Thursday, October 18, 2007

Field Negro a Star

One of my favorite blogs, The Field Negro, got a big Column One write-up by Richard Fausset in today's LA Times: "Blogger Goes Into 'The Fields'". Interesting reading, but not, of course, as interesting as the blog itself.
I worry a little that I find Field Negro's blog so accessible and informative--I'm awfully white, so I expect a blog telling me truth about race to make me more uncomfortable than the Field's generally does. So I read other black bloggers as well--AfroSpear makes them easy to find--and laugh and cry with the Field.
One of the things I found particularly interesting about The Field Negro is his permanent call to "Bring Back the Draft", on the grounds that "No one should be immune to sacrifice."

I have always supported the draft, as universal and exception-free as possible, although I oppose the existence of a standing army, because if we are going to have a permanent military all citizens need to pay more attention to how it operates. Over the years since the abolition of the draft, the transformation of the entire economy into meat grinder forcing poor people to a choice between prison and the "all-volunteer" army, and the use being made of this institution by the people who shaped it, have added considerable moral urgency to the problem. I haven't been vocal on this issue because I don't always want to get into fights with the few people who agree with me on other issues, but I'm glad to see it among The Field Negro's causes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So without a standing army, who would protect the national security? The UN? YOU?