Charlie Rangel is reintroducing the Draft and I think it is a “good thing”. The GOP/DLC have been driveling on about National Service-Skills Draft-Democracy Corp which I think is the absolute worse thing that could happen to this country. These benign titles misunderestimate the destructive reprocussions of such plans. The truth of the matter is we would be militarizing a civilian population.
What’s wrong with that?
Well, to militarize a population in the in a stagnant economy means only one thing “a state of permanent warfare“. Just look at any African conflict in the past 60 years, most of their active warfare lasted over 20 years. Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a war for over 30 years. At the height of the famine in which thousands of Ethiopians starved to death, Ethiopia was still bombing Eritrea at a cost of one million dollars a day.
Why, didn’t the people revolt… because the majority of the population was dependant on the military for their livelihood directly or indirectly. Their entire economies are fed by militarizarion. Solidiers were paid more when fighting than in reserves therefore, there was little economic incentive to stop this war.
The only winners of the “Skills Draft”/”Democracy Corp” will be the military industries who will have a militarized the US economy for years to come.
LET’S HAVE THE DRAFT make it as ugly and dirty as possible and get it over with as soon as possible.
Other wise we will have a situation where Jenna, Barbara and Chelsea end up in typing pools in Malibu and all the African American kids end up on the front line in Faluja.
This War Without End (WWE) reminds me of the Star Trek (original series) where a war lasted hundreds of years because the leadership had sterilised it so that people would be killed by going to their own death chambers. No blood, not guts all quite “peaceful” and clean…. but never ending
WASHINGTON – Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel is again pushing a bill to reinstate the military draft.
Rangel, an anti-war Democrat, offered the same measure last year, only to vote against it when Republicans brought the bill quickly to the floor of the House without holding the debate on it that he had wanted.
GOP leaders were upset over growing buzz on the Internet that the Bush administration might begin drafting American citizens if Bush won reelection.
They blamed Democrats for fueling the speculation in a cynical attempt to win voters to their candidate, John Kerry.
Rangel said he is again calling for a draft because military recruitment is falling short.
“Everyone knows that we went into this war with an insufficient number of troops, but the problem now is filling the ranks of those units that are already on the ground,” said Rangel.
The veteran lawmaker has railed against Bush’s handling of the Iraq war and called for the removal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
He also says the burdens of the war disproportionately have fallen on the poor and minorities.
