 Thank you everyone for joining the webinar today. My name is Carly. I am an organizer on the Code Pink Davis from the War Machine campaign and really excited for people to join us on the Draft Women Hell No webinar where we'll be talking about strategies, histories, and current efforts to resist the expansion of the draft. So I'm going to hand it over to Rivera to get us started. Thanks Carly and special thanks to Code Pink for hosting this. We are a network of groups opposing the draft and calling for the total abolition of the draft for all genders that includes draft registration. And we are excited to share what's going on and what's being done about what's going on. But first let's just take care of a little bit of housekeeping. First of all, we might have some time for some Q&A. So if you want to leave a question for us, there's a chat box down at the bottom of your screen and you can leave a question in there. If you have trouble finding that, you can pop it into the chat box. Sorry, there's a chat box and a Q&A chat box specifically. And if you are on your phone, you can press star nine to raise your hand and we can call on you and unmute you. All right, so that's a basic thing. We've got a full agenda today, so no promises about those questions, but maybe we'll cover everything you want to know. So first of all, I just want to say that this webinar will be recorded and you will be able to share it with people. This is an issue that's going to impact all of our young people. It already does and we do want it to be shared. So I also want to let you know just at the top of everything that Congress right now is debating whether to abolish the draft and draft registration for all genders or expand the current draft system to women. Currently all males age 18 to 25 must register for the draft and they want to expand it to women. We'll let you know more about how and why that happened and it's a big part of what we'll cover tonight. So I just want to give you a sense of the overview and to do that I'm going to share my screen. I'll get to look at my amazing desktop. There we go. Great, so we're going to introduce ourselves in just a little bit, but here is what we'll cover tonight. Why this matters, very important question. Why we're at this crossroads of questioning why to expand or abolish and the current issues that have set up this moment in time. We're going to talk about feminism, war, and women and the draft and why this is a feminist issue. Not just because they're trying to draft this, but because of the historic legacy of women's involvement on these issues. We're going to hear from a couple of amazing youth presenters about their views on this issue. They are the people who will be drafted and their voices are very important and then we're also going to hear from two historic draft resistors. We're going to share about what has been done in the past and why that offers us some strategies for the present and then we're going to talk about what you can do now. There's a lot of types of actions we can take and we're very excited to share those with you today. So I just want to start off our why this matters section with just saying that you know I'm Rivera's son. I'm not sure if I actually introduced you to myself, but I am an organizer with Code Pink and a variety of other peace organizations and my father was an anti-Vietnam conscientious objector and I help people deal with the draft in that era. For me, I'm part of the generation who didn't have to register for the draft and let me tell you, that's great, nobody should have to register for it. And we're also at a juncture, a critical juncture in time when we can and should reconsider whether we need to have a draft system in the United States. It's really time to end this system and we'll tell you more about why. And you know, I also want to just make a mention that the idea of expanding the draft to women is not only objectionable to women, it's sexist, it's conscripting women's bodies in addition to our men who are friends and brothers and loved ones into a system of war and militarism that has historically been part of the patriarchy continues to be part of the patriarchy and continues to reinforce sexist attitudes that then in turn cause greater harm and destruction all over the world. So there's a lot going on, but that's one of the reasons it matters to me. But I'm going to pass the mic to Edward Hasbrook, who is a historic draft resister and the manager of resistors.info and I'll let him speak a little bit. Hi. Well, I myself faced the decision of what to do about the government ordering me to register for the draft back in 1980. I'll talk a little more about that story later on, but obviously a long time has passed. I'm a lot older now. And, you know, I came to opposing the draft out of being a youth activist for youth liberation and opposition to the ageism of the draft. I think there's a temptation for those of us who are older to see the draft and our opposition to it as something we're doing to protect young people against being drafted. But really the worst and the largest number of victims of the draft are not draftees, badly treated though they are, but those against whom draftees are used as an implement of war and all of those who are affected by the larger and longer wars that a draft enables. So I think it's important for us to reframe this. It's not about us protecting young people from the draft. Young people by their resistance over the decades to the draft have protected us and helped protect us against larger and longer wars. So the task for us as older people and allies of youth today is to carry this the final mile to realize the victory over the draft and by that young people have won for us and by so doing to withdraw this blank check that the draft gives the military. Bill? Okay. Well, I was a conscientious object during the Vietnam war. And so I had firsthand experience dealing with an active draft. I went before a board of people that were hostile who did not believe me and who really, and I came to realize they could determine years of my life, whether I go to jail, whether I live. And so I, that is why I'm here. Okay. It's important having been through that. I know how long that is. And I know that it's important that we stand against registration and the draft. Just this past year Pentagon officials testify that they rely on selective service as part of their war plan. So it's very clear that, you know, even though the publicity says it's just registration, it's not a draft, you're registering for a draft. And that is about forcing people into war against their will. So I don't know, Karis, you want to go next? Sure. So hello, everyone. My name is Karis. I am here representing On Earth Peace. And as a draft age person, myself and as a peace activist, I am very frustrated to hear that the government is currently considering expanding the draft. And I think it's important for us to remember as young people that we are the ones who will be fighting and killing and dying in these wars. And many of us have either never, never lived in a country or don't remember a country