Dan Scanlan wrote: > Apocryphal or not, I think "economic draft" is exactly what's going on but > with the addition of social detritus for military grunthood. ...<
right. My comment was in the style of Swift's Modest Proposal. > During the Vietnam war the Selective Service System openly referred to the > "club of induction", i.e. the use of the draft to engineer society on a local > level. Draft board members tended to be right wing businessmen, the same sort > that rule the economic draft today. < Absolutely right. A friend of mine was drafted even though he was a full-time college student -- because the draft board didn't believe that "white trash" from up-state New York didn't belong in college. (The ACLU got him off.) On the other hand, I went to the draft board asking for a 4-F (due to my bad knees) and they told me that a 4-F would hurt my career -- a big thing for UMC white folks in a rich district -- and thus to hold on to my student deferment as long as possible (so I did, until my high lottery number kicked me out of the draft). > I believe the draft ended because of the antiwar, anti draft feeling that > grew among the voters and more poignantly the increasing instances of > fragging of officers by draftees.< Right. The ending of the draft deflated the antiwar movement. > This crap won't end, I believe, until the vulnerable warrior age young > persons resolve to kill only those people who give them weapons and order > them to kill others. The Pentagon (and Obama) have already prepared to ward > off this scenario by isolating the killing effects of weapons from the > gunsels who push the pristine buttons from an air- conditioned cubicle > someplace in Nevada.< hey, he's the best president we've got. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
