“They talk about conscription as a democratic institution. Yes; so is a cemetery.” -Meyer London
“Democrats have always been the worst on slavery. ” -Gregory Anthony
The “Universal National Services Act” of 2013 (H.R. 748) was proposed by Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) on February 15, 2013 and referred to the Subcommittee on Military Personnel on March 6th. The summary is as follows:
“To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 25 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or as civilian service in a Federal, State, or local government program or with a community-based agency or community-based entity, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, to provide for the registration of women under the Military Selective Service Act, and for other purposes.” Full.
But the blue team are the good guys, right “liberals”?
The most disgusting manifestation of state power is the draft. The state asserts that you do not own your body or your fate — that you must be sacrificed, if need be, for the always intangible greater good. The fact is that “war is a racket,” according to Smedley Butler, and wars do not occur unless the elites of the aggressor nation believe they have something to gain. To think, the Nuremberg Trials did nothing to delegitimize “just following orders” — your taxes enforce penalties for not killing on command.
As racist and plutocratic as they mostly were, the Founding Patriarchs recognized that standing armies are very dangerous – hundreds of thousands of brainwashed, sexually frustrated and jingoistic men just itching to go kill something. These young men (and sexually threatened women) are inevitably taught that the enemy is subhuman. They yearn for the glory of triumphant bloodshed. War is a force that gives us meaning, to borrow Chris Hedges’ phrase. By contrast, civilians require a helluva compelling reason to set down their work, leave their families and risk their lives forming a militia to defend against aggression (inevitably by a state).
When authentic threats to one’s family or community arise, people don’t sit idle. There is a rifle behind every blade of grass – networked guerilla resistance was enough to deflect and drain the then-superpower U.S. in Vietnam and Afghanistan, it can happen again if necessary. When a community faces real military occupation, conscription is unnecessary — volunteers come by the droves — just look at the Sandinistas, Zapatistas, Hamas or Hezbollah. But they’re terrorists (meaning an armed force that the OECD does not recognize as legitimate), while the Mexican army, Israeli Offense Forces and Contras defend(ed) freedom and justice for all.
This bill can only be intended to curb youth unemployment a’la the Reichsarbeitsdienst (Reich’s Labor Service) or Civilian Conservation Corps. Keeping the whippersnappers busy also serves to indoctrinate poor, ethnically-oppressed kids before they pick up any dangerous and radical books.
Since Vietnam, dismal economic opportunity for the disenfranchized working class has been sufficient to swell the ranks of the biggest welfare program ever — the armed forces. The corporation-state suppresses labor power, wages and makes capital artificially scarce via a cartelized monetary system and then offers you a great job killing brown people sitting on our natural resources.
Neocon hawks traditionally support conscription, but Democrats have been the marginally dovish party — what gives? The liberals are backing this one because they think it will induce people to do the right thing.
The term “national service” means–
(A) military service; or
(B) civilian service in a Federal, State, or local government program or with a community-based agency or community-based entity that, as determined by the President, is engaged in meeting human, educational, environmental, or public safety needs.
If you reject the legitimacy of nation-states, or that Congress can ever know what is in the “national interest,” too bad. If this bill is passed under the guise of a “New Civilian Conservation Corps” it will prove emphatically that geneticist Dr. Gerald Crabtree was correct, human intelligence is waning and nobody cares enough to read the Porcine, obscuritanist and tyrannical bills anymore.
This section should be particularly irksome to aspiring academics and graduate students:
(b) Post Secondary Students.– A person who is pursuing a standard course of study, on a full-time basis, in a university, technical school or similar institution of learning shall be entitled to have induction under this title postponed until the person–
(1) obtains a certificate or diploma;
(2) ceases to pursue satisfactorily such course of study; or
(3) attains the age of 24.
