No Need For "National Service" D-R-A-F-T When You Create Social Programs

[Jcrowley]

When politicians are promoting legislation for stupid reasons, it’s usually because the real reason can’t be stated openly. The subject of the abysmal state of the U.S. economy is certainly one that nearly every US politician seeks to avoid. No public figure wants to talk honestly about the economic debacle created by high (though hidden) inflation, the collapsing housing markets, the increased dependency on foreign energy as well as other foreign resources and personal and public indebtedness.

Today we face an economic crisis on a similar scale as the Great Depression. To stave it off, all means of desperate measures are being employed. The odious neocons were given carte blanche to prosecute their wet dream of world empire, because our leaders hoped war would provide an economic fix. Congress wrote Bush a blank check made out to the “War on Terror” -- an endless war against a faceless enemy whose only defining characteristic is a state of mind -- not because it made strategic sense to do so, but because it made economic sense. War provides jobs and income. War is the health of the state. And the state is sick.

This economic fix isn’t working because the problems are too large. Like a dose of heroin for an addict, the economic activity generated by the "War on Terror" has created short-term profits for corporations and hastened the inevitable economic reckoning by adding to the public indebtedness.

Laid off? Can’t get a job? Foreclosed on your mortgage? Drowning in debt? Commit two years of your life to Uncle Sam’s labor pool, and you’ll be assured of free meals, a place to sleep, and perhaps even a reduced rate on your interest payments!

Oh. Dreamy. Small problem.

Uncle Sam is a puppet. His actions are controlled by people who are motivated by power and profit, not human needs and values. The last thing we should want to do is to hand our military/corporate/government/banking power elites a blank check for the only resource they don’t already own, tax, or control in total -- our bodies.

Involuntary servitude is not a patriotic duty. Enslaving ourselves to policies that have repeatedly been proven untrustworthy, incompetent, rash and motivated by greed is not wise, and will not solve our economic problems. Instead, Americans must take control of their own economic well-being by working to build sustainable local and regional economies.