exploitation, misleading (lying), bribery - where’s the button for all these three. junior rotc programmes is the same as exploitation of teenager’s immature brain physiology - a brown shirt approach, if you will, isn’t it? i’m all for a mandatory draft of all our youth - with service options. that way the people will stay involved in the democratic process and the congress will be pressured to do their Constitutionally mandated job.

i think the far greater danger is a privatization of our military. witness the exploitation of the 50 state’s national guard and our increasing use of private contractors (they used to be called mercenaries) and their total lack of accountability regarding rules of engagement and criminal prosecution by the ‘host’ country ... anyone remember who the first boots on the ground in new orleans were? and what they were doing?

hourglass

Yes, all the choices are bad. But the solution, one of the solutions, is the same- do not allow aggressive military recruiting in schools. NCLB says that schools must allow equal access to the recruiters or lose funding- so make sure the recruiters have only equal access, and make sure your high school limits the recruiters to twice at year.
  Stop militarizing our public schools. Don’t allow JROTC. DOn’t allow Blackhawk helicopters to come to your high school. Stop recruiters from calling students at home. Use district controversial issues policies to get counter recruiters in when the miitary recruiters come.
Protect the students.

What a bunch of nonsense.  You seem to think U.S. kids are raised in total ignorance.

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On the other hand, the parents of these kids are up to their eyeballs in debt with no signs of waking from dreamland.

For the last several years people have been playing roulette with the real estate market, adding a new car into the mortgage or taking a car loan for up to 96 months, maxing out their charge cards.

I the kids are like the parents, you may be right in your asscessment of their gulibility.

There have, however, been enough brave, patriotic to kids willing to serve in our military to permit the whiners at ITT to continue putting out stupid articles and poll questions for us to argue about.

So mellow out.

agreed, wth. kids aren’t raised in total ignorance. the ever growing underclass realize the cards are stacked against them and some even opt for the military as their only hope for a hand up - that’s not new - but should’ve been a thing of the past by now.

what is truly criminal is how patriotism has been so calculatedly compromised by it’s real beneficiaries - the upper-crust. just witness where and who recruitment efforts are aimed at - college republicans? “... enough brave, patriotic kids willing to serve to permit the whiners at ITT ...” ? oh, no, wth, not that ol’ screed.

‘playing roulette’ to put a shiny new car in the garage? maybe for a few. but for the last decade - increasingly people have been ‘advised to’ or forced to live off whatever equity they had to make ends meet - send kids to school and the rest - all in the belief real estate prices would continue to soar - there’d be buyers galore - the belief that their elected reps and wall street have their (the nation’s working class) best interests at heart - the false promise that ‘free trade’ will inspire democracies to spring up everywhere - dreamland indeed!

credit card debt? hell, their only behaving like their government!

i regret that ol’ Reagan-era inspired tactic of blaming the victim still thrives, wth, along the rest the devastation the fruition of that era and philosophy is spawning. gullible indeed! all one has to do is control the message. watch sunday - it’s all ‘their’ fault. be very afraid and keep investing in bombs to assuage your fear.

staying on topic is a real challenge - since all this stuff is so intertwined.

you’re witnessing the war on the middle-class launched in the 80s ... free trade as opposed to fair trade which benefits a society. free trade only benefits international corps who now make the rules regarding their social responsibilities and morality (they own the law makers) and have no loyalties to anything but the quarterly report.

free trade means a war on unions and wages and workers rights and communities - our social fabric. now we see the manufacturing sector collapse with an economy only performing well for stockholders and the CEO class - and since the late 90s fully 40% of the new market offerings are in the ‘financial services’ sector - a place of whistles and bells and money games - and like the s&l bailout, these wiz kids (thieves) will spawn the next public trough raid. problem is - the trough is empty. we’re selling off our crumbling infrastructure to foreign bidders to raise a few bucks today and siphon off our future.

we need the money to supply armies for the war machine - to be safe!

Hourglass,

I think you are expressing the situation of the US military during the Viet Nam era when you say,

“the ever growing underclass realize the cards are stacked against them and some even opt for the military as their only hope for a hand up - that’s not new - but should’ve been a thing of the past by now.”

Generally it is a think of the past now. The current volunteer military is more highly educated than ever. I’m reasonably sure many of them signed on for the college money thinking they would not be called up for combat — just as our god son did.

The shrinking of the military beginning with the end of the Soviet Union by Bush 39 and a full one-third cut by Clinton helped to create the mythical “budget surplus” (predicated on continued tax revenues from short term stock trading).

Poor judgment on the part of Rumsfeld (ignoring advice from several generals) invading a country of twenty-some million with 125,000 troops (CENTCOM called for 500,000) required the Reserves and National Guard for the first time since Korea.

During the building of the Berlin Wall when I was in the Army Reserve, my unit was on 24 hour alert for a year, some units were activated, but still kept stateside. Does the term “reserve” give a clue what the original mission was?
Our initial force was 40% Guard and Reserves!  These kids could never have anticipated such duty except if invaded by large numbers.

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As for the US economy — we’re on the same page — read my comments on the trade thread.

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My son recently told me of a book he just read which if accurate presents a very sad situation brought on by Japan’s long economic slump. Have you heard of the book, “Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation” , by Michael Zielenziger?

If so, how serious is the situation? The description on amazon.com is what I have been fearing as our predicament in the not so distant future.
Here is a portion of the review…

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From Publishers Weekly
After its 1990 economic crisis, Japan entered a period of stagnation and has yet to recover. Although at first limited to finances, this depression slowly spread to the country’s political system as well as its national consciousness. One extreme example of the problem is the more than one million young men who have given up on school or employment, spending their days in their cramped apartments. In this well-researched and well-organized book, journalist and scholar Zielenziger reveals how these men (“hikikomori”) are both a symptom of and a metaphor for Japan’s ennui.

The methods listed on the vote are indeed old ones.  It’s a bit difficult to pick just one. I could probably add a few more to the list.
  When I enlisted in 76, I was told that I could attend college during my entire tour. In the Infantry, I was only able to attend one semester. And I missed some days for duty. Needless to say, I failed the classes.
  I scored 108 on the entrance test so I wanted to go into a technical field like a camera operator for the military TV station. The recruiter said,“OK, I can send you to 11B, and when you get out of training we’ll give you a 2500.00 cash bonus.” That sounded great to a kid who was going to a community college in Dallas, Tx. on his retired grandmothers income. Boy was I surprised when I made it to AIT and found out that 11B ment infantry.
  Yet even after all that, I don’t have any regrets. I must say those were some of the best years of my life. There’s just something about the military that’s good for the moral development of a young man of 18. I made friends in there that I would die for because I knew they would do the same for me.
  What is truely alarming is that the Bush White House is destroying the pride, honor, and integrity of our military and our country by starting and continueing of this illegal war in Iraq which he and his admin. lied to get us in and there is no outcry for impeachment.
  It’s like, “We were wrong, but we are going to keep doing wrong until it turns right.” A two year old knows better than that. We are not fighting an army in Iraq. We are fighting the poor of Iraq. How do you win the hearts and minds of Iraq by kicking in their front door.
  Democracy is not for everyone. We haven’t even got it right yet so why put it on someone else?

Why are these questions one sided? Why not ask about truthful recruiters, which happen to be 99% of the recruiters, instead of the 1% that you seem to be targeting?

But of course if you put a fair and balanced poll on here, then you would not get the expected results that you want!