If the few neurons you’ve managed to preserve despite the TV and aspartame were sufficient to graduate college and you want to immediately enter a PhD program, too bad for you. You’ve got to drop your aspirations and either pick up a gun for peace or engage in some meekly paid community service position for two years (should you survive them with your soul intact). You were always bothered by the fact that federal financial aid came with the stipulation that you sign up for Selective Service. Now you realize how contracts work.
And if you, like RT’s Thom Hartmann, naively think conscription is a democratizing force, ask yourself two questions: Are the wealthy elite capable of shirking “duty”? Is the Israeli Offense Force democratic? Given that polls show most Israelis and Palestinians alike oppose armed conflict, perhaps something about being inducted into the military leads one to look more favorably upon mass murder. Maybe it has something to do with the atrocious, dehumanizing anti-Islam curriculum taught in the military?
You might complain about your post in the new Imperial Service Corps: Is your pay inadequate? Is your assigned position benefitting a local elite rather than those truly in need? Tired of killing women and children? Suck it up, soldier, er, “public servant” – your wages are paid in glory to the fatherland and your self-determination is subject to congressional oversight.
“Now, friends, do you suppose for one minute that this Government is big enough and strong enough and powerful enough to stop men who will not engage in the war because they don’t want the war, because they don’t believe in the war, because they are not going to fight a war for Mr. Morgan? What is the Government going to do with them? They’re going to lock them up — You haven’t prisons enough to lock up all the people.
The ruling classes fight a losing game. The Wall Street men are fighting a losing game. They represented the past and we represent the future.
The future belongs to the young men, who are barely of age and barely realizing their freedom. The future belongs to the young girls and young boys. They must be free from militarism. They must be free from the military yoke. If you want war, help yourself. Fight your own battle. We are not going to fight it for you. ”- Emma Goldman, Speeches Against Conscription
Rights come at a cost, and the practice of citizenship and civic virtue is that cost. Do you think the American public would be so oblivious to what our military does abroad if we had a system of universal conscription like the Swiss? Would it be so easy to support politicians who want wars for oil if your son or daughter could be drafted to go fight in them? The truth is that the end of the draft was a triumph for autocracy—from then on the military was no longer subject to Congress or the will of the people. The war on terror since 2001 is the product of this policy.
Your article offers no alternative to the status quo of professional armies and the steady deterioiration of civil rights. The essence of Rangel's proposal is to do away with professional armies–to make the people the military, and consequently involve the people in deciding what the military does.
I see your Swiss army and raise you an IDF, and every American engagement up to Vietnam.
Invading the Philippines is not my idea of democracy. Nor is fighting in WWI when Woodrow Wilson was elected as an anti-war candidate — six months later Americans were getting killed in Europe. I don't think a conscript army is any more democratic — if a president could be elected and do the exact opposite of the people's will.
I hinted at my ideal system: civilian militias that arise as necessary. Half the discretionary budget is just a bit too much for me.
"Would it be so easy to support politicians who want wars for oil if your son or daughter could be drafted to go fight in them?"
Most people in the U.S. don't think the wars are for oil. They are convinced by the necessity of making "the world safe for democracy and peace" by the use of violence.
"The truth is that the end of the draft was a triumph for autocracy—from then on the military was no longer subject to Congress or the will of the people."
I don't know, the Civil War was pretty autocratic — Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus, for example. During WWII, the state took control various industries, rationed, forced people to buy war bonds and killed protestors (just like Hitler and Mussolini did). Not my idea of a flourishing liberal democracy.
And many people believe that rights should not "come at a cost" — that we should behave as though every human is born with inalienable rights.
Otherwise, we are at risk of violating justice in the name of "the greater good," which, for about 300 years in North America, was that people of African and Native descent should be enslaved, raped and dehumanized. It was great for the economy — the greater good!
At some point we have to protect individual human rights.
Your statement rings in my ears like the Orwellian Bush-era classic, "Freedom isn't free."
How is civic virtue different that other kinds of virtue? That it's involuntary?
