[geeks] Special skills draft?

[Francisco Javier Mesa-Martinez]

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 4:04:23 +0000
  Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at verizon.net> wrote:
>> From: "Francisco Javier Mesa-Martinez" <lefa at ucsc.edu>
>> Date: 2004/09/23 Thu PM 10:20:41 GMT
>> To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>> Subject: Re: [geeks] Special skills draft?
>> 
>> On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 21:44:34 +0000
>>   Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at verizon.net> wrote:
>> 

>> Personally I thought he was trying to make a point with 
>>a 
>> little bit of humour. I don't think it was meant to be 
>> taken literally... Basically if the war is so important, 
>> would you  be willing to send your own kids too? 
>>Afterall 
>> we're supposed to be in this together, right?
> 
> The point is, parents don't send their children to 
>battle, their children volunteer.

That is one way of seeing it, again he was just fishing 
for the reaction of the policy makers when offered 
enlistment panflets for their kids. Sure the kids are the 
ones voluteering, but sure as hell you need to gauge the 
reaction of the parents. Which I believe that is what he 
was aiming for. If you support a war, but you are not 
willing to endorse or favor your kids to join the effort, 
sort of tell you something, no?

> The point of which was what? Draw attention to himself? 
>If that is the case, then he is not pointing out the 
>"monstruosity that the patriot act really is", he is 
>turning it into an excuse to point the camera at himself. 
>No one could have heard the patriot act in it's entirety 
>without chasing the ice cream truck, so it is not about 
>"telling the people" it is about being seen, appearing to 
>"tell the people".

Well, it was the absurdity of it all that he was just 
trying to present in a sort of over the top way . It 
doesn't matter what he does you'll have a nit to pick 
anyways, so probably this exchange may be moot. To tell 
you the truth I do not see the big deal in his 
presentation, since I got loud and clear the message: no 
one in capitol hill almost bothered to read the patriot 
act before voting on it. That is what I found rather 
disturbing or alarming, not that a fat ugly guy was 
running around an icecream truck.