![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/keep-out1.jpg\" "\\"keep")
In the wake of bin Laden’s death, political pressure is mounting for a quick withdrawal from Afghanistan.\u00a0 We were leaving anyway: Obama announced months ago that we are going to draw down force levels there, and we’re already in the process of bringing troops home from Iraq.<\/p>\n
What happens when the troops come home?\u00a0 Unless the answer is “redeploy to Libya and Yemen,” we have to figure out how to find employment for tens of thousands of young men and women about to be mustered out of the military.<\/p>\n
No one wants to say it, but the military is, for many, a steady job with good pay and benefits.\u00a0 If we keep underemployed troops in uniform after withdrawing them from Iraq and Afghanistan, the military will become a jobs program.\u00a0 Once that happens … if that happens … it won’t be long before people start screaming about bloated military pay and cushy benefits.<\/p>\n
But if we do muster out huge numbers of troops, where will they find work?\u00a0 With the “official” unemployment rate at around 9%<\/a>, the unofficial “real” unemployment rate double that<\/a>, and new job creation in the shitter<\/a>, drawing down military personnel levels will put a hell of a strain on the country.\u00a0 Nevertheless, it’s probably going to happen, and soon.<\/p>\n We need a jobs program.\u00a0 I don’t see any way around it.\u00a0 Not just to help employ troops transitioning to civilian life, but to help the civilians who are already out of work in this recession.\u00a0 Fortunately there’s a ton of work that needs to be done in this country, work that a civilian job corps would be perfectly suited for: rebuilding our transportation and power distribution infrastructure.<\/p>\n I’m willing to pay more taxes to help make it happen, but only if the wealthy and the corporations … especially those corporations that sent American jobs overseas … pay their share too.<\/p>\n Now that I’m through dreaming, it’s back to daily bloggage:<\/p>\n ——————–<\/p>\n I have a particular fondness for kid jokes.\u00a0 They always make me laugh.\u00a0 Do you know why you can’t hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom?\u00a0 Because the “p” is silent.\u00a0 Jokes like that.\u00a0 Here’s my latest fave:<\/p>\n What’s the difference between a weasel and a stoat?\u00a0 One is weaselly distinguished; the other’s stoatally different.<\/p>\n ——————–<\/p>\n Donna hosted her bridge club last night, so I cleared out.\u00a0 Spent an hour at Harbor Freight looking at motorcycle lifts<\/a>, but couldn’t find one with a safety bar to lock the lift once it’s jacked up.\u00a0 Seems to me not having a safety bar is asking for trouble, and I’m surprised they sell them without such an obvious safety feature.\u00a0 For now my motorcycle will remain firmly on the ground.<\/p>\n At Barnes & Noble, where I spent the following hour, I wound up with two dog books.\u00a0 The first is titled Inside of a Dog, from the famous Groucho Marx line: “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend — inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”\u00a0 It’s a nonfiction book about the inner lives of dogs.\u00a0 The second is Thereby Hangs a Tail, another Chet & Bernie mystery (Chet is a private eye’s dog; you can read a review of another Chet & Bernie mystery here<\/a>).<\/p>\n ——————–<\/p>\n All my sisters have replaced their Facebook profile pictures with childhood photos that include our mother, who died far too soon.\u00a0 Not to be outdone, I found a photo of mom holding me as a robust infant:<\/p>\n Happy Mother’s Day, mom!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the wake of bin Laden’s death, political pressure is mounting for a quick withdrawal from Afghanistan.\u00a0 We were leaving anyway: Obama announced months ago that we are going to draw down force levels there, and we’re already in the process of bringing troops home from Iraq. What happens when the troops come home?\u00a0 Unless […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2,8,29,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-personal","category-politics","category-the-economy","category-war"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6138"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6150,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6138\/revisions\/6150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/mom-and-me.jpg\" "\\"mom")
<\/p>\n