America had a draft during the entire time of the Vietnam War. America had "boots on the ground" from around 1959 to 1975. Poor kids died and rich kids went to fancy colleges (or got cushy assignments if they planned on "public service" later in life). Congress did not declare war, despite there being a draft. It was quite easy for the parents of those drafted to wave their flags and accuse those against the Vietnam War of being commie traitors.
Rights come at a cost? That reminds me of the right-wing mantra: Freedom Ain't Free. Some people may buy that, but it seems to me that rights have no cost. Rather the costs come in when others seek to violate those rights. Freedom is absolutely free, it is tyranny that is expensive. Freedom occurs spontaneously in nature without cost and without action. It is tyranny that requires action and incurs costs, in lives and property.
Finally, those liberals and conservatives who insist on practicing citizenship and civic virtue must adhere to the much vaunted rule of law and require the repeal of the 13th Amendment of their beloved Constitution if they want to practice conscription.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
The operative words being involuntary servitude.
Green Liberal: "The truth is that the end of the draft was a triumph for autocracy—from then on the military was no longer subject to Congress or the will of the people. The war on terror since 2001 is the product of this policy."
No, the end of the draft was a triumph for the 13th amendment's prohibition on involuntary servitude, if anyone still believes in that. Thom Hartmann takes this "populist" approach when he argues for reinstatement of conscription as well and I recently criticized him for it here on C4SS.
Even when we had a draft, people with wealth, power and influence were able to tinker with the system to get their sons out of service or into a safer environment. Draft deferments based on education (see Dick Cheney) were also commonplace. And during the Civil War, as my editor reminded me, many people paid others to serve in their place.
"But wait," say Hartmann and Rangel, "you can be a teacher or a nurse too?" Well first off, what if I had other plans? Does that matter to you guys at all? What if I refuse? What will happen to me then, Green Liberal? Will your progressive heroes refrain from incarcerating me for my insolence. Not a chance, you'll put me in a federal prison just like the old days!
And what if all of those nice non-military service options fill up when the next "progressive" war starts. Somebody is going to get forced into the role of cannon fodder at that point and I don't think its going to be Charlie Rangel's kids.
Based on these considerations, Green Liberal, I think you're ideas are naive and dangerous. Civic virtue is great, but why does it have to happen at gun point? Must all of our good work for society be done with government approval and supervision? I mean, how far are you guys from the everything in the State and nothing outside the State approach of Mussolini's fascists?
Oh Sebastian, don't forget that progressive hero FDR also approved the internment of Japanese people. American concentration camps were part of the war effort against fascists. No hypocrisy there. But see, progressives are nearly as bad with history as conservatives, so I am probably wasting my breath.
That "liberal" FDR also killed tens of thousands of civilians in the Bombing of Dresden.
Well, if I was in charge of drafting the legislation, then (in peacetime) due consideration would be given to the desires of each individual. Obviously it would be possible to opt out of military service (in peace time) and do something in education or health care or infrastructure construction instead. I think both the Swiss system and the German system have their merits–either would be preferable to what we have now.
I admit it is lamentable if individuals are kept from productive activity because of a service requirement. But given the alternative (professional armies and consequent tyrannies) I'm arguing it's a necessary sacrifice.
It should be obvous that the service I'm talking about would double as a kind of citizenship training (as in Switzerland), where the importance of Constitutional ideals and the rule of law are stressed. Obviously the view of Hartmann and Rangel and myself is that if military service was universal, it would be democratized and reformed, because people would give a shit. If the military is private, and the military is overpaid via the public debt, then nobody gives a shit.
Many of you talk about draft deferments in Vietnam. The point I'm making is that ending the draft actually empowered the militarists, allowing them to pursue their war without having to hear spoiled college kids bitch. The correct reform was ending exemptions so the sons of congressmen and wealthy individuals also have to fight should we go to war. We got the opposite, and we are reaping the consequences today.
