Just so you know where you are headed, kids:

Obama's Draft

The Draft Database

"Youths propel a push toward volunteerism; Change predates Obama's overtures" by Scott Helman, Globe Staff | November 24, 2008

LEOMINSTER - President-elect Barack Obama rode a spirit of civic engagement among young people to victory, harnessing a hunger for service and belonging that was sweeping across the nation's high schools, college campuses, and online communities.

But that hunger had been building long before Obama launched his campaign, and it is poised to continue growing long after he has left the White House. By many accounts, the interest and participation in public service, volunteerism, and social entrepreneurship among youth - from middle-schoolers to graduates with advanced degrees - have risen dramatically over the last decade.

Today's teenagers and young adults, thanks to encouragement from their baby boomer parents, an Internet revolution that makes the world feel smaller every day, and a growing number of service and nonprofit-career preparation programs at colleges, are far more likely than their predecessors to seek out ways to give back and to shape the world they will inherit.

And thereby do the jobs GOVERNMENT ought to be doing, freeing up YOUR TAX DOLLARS for WAR LOOTERS, BANKS, ISRAEL, CORPORATIONS, and the LOOTING POLITICIANS that serve them!!!!

That's what is behind VOLUNTEERISM!! It is a way of TRANSFERRING SERVICES from the GOVERNMENT to the PEOPLE -- while still robbing them blind.

Oh, ENJOY YOUR TOURS of DUTY, kids.

Oh, yeah, just make sure you VOLUNTEER for the RIGH THINGS, too! No ANTIWAR or PRO-PEACE "volunteerism"," please!

"Volunteerism is becoming a culture," said Sejal Hathi, a 17-year-old high school senior from Fremont, Calif., who founded an organization, Girls Helping Girls, to empower females around the world.

This service ethic is evident nationwide - inspiring middle-school students to raise arts scholarship money for their needy peers; driving college students to craft programs combating youth violence and promoting small loans to entrepreneurs; and moving 20- and 30-somethings to create internationally focused nonprofit organizations.

The trend is difficult to precisely measure, as volunteerism and public service take so many forms, and there are some data suggesting otherwise. But there are signs everywhere of increased participation and interest among youth.

Oh, NO!! ANOTHER AGENDA-PUSHING LIE SPLASHED ACROSS the FRONT PAGE!!!

Yup, the PRO-WAR, PRO-CORPORATE, PRO-ELITE, AGENDA-PUSHING PAPER is PUSHING "volunteerism." That's why I NEVER LIFT a FINGER AROUND HERE!!! The government isn't interested in MY VIEWS, so why should I help them out with their problems? They haven't given me a damn dime -- EVER!!!!!!

****************

Youth have been active in causes for decades, of course, but specialists say their participation is taking a different form, partly because of their greater exposure to world problems through the Internet, including websites such as Facebook's Causes, whose popularity has exploded.

Don't you just LOVE how the AGENDA-PUSHING and WORLD-DISTORTING AmeriKan MSM DISRESPECTS the '1960's PEACE CAUSES? And WHERE are these YOUNG PEOPLE? I haven't seen them "volunteering" or anything around here. The kids really DON'T KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON! My friend's kids DID NOT EVEN VOTE!!!

Steven Culbertson, president and CEO of Youth Service America, noted that young people have grown up with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, high-profile, catastrophic natural disasters, and the increasingly apparent threat of climate change.

"They've moved beyond planting tulips and painting murals to really engage on some of the biggest problems facing the world," Culbertson said.

Yup, the '60's KIDS ONLY STOPPED the WAR!!!!!!!!!!!! So WHERE are the KIDS at the PROTESTS TODAY??? I DON'T SEE 'EM!! It is all a bunch of OLD FARTS LIKE ME!!!!!!!!!

One catalyst for youth activism, specialists say, is a shift in mindset among adults, who are more willing to see teenagers as assets to society....

That is DISGUSTING!! What a PIECE OF SHIT THIS ARTICLE IS!!!!!

Umm, WHO ever considered OUR CHILDREN DETRIMENTS? NOT ME!!!! What SICKOS view OUR CHILDREN as HINDRANCES and PAINS in the ASS?!!

I guess as long as kids are not OPPOSING a WAR, and SERVING IN ONE, they are VALUABLE!! If they OPPOSE SUCH THINGS, well, you see what the shit elite think of them!

And the BOSTON GLOBE, et al, CARE SO MUCH ABOUT OUR KIDS!!! That's why they BROUGHT YOU ALL THOSE FABULOUS LIES to BRING about the INVASION of IRAQ!!!!!!!

And you wonder why I curse on this blog?

********************

Not all trends on youth involvement in public service are positive. Specialists say students from disadvantaged backgrounds - including many in minority communities - often lack access to such opportunities. And one government study showed that service-learning opportunities in K-12 schools has declined since 1999, which some specialists fear reflects an increased focus on standardized testing.

Oh, so the DAMN TESTS are keeping kids from "volunteering."That's because they have to take 12 HOURS A DAY of TEST STUDY!!!! So much for BEING A KID!!!!

