kozanne
Inactive
This was written in November of 2006. How ironic that one of the main people in the piece is none other than Rahm Emmanuel. The other is John McCain:
http://www.popandpolitics.com/2006/11/05/saying-no-to-national-service/
Saying No to National Service
Democratic Congressional Campaign Chairmen Rahm Emmanuel and Democratic Leadership Council President Bruce Reed are proposing mandatory national service for all Americans 18 to 25 years old. The two men have published a book together called The Plan in which Emmanuel calls for “a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us by establishing, for the first time, an ethic of universal citizen service. All young Americans should be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic civil defense training and community service… Universal citizen service will bring Americans of every background together to make America safer and more united in common purpose.”
Yes the writing is stilted, redundant, long-form silly bureaucratize, but the message is notable and, depending how you look at it, either just what the doctor ordered or, um, completely wack.
Emmanuel writes that all citizens will be “asked” to serve their country. But there would be no asking because it would be a mandatory program. “Asked” in this case is a kind and gentle way to say that anyone who doesn’t participate would be guilty of a crime. Emmanuel has never said what he thinks the penalty should be for those who refuse to participate. But you can be sure that a major part of the “plan” will be a pretty damned persuasive deterrent to scoffing or fleeing.
Newsweek reporter and Mandatory National Service supporter Jonathan Alter volunteered to answer questions about the plan during an online open forum sponsored by Newsweek last week. I instant-messaged something about freedom of choice: “This is still America, right?” was the gist. “What about our right to pursue the life, liberty and happiness that generations have experienced as pulling tubes and watching cable in a pigpen college apartment for six years?”
Young adults will have choice under mandatory national service, he replied, once they’re enrolled, “they can join the military or perform some other form of work. That is a choice.”
I doubt I was the only instant messenger thinking that that was nothing at all even like a choice, that it was more like some Guantanamo rock and hard place than it was a choice.
He pointed to the threat of a nuclear Iran as the reason for mandatory state service. I suggested that the way the world could be expected to deal with that sort of thing would be promised investment and trade versus economic sanctions, travel bans and frozen assets— you know diplomatic carrots and sticks.
Alter said that sanctions would be too harsh on the Iranian people and repeated his view that mandatory state service for Americans 18-25 years old was a better way to deal with the Iranian nuclear program.
“Too hard on the Iranian people?” Hey, Alter, what about the American people, I was thinking, particularly that most American of American people, the multicultural, entertainment-consuming, disposable-income-disposing 18- to 25-year-old American people? We’re busy propping up the economy, setting lifestyle trends for the world. That’s our national service!
While America has a long history of voluntary service programs, where the government has paid people to participate, never in American history have people who haven’t been convicted of a crime been prosecuted for refusing to participate in nonmilitary service. Emanuel and Reed forcefully insist that they’re not talking about a draft.
That’s right they’re not, because at least with the draft, the military only conscripts the amount of people it needs to fight whichever war or wars it’s conducting. Whereas under Emmanuel’s plan, every member of the 18- to 25-year-old demographic would be obligated to undergo those “three months of basic civil defense training and community service,” after which some would be sent overseas to fight and the rest would be put to work building houses, planting trees, chasing homeless people out of doorway, answering phones for Halliburton— just what exactly?
Although Emmanuel, a Democrat, is the main proponent of the plan now, conservative Republicans have proposed the plan in the past. Rocky Mountain News columnist Peter Blake jokingly said he’s “looking forward to Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, coming to Colorado and stumping in the 7th District for— no, not fellow Democrat Ed Perlmutter— but for Republican Rick O’Donnell. Emmanuel and O’Donnell share, after all, a passion for the same cause: universal national service. That’s a fancy term for making every youth work in a government job for a while.”
