Ideas, Strategies, Comments
NWTRCC Strategy Conference, October 7 - 9, 2005

The lists below are from notes and wall charts that came out of the small groups following presentations by young adults and of the organizing models.* These lists were used to narrow down some priorities at the conference and then at the Coordinating Committee meeting. Some are now part of NWTRCC objectives. Many ideas can be implemented locally.

Easier to implement:

• Web discussion board
• Blog links from NWTRCC site
• IndyMedia story in More Than A Paycheck (Steev Hise to write)
• Add list of all WTR-friendly communities to NWTRCC site
• Link on NWTRCC site to High school packet
• Create camaraderie attractive to youth
• Confront all or nothing”/wtr will change the rest of my life with ideas of diversity of witness/methods/etc.; need to focus on resistance, not just on consequences; one step at a time
• Make use of resourses like Democracy Now!, CommonDreams, Yahoo, Archive.org
• Personal telling of wtr experiences to youth (personal story approach); bring our passions to youth
• Urge locals to create websites
• Links to websites young people go to
• Use/promote listserv

STOP MAKING LISTS! (that may have been an editorial comment by a chart maker…)

• Commitment by us all to reach young people/active listening, engagement with youth
• Resist the state & system, not just military/IRS
• Use new communications to organize but still need face-to-face contact
• Youth organizing youth is important; comfort level (in joining actions) for youth in crucial; if you’re not young, help empower youth to do it themselves
• Work through Youth groups and spaces when possible
• Interrupt age-ist behavior, whether older folks to young or vice versa
• Presentations can’t be boring!
• Use music and art with young people
• Attend other youth groups/meetings and get on their agendas to brainstorm wtr strategies
• Advocate/model simple lifestyle that supports wtr
• Form links with service-oriented groups of young people, e.g. Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Food Not Bombs, etc. Connect them with our allied young people in groups like Catholic Worker
• Promote tax redirection, e.g. to Katrina survivors
• More wtr literature to mainstream” antiwar groups
• Redirect taxes to local social services serving youth or local student councils to spend on school needs they see
• Increase commitment with counter-recruitment movement; talk about WTR in the broader context of personal commitment re: war & peace, as a form of CO.
• Make Bay Area materials on organizing with young adults (?) available on our website
• Do more visible actions as a way of attracting young people
• Importance of Community:
              - as a way of attracting people and sustaining them (to respond to fear; WTR also connects to so many other issues & is counter-cultural)
              - communities built around WTR and also bringing our WTR to communities (physical and online) we belong to (parties, other social non-meeting settings)
              - seeking support from a wider community if we get in trouble with IRS
              - volunteering 25% of time as a positive, community act of WTR
• Creating a space where people are empowered to use language that connects with their social groups (translating WTR); put examples of different language on website, in newsletter, such as boycott war,” hang up on war,” etc
• Committing not to get in the way of under-represented groups as they do their own organizing and re-languaging; don’t force people to join NWTRCC but support their own forms/groups they organize

May take more steps to implement nationally:

• New WTR Video (short and long versions)
• The Big Peace and Justice WTR survey/One year Boycott (Bill Ramsey proposal)
• Hire web tech person, perhaps project-by-project
• (youth oriented) Revise literature/discussion content to do more
             - Sharing variety of changes/joys over lifespan of wtr
             - Educating about how our lives are entwined with militarism (withholding, consumerism, etc.)
             - Educating about U.S. military/social spending relative to other nations
             - Framing WTR as part of larger nonviolence lifestyle
             - Connecting WTR to police abuses of young people

• Bring WTR to classroom, connect with teachers in high schools, local colleges
• Create brochure on cell phone tax resistance, with concrete suggestions
• Create literature that describes what specific young WTR’s are doing (maybe major publicity around one young WTR)
• Hire a NWTRCC youth organizer. Establish relationships with progressive movements/groups with active youth.
• Develop youth-oriented W-4 withholding brochure
• Use revised Students and War” flyer to connect WTR with counter-recruitment movement
• Develop youth-designed/youth oriented flyers

Another list from the group that met on technology and using more of it better (seek translations from young people; some of these are mentioned elsewhere also):

• discussion board/PHP bulletin board – Steev & Peter will help with this; Ruth will talk with Tom Good who set up Hand Up On War site for us; HUOW is a good place for this
• Database of experiences (can overlap with discussion board)
• Blog or link to blogs on WTR and/or aggregator = National blog” – look at counter recruitment blog basd out of NYC; make better/more links to WTR blogs (ask Dave Gross for ideas)
• Podcasts (“audio blogs”)
• Zines
• Text/Flash Mobs
• Video/DVD on WTR plus short clips on wtr on website (Steev, Sherill, Deep Dish mentioned for various stages)
• Mailing lists – internet/online (increased use)/listserve
• Website – keep it updated; put new stuff up as fast as possible – press releases, etc
• Campaigns/Quick Response like the Move On model or sign up supporters like the Appeal to Conscience – keep these updated!
• Radio/low power FM; Democracy Now!/PSA’s
• Indymedia – teach people how to use/affiliates should use it more locally; Portland, OR, has a great Indymedia site - very lively
• Email forwarding/blasting
• Make sure the survey/1-year boycott campaign has an internet/tech component
• archive.org

*More details on the presentations by the young adults (Lincoln Rice, Alice Liu, RJ Maccani, Oliver Waters, and Sherill Crosby) will be forth coming. Various organizing models were briefly presented in another session. These included the survey/1-year boycott proposal, using technology and video more frequently and efficiently, legislative work and the Peace Tax Fund Rhode Island campaign (see www.peacetaxfund.org), linking with counter-recruitment work, strengthening community/intentional communities, efforts such as the Appeal to Conscience/sign on ads with some well known people, proposal on coordinated penny polls on tax day. The latter two did not develop into groups during this conference.