(p. 14)

The principal institutions which carry on the oppression of males are:

• the armed services
• the criminal courts, police, and prisons
• the workplace exploitation of men as workers
• the "sex industries"
• the alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical, and illegal drug industries
• the "sports industries"
• schools
• religions
• the family

There is a relationship among these institutions. All of these institutions in some way serve the functioning of the economic system by which wealth is transferred from the working majority of the population to the owning-class minority of the population. This transfer is accomplished through the use of some legal structures or custom or through long-established, undisguised greed.

(p. 15)

The owning classes of different nations compete for the "right" to exploit natural resources and markets. They often resort to military action and war to protect their "national interests." The workplace is the vehicle for creating and accumulating wealth, as the value produced by working people is largely placed in the hands of the owning-class institutions. The working-class majority of people would not agree to be exploited if not for the threats hanging over them from the criminal "justice" system. The addictive "power" of the sports, drug, and sex industries acts to keep the individual workers addicted. Schools, religions, and families are the channels and the places where the message about "what it is to be a man" is formulated and taught, and where people are trained and re-trained for participation in the system and for submission to it.

The most destructive of these institutions is the armed services. Men�s oppression makes possible a military establishment, and a military establishment makes possible massive oppression of large numbers of people by small numbers of people through war and the threat of war. While talking about the armed services as a key institution in the oppression of men, we have first to discuss, and deal with, war, the mass destruction of human lives by war, and the enormous environmental damage war involves.

The owning classes of oppressive societies have, up until now, gone to war as the result of the operation of their economic competition: war has been a process of imperial plundering. There has never been a real necessity for war. Armed human struggle has no pro-human role. It is completely wrong. Armed struggle is the most destructive phenomenon threatening intelligence, humanity, and the future of the world. There is no good war. If even one war or one armed service is tolerated, it is possible to misuse that tolerance to "justify" others, but this is a false "justification." There have been periods in human history without any wars. Wars are not a natural or necessary part of human existence.

(p. 16)

War and armed struggle impinge on men as the armed services. In the armed services themselves, men overwhelmingly are required to kill or be killed in the name of "patriotism," "honor," and "bravery," but the effects extend to all males. The expectation that to be a man is to kill or be killed is almost universal. The standard practice of raising boys to be soldiers is completely dehumanizing. Military training of men strips men of personal identity.

There is nothing noble or heroic about war, yet films and stories (with a few notable exceptions) glamorize it. The toy industries make profits out of selling replicas of weapons to boys who, when they start school, are coerced into competitive sports in preparations for the ultimate competition�war. The armed services use these lies to seduce "impressionable" young men into enlisting, in their hopes that they will thereby accomplish something meaningful or escape from poverty. After wars there is a lot of glamorizing hype about the young men who "went with songs into battle," died "with their faces to the foe," "gave their lives for their country," and so on, whereas the reality was that these men were robbed of their lives and often died in the most horrible and agonizing circumstances.

(p. 17)

The defensive role of the military (sometimes called the "defensible part") can be handled more safely and more democratically using non-violent civilian-based actions. A successful example of civilian-based defense is the occasion when France invaded the Ruhr after World War I. The German government told the citizens to not cooperate in any way with the invaders. The French pulled out after several months, humiliated that a military occupation was not sufficient to operate the regional infrastructure.

The military is a flagrant example of class oppression in action: officers act as the upper class; non-commissioned officers act as a middle class; other ranks are treated as the working class or the raised-poor (chronically on welfare) class. Non-commissioned officers do the dirty work of officers (bullying and verbally abusing the men) in return for small privileges, such as higher pay and separate messes. The men are told that thinking, and using their own initiative, are forbidden and that their role is just to "obey orders." There is blatant exploitation of fear in the training so that when ordered to attack, the men fear the military police behind them as much as they do the "enemy" in front.

Most societies refuse to recognize the disastrous effects that going to war has on men and their families. The psychological effect of preparing for war, killing other human beings, being wounded, having close friends die, and many other hurts, must not be underestimated. A survivor�s guilt, rage, self-loathing, and destructiveness tend to be acted out on himself, on his spouse, on children, and in other relationships. Many societies, unable to deal with the horrors carried by veterans returning from their war experiences (be they "victorious" or not), choose instead to glorify the heroics of soldiers and to minimize their difficulties. Such distortions, if not addressed, have a tremendous social cost, including suicide, addictions, loss of relationships, violence, and lack of productivity. Furthermore, by not addressing the problems of returning veterans, societies hide the horrors of wars, thus making it easier to attempt to "justify" future wars and war preparations.

(p. 18)

It is important that the dedicated, caring, and completely good men and women of the armed services not be confused with "the military" as an oppressive institution. Without violence or the threat of violence, soldiers would not be necessary�or possible. Clearly, it is the institution and the distress that it engenders that leads to the destructive hostilities, not the human being in uniform.

Wars for liberation may appear to be an exception. They may be called "justifiable conflicts" since liberation movements often have to begin with violent resistance to already existing armies of repression. The existing armies are committed by their reactionary programs to keep the population repressed by violence and the use of arms, behind the fa�ade of nationalism, patriotism, "anti-communism," and the other well-propagandized, long-established, and glamorized slogans. But even in "wars of liberation," the real long-term gain comes not through the armed conflict (whether "successful" or not), but through patient explanation of where the real interests of the population lie and effective organizing around these interests (winning the "hearts and minds" of people).

End war and the armed services, world-wide, for all time. Create all necessary changes in society to ensure that war and military service are ended.

(p. 19)

a) Launch a world-wide program for the complete abolition of war and the complete abolition of armed combat. Don�t wait for someone else to start it. "First person singular" not only must start it, but can.

b) Expose and organize against the institutions that support the armed services and war. Expose greed as the (barely) hidden motive behind all military activity. Expose the profiteering of the arms industry. Eliminate the arms industry. End the glamorization and valorization of war.

c) Provide real solutions for the difficulties that people put forth as the justification for armed conflict; let no rationalized justification of armed service as an institution remain unchallenged. Implement rational solutions to human conflicts. These must take into account oppression, the real nature of human beings, and the understanding that there is no inherent conflict between any two humans or any two groups of humans. Explore and publicize alternative ways of filling the defensive and civil roles up to now claimed to have been filled by the military.

d) Expose the real toll that war and military service takes on men (and women). Make public the real stories of members of the armed forces, the true experts on war, and do it most immediately to very young men. Develop comprehensive programs for all veterans of wars. Every man who has been exposed to the war system in any way needs the best help that society can offer him to recover from the atrocities he has witnessed, participated in, and endured. Encourage men (and women) into considering complete non-cooperation with armed service, and speaking out about their choice.

( more from the Re-evaluation Counseling network at the <rc.org> website )