Posted on 09/29/2004 2:34:21 PM PDT by presidio9
“There is always a possibility of the draft returning,” said activist Sam Anderson. “For Black, Latino, Native American, Asian and poor white youth, there is a powerful economic draft that forces our children into the military with promises of discounted higher education, benefits, job skills development and travelling the world. The shrinking civilian job market with sweatshop labor conditions helps create this economic draft. “Hence, the proposed draft legislation does not have to be passed to ensure a multimillion populated standing army for the protection and promotion of imperialism and white supremacy.”
As the 2004 presidential election looms, published reports state that the U.S. military will be reinstating the draft by the spring of next year.
The pending legislation, the bills known as S89 and HR163, are in the House and Senate.
Congress is now pushing the Universal National Service Act of 2003, “to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18-26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.”
The Bush administration moves silently as little or no focus is being put on this by the media, as other forms of pre-election brouhaha takes center stage.
The draft ended in 1973, when America finally pulled out of Vietnam, Selective Service was abolished in 1975, but was reinstated five years later.
Now, $28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System (SSS) budget in preparation for the military draft.
Anderson is the Education Director at The Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, and member of the Independent Commission on Public Education.
He told the Daily Challenge, “Once your child reaches 15 or 16 years-old, in 2004 and beyond, they have to sign up for Selective Service. In the No Child Left Behind, they had buried in there, that the military may pursue children who are 14 and a half to 15 years old. They can visit the house or their school, contact them by mail or e-mail. This is buried deep in the 600 pages of the law. If a parent doesn’t want this, then they must request an option out. But, what happened is that they set a date also buried deep in those pages. Some people fought it and won some relief, but you have to go to the high school and ask for an opt out. If the child does not sign up for Selective Service [later] they can be arrested and go to jail. This is not the draft, this is so that they have the names, so that if they have the draft, they can tap into it immediately.”
Folk should not take solace in party affiliation, said Anderson, “The draft could be reinstated by either party. Both the Democratic and Republican parties support the mission of the U.S. policing the world, to have world superiority. As wars evolve they will want more and more people to fight, but at the same time more and more people will oppose the wars. “As the economic draft continues, more and more people will resist. People will find other ways to make money, so the [government] will have to reinstate the draft. [Cong.] Rangel’s draft proposal that he said would be a great equalizer is wrong. The draft has never been that in this country, to have every kid of a certain age signed up; children of the ruling class always got out, or were able to get certain privileged positions. The loop holes will always be there for the children of the rich.”
This Saturday sees the third anniversary of the felling of the World Trade Center and the attacks on the Pentagon. Just after the attack, President George Bush announced that, “We are at war.” After meetings at Camp David, with something like a war cabinet, he proclaimed that the nation must prepare itself for a long battle, adding that he would be calling up 50,000 reservists.
Politicians, media talking heads and everyday people began speculating about whether or not the government would begin looking into reinstitution the draft.
Amped up by a xenophobia-inspiring media, people began enlisting any way.
At the same time, late activist Abubadika Sonny Carson – a Korean vet, told the Challenge, “If there is a draft, I will urge young Black and Latino people to resist it. This is not our war, it belongs to those people who run America. I joined the army when I was 19, because I was misled. I was in an all Black outfit and they put all the young Black men on the front-line in Korea. I became what I am to day, when the Chinese and the Koreans asked us ‘Why were you here Black man, when you can not drink water from the same fountain as others in Mississippi?’ That’s when the realization began to seep in and I began to ask myself, Why am I fighting for someone, who the least of whom, when I am back where I was born, ensures that I can not get the same treatment as the white boy in the next unit?”
Speaking in September 2001, Carson told the paper, “Black folk should ready themselves for the draft coming down. When you see those old vets trying to re-enlist, you know some of those younger Black brothers are gonna be confused enough to call themselves joining up.”
Last week, hundreds, if not thousands of vets joined the tens of thousands (some reports say half to a million) protesters marching through Manhattan as the Republican National Convention took place at Madison Square Garden.
