An American institution that deserves to be honored.
Thanks to Kevin, I’ve now got a quote that pretty much sums up my reaction to Charles Rangel’s (D-NY) proposition to bring back the draft:
Assume that all governments lie. Do not accept the idea that the violence of war can be justified by claiming to prevent a larger violence. Understand that all war is a war against children, and therefore can not be justified, whatever the reason.
—Howard Zinn, historian
In other words, I’m much closer to TalkLeft than Daily Kos. —Or, as Utah Phillips puts it (rather, as Utah tells us Tom Scribner put it):
Well they’d roust him out; he would hobble down the hall, pick up the receiver of the phone, swear at whoever was on the other end for being exhumed from his room, and I’d finally say, “Tom, Tom!”—this was on my nickel—“Tom, slow down a minute! It’s Utah, I got a question for ya.”
He spoke that workers’ shorthand, that sort of slices the fat off of any kind of argument. One time I said over the phone, “Tom, I’m in a debate over here at the Unitarian Church on bringing back the military draft; they’re going to try to bring back the military draft so I’m debating it. Now, you tell me what you think.”
Well, there was a long pause. Then the voice come back at me over the wires. “Nnuh. When I started in the forest, most of my workmates was Scandahoovians: Norwegians, Danes, Finns, Swedes. Most of ’em left the old country fleeing conscription to fight another dumb European war. Yeah, the wealth of the West was built on the backs of draft dodgers. It’s an American institution—deserves to be honored.”
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Which war would that be?