Also, if you don't want to serve (in peacetime), there's probably a compromise to be made. If I recall correctly, in Switzerland you can opt out, but you pay a higher rate of taxation for a certain amount of time. I'm not sure if that would work here, but it's definitely valid that some individuals should be exceptions and be able to skip and delay their service to pursue education or some other productive activity. The important think is these exemptions be based solely on merit and other objective criteria that due not include wealth, family, etc.
"I hinted at my ideal system: civilian militias that arise as necessary. Half the discretionary budget is just a bit too much for me."
Obviously I agree this would be better. But in the real world, we have to get control of the empire, and democratizing and reforming the military is a practical step towards that goal.
"Most people in the U.S. don't think the wars are for oil. They are convinced by the necessity of making "the world safe for democracy and peace" by the use of violence. "
I wish that were true but its not. Most Americans know the wars are wrong but are ok with it because they benefit from them and the soldiers are volunteers.
"Rights come at a cost? That reminds me of the right-wing mantra: Freedom Ain't Free. Some people may buy that, but it seems to me that rights have no cost. Rather the costs come in when others seek to violate those rights. Freedom is absolutely free, it is tyranny that is expensive. Freedom occurs spontaneously in nature without cost and without action. It is tyranny that requires action and incurs costs, in lives and property."
I don't mean to be an asshole. But only a person who grew up in this fat tyrannical empire and who has never had to fight in a war would make an argument like this. The Founding Fathers understood that the price of liberty is vigilance–we've lost civic virtue so we no longer understand them.
"It was quite easy for the parents of those drafted to wave their flags and accuse those against the Vietnam War of being commie traitors."
I agree that the brainwashing and conformity that traditionally go along with military service is a serious concern and worth discussing. But I think the Vietnam era you are referencing is historically specific. Elders were proud of their service in WW2 so it was taboo to criticize the American military.
Since then, mores and manners have changed alot. We've "softened", and that's not a bad thing. It's time to reform the outdated and tyrannical military, and making it the business of every citizen is probably our best bet of making progress towards that goal.
"..in Switzerland you can opt out, but you pay a higher rate of taxation for a certain amount of time."
Well, there you go. To paraphrase Paul Simon, anyway you look at it we lose. Your modifications might make conscription a bit less odious than before, but allowing the state to control the destiny of a young person in this way is still odious. Are we the property of the government, Green Liberal?
In your scenario, you are giving the government permission to say "go along like a nice prole or pay up." And will those who pay up or refuse payment in protest be ridiculed and ostracized by nice progressives and patriotic conservatives alike for being "selfish" because they don't think they are state property? Progressives are already starting to sound a lot like national greatness conservatives to me. Who will be your Rush Limbaugh?
Appeal to the "real world" all you like, but keep in mind that it is all you "realists" that act as impediments to substantive change by recommending these statist half measures. Encouraging people to turn their back on empire and aggression may be hard work but that doesn't mean we should respond by giving the state more cannon fodder.
I like the sound of "democratizing the military," but forcing people to join a group doesn't automatically democratize it.
Especially not when the minds of the inductees are shaped by the entity which forced them to join. Did Mao's Red Army become more democratic when it began conscripting Chinese youth?
Deferment by sons of Congressmen probably enables legislators to be more callous, but I'm not convinced that (at any time in U.S. history) the children of the powerful were ever really forced to fight.
They could always, say, skip away to France and proselytize the word of God, like Romney did. I don't think your leveling mechanism could be enforced because the wealthy have the means to leave if all else fails.
I'm also not so sanguine about the prospects of "getting control of the empire." Seeking to control a clot of power leads one to adore that power once acquired. Political parties become corrupt, a 'la the Iron Law of Oligarchy.
Again, echoing Hedges and many others, I believe that the state's hand has only ever been forced by mass revolt and economic crises resulting from oppressive labor conditions.
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Finally, most Americans (62%) don't think the Iraq War was "worth fighting."
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/11/07/3627…
Some Americans may believe that going to war would reduce gasoline costs, but in truth $600B+ a year on the military overshadows any possible savings at the pump. They are not better off.
Soldiers don't benefit from war, either — peacetime service offers the same economic benefits as wartime service.