"In many schools as a result, there's been a narrowing of the curriculum," said Susan Root, research director for the National Youth Leadership Council.

Overall, though, specialists say that there's an unmistakable rise in civic awareness among young people, and that Obama's victory is a validation of that.

Yup, but NO PROOF -- in fact, contradictory proof, but THAT DOENS'T STOP the LYING, AGENDA-PUSHING WAR DAILY!!!!!!!!!

He's going to need to draw on that spirit: The president-elect is facing challenges graver than perhaps any incoming president in 75 years. Obama's message to young people, Culbertson said, was this: "I want you to fall in love with the problems of the world and help me solve them, not shun them."

So WHEN does the DRAFT NOTICE ARRIVE?

--more--"

Going under cover of VOTER LISTS!

"Under some proposals, teens would be automatically added to the voter rolls when they turn 18. Under some plans, Congress could create a national voter registration roll, modeled after the Social Security database"

Yeah, I know it SOUNDS GOOD but it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL to have a FEDERAL VOTER LIST!!! Of course, I don't think that is the purpose, but nevertheless, this is an UNCONSTITUTIONAL IDEA!!!!

"Reformers urge move to universal voter registration; Government would take lead in a new system" by David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times | November 11, 2008

WASHINGTON - The nation's much-maligned election system passed a major test last week when more than 132 million Americans, a record total, cast ballots with few reports of problems.

Few problems? Sigh!

But now, election reformers are calling for a move toward a "universal voter registration" system, in which the government takes the lead in ensuring that all eligible citizens are registered....

What if you don't want to be registered?

Under its proposal, states could update their computerized voter rolls when residents move from one city to another. And they could add new voters who move to the state and apply for new driver's licenses. Under some proposals, teens would be automatically added to the voter rolls when they turn 18. Under some plans, Congress could create a national voter registration roll, modeled after the Social Security database. Others say states should take the lead in expanding and improving their voter rolls.

Yeah, that's who is SUPPOSED to be in charge!!!

Senator Hillary Clinton, Democrat of New York, has said she plans to introduce legislation to move toward automatic voter registration, and state officials in Minnesota, Oregon, and New York have expressed interest in adopting it in state law, according to Brennan Center officials.

Why am I not surprised?

Some election officials question whether a national system would gain support. "We will need to think hard about this. It's true that in most developed democracies, the government takes on this role, and it's a top-down system. But ours has been a bottom-up system, because our founders were suspicious of a centralized election authority," said R. Doug Lewis, executive director of the National Association of Election Officials, whose group represents state and county election officials. --more--"

As well they should have been!!!! Yeah, and where the CONSTITUTION SAYS THEY BELONG!!!!!

As the feelings of hope wash away into horror for Americans.... It is not just the kids he wants, it is all of us. 

Sig Heil!!! Sig Heil!!!  Sig Heil!!!

"A little more on our new president's plans for your kids

When I wrote in September about Barack Obama's plan to mandate fifty hours of community service for high school students, I had to pull together two different documents to make the case. One was the national service plan (PDF) on his campaign Website, which said that "Schools that require service as part of the educational experience create improved learning environments and serve as resources for their communities." The other was a speech he gave in December 2007, promising that "[a]t the middle and high school level, we'll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities."

I thought the overall policy direction contained there was painfully clear, and so did editors at the Providence Journal and the East Valley Tribune, who ran versions of that column. But I got some flack from people who found wiggle room in the need to draw a line between those two statements.

Well, no more. On the president-elect's official transition Website, Change.gov, the "America Serves" page now contains the following language:

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

No extrapolation needed, thank you. The policy intent is now written out plain to see.

Yes, I'm aware that fifty hours of mandatory community service hardly rises to the level of a military draft. It's not even the mandatory universal citizen service his new chief of staff wants to inflict on everybody between the ages of 18 and 25. But it is a top-down mandate by the federal government that students perform state-approved labor.

I personally object to such requirements even when they come from the local school district. I want my kid to learn to volunteer and to contribute to the community, but that means volunteer, and for causes he picks, to the extent that he believes is appropriate, with a little nudging from within the family, not from bureaucrats. Government mandates destroy the whole idea of volunteerism, and the inevitable insistence that service be performed for an approved organization or cause (which is the case with most existing service requirements) is, frankly, a bit totalitarian.

Our children, as well as ourselves, are independent individuals. We are not resources to be drawn upon by politicians. Nor do we owe our labor to the government.  We've had enough of authoritarianism under the Bush administration. We don't need to begin the Obama administration with a dose of involuntary servitude.

--MORE--"

He needs the kids to fight wars for Israel.

Is that the change you were expecting, America?

See: Forget the Honeymoon

"The Irony of the Ecstasy

by cyrano2

....