that wasn't at war. And allowing the draft to continue, just continues to give the government this blank check, as Edward said, to continue these endless wars. And for one person, I would like to see us put an end to this. Hi, everyone. My name is Ariana and I'm 20 years old. And I just finished my sophomore year at UC Berkeley. And I'm here representing Truth and Recruitment, which is a project of the San Barbara Friends meeting. And our goal is to educate students, families, and school districts about alternatives to military careers, inform families of their children's privacy rights, and advocate for policies regarding regulating career presences on campus. And this issue is very important to me because I think selective service and violates our rights. And I think that young people's voices are not being heard enough on this issue. And I'll talk about this more later, but my brother and I went to DC to speak at a congressional hearing about this, and we were the only draft age youth for both days. And so that's why I'm here to make sure our voices are heard. And Kate, would you like to go next? I'm not a panelist, but hi. Thanks. I'm just here to support youth and the people on this panel who are telling, sharing their expertise on this issue. And I'm the director of Truth and Recruitment that Ari mentioned before. Thanks, Kate. I really appreciate your support on this call. I also want to thank Maria from the Center on Conscience and War, who works with Bill Galvin at that organization. And, you know, we're just a sampling of the many people involved in the network of groups and individuals opposing the draft. So we're a growing network. If you're interested in joining us, please let us know. Leave a comment in the chat box. This is a very rapidly expanding campaign, and the timeline is jumping up on it. And Edward is actually going to tell us more about that timeline coming up next. I do want to say that, you know, one other reason this matters right now is not specifically because of the pandemic, but the pandemic is reminding us that we have to make choices and priorities as a country about where we put our resources, what makes us truly secure, and what direction do we want to go in as a country moving forward from this moment. And it is the view of this panel, and we hope you agree with us that the direction of war and militarism is a waste of our resources and drafting more people into involuntary conscription is not progressing forward in the direction that we hope for our country. So, Edward, why don't you fill us in on how did we get to this moment and what's going on right now? Thanks. Well, you can go back to 1980, actually, when the current phase of the Selective Service System and the current registration program was put into effect. Back in 1980, President Jimmy Carter actually proposed requiring, including women, in the Selective Service Registration Requirement. Congress didn't go along with that. The issue went to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court at that time said, well, as long as the military only wants men for combat, there's a relationship, a rational relationship to only signing men up for the draft. So fast forward to five years ago when Commander-in-Chief Obama opened up all assignments in military combat to women, it immediately undermined and essentially eliminated the legal rationale that had been the basis for the constitutionality of the current draft registration requirement. And it became apparent to everybody who was looking that once the issue worked its way through the courts, the courts were going to find that requiring only men to register for the draft is unconstitutional. A district court has already made that finding. The government is appealing, but the appeal is only a delaying tactic. So, Congress is faced with a choice. If they don't do anything, draft registration will be ended by the courts in a very messy way and a way that embarrasses Congress. So, Congress is under pressure to either decide to end draft registration finally or to try to expand it to women. They debated this four years ago. They couldn't agree and decided to appoint a national commission to study the question as a delaying tactic. That national commission reported back in March of this year with a recommendation that draft registration be expanded to women. Legislation has now been introduced in Congress to implement that recommendation and expand draft registration. But at the same time, as a result that many of us on this call and others have done, legislation had already been introduced and is also pending in Congress that would finally not only end draft registration, but abolish the selective service system and all of the contingency planning that's been going on for a draft. So, this is now on the table in Congress. And although Congress is not really doing much other than floundering and electioneering and the pandemic, there are already calls, including by this national commission, to have this issue taken up through amendments to a pending must pass military appropriations bill. And again, the clock is ticking. The courts are going to rule. The appeals are going to run out. Congress has to do something. They could postpone it for as much as another year, but they may find it much more opportune to do it now while people aren't going to march in the streets during the pandemic. And this could actually be considered by Congress in a matter of weeks. We don't know. So, it's really important right now, both for people to let Congress know how you feel and to mobilize and be prepared for all of the kinds of things that we can do as grassroots organizers, regardless of what the politicians decide. So, this is the issue that we now face. Rivera? Great. Thank you, Bill. I can see some of our participants are already excited about what can we do and calls to action. And we will be sharing those at the end and along the way. And Maria, maybe you can put the petition from World Beyond War to contact the senators about the bill abolishing the draft into the chat box so people can take action right now while we're telling them how important this is. So, as I said before, I am an organizer with Code Pink. I work locally here in Towson, New Mexico. And I also work on a couple of nationwide campaigns, including representing Code Pink to the National Commission that was appointed to study this very issue. And I just want to iterate for you all that we made very specific recommendations to the commission. We also learned, especially Edward, who followed the commission very closely, how much they were cooking the books in terms of who was speaking to the commission and what they were saying and how that got turned into the report and then the legislation that's proposed from their side of it. They made a lot of statements about young people said this and women said that. And really they tailored who would come to their commission. They drew heavily from the military, pro-military people, but they also had a lot of input from sexists. So, this actually comes into play. I'm going to talk just briefly about gender, why gender equality