Is it drafty in here or is it just me?

Now, I’ve been seeing these email-forwards flitting about for around a year now. These ones which warn that a bill to re-introduce the draft has been put forth in both Congress and the Senate. Such a bill would require mandatory military service for both men and women. I’ll have to check the age ranges, and other details. But I know that one of the sticking points is that there will be no exemptions for being in college, and there is already an agreement in place to prevent people fleeing to Canada.

Of course, any time I’ve been sent a copy of this email, I’ve checked out the details and found it all to be true. The bills have been introduced, and the Selective Service boards have been filled up quietly and pumped up with a bunch of money, in the event that a draft is re-instated.

I’ve been, up till now, semi-alarmed about the whole thing. But only really semi-alarmed, because I have only been catching these rumors coming from progressive-liberal types. And you know that we’re always crying about something or other. In fact, its our whole bread and butter, really. To complain about how somebody did somebody wrong, or is about to do somebody wrong.

But let me tell you what makes me REALLY FUCKING NERVOUS…

Last night on Fox News at 10:00pm, they talked about how the Army has issued an order rescinding permission for soldiers who have completed their required times to retire. They won’t let them retire, cause they “don’t have enough troops.” Which is baloney, I know, because only last week I saw a report which said that here in Pennsylvania alone, we have more National Guard soldiers available, than our entire deployed force in Iraq right now. They didn’t say it like that of course, that’s just me comparing the numbers they gave.

So what, though, right? But right after that, they immediately launched into talking about how these bills have been introduced to bring back the draft.

This is Fox News! This is mainstream! This is completely out in the open! This is really bad!

But wait! It gets worse. Much much worse. Tonight, I was flipping through channels once again, waiting for my nightly fix of Seinfeld at 11:00pm. And WHAMMO! They had a full-on 2-3 minute produced segment about bringing back the draft. This wasn’t a newscaster idly mentioning it. This was a segment with video footage, with historical “perspective” on the draft. This was a segment with bullet points, promising such things as their would be no deferments for higher education and no escaping to Canada.

THIS IS PROPAGANDA! THIS IS A WARNING! THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN! WE HAVE TO START PLANNING NOW!

I’m so fucking serious about this. The wind is blowing. Fox News is reporting. Two days in a row. Somebody paid somebody else to produce a video segment about this. Somebody wrote this; somebody directed this; somebody edited the video for this. And most importantly of all, SOMEBODY TOLD THEM THAT THIS WOULD MAKE A GOOD NEWS STORY!

I wonder who it could be?????

Could it be people in the government? Who want to start getting us used to this idea far in advance of when it’s going to happen? Do they want to soften us up with idle talk about it on the news, which we’re only half-paying attention to - until one day - WHAM! You wake up and it’s a fucking law. And then one day, you wake up after that, and WHAM! You’ve been sold down the river to profit somebody’s corporate interests. Isn’t it enough that most of us are miserable corporate slaves here already? Do they really have to start whoring us out and playing with our lives like that?

But hey, maybe I’m being dramatic. Maybe this is just a classic spaz-out on my part. Maybe I’m reading too much into how media works, and how information is disseminated by it to indoctrinate the masses. Maybe I’m making too much of the fact that our country was taken over in a bloodless illegal coup some four years ago, and that ever since then, our “rights” as individuals have been slipping away, like so many ashes of burning draft cards in the wind…

Again, let me remind you of my source on this information: This is not some anarcho-punk-commie-green media center run out of weed-shed in the backwoods in Oregon! This is Fox News at 10:00pm on a Monday night. Keep that fact in mind. Also, keep in mind that the anchorman on Fox News came right out and said that the government is intentionally waiting to make further decisions about this issue until - you guessed it - after elections!

When is it going to be too late to figure out a way to escape this shit if it does happen though? You can rest assured, that by the time it’s put into place as a law, its gonna be too late. The systems are going to be in full-effect. Those of us likely to be affected have to start making at least mental contingincy plans. I don’t want to be caught with my pants down when they come around with the batons.

For my own well-being, and anybody else who may be interested and afraid of this, I’m gonna start researching everything around this much more fully, and I’ll share whatever I find here. Wish me luck. Wish all of us luck.