One of the groups –Veterans for Peace stated, “We, having dutifully served our nation, do hereby affirm our greater responsibility to serve the cause of world peace. To this end we will work, with others: toward increasing public awareness of the costs of war; to restrain our government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations; to end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons; to seek justice for veterans and victims of war; to abolish war as an instrument of national policy.”
According to the Associated Press this past January, referencing their experience, Army National Guard and Army Reserve said that they were expecting to suffer the greatest percentage of losses in the U.S. military.
Antiwar.com, states that as of Sunday the ‘official’ U.S. body count is 985 (almost 7,000 wounded); and between 4-6,000 Iraqi soldiers killed.
While Aljazeera has reported that field studies conducted between March and October 2003, puts the Iraqi civilian death toll at 37,000 (an average rate of 5,285 per month – as many as 84,565 civilian fatalities to date?); infoshout.com put’s the total U.S. and Iraqi military losses at 68,000 deaths; and a commentator on Congress.org proclaimed that the war has cost “$130,000,000,000 - It’s amazing how productive Bush’s war has been—only $2 million per death! Over 20 times the 9/11 death toll – against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.”
On Monday, a huge car bomb on the outskirts of Fallujah killed another seven U.S. Marines. Iraq Body Count (IBC), a volunteer group of British and US academics and researchers, estimate that over 10,000 Iraqi civilians have died in the conflict.
Observers state that traditional draft dodging options of going to college or going across the Northern border have been closed; especially with Canada signing the ‘smart border declaration;’ and new students now only able to postpone joining up until the end of their current semester or seniors at the end of their academic year.
Meanwhile, some military personnel have been quoted as objecting to a whole host of probably reluctant conscripts using up time, finances and resources and experience to have themselves trained, at the behest of this government.
Opponents to the draft in the real world and on websites such as snopes.com, are calling on folk to demand that their elected representatives take a stand on this issue, and at least inform their constituents about what is being planned.
As Anderson and a planning committee prepare to hold a public meeting on September 14 at Manhattan’s Brecht Forum, to discuss the next year’s proposed People’s Convention. he told the Daily Challenge that people said “should be in opposition to the draft and all the wars that the U.S. will fight.”
All of them, the Challenge asked. “Yes,” replied the educator, “as long as this country is a capitalist one, all wars will not be fought in our interest. We must educate ourselves be very aware of the potential reinstatement of the draft, but we must also be aware that there is also already an economic draft that has the youth signing up to fight these imperialistic wars presently, and with more to come. It is not a conspiracy, it is institutional.
"It is structured into U.S. society: with jobs for our young people few and far between; with the outsourcing of U.S. jobs; and young people not having the educational experience needed for certain jobs; these youth don’t want to go to jail or hang out on the street which they see as the options; so they see the military as income, or as getting further on in education."
Since Vietnam the government has played up joining the military to advance their education. But, statistics show that less than 10 % go on to get their degrees. “If a child goes into the military at18 and wants to major in biology in college at the same time, they can’t go full time. So, they do one or two classes, and so what we see is a child who has 24 to 30 credits, they are a quarter way there; and then they get transferred to another part of the world; then they have to wait and start again; or wait until they come back. This constant breaking into their educational course is devastating. But, it is systematic. It doesn’t pay for the rulers of this country to have a military that has an educated rank and file, because then they might question orders, and what they want are grunts.”
No mention that the bill was proposed and only sponsored by Democrats, and that it has sat dead in committee for a year and a half.
God Bless Pat!
Why do I hear Randy Newman music in the background?
Think 'Rednecks' people. It's really sad to see blacks doing this and spreading this kind of fear-mongering.
I guess we had the Civil War so the field supervisors whipping the workers could be black. That is not progress.
Color me disgusted with Pacific New Service and 'Challenge Newspapers'
This is like the vampire that you keep killing and it keeps coming back to life.
I've always wondered about Charlie Rangel.
On my libertarian side, I view the military draft and so-called "national service" as involuntary servitude, and should be turned to strictly as a measure of last resort. (As in post-nuclear exchange last resort.)
However, my American nationalist side sees the measure as an opportunity to instill civic values in our youth. If that's the way to go, then I say it should be a system where suffrage is granted only after a period of military or civic service, a la Heinlein's novel "Starship Troopers". (The BOOK, not the overblown Paul Verhoven film.)
