The oracle speaks

[prog]

If Bush wins in November, look for the draft to restart by the end of 2005. Dollars to donuts says they’d really like to switch it on right now, but for the precipitous popularity drop it would guarantee. But if an overconfident neocon administration (check) thinks that, with an inexhaustible supply of fresh troops and techs, it could finally meet all its international burnination objectives within a couple of years and seal up a Cheney (or whomever) win in 2008, I bet that it would gleefully take the risk.

Think you’re too old? But you’re a hacker, eh? Uh-oh...

Comments

[keimel.livejournal.com]

Hysteria period for this event is over. This was March 13th, was already slashdotted and commented to death. It'd be one of many steps to a specialized 'draft'.

Of course, now that we've all sent in out tax returns, what did you put for 'title' ? Or, what did you do on the last census? The biggest thing a selective draft will do is to have a lot of titles changing around, a lot of people writing 'consultant' on their forms and one hell of a lot more lying on the next census.

And quite honestly, the gov't will be needing a lot of help when the cyber terror that more regular terrorist agencies will take credit for actually starts. We're so damned vulnerable right now it's ridiculous. So they'll need lots of people who can fix it after it's broken. Then you can start watching the US ignore RFC's all over the place in an effort to 'secure' it's vulnerable Internet.

Wow, that's quite a rant of mine. Looks like a prediction as well. Oh well. Feel free to start making 'typos' in the 'title' position of forms you sign from now on :)

[pseudomanitou.livejournal.com]

Oh, it all fits now:
first, they open up trade negotiations with India, the trade partnership goes well and sucks all the tech jobs out of the US, thousands of tech trained men and women (all young enough to serve) wander around looking for a way to feed themselves, in steps the government to snatch them up willingly at first, and by draft if necessary later.

I never give the Bush administration enough credit as to imagine they could be smart enough to pull some of those conspiracy theories out there - but it's really frustrating to see coincidence fall in favor with that pack of fools. They're like retarded salvage workers who work part time as light-house operators: they salvage the ships they sink with their stupidity.

Counter-prediction

[dougo.livejournal.com]

There will never be a draft while the Baby Boomers still control Congress. Even if it's all Republicans, I think enough of them remember how badly the last draft went.

[wrog]

I don't think it's going to have much to do with whether W gets re-elected or not.

If anything, a Kerry administration that's still stuck in Iraq (under the "we broke it, we bought it" paradigm) is probably more likely to institute a draft under the guise of wanting to appear strong on national defense/security, whereas under a continuation of Rumsfeld&friends sending more troops would be an admission that trying to do everything with streamlined, small, efficient forces was just a mistake ... and we know how they are about admitting mistakes.

Keep in mind it was Jimmy Carter who brought back draft registration after it had been a dead issue for most of a decade.