Re: Re: Re: Quaker/Buddhist goes AWOL

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Newsgroups gmane.org.ballistichelmet.heads
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"what you've named are political mythologies not ideologies. these are how 
you get people to enlist, get drafterd or vote for war (neither of which 
are self-determined habits). most people in the services are there under 
the pretext of some (albeit expanded) notion of "defense". "

Play with semantics as you may, I was placing the same definition of political idealogy as the subject of the story did.  His words not mine.  It is very short-sighted of him to think all of a sudden this war is different than how our country has rallied people in the past.

"granted, a white buddhist army grunt who is *able* to move to canada is 
not a case-study of u.s. conscripts. this single situation overlooks the 
"stop gap" measures (the "new draft"), the benefit (health care and 
family) -dependencies, the over-representation of poor and people of color 
(the "economic draft), the new reliance on reservists and a host of other 
instiutional measures that fuck with service members who on top are 
fighting an overtly bull shit war. "

The poor and minorities have always been getting screwed into doing the majority of fighting.  This war is no exception. 

"to hold vietnam vets as some romantic standard but consider the "War on 
Terrorism's" troops as a bunch of nincampoops with poor decision skills 
and bad career portfolios is monday morning quarterback syndrome. "

I was not using "some romantic standard" to describe Vietnam, Korean, or WW2 enlistees vs this one.  It's merely fact that being forced into callup of service is much different than going in on one's own volition.

"i'd call off your individualistic way of looking at how people join the 
military"

I did no such thing.  One should simply look at what each branch does before joining one.

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