Dionysus reigned supreme last night in Union Square Park. They — mostly NYU students — were partying till 4AM. Thousands jammed the park, chanting, singing, whooing, hooing and hee-ing and haw-ing (imagine if “they” had done that four years ago, but in protest, when BushCo. stole the election). Worse, the cars, trucks, buses. Honking horns as they passed to the delight of the drunken crowd. I guess I don’t blame them, in a way. I remember being young and stupid and so fucking happy when Clinton ended the Reagan/Bush Reign of Terror that so dominated my entire young adulthood. They’ll sober up when Obama cancels their guaranteed student loans to help pay for the Wall Street bail-out, the noble “wars” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and soon Iran. As for the car-truck-bus crowd: their oil has peaked, I think, or is damn close to it. Again, I understand people’s need to feel part of a “group,” a “celebration” of “change” and the “official end of racism” etc. But I couldn’t help thinking how ironic it was that thousands of people expressed “political commitment” not by gathering together to soberly plan the Next Move (i.e. putting the president elect in the hot seat), but by behaving like a bunch of typically arrogant, indulgent, selfish, drunk, overbearing Americans….

The irony is…   I wouldn’t wish the kind of “change” Obama (now the number one corporeal representative of the invisible, immortal corporate body known as THE MAN) will be bringing on anyone….

--MORE--"

Part of a continuing series of excerpts from "The Revolution: A Manifesto."

"....  Whatever kind of evidence you want to examine, whether constitutional or historical, the verdict is clear: Congress was supposed to declare war, and the president in turn was to direct the war once it was declared....

The Korean War was the great watershed in the modern presidential power grab in war-making. President Harry Truman sent Americans halfway around the world without so much as a nod in the direction of Congress....

In spite of its complete lack of constitutional foundation, this belief that the president may take the country to war on his own authority, without consulting anyone, has become the conventional wisdom in both major parties.... Neoconservatives have been particularly eager to promote this deviation from the Constitution. This, it seems, is their version of the "living" Constitution....

Robert A. Taft, one of the most conservative Republicans of his day... speaking on the Senate floor:

".... Congress has the power to prevent any such action by the President; that he has no such power under the Constitution; and that it is incumbent upon the Congress to assert clearly its own constitutional powers unless it desires to lose them. In the long run, the question we must decide involves, vitally, I think, not only the freedom of the people of the United States, but the peace of the people of the United States.... If in the great field of foreign policy the President has arbitrary and unlimited power, as he now claims, then there is an end to freedom in the United States in a great realm of domestic activity which affects, in the long run, every person in the United States... If the President has unlimited power to involve us in war, war is more likely. History shows that... arbitrary rules are more inclined to favor war than are the people, at any time."

.... Meanwhile, all these wars have to be fought by someone, and that is why the military draft is being spoken about more and more. Given the overseas ambitions of so much of our political class, a return of the draft may actually be closer than we realize....

Having stretched our military to the breaking point, where do they expect to find the troops for the next conflict?

The draft is a totalitarian institution that is based on the idea that the government owns you and can dispose of your life as it wishes. Republican Senator Robert Taft said that the draft was "far more typical of totalitarian nations than of democratic nations. It is absolutely opposed to the principles of individual liberty, which have always been considered part of American democracy." Conservative thinker Russell Kirk referred to the draft as "slavery." Military conscription, said Ronald Reagan in 1979, "rests on the assumption that your kids belong to the state.... That assumption isn't a new one. The Nazis thought it was a great idea."

.... In late 1814, fearing that conscription was about to come to America, Daniel Webster delivered a stirring speech against it on the House floor:

"Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war, in which the folly or the wickedness of Government may engage it?.... A free government, with an uncontrolled power of military conscription, is a solecism, at once the most ridiculous and abominable that ever entered into the head of man."

Webster was right both morally and constitutionally. Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal; government given the power to conscript citizens. The power to raise armies is not a power to force people into the army...

Lesser forms of the draft, such as compulsory "national service," are based on the same unacceptable premise. Young people are not raw material to be employed by the political class on behalf of whatever fashionable political, military, or social cause catches its fancy. In a free society, their lives are not the playthings of government."

Where are we going to get the troops?  A DRAFT?

"US to take over Afghan mission

In front of an African-American audience no less(?)...

"Obama pushes for $1,000 rebates; Energy relief checks would go to customers" by Associated Press | August 2, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -  While McCain received a respectful welcome from the audience and at times applause, he drew gasps and grumbles during a feisty question-and-answer session. Asked what he would do about crime if elected president, McCain praised Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor, who was scorned by many civil rights leaders for permitting the city's police department to use overly aggressive tactics against black criminal suspects.

--MORE--"

Following up the next day....

"McCain raps Obama over school vouchers, union ties" by Beth Fouhy, Associated Press  |  August 3, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla. - In two high-profile cases during the Giuliani administration, police shot and killed unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo and beat and sodomized Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in a Brooklyn station house.

Still, McCain made several comments that pleased the audience. Among other things, he vowed to step up Justice Department investigations of civil rights violations if elected and said he would appoint US attorneys based on qualifications, not politics.

McCain repeated his claim that "the best equal opportunity employer in the country is the US military." McCain also apologized anew for voting against a federal holiday honoring the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1983. "I was wrong," he said to applause.

--MORE--"

Wow, this guy is a war-monger! 

The best employer is the military, and he dissed the greatest living individual during my lifetime. 

Yee-ouch!

You want to honor him, John, take the non-violent peace pledge and end the killing.