means abolishing the draft for everyone, not expanding the draft for women. First of all, I just want to say, you know, Code Pink has a statement on this issue and we're very clear that, you know, while we can't see that there's anything necessarily wrong with having equal service opportunities through the military for all genders, we certainly don't want women to be barred from any particular position because of their gender, conscription is not the same thing as equal opportunity in an enlistment sense that conscription is involuntary conscription into the military. And you know, just as slavery doesn't become more just and bare because you add another race to that equation, same thing is true for the involuntary conscription, which is a form of slavery and enslavement of women into the US military. It doesn't make it more just for men. So, when the men entered this court case saying women must be included in the draft, it was really a short-sighted reaction. And I'll just call it horrors. I felt it was quite sexist of them rather than taking the stance that what is just and right is to work together men and women to abolish this really harmful system. So, the impetus for this is coming out of sexism. It's not coming from women. I think that's very important to understand. There's no woman who is involved in saying, oh yeah, let's draft women. So, no women wanted this. And then one of the other problems that we face in the feminist angle on this is that there's a whole segment of people who are against drafting women. In fact, you can check them out under the hashtag don't draft our daughters. Please go ahead and tweet back feminism at them. They need a little lesson for sure, a teach-in on Twitter. These are people who don't want to draft women because they feel women are inferior to men. Obviously, we do not share that view. We feel that we shouldn't draft women because it's wrong for men to get drafted and why add to that wrongness. So, we have to be very clear that it's not an achievement for women to be drafted into the military. There's no achievement there. It's a setback for any gender to have to go through that situation. We also have to remember that in terms of the commission's report and in terms of their bill to Congress, this issues definition of feminism. And the stance they're taking is that it is an advancement for women to be drafted into the military. You have to remember this stance is actually being defined by organizations that are historically patriarchal, historically sexist, and that it is not being defined by us. In fact, anti-war feminists, including this group, a feminist of all gender, genders has been very clear that abolishing the draft is a feminist achievement. It is in alignment with feminist principles. It benefits women, it benefits the world, and it benefits people of all genders. So, just please remember that. I want to share with you a quote from the commission's report that we felt was particularly noteworthy to share. And this is a direct quote that women register and perhaps be called up in the event of a draft is a necessary prerequisite for their achieving equality as citizens, as it has been for other groups historically discriminated against in American history. This is on page 118 of the commission's report. And have you ever heard anything more offensive? Personally, that is just like a slap in the face to me and I don't take slaps in the basis of anti-war feminism on the non-violent stance or the women's stance. So, this is what their viewpoint is, that this is how we're going to achieve equal citizenship, is by being drafted into the military. Now, there's a historic precedence for this. There's contemporary precedence for this. This is the bogus line that was offered to black people, that proved faults, that proved that no matter how much equality they gained in either advancement in the military or in being conscripted, it didn't equate to social equality. That's why we had to have an entire civil rights movement. That's why we still have to have a Black Lives Matter movement. That's why we still are dealing with racial justice issues to this day. It is the line that has been offered to wave after wave of immigrants, including current migrants who are finding themselves having served in the US military being deported. This offensive idea that being conscripted against our will into the military is how we women are going to achieve equality, it is offensive and we need to call it that. So, I just want to close by reminding us all that this issue is not just an issue for women. It's an issue along racial justice lines, class justice lines, that again and again, the military has tried to expand the draft to different groups or tried to make people serve. In fact, Edward told me the other day that the largest draft resistance court trial in history was of interned Japanese citizens during World War II who are told you can get out of internment by being drafted into the US military to fight the Japanese. Like them, many of us probably found that a rather offensive way to resolve that gross violation of justice that was going on. So, you know, please remember that you can be bold as an anti-war feminist of any gender. You can say this is not the route to achieving equality for anyone, let alone equality for women and that those of us who are feminists have been very clear. We told the commission and we're telling you that what we want to see is an expression of feminism, particularly anti-war feminism, is the abolishment of the draft. Okay, so thank you. I'm going to conclude for this moment and hand it over to my colleague, Keras, to speak about her perspective on the draft as a draft age young woman. Hello, so again, my name is Keras and I'm with honor piece and as a draft age person, I think that it is a horrific thought that myself, my siblings, my peers could be drafted and forced into military service for in the service of wars that we have not been able to. We've not been in the legislative halls saying, oh, we want this to happen. We, most of us, not been alive at the times that these wars were started. And for myself as I look forward and think about the world that I want to see in the future, a world that is more equitable, more just, more peaceful for everyone, there's no way that I can think of that expanding the draft lens to creating that kind of future. And on the contrary, expanding the draft just continues to enable the kinds of endless wars and the kind of outrageous military spending that we have been seeing our entire lives. And we as young people need to stand up and say no to this and resist the expansion and call for the abolition of the draft because we are the ones who will be the most impacted not only now but in the future as we will be the ones inheriting the destruction that these wars have caused. So that is why this issue of abolishing the draft matters to me. And I hope that we can join together and work towards a better future without forced military conscription and without wars and violence. Arianna, would you like to speak now? Hi everyone, my name is Arianna. And so I've been