The reason many people still support war is singular but all-pervasive: propaganda.
An armed force that is the "business of every citizen" is called a spontaneous militia.
Otherwise, there are salaried, ideologically-fixed individuals with military titles ready to foment aggression, suck government funding, collude with industry and serve as the agents of capital in invading other lands for their resources.
Advocating for a standing army is like taking anabolic steroids under the assumption that one might need the extra physical boost in a street-fight — the reality is that, along with making you sick, the drugs make you aggressive and thus more inclined to get in a fight in the first place.
(The literal behavioral effects of steroids are scientifically disputed, of course).
I acknowledge that it's difficult to get the wealthy to do their fair share of anything in a class-based system. This is one of the reasons why an ideology of civic virtue is so important. But it should be noted that the proposal I'm talking about (I don't want to tie it to Rangel because I don't trust that guy) is all about reigning in the military by democractizing it, and is most definitely not a national greatness ideology, except in the sense that we want to improve America's healthcare, schools, infastructure, etc.
The current military line, convieniently, says a draft is a bad idea because the military will operate more efficiently/effectively as an all-volunteer force.
You make a good point about the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" but I feel that good (divided, balanced, and constitutional) government is a lesser evil than simply accepting tyranny (represented well by professional militiaries). Universal service, as the founders understood it, is part of limited, good government.
As far as war goes, we don't even have a debate on foreign policy in the USA. The people know it is wrong and many would likely vote for an anti-war candidate if they could (hence the success of Paul despite the media smears). At the same time, middle class professionals and people who work for the MIC do indeed benefit directly from the wars and these classes help sustain neoconservative ideology. Clearly there are economic reasons why we are in Afghanistan and some of those profits trickle down to the USA and maintain our above-average standard of living.
You write as if I'm advocating for a standing army and we don't already have one. We have a standing (professional) army and it isn't accountable to the people–that is the problem we need to solve. As Butler wrote back in 1919, the military is/was a mercenary force for corporate interests–it's exactly this dynamic that is contrary to republicanism and the desires of the Founders.
If it's true that universal service empowers the professional military classes and their industrialist allies, then how do you explain Sweden/Switzerland etc? Though to be fair I suppose Sweden is part of the imperial structure by now, But in general I don't see much empirical evidence for your argument. Granted there have been drafts for bad wars in the past, but it's debatable whether the blame should go to the government and the people electing them or to the system of military drafts itself.
In Switzerland, your professional and social status is strongly tied to your military rank. This is a problem for a society that wishes not to be warlike. Switzerland has done an excellent job, but they have a centuries-long history of using their military for actual defense from invasion. I think the (recent) peaceful record of Sweden and Switzerland come from their pacifistic culture rather than the draft.
The U.S. had a draft through to Vietnam, and that didn't stop us from pillaging the world.
My solution is to dissolve the military, not to "democratize" it.
real simple solution to all the arguments above and against slavery…er…conscription:
-mind your own business, and
-handle the very few that come after you with evil intent in a fashion that is terminal to them.
I'm sure that you don't mean to be an asshole, but everything you say past that points is the same argument that neocon shills for war and empire tell us all the time. I think you need to come up with some fresh talking points. Your problem is that you conflate civil society and civic virtue with government. You believe individuals are mere pawns who can be used to create your vision of some ideal society with the coercion and violence of government to guide them – as long as you agree with leaders and managerial experts are more equal than the rest of us.
You are just plain scary, Green Liberal. I would be chained in a gulag in your fantasy world of pseudo-liberal perrfection.
Federal, State, or local government "entities" are, of course, just groups of persons who've discovered some common cause or special interest that they wish to advance using methods that require the establishment of a legal fiction – especially the fiction that they themselves aren't just people too.
Sounds a lot like what was called during the recent unpleasantness, "Reichsarbeitsdienst."
Ah yes, the Reich's Labor Service. I forgot about this, a very good example. I shall include it above.