the draft

[Joseph Tracy]

I think I misstated my intended argument by using the word draft.  
That is too narrow. What I really meant was the power of a nation to  
compel compliance with its military aggression. This includes taxes,  
media propaganda, and the draft or other recruitment tools. In this  
case it was about Vietnam. The Nixon statue in VL is in black and  
white marble and faces inward. Pretty loaded imagery.  At the same  
time we were properly criticizing the Soviet countries for trapping  
their citizens, the US had elected a man associated with mass fear  
mongering about "the enemy within". Vond reveals this binary good vs  
evil mentality when he calls the PR3 a mini Marxist state, a patently  
absurd characterization  . What I meant about the draft card burning  
was that it was a direct declaration of independence:You don't own my  
ass; I am not going to be a weapon for the empire.  To assert these  
things is as American as Yankee Doodle and Don't tread on me and as  
revolutionary as ever.