Rangel: Reinstate the draft; create war tax

[Hekate]

97. I think you're missing his point.The tiniest number of families in US history is feeling the pain...

...of military service, of the deaths, the permanent disabilities. The men and women who serve are practically invisible to the rest of us. How many families on your block have a son or father in active duty? How many people do you actually know?

It's a career, very often, of the poor who see no other path to gaining an education and a path out of poverty. It's an economic draft.

One of the reasons the Vietnam War finally, finally was ended was that so many ordinary families lost sons and fathers, and that in theory every socioeconomic rank was subject to the draft. I personally knew more than one college boy draftee who died over there. The country was dreadfully split, but the youth were really outraged. You absolutely could not ignore that war and shrug off the very personal peril as being on someone else's back.

The all-volunteer army was supposed to alleviate that outrage -- and it did. Someone else's kid was going to go get killed or maimed, and it was all their own choice.

Guess who that ended up benefitting the most?

In a country that spends as much on military might as we do, the issue of draft vs. volunteer army is very complex and fraught. But I will tell you this about Charlie Rangel's efforts: he's trying to get people to Pay Attention, and that is a good thing.