Are you draft age?

Do you have children that are draft age?

How do you feel about Black Women women being drafted? Do you think black women being drafted will be good for the Black Nation?

Do you think that adding women to these bills is to cause a trade off of, at least, just drafting men?

Do you think young men and women being drafted will bring back the youth rebellions of the sixties? Do you think it may be possible that youth rebellions of the sixties is what the planers want?

How will,l a draft, effect hip-hop culture?

H. R. 163

To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.

http://thomas.loc.gov
Put bill # H. R. 163 in search function to see bill; then go to: "Bill Summary & Status"

S. 89

To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.

http://thomas.loc.gov
Put bill # S. 89 in search function to see bill; then go to: "Bill Summary & Status"

"History has proven that long-term military operations can only be sustained if you have twice as many soldiers waiting in the pipeline as are stationed out in the field. By that rule of thumb, the regular military is now 125,000 soldiers short . . .

The 2004 plan commits the SSS to report to the president on March 31st, 2005, that the system is ready for activation with 75 days. If they manage the task, then the first lottery could happen as early as June 15th, 2005."

Read Story Here: (http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18225)

"We just can't sit and pretend that by ignoring it, it will go away. We must voice our concerns and create the world we want to live in for our children and their children's children." -- Sophie Lapaire
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/mandatorydraftcoming19mar04.shtml

:flame:

Kannte, thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing information like this to our ATTENTION! This is extremely important in my opinion. I'm not draft age and don't have children who are either but I'm feeling for those among us who are and do. I was around in the 60s when there were massive protests against drafting men to fight in the Vietnam War. I had a brother who was drafted and luckily survived but I also had a cousin who was killed and friends that came back addicted to drugs and emotionally shattered. I remember Muhammed Ali's powerful political, religious and personal stand against entering the military to go half-way around the world to fight people that hadn't done anything to him. I remember the Black mothers and wives in my community wailing from the loss of a son or husband in the military. I remember my mother telling my brother that she would support him if he chose to run away to Canada. It was a very scarey time and it still is. Am I missing something critical here when I wonder why or how WE can see a need to fight and kill people in the name of America for any reason? I've even wondered how the Black men I see sorted it out in their minds to join the Secret Service and be willing to die to save the president. It just looks awkward to me. But then I realize that not everyone thinks like I do.

We have fought for equal rights in this country, is dying for your country a part of that?

Queenie :spinstar:

"A Republican U.S. senator is calling for a return of the military draft so the cost of the Iraq operation could be borne by people of all economic strata."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38139

"If the editorial writers of the New York Times are talking about a new draft that would send young men and women to die in the deserts of Iraq fighting crazy religious fanatics, then the idea is certainly being whispered about in the upper echelons of American society. A draft would not be proposed before the election -- if it were, Bush would be wiped out in a landslide. But a wise person would not bet against

-- the draft being proposed next January."

http://www.suntimes.com/output/greeley/cst-edt-greel23.html

I believe that the Bush Administration and his republican cronies are laying the groundwork for reinstituting the draft, and possibly in a form which will include women although it makes me wonder if men and women are drafted, how that will impact the economy overall, educational institutions that traditionally rely on the younger generation's tuition to attend their schools, the workforce as baby boomers begin to retire, growth of families because the younger generation is within childbearing ages, etc.

We're beginning to see the soundbites (aka propanganda) coming from the Pentagon about the American military being spread out in various countries around the world to protect democracy and human rights or to insure it among their citizens and because of this wide spread distribution, they claim our numbers of soldiers are the lowest it's ever been so we need to replenish our supply. Until that happens, they are extending the time that the men/women who are abroad now have to remain there, so they can't come home when they thought they would.

To me, when this happens isn't the issue--before an election or after. What I'm curious to know is, if Kerry is voted in, will he change or even be able to change the momentum of this event given all the hype that Bush, et al. are planting in our minds now? If not, would anyone here be willing or proud to see their husbands, sons/daughters or other family members be drafted to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Why did Bush want this war so badly? He has yet to find weapons of mass destruction, but we don't hear that discussed much anymore. What are our people dying in these wars for? Does anyone here know what it feels like to have their loved ones return home from war in a casket draped in the American flag?