Huh -- after a nuclear exchange, there isn't much to be left to fight for.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1230294/posts
CBS Does It Again: Network Uses Phony Documents to Promote Draft Conspiracy (Updated)
RatherBiased.com ^ | September 29, 2004
Posted on 09/29/2004 9:20:02 AM CDT by RatherBiased.com
"For Black, Latino, Native American, Asian and poor white youth, there is a powerful economic draft that forces our children into the military with promises of discounted higher education, benefits, job skills development and travelling the world."
Gee, I don't fall into any of those ethno-economic groups but that's what I thought and was looking for when I VOLUNTARILY joined...
Their becoming more and more desperate...
My take is that the Dems have this quandary. A quagmire of options, you might say. If they win, nobody is going to want to be in the military but finishing the war in Iraq is going to be just as popular as it is now and there will immediately arise any number of other military challenges, just because wussies have taken over and real men will know this and put it to them.
This means the Dems will have to have the draft reinstated, should they win unless they want to have the US taken over in fact (I suspect they aren't quite that interested in handing power over, even to the UN).
However, if the Repubs win, then confidence in the military policy will remain, enlistments will continue to rise and there will be no need for a draft.
So, exactly how much kool-aid do you have to drink to buy the Dimdome line, as here parroted by compliant house-slaves, hmm?
There's so much crap in this article that I don't even know where to start. I'll be back with a couple 55 gallon drums of Liquid Plumr.
A pro-socialist screed, well done as left wing anti-American propaganda goes. As usual, a few facts are turned on their heads, mixed with the usual but tired buzzwords, and spewed out on the unsuspecting.
Um, no kidding. They generally complete their service THEN attend college p/t when they are out and have a job doing whatever they did in the military. My cousin was a helicopter mechanic in the Army. Then when he got out he worked for an outfit at the local airport on small planes while he attended college to get his degree in electrical engineering. That’s how you do it.
But then, if you have to be told how to do it you probably don’t have the initiative TO do it. Or, you could do what another relative did – join the Air Force and stay there for 20 years. By the time he got out at 39 years of age, he’d been able to complete his degree in accounting (and he was some sort of bean counter while he was in the AF).
But no, you don’t join the Navy (or whatever) intending to be a full time student.
Did I miss anything?
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "Kerry Hasn't Read a History Book"
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this dork is so full if sheit.
This is complete and total horses*!t. It's the Dummycrats in Congress pushing the draft(Rangle)not the Bush administration.
The provision in the no child left behind act is there to prevent schools from barring recruiters from campus. Recruiters won't talk to 15 or 16 year olds, it's a waste of their time. They need to make mission for the month so the concentrate on 17 and 18 year olds.
This bozo short changing every member of the military. If he had taken the time to ask us why we enlist he would have found the vast majority of us didn't do it because of education, job security or all the other crap liberals like to spew in their garbage explinations why we enlist. The majority of us especialy Marines and those in combat arms MOS's did it because we wanted a challenge and we happen to love and belive in what this country stands for.
Semper Fi
I draft all Democrats to send to Iraq. Take our armed forces home, and let the Dem's duke it out. Clintoon, Gore and Kerry on the front lines.
Read entire article at website; I have now posted this approximately 100,000 times, I think!
Draft Fears Fueled by Inaccurate E-mails
A scare story spreads electronically, but it gets facts wrong.
June 15, 2004
http://www.factcheck.org/printerFriendly.aspx?docid=200
Modified:June 15, 2004
Summary
Several FactCheck subscribers have asked about an e-mailed rumor that is causing a lot of anxiety. It claims that steps are being taken to resume military conscription next year. But the message abounds with misinformation and half-truths. And some experts say conscription is the last thing the military wants or needs, despite being stretched thin in Iraq.
Analysis
We can't say whether this one is deliberate misinformation or just sloppy reporting, but it sure is generating a lot of needless anxiety. It amounts to another "lying e-mail" of the kind we've warned about before (check the links to "related articles" at the end of this one.)
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