I watched a PBS show on the history of the draft (conscription, selective service) a couple of nights ago.  It pissed me off.

I could see it as a non-disguised attempt to promote the upcoming conscription program in the US so more warm bodies could be present for the slaughter.

That said there were some interesting points.  Conscription was soundly rejected for the slavery it was by CONgress for 80 years until the civil war.  Then the draft came about not by CONgress but by Presidential decree of good citizenship:  Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln. 

Then it was institutionalized by Woodrow Wilson to provide fodder for his desired entry into WWI on the other side of the globe.  He was too big a puss to call it the draft or conscription where nice men with guns would come and shoot you if you didn't comply.  Instead he called it Selective Service wanting to avoid the obvious slave label. 

He did something interesting.  Instead of making it a national program he made it a community program where the communities decided who got sent and how (local draft boards). 

PBS made quite a show how the poor were disproportionately shipped off to war while the middle class and well connected cheered at home.  Indeed, in the 60's the middle class booed the anti-war, anti-draft protestors until changes were made by Nixon (in response to CONgress not passing his end the draft proposal; introduced by young CONgressman Donald Rumsfeld of all people) that started shipping middle class off to Vietnam.  Then the middle class rejected the draft and the war.

Interestingly, PBS makes a good case that an all volunteer military makes it easier for our fearless leaders to start and supply wars.  Draftees don't want to be there.  But if you cannot persuade enough suckers to volunteer then you also have a problem.  But waring with draftees who do not want to be there means quagmire and defeat by unmotivated serfs who want to be somewhere else doing something else. 

Long drawn out protracted wars that result in massive expenditures and fat and easy contracts for the war industries is what the goal has been lately with the failure of the "War on Terror" to provide the largess the Cold War provided.  Future draftees be warned.

Parents with high school students the war machine is seducing your child.  Ex-students with huge debt CONgress will soon let you pay it back by joining the military.  Serfs!