Queenie :spinstar:

Yes, I think if men are drafted, women should also. It goes along with being "equal". Maybe then, women will truly understand the sacrifices Black men have made for them. I often wonder if the National Organization of Women and other groups will try to pull the "gender" card.

I don't support the draft for anyone...men or women. I don't think that Black men fighting and dying in these wars is proof of the sacrifices they have made for Black women. I would much rather have our Black men alive and fighting for justice and freedom from racist oppression as opposed to dying in some war where only America reaps the benefits of and leaves our community shattered, families broken, children left without fathers, women without husbands, etc. etc. etc.

Just my opinion...

Queenie :spinstar:

"Under this new act, college underclassmen would only be allowed to finish their current semester, and seniors would be allowed to finish their academic year before being taken.

We also know that the Pentagon is now beginning to fill 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board positions nation-wide.

Unlike the Viet Nam era, Americans will not be able to relocate to Canada to avoid the draft, because Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Manley, and U.S. Homeland Security Director, Tom Ridge, have signed what they call “The Smart Border Declaration” to keep draft dodgers in..."

http://web004.webspace4you.ch/~swisswebworks-com/tribworks/gold/index.html?quotes/_quotes.html&2

When the federal government initiates a draft to meet its military manpower needs, which it no longer can do under an all-volunteer system, something the Pentagon clearly knows, there will be an outpouring of public sentiment against it.

Drafting means that a government program to conscript young men, and probably women, taking into account the inefficient and unworkable unisex military, is likely to cause a flap that will dwarf the Vietnam War protests, by example, and may equal the Civil War-era draft riots in New York in ferocity. Those riots required military force to control.

http://www.cuttingedge.org/news_updates/nz1747.htm

I don't know what the draft age is (I'm 27) but even if I was eligable.....I would not go. I don't think anyone should be made to fight for this sad country. Especially minorities. We get the short end of the stick daily, but they hand us a gun without question when war time comes around. If it does come back I think there will a rebellion and alot of pissed off people if they try it. They should have thought of that before starting this stupid war. Now they want us to pay for their mistake. Not me. :nono: :nono:

They will not be drafting my daughter. If they do it will be over my dead body....literally.

Next year, the military is going to impose the draft. You beautiful, young men, you don’t have a job and you barely graduated from high school, if you did. So, they are going to give you an offer next year that you can’t refuse. In fact, when you turn 18 now, they are at the high schools telling you what a future you would have by joining the armed forces of the United States of America.

You don’t have any future in that, brother—they don’t have a future. Our young women are facing the same now, because they are recruiting you to the armed forces. What are you going 9,000 miles away to fight for? Who are you fighting? What have those people done to you? They call them insurgents, but the military is in that man’s house as an occupier. What are you doing there? If they rise up to kill you for being there, what are you going to say? Are you going to say, “That’s the enemy,” when you are in their house? That’s like a robber breaking into your house, taking over your house, and holding your wife and your children under arms. You are on the top floor, you hear it going on downstairs, get a pistol, run down and shoot the people that have your wife and your children—and the media calls you an insurgent who rose against a legitimate occupier of your house. Does that make sense? It’s so insane that one must wonder who could be the architect of such a policy.

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_1500.shtml

Someone is trying to make me eat my words. :oops:

The Army called my daugther yesterday trying to pursuade her to join the Army. Telling her that she ought to consider joining after high school.

My daughter was scared out of her wits. :maddd:

I hope it never comes up that young ladies HAVE to be drafted. I don't even support the drafting of young men.

I do not support a military draft in any form or fashion. They want soldiers? Send some of those death row prisoners over there under the strict condition that they can never return to the U.S. They're complaining about prison overcrowding, so, you know......... Only the ones that we KNOW are guilty, anyway.. and only the ones convicted of serious crimes.

I'm half-joking.

But, sending women? Now, if women want to go, that's on them. I mean, "Oh, Mrs. Johnson, we know you just had a baby last month, but when your doctor gives you the go ahead, we're sending you to war." That's just as bad, if not worse than forcing men!

I think the draft cut off age is like 25 or 26..... I'm 24. That means I'm not safe yet....