In addition to O’Donnell, other Republicans who have pushed the idea include William F. Buckley Jr. and John McCain. Buckley called for it back in 1990 and McCain called for it in 1996. Buckley was an advocate even before 9/11, even before Gulf War I. McCain supported mandatory service as far back as 1996 because, as he put it,
American culture over the last thirty years has defined courage down. Today in our excessively psychoanalyzed society, sharing one’s secret fears with others takes courage. If the standard for courage remains, as I think it should, acts that risk life or limb or other very serious personal injuries for the sake of others, these acts fall short of it by various degrees. If a people believe that courage constitutes something less dear than the standard defined above, don’t we risk having too few examples of real courage?
Again, it’s thick, but you get the gist. McCain feels we have become a self-centered society and that it would make Americans more courageous and selfless to be forced into government service, to put all of us together, side by side, like a day at the DMV or a great big extended high school PE class— and, hell, didn’t PE make you tough, courageous, more honorable?
Despite the zeal with which Emmanuel has pushed the plan, many Democrats still prefer a voluntary system, where the government would offer college or even graduate school funding to those who would choose to serve.
“The Democratic Leadership Council and Rahm Emmanuel are speaking for themselves. It goes against everything the Democratic Party stands for,” an assistant to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told me.
I said it seemed to me a strange form of nationalism that didn’t fit with the ideals of the party, that it smacked of militarism and coercive citizenship, that to me it had a McCarthy and Hoover feel to it, men who had gone after Democrats, and in the latter case for supporting civil rights and opposing the Vietnam war.
“It would be doing the same thing to other people that was done to us, as you said… so the Democratic Party as a whole doesn’t support everything the Democratic Leadership Council comes up with,” she said.
Legal experts considering Emmanuel’s plan have pointed to the post-Civil War Thirteenth Amendment, which states that “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.”
So perhaps “the plan” will fail due to its shaky legal standing, not that that means much anymore, I mean not now that we’ve decided as a nation that the President, as Overseer of the Endless War on Terror, can do anything he wants for our protection, including of course enslave us as highway sweepers for the best years of our lives.
Before that happens, dial the Democratic National Committee at 202-863-8000 or go to the party website and let somebody know what you think.
——
Andy Freedman is a freelance writer. He lives in Chicago and writes raps as “Atomic Andy.” Check his rhyming at his MySpace page.
http://www.popandpolitics.com/2006/11/05/saying-no-to-national-service/
Saying No to National Service
Democratic Congressional Campaign Chairmen Rahm Emmanuel and Democratic Leadership Council President Bruce Reed are proposing mandatory national service for all Americans 18 to 25 years old. The two men have published a book together called The Plan in which Emmanuel calls for “a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us by establishing, for the first time, an ethic of universal citizen service. All young Americans should be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic civil defense training and community service… Universal citizen service will bring Americans of every background together to make America safer and more united in common purpose.”
Yes the writing is stilted, redundant, long-form silly bureaucratize, but the message is notable and, depending how you look at it, either just what the doctor ordered or, um, completely wack.
Emmanuel writes that all citizens will be “asked” to serve their country. But there would be no asking because it would be a mandatory program. “Asked” in this case is a kind and gentle way to say that anyone who doesn’t participate would be guilty of a crime. Emmanuel has never said what he thinks the penalty should be for those who refuse to participate. But you can be sure that a major part of the “plan” will be a pretty damned persuasive deterrent to scoffing or fleeing.
Newsweek reporter and Mandatory National Service supporter Jonathan Alter volunteered to answer questions about the plan during an online open forum sponsored by Newsweek last week. I instant-messaged something about freedom of choice: “This is still America, right?” was the gist. “What about our right to pursue the life, liberty and happiness that generations have experienced as pulling tubes and watching cable in a pigpen college apartment for six years?”
Young adults will have choice under mandatory national service, he replied, once they’re enrolled, “they can join the military or perform some other form of work. That is a choice.”
I doubt I was the only instant messenger thinking that that was nothing at all even like a choice, that it was more like some Guantanamo rock and hard place than it was a choice.
He pointed to the threat of a nuclear Iran as the reason for mandatory state service. I suggested that the way the world could be expected to deal with that sort of thing would be promised investment and trade versus economic sanctions, travel bans and frozen assets— you know diplomatic carrots and sticks.
