Campus Antiwar Network History

So in response to Nick’s repeated nagging.. (no just kidding Nick!) I
will write this report back. please fellow canners feel free to add…

For starters, the career fair was mysteriously moved from the ground
level , first floor Hunter West to the basement… i say mysteriously
because they were quite literally breaking down tables at like 15
minutes to 1 (when the fair was supposed to start) … hmmmm…

So to kick things off Frankie stands up and loudly proclaimed why we
(20 people initially? i’m a bit off on my numbers. feel free to
correct me!) were there.
we began picketing in front of Hunter West , chanting antiwar chants
and talking to people.

In order to get into the carreer fair one had to be a hunter student
so we went down in groups of two and three. I personally went down
with Nezha and we started asking the recruiters rather impertinent
questions. “So is it true that if you’re gay you can’t join the
military?’ “why is it that one in three homeless people is a veteran
of the armed forces?” etc,

While we were down there no one spoke to the recruiters (i mean it
they like stood there by their table… nobody went up to them)  As we
were leaving we caught sight of a couple going over to talk to them. I
approached the woman her friend went up before we could talk to him.
In any case she said that she had once considered joining but wasn’t
going to.

When we came up from the depths of the recruiter- infested- basement
we were greeted by a larger gathering of protesters. People from CCNY,
Columbia, NYU, LGCC, BMCC and some other folks… oh yeah Hunter
students too of course!

The importance of this demo i think resides in a few places. First, it
was indeed successful , since to our knowledge no one was recruited.
Moreover, the only people the recruiters seem to have spoken to, was
us.
Also this was a city wide mobilization. You guys really came through famously.
 I think that this sense of CAN as a citywide group is really
significant here. It was really something to talk to people and say
yeah, people from this school and this school are here. It does away
(thankfully) with that sense of isolation a lot of us experienced over
the course of last year. Obviously this is disappearing sense of
isolation is in great part due to Berkely but…

oh and on a great note.. our Hunter CAN meeting today was attended by
4 new people (one of which i know for sure we met at the protest and
joined us in picketing) who are all tabling next week. yes ! four new
members.

anyway brevity being the soul of wit….

Diana, Hunter College