DEMOCRAT calls for reinstating the DRAFT

[chefmike]

Lost Honor: Charles Rangel, the Draft, and Why Bush Should Resign


Charles Rangel is right to call for a draft. The present system is unfair. We don't really have an "all-volunteer" military. We have a recruited military and the recruiting is mostly done where it works, in other words in middle class and working class neighborhoods and from "legacy" families where someone is already in the military.

Where recruiters usually don't bother going---and often aren't even allowed to go---is to elite private high schools and colleges.

The spirit of the Vietnam-era deferments has carried into the all-volunteer era. There is a subtle unstated, unplanned but nevertheless real collusion between the upper middle class, the military and the civilian government. Everyone is happy to leave things the way they are. The upper classes aren't asked to serve. The government doesn't have to spend money on expensive ROTC programs in top schools or fight to get recruiters on anti-military campuses.

No one has done more to perpetuate the recruiting status quo than President Bush. After 9/11 he asked our military to go to war. He asked the rest of us to travel, go on vacation and shop.

Following 9/11, like most Americans, I rallied behind our president. I did this even though I had been disgusted by his dirty-tricks same campaign against John McCain in the primary elections. You see I had a very personal stake in the success of the "war on terror." My youngest son was a Marine. I desperately wanted to believe in the man who held my son's life in his hands. Even though I had worked hard for McCain's nomination after the war in Afghanistan started my response to friends who spoke against Bush was basically; "Go to hell, how dare you criticize my son's commander while my beloved boy is in harm's way?"

Bush said we were in a "global war" then sent fewer soldiers to Afghanistan than there are cops in Manhattan. He let bin Laden get away with murder and let jihad-funding Saudi Arabia off the hook. Bush called two-faced, terror-sponsoring Pakistan an "ally" and then attacked Iraq. The Commander in Chief changed his "reasons" for war from eliminating weapons of mass destruction to "building democracy." Then---by not sending enough troops to Iraq, for the post-war "reconstruction" phase---he showed himself to be one of the most incompetent war leaders in American history. And throughout Bush has never asked his own class, the most privileged Americans, to step up.

Do you remember after 9/11 how we were so ready to do whatever was asked of us? What did President Bush NOT ask?

"My fellow Americans we are at war. I am calling on every American of military-service-age to consider volunteering including those of you fortunate enough to be in our best private colleges or employed in highly paid jobs. The spirit of defending our democracy requires that Americans of all classes fairly share the sacrifice we must now make.

"The attack on us was perpetrated by fanatics financed by our dollars. Our oil consumption has funneled billions to terrorists and the so-called religious schools all over the world where a hate-filled ideology is taught. I am therefore calling on Congress to enact emergency legislation that will cut our dependence on oil in half within five years. I am asking you to accept a two dollar-per-gallon gas tax. This money will be used to finance a massive crash program to develop new energy sources and to expand our military.

"Our response to unprovoked aggression must involve every American. So I'm proud to tell you that my military-age children walked to a military recruiting office this afternoon and volunteered. We are all in this war together..."

*****

If the leaders of the Republican Party cared about our troops they would be asking President Bush to resign.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-...e_b_34663.html

[White_Male_Canada]

Lost Honor: Charles Rangel, the Draft, and Why Bush Should Resign


[b]The spirit of the Vietnam-era deferments has carried into the all-volunteer era. There is a subtle unstated, unplanned but nevertheless real collusion between the upper middle class, the military and the civilian government. Everyone is happy to leave things the way they are. The upper classes aren't asked to serve. The government doesn't have to spend money on expensive ROTC programs in top schools or fight to get recruiters on anti-military campuses.

l

Uh-yeah.so much for the 'freedom of choice' mantra the left loves to vomit.

And now,the rest of the story:

" I believe that if we are going to send our children to war...Yet the Congress that voted overwhelmingly to allow the use of force in Iraq includes only one member who has a child in the enlisted ranks of the military — just a few more have children who are officers." NY Times

The construct that calls military men and women "children" is insulting beyond belief. They're adults.


"Rangel said. "For those who say the poor fight better, I say give the rich a chance." " CNN

"Service in our nation's armed forces is no longer a common experience. A disproportionate number of the poor and members of minority groups make up the enlisted ranks of the military..." NY Times

Rangel,Pfft~ more BS from another cheap shot propagandist.

And now,the rest of,the rest of the story :

- U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population. The slight differences are that wartime U.S. military enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on average than their civilian peers.
Recruits have a higher percentage of high school graduates and representation from Southern and rural areas. No evidence indicates exploitation of racial minorities (either by race or by race-weighted ZIP code areas). Finally, the distribution of household income of recruits is noticeably higher than that of the entire youth population. ...

-By assigning each recruit the median 1999 household income for his hometown ZIP code as determined from Census 2000, the mean income for 2004 recruits was $43,122 (in 1999 dollars). For 2005 recruits, it was $43,238 (in 1999 dollars). These are increases over the mean incomes for the 1999 cohort ($41,141) and 2003 cohort ($42,822). The national median published in Census 2000 was $41,994. This indicates that, on average, the 2004 and 2005 recruit populations come from even wealthier areas than their peers who enlisted in 1999 and 2003.

-When comparing these wartime recruits (2003– 2005) to the resident population ages 18–24 (as recorded in Census 2000), areas with median household income levels between $35,000 and $79,999 were overrepresented, along with income categories between $85,000 and $94,999. (See Chart 2.) Though the mainstream media continue to portray the war in Iraq as unpopular, this evidence suggests that the United States is not sending the poor to die
for the interests of the rich. (Hert.Foundation)