Part of the Plan for the Betterment of the Empire

The Washington Post reports that, no big surprise, youths from economically depressed areas are joining the military in much larger numbers than their peers.

It's always been the case, unfortunately. A good friend of mine lived in West Virginia during the Vietnam War; he had a 1-A draft classification, but so many people were enlisting, desperate to escape Appalachian poverty, that the military met its quotas with just enlistments and nobody got drafted.

But it's different now. Back then there were isolated pockets of poverty in an otherwise economically booming economy. Now we've degenerated into the Wal-Mart economy, with the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer and the middle class evaporating. And that's what the keepers of the Empire are counting on. They need more cannon fodder to fight the continuing wars of the Empire, and without a real draft they are creating an economic draft.

It's a sad but true fact that we are allowing -- encouraging --our young people to sacrifice their lives so we can enrich even more that top 1%, those slimy plutocrats who don't give a shit about the rest of us.