“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

Living in a country experiencing continual phases of war requiring troops for occupation to active combat phase does not leave much space for a visible peace movement. Contemporary public protests often seem to have significant representation of agent provocateurs. So how does a movement progress by individual actions rippling forward.

My protection from military recruiters was an elementary music teacher who taught me to play the guitar. By high school having fashionable long fingernails was more important than continuing with a string instrument. However, those first two songs I learned kept playing in my head whenever the career counselor arranged mandatory meetings to listen to the marketing pitch explaining the easiest path to higher education for the daughter of a mill worker and waitress.

[video:https://youtu.be/p3ly8cyWvkw?t=36]

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxWTDcP9Y5E]

Passive resistance works. For several years I provided career opportunities for young men and women as an alternative to military service. There are ways to participate in promoting peace without marching. Ideas? or Examples or previous actions?

Recruitment of new individuals keeps dropping.

Military services enlisted fewer but better qualified recruits at outset of coronavirus pandemic in 2020, study finds Stars & Stripes Jan 18, 2022

Rand said it found the military services brought in about 16,000 fewer recruits in 2020 than the roughly 171,000 new troops who joined in 2019, but better-than-expected retention numbers among those with the option to leave the military allowed the services to meet their Congress-mandated force sizes at the end of 2020.
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Pentagon data shows the military services each met their recruiting goals in 2021, while they accepted almost 7,000 fewer troops into the services than in 2020.

Army had to increase signing bonuses to meet its goals per Army Times, Jan 14, 2022.

The Army, for the first time, is offering a maximum enlistment bonus of $50,000 to highly skilled recruits who join for six years, The Associated Press has learned, as the service struggles to lure soldiers into certain critical jobs amid the continuing pandemic.

China keeps steadily expanding their influence.

To the moon and back: China sets new targets in race to be No 1 space power South China Morning Post Jan 29, 2022

More lunar landings, an asteroid defence system and space debris cleanups are among major aims for China as the country steps up its ambitions to become a leading space power.

China has released the fifth white paper on its space programme, outlining key projects and technological development targets for the next five years amid a quickening race with the US.

According to the document released on Friday, China will carry out tests to validate new technologies such as smart self-management of spacecraft, space mission extension vehicle, space debris cleaning, propulsion, and in-orbit service and maintenance of spacecraft.

Many of these capabilities are also now pursued by the US and Europe.

The paper lists space debris cleaning as a business focus, a category that also includes space tourism, test services, and space biopharmaceuticals, underscoring China’s plans to speed up the participation of the private sector in outer space.

The White Paper: China's Space Program: A 2021 Perspective

What is on your mind today? (Responses to Covid questions and dialog to be conducted at The Dose diary)