Naomi Wolf on Real and Fake Mass Protests

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Militarized Campuses: a Bipartisan Affair

| September 15, 2008 - 4:40 pm

Tags: McCain, militarism, Obama, recruitment

Last week, Barack Obama confirmed what many had hoped was a misstatement made in the primaries. Washington Post:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took the occasion to chide Columbia for its lack of on-campus ROTC. "I don't think that's right," Mr. McCain said. "Shouldn't the students here be exposed to the attractiveness of serving in the military, particularly as an officer?" Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) readily agreed, calling Columbia's anti-ROTC stance a "mistake." 

rotcFlash back several months (courtesy For Student Power):

From last night's Democratic debate, as reported by The Hill:

Obama and Edwards both said that they supported withholding funding from higher education institutions that do not provide ROTC programs to students. Clinton initially said she would enforce laws to stop funding but later said of prominent schools that do not have ROTC programs that "there are ways they can work out fulfilling that obligation."

What they were talking about is the Solomon Amendment — a law passed in 1996 (and upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court) that allows the Secretary of Defense to strip a college or university of all Federal funding if the school bans/prohibits ROTC or any other military recruitment on campus.

University College London Kicks the Military Off Campus!

| March 19, 2008 - 10:25 am

Tags: counter-recruitment, militarism

Following the footsteps of many campuses here in the states, earlier this month students at University College London voted to expel military recruiters from their student’s union. This is a great example of students fighting on two fronts: 1) asserting student sovereignty and power, and 2) slowing down the gears of war. UK Indymedia: