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US Workers Starved Into Service
It was only a matter of time before the nation’s skyrocketing unemployment translated into new recruits for the most powerful military force in the world.
With the official US unemployment rate at 10 percent and climbing (that’s more than 15 million people struggling to put food on the table) and nearly double that number if you include part-time wage-earners who need full-time jobs, never mind all of those ‘discouraged workers,’ it’s little wonder that so many of the nation’s jobless are flocking into its military recruitment offices.
After all, what better way for an unemployed American worker to survive the Great Recession of 2009 than in the ‘service’ of his or her country?
Americans have a long history of consuming and/or killing their way out of crisis. And it isn’t looking as if that model will be up for reassessment anytime soon. The parameters of what we like to call the “national conversation” are as narrow as ever, and they are not widening under the current leadership. So far at least, even Obama’s ‘Clean Energy Economy’ has failed to deliver enough ‘green jobs’ (or any other color jobs for that matter) to begin the process of meaningful transition. With the season of consuming just around the corner, many Americans – especially those in blue collar jobs like construction, manufacturing and retail service – are staring into the economic abyss.
It is hardly surprising in such an environment that a young person with dismal employment prospects and plummeting self esteem would be easily seduced by an ad that promises “more than $49,000 in GI Bill Benefits” as does the US military’s current promo. The same ad promises that young recruits can “connect with military and veteran-friendly schools that offer VA approved education programs,” or “get information” about high-paying degrees like Criminal Justice, IT and Legal Studies.
So, when the Pentagon announced on October 13, 2009 that the military had met all of its recruitment goals for the first time since 1973, and that this just happened to coincide with the highest national unemployment rate since the government started keeping track in 1976, it wasn’t surprising that the news was met with a Big National Yawn.
The Few, the Proud, the Desperate
It’s hard not to wonder what would happen if, instead of dutifully reading from the Pentagon’s script on October 13, the media had done their job and informed the public about the real nature of the ‘service’ that potential enlistees were signing up for. Maybe if they had, those recruitment officers would not have been quite so busy recruiting – and stealing the lives of – unsuspecting young people in desperate need of employment.
Maybe those eager masses of young men and women wouldn’t have been so hot to sign up if, for instance, they understood that anyone enlisting in the military right now – whatever branch – is required to sign a document that states: "Laws and regulations that govern military personnel may change without notice to me. Such changes may affect my status, pay allowances, benefits and responsibilities as a member of the Armed Forces REGARDLESS of the provisions of this enlistment/re-enlistment document.” (DD Form4/1, 1998, Sec.9.5b).
In their book Army of None, published in 2007, Aimee Allison and David Solnit advise those who expect the military to pay for their college to “read the fine print.” The authors point out that only a fraction of recruits who signed up for the Montgomery GI Bill received a dime, and that 65 percent “received no money at all for college.” If you receive a less than honorable discharge (as one in four do), leave the military early (as one in three do), or later decide not to go to college, “the military will keep your deposit and give you nothing.”
And when it comes to those signing bonuses, maybe if potential recruits understood that they will be forced to repay the money if he or she leaves the military before the agreed term of service (that’s eight years for first time enlistees), perhaps they would reconsider signing away life and limb to get it. If those same applicants understood the army data from 2007 revealing that the top bonus of $20,000 was given to only 6 percent of enlistees who signed up for active duty, they might have figured out another way to survive the recession. They might be further divested of their illusions if they knew that military statistics show that 48 percent of enlistees report having “financial difficulty” and that some 33 percent of homeless men in the US are veterans, with nearly 200,000 veterans homeless on any given night.
And another thing: The military does not have to place recruits in their chosen career field or give them the specific training requested. Even if enlistees do receive training, it is often to develop skills that will not transfer to the civilian job market – like firing an M 240 machine gun.
By the way: Military recruiters are notorious liars.
Back in 2004, the New York Times reported that nearly one in five US Army recruiters was investigated for offenses ranging from "threats and coercion to false promises that applicants would not be sent to Iraq." It’s doubtful that has changed just because the focus is now on Afghanistan. One veteran recruiter told a reporter for the Albany Times Union that, after recruiting for years, he couldn’t think of one recruiter who wasn't dishonest about it, admitting that, “I did it myself."
Military Service is Not the Only Option
Just because the Obama administration lacks the political courage to challenge the status quo doesn’t mean there are no other options. But Americans will need to ‘unlearn’ a lot of what we’ve been taught if there is to be a meaningful transition to a peacetime economy.
We will need, for instance, to unlearn that the military is the only legitimate form of national service. We will need also to be willing to challenge those who tell us that being an artist, a pre-school teacher or (god-forbid) an activist, is not a respectable way to earn a living – or to serve one’s country.
And while we’re un-learning things, maybe we should reconsider the US military budget.
By most estimates, maintaining the warfare state now consumes 54% of every federal tax dollar. Without first challenging that, we might as well kiss off any chances of ever seeing a ‘Clean Energy Economy’ or, for that matter, anything resembling a future worth living. But first we’ll have to rid ourselves and our children of the idea that a culture rooted in killing and consuming can also be ‘sustainable.’
Maybe then we’d have a real war tax revolution.
Since the turn of the century, a growing number of high-ranking military officers are questioning the wisdom of – and the motivation behind – the US warfare state. In an open letter dated July 8, 2004, Special Forces Vet Stan Goff wrote to US military troops in Iraq:
“The big bosses are trying to gain control of the world's energy supplies to twist the arms of future economic competitors. That's what's going on, and you need to understand it, then do what you need to do to hold on to your humanity … Your so-called civilian leadership sees you as an expendable commodity. They don't care about your nightmares, about the DU that you are breathing, about the loneliness, the doubts, the pain, or about how your humanity is stripped away a piece at a time. They will cut your benefits, deny your illnesses, and hide your wounded and dead from the public. They already are. They don't care. So you have to. And to preserve your own humanity, you must recognize the humanity of the people whose nation you now occupy and know that both you and they are victims of the filthy rich bastards who are calling the shots."
Humanity has passed the tipping point – economically, culturally and environmentally. The ‘consuming and killing’ model embraced by Americans as cultural norm is, in reality, a cultural aberration. It is destroying everything and everyone in its wake – including those who are fighting and dying to preserve it. In accepting such a model – often without question – Americans have become victims of their own complacency.
The price of such acquiescence may be our humanity.
- Posted in
31 Comments so far
Show AllCome now Military service is "Honorable". That the Military lies in order to draw recruits does not make it less so. That the Pentagon spies on Americans and feeds a compliant media falsehoods in order to advance their agenda of Militarism does not make it less so.
That the leaders take bribes from Corporations and spend trillions of Military hardware that has no conceivable use does not make it less so.
That they lie about killing women and children, that their brave soldiers will drop bombs on mud huts and wedding parties killing entire families, that they will massacre sheep herders in Somalia , farmers in Yemen, poor peoples in the Ghettoes of Panama City or School teachers in South East Asia does not make it less so.
That they will drop poison Chemicals over half a country drop Nuclear bombs on others and use white Phosphorous on peoples in places like Fallujah does not make it less so.
Their service HONORable because in certain peoples definition of Honor....all of this is what "Honorable" people do.
"Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral."
-- Marc Antony, in Julius Caesar: Act 3, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare
· Yr Obd't Servant
Thanks for your eloquent assessment, GW. I'm going to share it with the poor kids in our education program who are being recruited by the military.
And you are welcome to do so. Thank you.
back in the day, we REALLY HAD AN ACTUAL DRAFT!
I was ensnared by it.
Nowdays, no actual draft is needed. We have an economic draft.
Give us your POOR, huddled masses, yearning for (slave) wages and government health care.
Now, THAT'S a recruiting pitch if I ever heard one.
As a long time military man like my father before me, I can say that the military is like any other conservative corporation. You do most all the work, in this case killing, maiming and destroying lives for the lowest pay and under the harshest, most abusive conditions and some industrialists and central bankers get filthy richer by selling war machinery and looting other nations.
