RTP-area local music and culture

[grady AT ibiblio.org]

Perv, the Nerve Prattmeyer © wrote:
> grady AT ibiblio.org wrote in message news:<407B06F2.5090507 AT ibiblio.org>...
>
> > Yes, that has certainly helped keep Israel on the moderate-to-leftward 
> > path that it's on.

> It's moderate to bulldoze and steal the land of poor peasants for no
> reason except they may have one family member who may have commited a
> crime?????
> To arrest people and imprison them without a trial??

Not really equipped to recognize sarcasm, even when it's fairly apparent 
contextually? Life in the postmodern era must be difficult for you.

> > military is neither equipped nor eager to deal with several million 
> > 18-year-old fuckups, either in peacetime or in wartime. Army of One, 
> > remember? The days of handing teenagers M16s and throwing them into 
> > foxholes are pretty much over. You gotta be able to drive a humvee while 
> > packet-radio-networking a laptop and navigating via GPS in a blinding 
> > sandstorm.
>
> You must be kidding?? Maybe you outa check out who's joining and why.
> If you are sayng it's an army of well motivated geeks, when are you
> joining up??
> The military is still a good choice over boring bad paying jobs for
> poor HS students, and people, who's daddy can't afford Vanderbilt U's
> or even Carolina's price.
> No it's still poor and lower middle class people fighting and dying.

Are you suggesting that poor people aren't capable of driving, fucking 
with a laptop, navigating via GPS, and shooting a gun at the same time? 
 I made no statements about the educational background or income level 
of today's soldiers. I said the military isn't equipped (remember all 
those base closings in the 80s/90s?) nor eager (they've gone on record 
repeatedly as saying they prefer to pick-and-choose rather than take any 
pile of meat that comes along) to deal with the several million 
18-year-olds that compulsory service would bring them.

They're not babysitters. They kinda used to be, back in the day when the 
army was the last choice before jail being handed down by "kindly" 
judges to juvies. But nowadays they spend an assload of money training 
people and they have an assload of complicated equipment in the field. 
They want the smartest people they can find. I'm not saying they're 
out-recruiting the universities or corporate america. I'm just saying 
they've gotten a lot pickier since 1975.

I'm also not saying there won't be a draft; I was debating Bendy's 
suggestion that Universal Service would be the answer to a host of our 
nation's ills. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were a draft 
(it's almost an inevitability if Bush gets re-elected and fucking 
invades North Korea), but I'd also be willing to bet that the criteria 
for rejection would be a good bit different than they were the last time 
we had one. They really don't want just any old body anymore.

Ross