocated breaking the registration laws; we did.) Both
CARD and the NRC are now little more than post-office boxes with dusty
mailing lists. 

The organized anti-registration movement essentially died in about 1985, 
after the government got smart and stopped prosecuting registration
resisters. The feminist women left the movement 2-3 years earlier, 
partly because they had other priorities and partly because of the 
sexism they in the movement.

There is still a mass movement of resistance: about 10% 
of the men who turn 18 don't register, and most who do register
break the law by not reporting address changes (a felony, but one
that hasn't been prosecuted since the Vietnam war). 

The national pacifist groups still bill themselves as anti-draft groups,
but none of them devotes even an hour of staff time a month to the issue.

A lot of the people who did anti-draft work in the early 1980s have
turned to working against military recruiting. We have a real "poverty
draft" in this country, with a military that is disproportionately
poor and brown. The victims of this poverty draft are the ones 
dying now -- in the Gulf War and in training accidents. Dishonest
military recruiting seems like a much more urgent issue than registration
for a lot of people, and it is a much more useful issue upon which
to build a coalition or a viable single-issue organization. Counter-
recruitment is where the national pacifist groups put their youth
outreach and organizing efforts these days.

The COMD in San Diego publishes a great newsletter for $12/year, $6/year
for students and low-income. Their address is PO Box 15195, San Diego
CA  92175. 
-- 
_________________________________
Steve Homer  shomer@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
Newsgroups: alt.feminism