I can't remember the last time America really needed an Army for defense as opposed to a good police, particularly one as dangerously bloated as America's military. One can question the need for a military at all, like little Costa Rica did, falling under America's protection. But if we didn't have a military, right and left conservatives from other nations would do what all cons do, invade, rob, rape and kill us.
So the question may not be if we need a military, but if we can afford to let reactionary, war-mongering, jingoist and religious conservatives bucking for rank be in command of our armies and decide whether to escalate wars instead of a President and Congress that supposedly looks after people's welfare too.
Because of geography and our size we could get by with a MUCH smaller military if it were meant to be used primarily for DEFENSE. We are bordered by two huge oceans and two huge friendly countries. How could be be physically invaded? Look at the D-Day invasion of France in WWII. We had England to stage all the ships and troops on then we just had to send them across the English Channel to France.
Our two biggest rivals are China and Russia. How could they ever physically invade this country? How many times larger would their invading forces have to be compared to the D-Day force? Would they send these thousands of ships across the open oceans or would they come across the Baring Strait, down Canada, then spread out their forces to occupy the entire country? It couldn't be done their supply lines would be too long and vulnerable.
No our Military's primary purpose is to project US power to other places on the planet. IMHO it should be called the Department of Offense not the Department of Defense.
"I BELIEVE in a strong defense - no more than 200 miles off our coasts...and NOTHING MORE"...
General Smedley Butler, US Marines, 1933.
===============
one of the saddest things i personally witnessed about an american soldier was :
a day where i was lining up at customer service for telephone...there was this young, tall, "all-american" blue-eyed, blonde handsome soldier...
it was clear from his rantings that he had spent all day back and forth between different locations of the telephone company, appealing and trying to find out what was going on with his bills ...and they kept sending him back and forth between this or that "superisor" or "appropriate" window, but never really addressed his basic question:
"WHY do i have to pay these THOUSANDS of dollars of phone bills FROM IRAQ which I never made - and we were not allowed to make because of security?"
somehow - the bills were on his name..and all he wanted was at least to clarify and separate his ACTUAL usage frm whatever it was that latched onto his bill...
isn't it fair? even if someone DID make that on his name without his knowledge..is there no responsibility AT ALL for companies to at least clarify and not hold HIM accountable "just because it's in your namet?"
that is an issue in itself that always protects companies but NEVER the ordinary person even in things likely behond one's control-- such as that soldier having been in iraq all those months...
he was literally -- a big, tall, young, american soldier - CRYING ...and could barely stop himself from shaking in frustratin and anger while he was holding reams of paperwork, and standing in his uniform and on leaning on his crutch because he was wounded...
and in the end he was reduced to no proper responses but to pay those as the late payment probably kept creeping up , and reduced to screaming:
"i went to Iraq thinking i was fighting for our country ...and THIS is what I come home to ? DAMN THIS COUNTRY, DAMN IT ALL"!!
it still makes me tear up recalling that.
one could only have wished - one as a human being could have held his hand and be able to "write away" his bills if one had money. just to make the frustration and fear of not being able to be free of such kinds of bills ..and shake him to say "you should never have gone because you were used"
but it's too late for that. ...as another poor soul, an american, grown up thinking his "country" VALUES him and his "service" - when in reality -- he was just, like all soldiers, a STAND IN for the COWARDICE of the leaders and the REST of the population
to GET things "done" in order that the REST can keep up their own "isolated" and "immunized" existence that people like him are FOOLED - by his own culture of war glorification -
to do the DIRTY KITCHEN WORK of "securing the safety of the united states of american and the american people".
ONLY to thrown away like a piece of rag!
it is SO sad!
americans , ordinary people , with their wide-eyed hopes for a good future just like anyone else in the world, willing to sacrifice themselves for what they THINK is a GLORIOUS and NOBLE war for what they THINK their own people REALLY care about -- being made to be the sacrificial goats - becoming killers and be killed or maimed
in the name of "AMERICA".
how sad.
such a waste of what might have been GOOD people, GOOD intentions, FAITH in their own country's "goodness at heart"....
and all they end up with are a few shiny medals, probably printed at discount prices by their own pentagon, with ribbons and buttons
as their "glory" while they relieve , again and again the horrors of what they had done and had seen , for the sake of the CORPORATIONS that tell them:
PAY UP!!! until they won't be able to afford even their CRUTCHES!
