http://www.fahrenheit911.com/trailer/
Enjoy the bit were he tries to get congressmen to get their kids to enlist and go to Iraq 
No problem.
I guess, however, that i never really thought that Tenar believed the draft was likely to be reinstated. I was focused more on the overarching question of principle that seemed to inform his post, to wit:
I think that this is a point worth examining, and that the question over the draft is a fairly good way to do it.
For the sake of this argument, it doesn’t really matter whether the draft is actually going to be reinstated; what matters is that Tenar’s co-workers believed that it might be, and that this belief shifted their attitude to the current administration and the war in Iraq.
You are right, though, that we need to nip rumors about an actual reinstatement of the draft in the bud. The bill presented to Congress was indeed, as you say, basically a protest bill. It’s just not gonna happen.
Hijack;
I agree with your anti-hypocritical coworkers rant in the OP, but why the addition of ‘ladies this one’s for you’ in your subject line??
Were you soliciting opinions from moms other than your coworkers? (I’m leaning toward thinking THIS is the way you meant it, ) Or was a poorly thought out painting with the same brush of women with kids?
You may not have meant it that way, but it kindof had an accusatory tone to it.
end hijack
NIMBY syndrome in action.
The “typical” middle-class American probably doesn’t even know, let alone care, whether foreign soldiers are fighting and dying in some foreign war (that doesn’t involve US troops).
They start caring - a little - when it gets closer to home; when American soldiers are involved.
If it gets to be The Boy Next Door - hey, it could be MY boy next! Pandemonium.
I’m not singling out the US here - this is true for any nation (and for any topic - say drug abuse instead of military service).
But I have to agree that a good way to make sure wars are not fought frivolously is to ensure that the children of the Rich and Powerful are right there, along with the children of the ghetto, on the front line. This can never be achieved by a selective draft, however - the R&P will always find their ways out. This can be achieved by universal service - every 18 year old does a stint in the military. Maybe 3 years like here (Israel); maybe a year and a half. But it has to be everybody - President’s Son included. Because if everyone’s children are in the army, everyone cares, and a politician will not be able to afford the public image of draft-dodging (by self or by children). Where this does not happen, the decision makers remain insulated from the real life facts of young men fighting and dying.
Dani
I want to know who originated the rumor at the school. Was it a teacher? Was it another student? Did they have an agenda?
If it was a teacher, then the teacher should be responsible enough to make the parties responsible for the legislation known, as in the Snopes link already put in this thread…
…the moms immediately blaming GW has the smell of GW being mentioned specifically in the rumor…
…kinda important to remember that a president can’t introduce legislation directly…
Right before the first Gulf War, the Seattle Times printed this column. It was followed up by this and this, not to mention a whole bunch of letters - most of which showed that no, people hadn’t thought about the war until it might be their own butts on the line.
((Registration might be required to read those-but it’s free))
I think you’re overestimating the ability of kids to accurately report to their parents anything they learned in a classroom. If the draft proposal was discussed by a teacher there is no reason to suppose that most kids would really grasp or care about the specifics of the legislative process or that the distinction between legislation and execution would permeate their skulls. I’m guessing it would all get distilled down to “the government” or the even more simple, all purpose “they.”
Whatever they heard at school (whether accurate or not) would be rreported at home as “They’re gonna start drafting people for the war.”
“Who is?”
“The guvvermint.”
The government then becomes iconized as “Bush” to the parents. We are generally not talking about a community of brains surgeons after all. Don’t assume the teachers are feeding kids propaganda. The chances are just as good if not better that all nuance and detail simply got washed out in translation.
You have that right! I am in the middle of grading an open note essay exam. I have been told that the United States got involved in Vietnam because of some plummers. I have been told that the Pearl Harbor had an atomic bomb dropped on it. I have been told that George W. Bush is a democrat. ( Now of course most of these were from kids who didn’t actually take notes so had hard time using them for the exam) It might be possible to indoctrinate them in some political position, but for the most part, by late high school, the ones that stay awake are so sure they are right about their view of the world that a mere teacher is unlikely to make a dent.
MASS email from friend:
I wrote her back a politely worded email with the actual facts explaining why her initial instinct not to believe it was correct. About half an hour later I received:
I was happy.
Thanks! I will most certainly pass these on to my coworkers, several of whom did indeed appear to be brandishing a copy of the mass email to which Neuroman referred, and which I myself had not received.
I didn’t intend my OP to be a commentary on Bush per se, although I will readily admit that I do not approve of him, nor was I “blaming” Bush for the putative draft, nor was I assuming that the draft would be a reality. As stated, my biggest beef was with the ladies at work.
Once you’ve done so, please let us know whether these frantic moms flip-flop back to being Iraq war supporters.
I can follow the confusion and general threads of misinformation that led to the other “facts” but I can’t twist this one into making sense… “plummers”?
Presumably, Nixon’s Watergate “Plumbers” (G. Gordon Liddy etc). The Watergate break-in occurred in 1972, during the US involvement in Vietnam.
“The Plumbers” was a nickname for the White House Special Investigative Unit, a shady group of fixers and sneaks who worked for Nixon. They are the ones who got busted breaking into DNC offices at the Watergate Hotel and started the whole ball rolling.
Historically, veterans were usually not a major presense in American society. The two periods that were exceptions to this rule were between 1865-1900 and from 1945-1980.
Pretty much everyone sensible agrees that a draft is a bad way to expand the military. Economically, it makes no sense to randomly pull people out of the economy where they would have otherwise have been productive, and put them in the military, where they might not be well suited or worth the cost. It makes far more sense to simply increase wages for people in military to hire more people: that way you get what you pay for. And professional volunteers almost always make better soldiers than draftees.
I think this all makes sense, apart from the fact your example is Israel! You can argue over whether their ongoing conflict is ‘frivolous’ or not, but I don’t think you can deny that aggression is a typical Sharon response to their problems. Perhaps, indeed, the fact that all levels of society are involved in the military actually makes this a more personal issue, with those in power actually having a real claim of revenge.
I can see it now: ‘Gulf War III - this time it’s personal!’
To play devils advocate, one could argue that the (completely hypothetical, nevah-gonna-happen) reinstatement of the draft changes the overall picture for these people in ways other than merely threatening their children.
The war they were promised in Iraq was to be quick, painless, (almost) bloodless, easy, and require only a brief commitment of troops and almost no money. In return for some volunteer soldiers spending a couple of months in Iraq the world would become better, safer, and more democratic, with chocolate chip cookies for all.
If the draft were reinstated it would be an indication that right now we are in way over our heads in Iraq, rather than largely command of a difficult situation as the administration’s public statements indicate. If one interprets the draft as a plan to send good money after bad, then I could understand how it might change one’s view of the war, without necessarily indicating bad faith.
And I so wanted to keep this thread away from becoming another ME one! 
But since it’s been hijacked already… I think that the Universal Draft is, ultimately, what got us out of Lebanon, and it is also what will get us, albeit kicking and screaming for some, out of Gaza. As slowly moving as the process is right now, it would be far worse if our military were not representative of the whole population!
More personal, yes. But not necessarily about revenge. It’s more about understading [It means that some (OK, in our case many) of the leaders are ex-military brass (and nearly all understand what it means to be a soldier - or a soldier’s parent)] as well as about plain old electoral considerations [It also means that their constituency (y’know, the people they want to vote for them?) are all either military, ex-military, parents of soldiers or all of the above.]
Dani
A modifier to that phenomenon would be “College deferment” (which was protested against, since it led to something that looked a lot like “Operation Get Behind The Darkies”).