Alter said that sanctions would be too harsh on the Iranian people and repeated his view that mandatory state service for Americans 18-25 years old was a better way to deal with the Iranian nuclear program.
“Too hard on the Iranian people?” Hey, Alter, what about the American people, I was thinking, particularly that most American of American people, the multicultural, entertainment-consuming, disposable-income-disposing 18- to 25-year-old American people? We’re busy propping up the economy, setting lifestyle trends for the world. That’s our national service!
While America has a long history of voluntary service programs, where the government has paid people to participate, never in American history have people who haven’t been convicted of a crime been prosecuted for refusing to participate in nonmilitary service. Emanuel and Reed forcefully insist that they’re not talking about a draft.
That’s right they’re not, because at least with the draft, the military only conscripts the amount of people it needs to fight whichever war or wars it’s conducting. Whereas under Emmanuel’s plan, every member of the 18- to 25-year-old demographic would be obligated to undergo those “three months of basic civil defense training and community service,” after which some would be sent overseas to fight and the rest would be put to work building houses, planting trees, chasing homeless people out of doorway, answering phones for Halliburton— just what exactly?
Although Emmanuel, a Democrat, is the main proponent of the plan now, conservative Republicans have proposed the plan in the past. Rocky Mountain News columnist Peter Blake jokingly said he’s “looking forward to Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, coming to Colorado and stumping in the 7th District for— no, not fellow Democrat Ed Perlmutter— but for Republican Rick O’Donnell. Emmanuel and O’Donnell share, after all, a passion for the same cause: universal national service. That’s a fancy term for making every youth work in a government job for a while.”
In addition to O’Donnell, other Republicans who have pushed the idea include William F. Buckley Jr. and John McCain. Buckley called for it back in 1990 and McCain called for it in 1996. Buckley was an advocate even before 9/11, even before Gulf War I. McCain supported mandatory service as far back as 1996 because, as he put it,
American culture over the last thirty years has defined courage down. Today in our excessively psychoanalyzed society, sharing one’s secret fears with others takes courage. If the standard for courage remains, as I think it should, acts that risk life or limb or other very serious personal injuries for the sake of others, these acts fall short of it by various degrees. If a people believe that courage constitutes something less dear than the standard defined above, don’t we risk having too few examples of real courage?
Again, it’s thick, but you get the gist. McCain feels we have become a self-centered society and that it would make Americans more courageous and selfless to be forced into government service, to put all of us together, side by side, like a day at the DMV or a great big extended high school PE class— and, hell, didn’t PE make you tough, courageous, more honorable?
Despite the zeal with which Emmanuel has pushed the plan, many Democrats still prefer a voluntary system, where the government would offer college or even graduate school funding to those who would choose to serve.
“The Democratic Leadership Council and Rahm Emmanuel are speaking for themselves. It goes against everything the Democratic Party stands for,” an assistant to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told me.
I said it seemed to me a strange form of nationalism that didn’t fit with the ideals of the party, that it smacked of militarism and coercive citizenship, that to me it had a McCarthy and Hoover feel to it, men who had gone after Democrats, and in the latter case for supporting civil rights and opposing the Vietnam war.
“It would be doing the same thing to other people that was done to us, as you said… so the Democratic Party as a whole doesn’t support everything the Democratic Leadership Council comes up with,” she said.
Legal experts considering Emmanuel’s plan have pointed to the post-Civil War Thirteenth Amendment, which states that “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.”
So perhaps “the plan” will fail due to its shaky legal standing, not that that means much anymore, I mean not now that we’ve decided as a nation that the President, as Overseer of the Endless War on Terror, can do anything he wants for our protection, including of course enslave us as highway sweepers for the best years of our lives.
Before that happens, dial the Democratic National Committee at 202-863-8000 or go to the party website and let somebody know what you think.
——
Andy Freedman is a freelance writer. He lives in Chicago and writes raps as “Atomic Andy.” Check his rhyming at his MySpace page.