For years I have been having this same debate with "Americans" who claim that Canada has its Social programs, balanced budgets and lower deficits because "America is paying to defend Canada".
They make that same claim about that Cold war.
I REALLY do not think they have ever looked at a map. I really do not believe they have any concept of the Logistical nightmare it would be to "Invade Canada" from a China or a Russia.
They have absolutely no clue about how difficult it is to Hold a Russia or a China together let alone what it would take to dispatch troops halfways around the world.
They really can not and WILL Not think it through. It is not their duty to THINK.
Riane Eisler makes this very point in "The Chalice and the Blade" that being the Religions of the book all preach obedience intructing believers that any that QUESTION authority and beliefs that are dictated to the people by the priesthood are committing a great sin.
Thinking and knowledge are in fact seen as "sins". One must be obedient and compliant.
you are correct.
the USA is the one that has gone throughout the world extending itself ..in ways that russia and china, through centuries, and even RECENT history of civilization, PROVED to THEM that it is not only impractical, it is NATIONAL SUICIDE to do so.
a little remembered fact:
ALASKA was once RUSSIAN TERRITORY. yes, Russia EXTENDED as far away as alaska.. that's why there are plenty of still standing buildings , preserved and otherwise used , of Russian Architecture, many of them churches and some mosques, i believe.
but that was about the limit that the russians managed and clearly realized was beyond any practical means to continue to "colonize".
the same with china -
these are huge countries , far older than the USA , that had become empires extending to their "near abroad"..but clearly that was about the limit they KNEW and LEARNED they could manage to still maintain any semblance of national "sovereignty" and cohesion.
but the USA ? o noooooooooo -- it is EXCEPTIONAL - it can do "better" than THAT.
which is of course LAUGHABLE as its "extension far BEYOND its own "neighborhood" - whether south or east or west..is meeting with the not just independent mindend nations in south america - but in asia and the asian supercontinent extending from the middle east to eastern and southeastern asia...
and where it meets at least TWO of the oldest "former' empires in the world that were , in contrast to the USA and England
were actually much WISER - in that they RECOGNIZED the limits of their power and the limits of "ambition":
and THOSE are China and Russia.
Wow GwNorth! I read the Chalice and the Blade many years ago and it literally changed my world view! The fact that any discovery that does not line up with the male dominated view of the world, is discounted and discredited...especially if said discovery is made my a woman...finally lent peer reviewed legitimacy to the feminist perspective. Thrilled to read that the book and the esteemed author, Riane Eisler, impressed you as well. Patriarchy, military, sins...all just shadows! If human beings actually decided to change the world.....to do away with all these constructs.....I think we would have to call it "heaven!"
:) I think its about time the women put back in charge again.
This guy can handle it...
"OUR FOREIGN POLICY has always been geared towards gathering as much of the world's resources unto ourselves, at the expense of others. the TRUE purpose of our Armed Forces is to make the world safe for our Big Boss: our supernationalistic Capitalism and the will of our Chamber of Commerce..I was the Chief High Class Muscle Enforcer , with our Army , for our Big Finance, Big Corporations, Big Banks and War Industry ...i could teach a trick or two to Al Capone...his Racket was only in Chicago and a few other american cities...MINE was in 3 CONTINENTS...we are a Nation of War and Money Racketeers...it has nothing to do with Democracy, or freedom or liberty or justice..we are Gangsters for Capitalism..for 30 years I suspended my own conscience, knowing that what we DO is EVIL"...
General Smedley Butler, US Marines, 1933.