working on spraying the message of military involvement with youth for two years now since my senior year of high school when I got involved with truth and recruitment. And then I was focused on spraying awareness of military presence in high schools. And almost every week there would be recruits in the middle of my campus at lunchtime talking to students and even coming in the classrooms which disrupted learning time. And I talked to my principal about limiting their time there but he was not receptive. And recruits would also only visit vocational classes like auto so they're specifically targeting kids who they thought weren't going to college which really frustrated me. It was also challenging because other students at my school either didn't see anything wrong with the recruiters or they're too focused on other things to notice that it was a problem. And while I was unable to limit their presence on my campus it got me interested in how the military attempts to get ahold of youth and I turned my attention to the Selective Service. And in April of last year I traveled with Kate Connell the director of Truth and Recruitment and my younger brother to Washington DC for the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service hearings on the Selective Service. My brother and I were the only draft age individuals present and we gave testimony both days of the hearings to make sure that our voice was represented. And I'm here to say that women will not accept the draft if they extend it to us. We will resist and I think the draft is unjust because it limits individual freedoms and promises lifelong punishments if you do not register. Young men should not be denied federal aid or a driver's license because they object to war and I can guarantee that if women have to register for Selective Service we would pay back. During the hearing I listened to panelists make remarks that I thought were blatantly untrue and sexist and I gave testimony buking them. Panelists the Selective Service director Don Benton remarked that registering for Selective Service was a right of passage that young men are excited to do. A right of passage is voting for the first time or getting your driver's license. A right of passage does not promise punishments if you don't do it. The Selective Service is not in young people's minds most don't know exists and are even less aware of the consequences it brings if you do resist so is in no way a right of passage. Another panelist Dr. Mark Cochinger who is against extended draft to women point out his granddaughters in the audience and told commissioners that he didn't want to see his granddaughters risk their lives in a war against their will. Then when I spoke I point out how hypocritical it was for him to be concerned about his granddaughters but not his or someone else's grandsons. My little brother was with me at the hearing and I don't want him to lose his life in a war who is forced to fight. It is not just for anyone of any gender to be drafted against their will. Extended draft to women is not a feminist act. A limited draft altogether is. It pronounced justice and equality because low income student won't be forced to register just to go to college and young men won't feel that their lives are valued any less than young women. If the drafts extend to women and I'm told I must register I will not. I'd rather face the consequences than violate my moral values. I can assure you that countless other young women will do the same. And in my opinion the best way to support youth in this fight is to talk to the young people in your life about the Selective Service and see what they think and know about it. I think that for many young adults they aren't aware of the Selective Service or of the consequences that resisting it will bring so they don't say a reason to object. We need to start conversations with draftage youth about what needs to register for Selective Service and how to prove that you're a conscientious objecter. Thank you. Bill would you like to go next? Sure. Okay well my name is Bill Galvan. I work at the Center on Consciousness and War in Washington DC. We were founded back in 1940 to support conscientious objectors to war because of how badly they were treated in World War I. I went before a draft board and I was just you know a conscientious objector is somebody who under U.S. law their participation in war based on their moral ethical or religious beliefs. And if you apply and are recognized by Selective Service as a conscientious objector then you would do alternative service rather than go into the military and fight. And I was a conscientious objector. I applied. I actually went face to face with the draft board of people who were hostile. They did not really believe me. They really gave me a hard time without my beliefs. My objection was based on my Christian beliefs. They quoted Bible verses that mean that they thought justified war. And they asked me what if we turn you down and we draft you. And I thought well and I said well I know I can't go in the area. So I guess that means I'll go to jail. And as a 20 year old kid I was terrified of that. And I know in the depth of my being that is wrong for a government or for anybody to force that kind of a decision on somebody who is having to deal with the government. So that's why I've spent my whole life working for justice and peace and in support of people with conscience. There has been objection to war as long as there's been war. And there's been resistance to conscription as long as there's been conscription. In the U.S. it goes back to colonial times. And even George Washington had to deal with conscientious objectors that were in his army. But during World War I that was a very bleak period of our history. I urge you to learn more about it. Senator unconscious war has information on our webpage. But there were thousands of objectors to the war in World War I. They ended up in many of them ended up in jail. Hundreds of them received sentences in excess of 20 years. We know of at least 30 of them that died from abuse of treatment. That included torture. They actually used waterboarding and early version of waterboarding on conscientious objectors who said because of my values I'm not going to kill people. Now things got better by the time of World War II when our organization was founded and there was a nonviolent alternative of a civilian alternative service. And a lot of the folks who did the alternative service did good things. But there were still thousands of people who refused to cooperate entirely ended up in the federal prison system. They integrated the federal prison system just by their refusal to abide by the segregation rules. They organized hunger strikes, work strikes. I mean prison officials really thought they were paining the butt to have these folks in the prison. But this is what the life of resistance caused them to live. And then after that war both the conscientious objectors and these three sisters, they formed the foundation of the civil rights movement, the peace movement during Vietnam, the environmental movement, many movements for progress