Elisa Lazzarino; military service is indentured servitude

This has been passed around the social media recently. Elisa Lazzarino, who is apparently a political science grad student at North Carolina State University, thinks that the ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) is being used to keep students passive;

Andrew Sheppard calls for the end of NC State’s ROTC program, arguing that “every semester that we continue to support these programs is another semester contributing to ongoing crimes abroad.” It’s remarkable that more than 15 years after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and with the recent U.S.-led interventions in Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Syria, Sheppard’s appeal for an end to the militarization of the university remains alone.

US interventions? Really, Elissa? Remember our intervention in Kuwait, the one that you didn’t mention? We invaded the country and promptly gave it back to Kuwaitis. They’re pretty happy that we intervened. If we were really the imperialists that you think we are, Kuwait would have been one of the countries that we’d keep, for the oil. We intervened in Somalia because the Left, academia and the media, begged President HW Bush to intervene there. John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi intervened in Syria while President GW Bush was trying not to intervene – go talk to them.

The ROTC as an institution, as Sheppard rightly argues, promotes U.S. imperialism and makes NC State complicit in the failed war on terror. The empty patriotism that ROTC programs use to attract inexperienced and often financially disadvantaged recruits, when unquestioned, is a distraction from the unspeakable horrors that occur on the other side of the world.

Have you ever taken an ROTC class, Elissa? If you did, it might help you to understand the concept instead of your jingoistic sniping from the sidelines about “US imperialism” and “empty patrotism” whatever that is.

In addition to the injustice of war itself, the ROTC is in a unique position at large public universities like NC State to exploit poor and minority students, and contract them into military service in what is arguably a modern form of indentured servitude. In 2013, the Army announced that it planned to close 13 ROTC programs in the rural Southeast while increasing funding to urban programs with the explicit aim of attracting minority students. These targeted minority students are likely to come from low-income backgrounds, given the large intersection between ethnic and racial minorities and economic disadvantage. Students enrolled in ROTC programs receive funding from the military for tuition, books and monthly stipends on the condition that they serve after graduation. For students who have difficulty paying for college, this may be an attractive offer.

War is not just, however there are people in the world who use war to stay in power. You know, people like ISIS, the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Syrian government, the Houthi in Yemen. Who is going to stop them from turning the whole world into shitholes like their own countries if there is no US military? The Euros? Ha!

There are no “poor” students to manipulate in college. They become poor when they have to pay back their loans. Only the folks with a hint of foresight look for a way to pay for it, by choice, before the bills come due. By choice. Unlike airhead political science grad students who won’t be able to make enough money with their useless degrees to pay back the loans. Monthly stipends are sounding good right about now, aren’t they? I’ll bet she’d be the first in line if the government offered to pay off loans without any kind of service in exchange.

The inexperience of youth, combined with difficult financial circumstances gives the military a clear advantage in this transaction, and traps students inside a toxic culture of blind nationalism and violence. For these reasons, if NC State students care about the moral integrity of our university and our intellectual freedom, we have a moral imperative to abolish the ROTC on our campus.

The inexperience of youth is what prompts airhead political science grad students to pretend to tell us what the world needs to do. Without an officer corps educated in our finest universities, how do you propose that we defend our national interests, Elissa? Would you prefer an officer corps educated at the service academies exclusively? There’s another bloc of opinion-makers who want to close them, too.

I’m sure it’s just the sight of your fellow students in uniform becoming the leaders of the next generation is what upsets you most. In fact, it’s probably conservatism that is really your target in this blathering. Military officers tend to be more conservative than their peers.

Category: Politics