Yup, reading General Butler's book was a real eye opening experience. It should be required reading in schools, but we all know that will never happen. The powers that be can't have the soon to be cannon fodder youth find out that they are fighting for what amounts to the biggest crime racket ever known to mankind.
i know. unfortunately. in that case - people just have to rely on themselves by TELLING others about the existence of such things as Butler's revelations..enjoin them, encourage them. it is simply like telling someone, on a person to person basis, no different from that being in a classroom, maybe even better...
that there is a REAL history of things. such as Howard Zinn's "A PEOPLE'S HISTORY of the USA"...
or the history of US interventions. or tell them about websites ..etc.
that's part of human interaction after all...and things don't have to rely on "classrooms" or the institutionalized preferences of "teaching" or educating or informing.
that's why even WE are discussing things. just keep sharing the information.
When the Philippine people overthrew Marcos the dictator - despite the all-out support of the USA to prop him up all those years -- they did not need "classrooms" to know when the right time was..they just upped and told him - GO AWAY. LEAVE .
and he went away. of course he left a devastated economy in his wake -- courtesy of his US and multinational patrons..that now still have to be fixed to anything close to what is was BEFORE his dictatorship and all the IMF "prescriptions" of Disaster Capitalism.
one can only keep hope up for that.
but the point is - IF "classrooms" teach WRONG and fraudulent history -- it should find different ways to be imparted to others so they will open their minds .
Opt out forms to prevent phone calls ,in school recruiting and other enlistment efforts aimed at your school children are available at the American Friends Service Committee ,a Quaker outreach organisation.Visit the AFSC website and you can download these forms to present to your local high school. peace
Thank you
To Johnny Hempseed:
Thanks for that very tangible (immediately 'useable') information. I should have included more resources, links et al in my article, but it was already too long. I''ll watch that in the future!
Sandy LeonVest
solartimeseditor@gmail.com
You are welcome !Thankyou for your good works. peace
A system with built in marketing....
What an arrogant piece of trash.
But it serves those that like to pretend to moral superiority.
Sorry, but no pretense is needed. I and most of the people I know ARE morally superior to the military/industrial/media complex.
"Besides, a man more right than his neighbors already constitutes a majority of one." --Thoreau
Blaming soldiers for American foreign policy is the equivalent of blaming illegal aliens for wages flat lining the last 30 years.
Invite a soldier to an alternative view, encourage resistance, political objection or conscientious objection. Shelter resisters and provide legal counsel. By all means, do.
I will even grant you your "Universal Soldier, and he really is to blame," argument. But remember the next line, "His orders come from far away no more. They come from him and her and you and me."
Cally was under orders. He should have spent his life in prison, but remember, he was working for you. You can wash your hands in the sweet water of "moral high ground," all you want. But you, and I mean "you," personally, if you are an American, still have blood on your hands. Your moral high ground is mere posturing, until your own flesh and blood is on our machinery of war, in protest. If your idea of protest is shaming and battering the poor schmucks in green, you're an idiot.
Henry8 and I stand with you on that. The soldiers are not to blame. The real blame lies in the politicians toying with the military and playing dangerous politics with it at the cost of putting both soldiers and civilians in harm's way. I've worked in DoD before so I know exactly what you're saying. What even us progressives and liberals have to digest is the fact that bashing the soldiers who have been put through training to take orders regardless doesn't help any. It's like going after the symptom and not the source of the problem which are the politicians and the banksters controlling the military at large.
Joining the LRA (Lying Republican's Army) for survival child killing?
What's the point after we have dehumanized our own children? America is lost.
"And to preserve your own humanity, you must recognize the humanity of the people whose nation you now occupy and know that both you and they are victims of the filthy rich bastards who are calling the shots."
Amazing that a "special ops" 'cruit told it like it is. And to preserve their own humanity, or what's left of it, 130 million USans who voted for "filthy rich bastards" in the Nov 2008 elections will have to try something different next time.
It is easy for those of us who came of age during draft-era Vietnam to look down on youth who willingly sign up for the "volunteer" army. I have heard people say that the new recruits do not deserve compassion because they were not "forced" to sign up. I think a little compassion for young people is in order here. They are dealing with a frightening and harsh economic reality, deliberately created by those want more soldiers to serve them. Hired henchmen come to the schools and shopping malls, pretending to befriend young people and solve all their economic problems - leading them gently by the hand directly into the killing fields.