in this country. In fact one of those conscientious objectors taught Martin Luther King about the power of nonviolence. He was one of the folks who resisted and went to jail. So there's a long legacy there. Now by the time that I came along, the Vietnam era, a lot of folks know about Vietnam more resistance. And some of the more visible signs of the times was draft card burning. When you have an active draft you have a lot of additional regulations, not just register or don't register, but all sorts of other things you have to follow. And one of them at the time was that men had to maintain a draft card in their possession. So actually burning a draft card became a public symbol of resistance to the draft and there were lots of folks who did that. There were also rallies where they would gather up draft cards and mail them into the Department of Justice or the sector of service system as a matter of public witness there. There were all sorts of other regulations. For example the draft sector service had to maintain a file on everybody and the regulations said that they had to keep. Like if I sent in a paper I did on Gandhi in college that was reliable, if I see okay claim, they had to keep that. And so people started doing things like sending dead fish into the sector of service system so the draft boards had to keep these dead fish in their files. So the resistance took many different forms. The most common form by the way was simply not registered. But there were also more public witnesses against the draft, like the draft board raids. One of the most famous of them was in Catonsville where they went into the middle of the day, they took files out of people who were about to be drafted, dumped them onto the parking lot and burned them using homemade napalm. And napalm, in that picture you just saw that little girl running, that was one of the most famous images of the Vietnam period. It was a horrible weapon that the United States was using on the people of Vietnam. And so when they burned the files of Catonsville they used napalm. And they actually, Dan Berrigan, one of the defendants at the trial, he began his testimony by saying, forgive us dear friends, for rupturing good order, for burning paper instead of people. And this was one of the actions that inspired many actions around the country. And one of the most significant was in Catonsville where there was a draft board break in the middle of the night where files were being destroyed, a total of 28 people were indicted. They defended themselves, they basically put the war on trial. They said, you know, they said, yeah, we did it. And we intended to do it. But it's not a crime because of the war and they put the war on trial. They were facing pretty serious punishment up to 47 years if they were convicted. And they were found not guilty. And one of the defendants, the New York Times, in reporting on their acquittal, quoted one of the jurors and she said, this is a direct quote, we wanted to join the defendants in taking a stand against the war. So I think this is what we have to understand is that the draft, you know, is very much an implement of creating war. And if we're about, you know, a more peaceful world that's not so obsessed with militarism, now we need to stand fairly against conscription. And of course, one of the most famous draft resistors and conscientious objectors of that period of all theories probably was Muhammad Ali, who clearly qualified as a conscientious objector under the law. But selective service officials at the top in Washington said, we can't let this guy get conscientious objector status. He ultimately won the court. But that was part of what was going on. I want to quickly address two common liberal myths that are used to sometimes support a draft. One is they say that the draft will be an equalizer. Right now we have a poverty draft. Only poor folks are going to the military. Well, look at who's on the front lines in Vietnam. It was poor folks. And everybody knows about, we've heard the stories about Cheney and Trump and, you know, and all the various things that people use to get out of the draft. Draft bias nature can't be fair. It will always put disadvantage and poor people on the front lines. So that's just wrong. The other thing is this notion that somehow a draft will somehow stop or prevent war. We've heard this a lot, you know, they say, well, if people know that their kids might get drafted and go into war, they're going to be more opposition to war and we're not going to have war. Well, we had an act of draft in this country from 1940 to 1973, except for one year in 1947. And it did not stop any wars during that period. And in fact, the only reason the Vietnam War was able to continue once the majority of people were opposed to it was because there was this law that said to people like me, you better go or you're going to go to jail. And I want to point out to folks that although they stopped drafting people in 1973, the war continued to 1975. So the draft didn't end the war. And in fact, the last people, the last year they drafted people, they actually granted more people conscientious objector status than they drafted. So I'm going to turn this over to Ed now. Sorry, I went too long. Well, you know, I came of age after the Vietnam War, as Bill was explaining, the draft was put into deep standby. They stopped even trying to register people and many people thought it was gone for good, but it's still lingered like the undead. But I came of age during that period when I didn't really think about the possibility that there was going to be a draft. And in some ways that's, I think, like the situation that young women face now or may face, who've grown up not really thinking about, well, what would I do if they ordered me into the military to pick up a gun and kill or be killed or, you know, threatened me with punishment if I didn't? That's what I went through. And then in 1980, as a political stunt, trying to prove that he was enough of a warmonger to get elected or to get reelected, Jimmy Carter proposed bringing back the draft registration and I had to decide, okay, all of a sudden, what do I do? You know, I came to that at that time as a youth activist. Later came to more of a pacifist position and was exposed through my comrades in the draft resistance movement, both through an education in feminism and to an education in queer consciousness. There's a very long strong tradition of queer draft resistors and a whole analysis around that and gay people are among the people who've been promised, well, if you fight, then we'll give you equal rights and see how that's worked out, not. But, you know, I probably, you know, as a college educated white articulate person, I probably could have pitched my arguments in a way that, you know, I might have qualified as a conscientious objector, but most people can't, not only because you have to frame your arguments just so, but only some people qualify. You know, if you believe that there's some good wars and some bad wars but that the choice is for you to make, which is, you know, like, it's what a lot of people call just war