DRAFT: RULERS NEED IT, BUT CANDIDATES CAN’T SAY IT

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DRAFT: RULERS NEED IT, BUT CANDIDATES CAN’T SAY IT— YET

Sunday, 21 September 2008 23:29

NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 11 — As the U.S. bosses expand their wars to Afghanistan-Pakistan and in the future to Iran, Georgia and more, their overextended military will need millions of troops. On the anniversary of 9/11, Barack Obama and John McCain made a visit to Columbia (Obama’s alma mater) to push national service as part of the “ServiceNation” kick-off event.

Both got loud boos when they told the audience that Ivy League colleges should re-institute officer training (ROTC). Both avoided the words “draft” and “mandatory” when they spoke, mainly focusing on volunteerism and charity work. Knowing that John Kerry’s push for obligatory service helped torpedo his 2004 campaign, the duo tread lightly around the issue—for now.

ServiceNation is a bipartisan “grassroots” organization made up of politicians from Caroline Kennedy to Neil Bush, many CEOs, and retired military brass. It is backed by imperialists like Goldman Sachs and the Rockefeller Fund. The group’s utimate goal is a universal national service act by, at the latest, 2020.

While a handful of students were admitted to see Obama and McCain speak in person, thousands gathered on the main campus to watch via Jumbotron.

Leading up to the event, many comrades were able to get out a wide variety of literature at the campus gates, despite heavy police presence. This included copies of leaflets and pamphlets exposing the elections and “national service,” as well as issues of CHALLENGE and THE COMMUNIST magazine. We made several contacts, and engaged in a number of generally positive discussions. Inside the gates was a different story. The awestruck atmosphere towards Obama at the rally inside the campus made it more difficult to distribute literature.

Although the students in attendance at the event are not representative of the majority of working-class students around the country, we were able to get out a fair amount of literature in spite of many obstacles.

We must join the bosses’ national service programs, to alert students to the gathering storm and win them to anti-imperialism, anti-racism, and — most importantly — the Party itself. In this sense, while the amassing of students in national service organizations is a great danger, it is also an opportunity for us.

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