Article: Over My Dead Body!

Columnist Richard Reeves is only the latest of the "liberal" class to reintroduce the canard that a reinstated draft would restore our egalitarian, democratic society. As a mother of sons (and daughters) that might be eligible for a draft were there one reinstated, I am appalled, and disagree vehemently. History is rife with regimes and empires that drafted its citizens to kill and die for king or state--peace is not achieved by fattening the ranks of the military. Some points:

1. We are in the throes of an ongoing fascist dictatorship.
2. We have lost our jobs, our homes, and our health due to the greed and rapaciousness of the ruling oligarchy.
3. We must not allow our children to be ripped from my arms to feed the maw of the oligarchy's sociopathic power and wealth lust.
4. I am a pacifist and believe that we should all begin a passive resistance movement. However, as an old woman, I'd stand on the front lines rather than risk my children's lives.
5. I have no illusions that a resistance movement would be successful. The controlled media have splintered our struggling population into Machiavellian silos. Even if we are successful in overcoming the conflict-engendering propaganda and uniting against our true enemy, the oligarchy has us outarmed, outnumbered (especially globally), and out-technologied. Our own numbers might have prevailed a hundred years ago--today, if we engage the oligarchy, we are likely to lose. And the oligarchy wouldn't mind seeing a few million of us disappear now that we're no longer useful to them as soldiers, manufacturers, or consumers.
6. All this talk of a draft will only feed the single corporate party's exploits in Washington and around the world. The military-industrial complex was in its relative youth in the 60's, and even then it took hundreds of protesters killed and injured to end the useless Vietnam War. Meanwhile, 55,000 American young men and women, draftees, were killed. Shall we pick 55,000 living American young men and women today to force into and kill in battle until new protests can trigger change in DC? Your children or grandchildren?
7. The protests won't work this time. The media are now controlled, our civil rights have been Patriot Acted, and we will be labeled as domestic terrorists. See, "We will lose", above. And our children and grandchildren will die. As for the draftees--they will have no right to protest war or imperialism. They will have no rights at all.
8. Thank you for your service. If you joined the military to get food to eat, a roof over your head, a decent education, because they weren't available due to the deterioration of our former democracy, I am sorry. Please blame the right people for that state of affairs. Start with Wall Street, K Street, Langley, Congress, the White House, 10 Downing Street, G8, and many, many more. If you joined the military to defend the US against invasion, thank you for your service. Should be a relatively quiet career, except for the occasional false flag attack. If you joined the military to hunt and kill, you should be under psychiatric care. BEFORE you go out and kill anyone. If you joined the Air Force to promote the imperial growth of a Christianist US, you should be in jail.
9. Killing millions in "justifiable" wars is NEVER justifiable.

No draft, no cannon fodder, no fatted calves, no sacrifice for the fascist oligarchs!