theory, that doesn't qualify as a conscientious objector, right. But I was more interested in stopping the draft than in, you know, trying to find some personal path through it. I spoke out about my refusal to register and, you know, the government had done this as a political stunt. They were completely unprepared and they were, you know, the government expects when it gives orders that people will obey. But a fundamental Gandian lesson is that actually the ability of the government to do anything depends on people being willing to carry out those orders and that was manifest. I mean, they had an initial registration week where everybody born in 1960 was supposed to get out of the post offices and the next week everybody born in 1961. And, you know, the first four million people in those two weeks who were supposed to show up a million didn't. And then the government said, what do we do now? They had never planned for how they would actually enforce this and for the fact that there'd been a change in consciousness after Vietnam and Watergate. Ultimately what they decided to do because they couldn't think of anything else to do was, well, we'll throw the book at a few people and make examples of them and maybe this will scare everybody. And I was one of 20 people out of that million who were picked out as the most vocal non-registerance and prosecuted and I ended up going for a few months to prison. But it was well worthwhile because the show trials actually called more attention to the resistance and it made people more aware that there was safety in numbers, that only the people who spoke out publicly could be prosecuted and the registration rate plummeted. And within a few years, the Department of Justice told the Selective Service System, look, this isn't working. It's a waste of time. We're not going to investigate or prosecute any of these cases. So then we've been left with this peculiar sort of stalemate where for 30 years, every year the Selective Service System sends 100,000 names of non-registerance to the Department of Justice and the Department of Justice sends them to the circular file. There's, nobody's been prosecuted and they know that a draft wouldn't actually be possible but on the other hand there's been no face-saving way for the government to end the draft without admitting failure and powering young people and older people to more resistance, making us recognize our power. And, you know, one of my mentors in draft resistance and in non-violence generally, Dave Dellinger, who had refused to register for the draft during World War II and went to prison, one of his, he came to my trial in Boston in 1982, was very supportive. One of his books about the power of non-violence is called More Power Than We Know. And it's really about this fundamental lesson. And if there is a lesson that I would draw and pass on to the next generation from my own experience is that those of us who were faced with the draft, we're not, we're not victims. We had more power than we knew if we chose to use it. And I think one of the most interesting things about what's happened over the last 40 years is that non-compliance has continued. You know, relatively few people register unless they have to to get a driver's license in some states or to get student loans. Everybody's, men are supposed to tell the selective service every time they move until they turn 26 and almost nobody does. And in fact, the former director of selective service who set up the current system, who was in charge of it in 1980, came out of retirement to testify to the National Commission last year that the program is a failure, that the database is so inaccurate that it would be worth and useless and that it's time to give up and end the registration program. But that red, that non-compliance has been sustained. Not because there's been any anti-draft movement. There's no, you know, organized vocal thing. People are doing this out of their own spirit, totally spontaneously. That's the strength of it. But on the other hand, getting a little ahead of myself, that's why it's so important to speak out. Because in the absence of a visible organized movement, this spontaneous grassroots phenomenon has been easy to ignore. And the commission really diluted itself to the point where they came out with 400 pages of report and recommendations last month, after studying this for three years, that included no estimates of current or projected compliance or non-compliance of how many women would refuse if they were ordered to show up and no enforcement plan or budget at all. And this is the Achilles heel, is the fact that some women will say no if they try to expand it, that most men already say no. But the system that for men is already a failure and would be a failure for women, that's what I think we need to make visible. And for us, as as older people who want to be allies to youth, our task is to help make visible the sentiments of folks like Keras and Arianna and millions of other women who we know would say no if they were actually ordered into the military, we need to make that visible to the country as a whole. And finally, I would say this in terms of the lessons here, part of that power lies in the power to create our own possibilities. We were told, sign up or go to prison. You know, and I went to prison in a handful of others did, but for the vast majority of people created their own option by saying no. You have the power to create your own possibilities, your own choices, and this is a profound lesson for all of us in all of the phases of our lives. So where do we go from here? Keras, take it away. Thank you, Edward. I'm so glad that we could hear from both Edward and Bill on some historic examples of draft resistance, and we can be inspired and think about what can we do now as we look at resisting the draft as it currently stands and resisting any expansion. So as we think about what are some steps that we can take, as Arianna mentioned in the chat, one of the biggest things that is really important right now is making sure that young people are aware of what's going on. Personally, whenever I was talking to my friends about the fact that I was speaking to my almost everyone I talked to was like, what is that, what do you mean draft? Like what are you talking about? No one, a lot of people in our generation don't know that the draft is still a thing because we haven't seen it in our time. So talking to your peers if you are a draft age young person and making, educating each other, helping get ourselves aware of what the draft has looked like in the past, what is happening now, and what we can do in the future is so important. So spreading the word is a big, big thing for us. A couple ways that you can start to do that as well. You can share the recording of this webinar which will be posted on CodePinx YouTube and there'll be a link sent out to participants afterwards. We're also suggesting you can use hashtags like hashtag hell no, hashtag I object, hashtag abolish the draft, no draft resist and I will resist for social media. It's just really again getting the word out there and getting