>"What did you do during the war, daddy?" >"I went to graduate school, my son." > >There are two ways to look at the 1A selective service classification. You >could view 1A as the point of the whole exercise and you'd be wrong. Or you >could view 1A as an admission of failure to comply with the intricate >requirements for exemption and deferment -- a booby prize for the drop outs >and malcontents. > >Deferment and exemption were the golden keys to personal success and career >fulfillment in the permanently mobilized national security state. Ask Bill >Clinton. Ask Newt Gingrich. I've probably told this story before, but here goes: when I went to the draft board in the late 1960s, I told that I should get a 4-F, because my knees are _horrible_. (Since then, arthroscopic surgery has helped.) They said: "don't use a 4-F. That looks bad on your record. Use a student deferment instead." Why this helpful advice? because I and the draft board were located in a very affluent white suburb of Chicago. On the other hand, when I got to college, my friend Ed who I met there, got a draft notice during sophmore year. Why? because _his_ draft board was clearly thinking: "working-class kids from upstate New York don't deserve to go to college. Draft the sucker!" Luckily, Ed got help from the ACLU. But it sure shows the role of class in society in a dramatic way. >Viet nam happened because of a defense manpower surplus. A lot of knifes and >forks on the table, you gotta eat something. A demographic glut and >biological inevitability. Tom, I think this is much too simple. The US wanted to defend its empire against any kind of nationalist revolt, especially those which were left-leaning in any way. The invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 had nothing to do with demographics. The US leaders thought that Vietnam would be as easy as the DR (or Iran or Guatemala or ...) but it turned out after the fact that it was much more difficult. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html