A few years ago, when I took classes at my local Community College, I met a beautiful young woman who was being pressured by a on-campus recruiter to join the military. She did not really want to go and admitted she was "scared," but she also worried that her college education would not get her the job she needed, and, in fact the military was promising jobs and payment for college. But she had not yet signed up with them.
I pleaded with her to not waste her young life in the military; that there are always more paths to success that we think, that the military is no way to get there; that they cannot be trusted to keep their promises.
After awhile she had to leave, but she promised to think about what I had said to her.
I think about her often. I hope she made it.
I AGREE.....whether one supports war or not - and one should NOT -- there should STILL be compassion for these young people...
yes - they should perhaps be "corrected" about their notions of "service" - hopefully before they commit..or even afterwards...
but they are human beings who just mostly happen to have been raised in a culture of WAR - and then it uses economic hardship to entrap these young people.
how one would wish they do not have to even be in such situations to "flock" to enlistment .
This article does not say anything new. The unemployed joined the military in droves during past recessions and recruiters have always lied to new recruits. While the military now issues a form stating that what you were promised may not materalize, the fact that the military/government changes things has always happened. When you join the military you agree to give up certain rights. This include the right to quit the job, location of the work, or even what that work will require. While this sounds like slavery I can state from personal experience I had more rights while serving in the military that I did when employed at a major corporation.
One thing has changed over the years since I joined in the early 70s. Today's military recruit is more knowledgable and better educated than in the past. And they need to be. The new weapon systems and small unit combat environments needs people who are smart, dedicated and can make quick decisions. For those now serving in the military, thank you for your service and for helping to keep us safe.
People need to understand that the military serves under the direction and control of our civilian government. If the President orders them to attack, their job is not to question his decision but to follow orders to the best of their ability. However, every soldier has not only the right but the responsibility to NOT follow orders if that order is considered illegal or against the Laws of Land Warefare. A soldier is not some mindless killing machine but an American military person dedicated to defending this country. If anyone has issues with what the military is doing, talk to your Congressional representative or the President.
I live in Colorado Springs. The military is not just honored here: it is worshiped. Nearly every store offers a military discount. Most all public agencies that have lines of people waiting to speak with someone, like the DMV, feature a "hero's shortcut" in which uniformed military folks can cut to the front of line. Couple this military worship with off-the-charts Christian zealotry and you have a really, really interesting place in which to live.
This place is filled to the gills with retired military folks. Most all of these people draw a pension, but it's not enough to live on so they still work. BUT, they can work for less since they still have veteran's health care, a pension, and buy stuff cheap on base. Yet, the right-wing nuts here throw out their usual complaints about the immigrants driving down the working wages while waving a flag and praising the military.
My absolute favorite conservative nut-job has to be the retired military conservatives who work for the private military contractors that litter the countryside near the bases here. These folks listen to Limbaugh, Hannity and Michael Savage all day in their cube and incessantly bemoan the federal government's taxes and subsequent wasteful spending on social programs. Yet they would never, ever, EVER consider themselves part of the problem. NO! After all, they work in the private sector now...forget that their company has never, ever made a single dime that didn't come from the federal government. Hell, even if they are a sub-contractor on a job, the principle is being paid by the Feds. Besides, these folks live in a nice house, have a couple of Hummers in the driveway, haven't even been touched by the recent economy and look down their noses at anyone not as far up the economic ladder as they are. Conservative Cognitive Dissonance has its privileges!
The Nazis did a good job of creating a military class as the Third Reich decided to push it's power around. Looks like we're on the path. Considering the vast numbers of war mongering Christian conservative idiots populating this country I won't expect our ever growing fascism to end anytime soon. Enjoy the ride folks! The tards are taking us along for the ride, whether we want to go or not.
Oh yeah...how 'bout AAAALLLLLL that change we're experiencing with Obama in office? The military-Industrial Complex OWNS the Dem and Rethugs. Completely. No saviors will come from their ranks so stop voting for these folks. /rant.