people talking about this so that everyone can see what we have to say and really hear our voices on this topic. Another thing you can do is sign the petition asking Congress to pass HR 5492 which would call for the draft to be abolished and you can sign that petition by going to worldbeyondwar.org slash repeal. Another thing that you can do is you can advocate with your representatives and a good way to get started on that is by participating in an advocacy training. Those are being offered by the Friends Committee on National Legislation, FCNL, every other Tuesday right now so I believe the next one is happening on June 2nd so if you'd like to sign up for that you can also visit FCNL's website and get involved that way and then whenever we think about connecting past resistant strategies to the present as the draft is not yet abolished for young men and as we face the possibility that it could be expanded remember that we have options and we can create our own options as Edward said so resistance through non-registration is still an option registering just before you turn 26 rendering their ability to draft you essentially useless as well as again not updating your address if they don't know where you are again they can't draft us so another way to resist is through declaring that you would like to file as a conscientious objector and starting to build your record so Rivera if you'd like to speak a little about building a conscientious objector piece resume. Sure thank you Karis and thank you for articulating all those many strategies for resisting some that we borrow from historical times as possibilities for our present times I want to just point out to everyone who's listening that this is an intergenerational campaign and that is one of our strong suits we are very honored as people on a whole spectrum of ages to be standing in solidarity with one another to have the historic historicity the historic struggles to draw upon and also to honor the fact that the very reason we the select the director of the selective service could come out of retirement and say this is unenforceable was because of people like Bill and Edward making it unenforceable they back up our claims that millions of young women will just say no to this and they won't register they won't comply and so you know think about the power of this moment together that our older generations have put us in this great position and that we can it's really important to speak up right now congress members are sitting on the fence they don't want to take a stand they're not sure which way to go and they would need to hear from you that to counter what the commission says is the truth so go flood their inboxes organize all your young friends to flood their inboxes uh that's a very important way of breaking the lies that the commission have has put forward that were based on uh rigged testimonies basically as Ariana said so clearly there weren't enough young people speaking to that that commission but uh i do want to mention that in addition to the other strategies we've articulated declaring your intent to file as a conscientious subjector and building your track record of being involved in the peace movement opposing the draft being part of organizations like Code Pink will be on war any of the people on the call today is an excellent way of starting to build your track record and the track record of the young people you love to show that if they ever used a draft you would be ready to say no i'm not going to go that you could actually flood the system and bog it down with more co's and they could possibly imagine so that is a practical legal intangible way that people can resist and we're organizing programs with Code Pink and other peace organizations to help young people build that kind of peace resume that give them merit badges even for being involved in protests signing petitions going to a peace team training things like that so this is emerging right now uh lastly i just really want to articulate that the the strategies that we have from our our young people and our older generations these are emergent and they're always having more coming forward so there's room in this movement for your ideas there's room in this movement for creativity there's room in this movement for you and for all the young people you know so please do be in touch with us get a hold of us you can you know put your your your name in the chat box if you're like me i want to help with this and we'll follow up with you we do have your emails from signing up for the webinar so you will be hearing from us about what's next i want to thank you all for listening and you know i don't know if we have a time for one or two questions that we maybe really should cover but haven't yet maria what do you think about that uh well um i think uh the one i just answered in the q and a is kind of complicated that bill might want to address why would we not consider selective service fair and equal if there are provisions for conscientious objectors to perform alternative service well basic okay um but to qualify as a conscientious object you have to submit a written application you have to go before a draft board and they ask you all sorts of questions there it's very heavily weighted in favor of people who are articulate and well educated and and probably being religious and having some kind of religious or spiritual foundation also makes it easier even though it's not supposed to um so right there is is a bias and i mean we work with conscientious objectors even now you know most folks don't realize this but once you enlist in the military if you become a conscientious objector you can be discharged and that's a big part of our work right now and some of the folks really need a lot of help figuring out how to and to be honest i'll challenge everybody on this call sit down and write a statement of what you believe it's not easy okay so so right there you know it makes and and and the reality is i mean well i didn't tell my whole story my draft board turned me down and in the end i lucked out with a lot of ring numbers so i wasn't faced with possibly going to jail but if you figure somebody like me who was at the time planned to be a minister and had the support of my church and my mother and and all sorts of people and if they're going to turn people like me down you know there's all sorts of legitimate folks who just get their claims denied well i can just join in oh go ahead edvard this this was actually a question that the national commission asked me when i was a witness before them you know and i think uh in it in a slightly different form but ordering young people to do what the government defines as service mistakenly assumes that old people know how to run the world and that what young people need to do is follow what old people tell them to do it is us old people who have created a world menaced by nuclear weapons menaced by climate change if there is a future for this world it does not lie in more young people following the wrong path that's been set for them it lies in young people doing what they've always done and finding new paths forward and old people doing what they haven't done in the past as agists and being willing to take leadership from youth well said yeah i just want to add the feminist the anti-war feminist perspective on that is that even the system of giving alternative service to co's is accepting the paradigm in which our labor no matter what body you stand in is available for conscription involuntary service of servitude let's say this is an issue that we have covered with the civil war this is the issue we covered when we abolish slavery this is the issue we covered when we abolished the idea that women would be property um and it's really not acceptable to accept that paradigm even to begin with our bodies as women as young people are not a bank account of labor for the u.s government or the u.s military and it is time to say that loud and clear to be extremely clear about this so uh i just want to let you know that that's my view on it caris and ariana are there any last thoughts that you might want to share i'd just like to say thank you to um everyone's perspectives and i it's just like an incredibly important issue and i don't think enough people my age are aware of it so i don't know thanks yeah thanks caris go ahead think all three of you have spoken beautifully on this um issue and i completely agree i think that any form of involuntary conscription is unjust and as ariana pointed out as well again that um any kind of registering is still a a tacit acceptance of that reality as right and decent and that's not that's not good enough hi it's kate again can i just quickly say um thank you to everybody and i did want to say that i talked to a person at friends committee on national legislation today because we are going to be meeting with our representative who's actually a co-sponsor of the bill to uh expand the military to women unfortunately and one of her suggestions because it's always important to have an ask was to possibly um you know since he's on opposing he he is a leader in in wanting to expand the draft uh registration to women that he could at least be available for like a listening session um a sort of town hall situation where youth and possibly their families would speak about their experience as well as something that i think edward suggested that he also have hearings um on the bill to eliminate the selective service as well as the bill that he's co-sponsoring our representative salud carbohal who is a military veteran as part of the group sponsoring the bill to expand it but i thought that was an interesting suggestion as a first step um you know he may not want to say oh i'm against the bill i'm sponsoring but he he should be available to listen and i was just thinking because someone asked how is how are how do the youths on this call suggest spreading the word and and that was that was one thing i thought relevant maria is there any other question you feel we should expand uh explore and an extra 15 minutes on this call we are at the top of the hour and it might be time to wrap up but uh maybe that question of ariana and karis if you wanted to weigh in on you've been very clear throughout this whole presentation about how to uh talk to youth about it so anything else you want people to think about in terms of this issue and and working on it um i think again just remembering that as like as we kind of said um this is an issue that's being mostly decided in the congress by the people whose bodies and lives and futures won't really be affected by it in the way that hours will and so it is for us to take sort of take control of the narrative right now and say no this is not the future or the present that we want and i think that does start with becoming aware of the past the past aspects of this issues what's currently going on and what what kind of future we could be looking at if the draft is not abolished and alternatively if it is how much more um beautiful and equitable and peaceful could our world be without the um sort of oppressive hand of the military industrial complex over us uh yeah i agree i was really really shocked to be at those hearings and to look around realize that my brother and i were the only draft age youth there and no one on the panel no none of the speakers were able to be drafted it was only yes and so i think um it's not that young people don't care about the draft i think that they've just accepted it like that's just the way it is and i think we just need to spread the word that it doesn't have to be like that and we can it's not the selective service isn't necessary and we can end it uh i just want to chime in and remind us all that the draft although it affects young people's uh immediately and directly all of us who love young people right all of us this is our issue too right so we're in having an intergenerational campaign uh like this we're really taking responsibility for our love for one another for the fact that we are all tied in that mutual government of destiny that um dr king spoke so eloquently about that we don't want to see our young people that we are connected to as friends as family members go to war either we never did not in world war one not in vietnam not in the 1980s and that we are all willing to stand up together to say no it's time to end this and to say to the military industrial complex and the militarism of this country that it is time it's enough enough is enough we are going to set a clear and defined limit in this regard and say that is too much you know you have too much money too much manpower and we are not going to give you unlimited women power either in fact we're going to withdraw your manpower through the draft because of this so i just want to take a minute to give a shout out to code pink for hosting this webinar uh if you are looking for ways for young people particularly young women to start to build their track record for peace um code pink does amazing work and every single thing code pink does would be something that the u.s military would look at and be like oh yeah you're a ceo so join their campaigns against this for that war and any war join their divest from the war machine campaign work with them in the peace economy network and and effort and i could go on and on because they actually are doing quite a lot carly is there any last word you want to say to the listeners today from the code pink side of things sure i mean first i just want to say thank you so much for vera and everyone here um for hosting this webinar it's been great to hear um from a feminist perspective why we must resist the draft um so thank you and i i've dropped some links in the chat if people are interested in learning more about the work that code pink does and vera like you said building up your kind of like peace resume so you can go to code pink dot org or code pink dot org slash divest to learn more about getting involved in those campaigns so thank you so much great thank you everyone uh and we will make the recording available through code pink we will email it to all the participants who've registered for this call great thank you everyone and have a great night thank you so much thank you