82 Comments
Sep 26Liked by CDR Salamander

☝️ THIS! USNA fighting for DIE big-time.

At my 45th reunion this past weekend, 3-star USNA Superintendent was PROUD of the 43% “diversity” (ie, NOT white-male) composition of the Brigade. DIE-hire, herself, perhaps? One can’t help but wonder.

Hey Supe: when you’re focused on “diversity” as criteria for the composition of the Brigade, you’re not focused on merit.

Turn the lights out on this place. The eye is totally off the ball in Annapolis.

Expand full comment
Sep 26·edited Sep 26

I've got my 20th reunion coming up in November - might skip it if I'll have to listen to that BS. I might be lapsing into Disgruntled Old Grad mode but "Camp Tecumseh" appears to be hard over for DEI and Football Uber Alles these days...

Expand full comment

I couldn’t stomach the Chick Supe after all the DIE cheerleading, got up and left. SMDH…I don’t even recognize USNA anymore. But, many (sadly) of my classmates can’t sing the praises of the place loud enough.

Expand full comment

Scoobs: I am a Disgruntled Old Grad from a different "elite" institution. I stopped attending reunions because I did not want to be hectored about DEI and climate change.

Expand full comment

See my comment to Sluggo; just missed my 35th.

Expand full comment

That would be one of my classmates. I had other things going, but to be honest I wasn't too upset about skipping my 35th a few weeks ago because of exactly this crap, as well as how "holier-than-though" certain some classmates are on FB and LinkedIn that the Orange Man is bad.

Expand full comment

EXACTLY!! I was going to skip this last one, like I did for my 40th five years ago. Skipped it for the same reasons: wanted nothing to do with the TDS-suffering BarryO-praising assholes in my class. These same jackwagons are still pushing to modify our Class motto. Some woke feminist ‘80 grad has a burr up her ass over it, and rather than tell her to pack sand, these Beta-males are onboard with her.

Expand full comment

That's immensely sad. I've always been proud to have attended, managed to get through with a real engineering degree (EE), served honorably although I left after 6 years or so. I had a number of friends; some of them are lost to TDS, apparently irrecoverably.

Expand full comment

Aero here. And same situation with terminal-TDS classmates. Just canNOT get past Trump the man. I asked one of ‘em, seriously, you think things are better now - economy, military readiness, border security, etc - than 4 years ago? SERIOUSLY?! Wife then pinched me and I dropped the subject, didn’t bring it up the rest of the weekend. And she’s right, it was pointless.

Expand full comment

Don’t give up the LCWB!!!

Expand full comment

There’s a core group of us trying to hold the line! But too many have been brainwashed; too much time spent in the DC swamp.

Expand full comment

One of my instructors was LCWB Zoomie

Expand full comment

They openly despise the Americans who support Donald Trump, yet that same demographic has traditionally supplied the men who fight our wars. And they wonder why recruiting is down.

Expand full comment

It can lead one to wonder if a certain "class" of successful people, whatever that means in the US, has always tended to despise the Americans who traditionally supplied the men who fight our wars, perhaps not so openly, and maybe even subconsciously.

Expand full comment

Take your thumb OFF the scale!

Expand full comment

CDR Sal, like you, I'll take the win. At this point in time, I'll take anything positive. Not my words, but: Personnel is policy. Unlike a business, that needs to actually perform and show profit to survive, DoD is somewhat immune from practices that are at odds with business realities (be efficient) and personnel hiring law. The current politically appointed DoD leadership (civilian and uniformed, CJCS and service chiefs included) are actively facilitating practices that are now being highlighted as illegal / unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. If three liberal judges are appointed to the Supreme Court (personnel is policy), that line of defense against DEI will dry up. If the current leadership in DoD remains in place, not sure where we go from there, but odds are we won't like it.

Expand full comment

The propagandists on the right thrive by mis-representing liberals and liberalism. A liberal is not a progressive. They are birds of a different feather.

To many of us on the left, the idea, the ideology, is one of Egalitarianism. All people are equal in fundamental worth and moral status, everybody should get an equal opportunity. That's the appeal of Title VII. Race-based decision-making is morally wrong; it is offensive to liberal ideas.

When you righties take the easy path and scream about "the left," you are spewing spittle in the faces of folks who are your allies. Build bridges, don't burn them. None of the non-reactionary justices on the Supreme Court are progressive, frankly, they are pretty conservative.

The right is a tight, organized 30% of the nation. The left is just the folks left over; a disorganized, confused mass of people who are not Republican party card holders. In that 70%, the progressives are, maybe, 10%. Take out another 10% as progressive adjacent, add the remainder to the Republican 30% and you have a good 80% of the American population who would say, "race based decision-making in employment is wrong."

Build a bridge to the many, many people who think like you on an important issue, but do not belong to your political party.

Expand full comment

With all due respect, what alternate reality are you typing from?

Expand full comment

"None of the non-reactionary justices on the Supreme Court are progressive, frankly, they are pretty conservative."

- Yet at least one cannot define what a woman is.

Expand full comment

Does that qualify as "Conservative in judgement?"

Expand full comment

Rather than "spewing spittle" I only have "Oh my" and "Gosh". Got to go now and figure out if I'm one those "you righties". Am willing to accept Tsk's regardless of how that shakes out.

Expand full comment

Tom,

"All people are equal in fundamental worth and moral status, everybody should get an equal opportunity" is the position of conservatives. I'm pretty sure all of the existing "Liberals" to whom you refer are actually on Team Orange now (Tulsi, Elon, RFK Jr, Nicole, etc.).

Expand full comment

“Build a bridge…” Not interested in building bridges to those trying to assassinate a presidential candidate.

Expand full comment

At least one of the two attempted assassins was a Republican. When Thomas Matthew Crooks reached the voting age of 18 in September 2021, he registered to vote in Pennsylvania as a member of the Republican Party and remained registered as a Republican until his death.

The other appears to be a wack-a-doodle in the John Hinckley vein. According to posts on his Twitter account in 2020, Ryan Wesley Routh has expressed shifting political views over the years.

But, you go ahead, treat 60% of your fellow americans as “the enemy.” That will work out fine, in the long run.

Expand full comment

Well, you consider pedophiles to be “minor attracted persons” so I can see why you would think the dead would be assassin is Republican.

Expand full comment

When Alexander Hamilton wrote Washington's farewell address he warned us that assholes like you would be the ruin of our nation. "The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."

Expand full comment

One quibble wrt "Unlike a business, that needs to actually perform and show profit to survive ..."

More than any business, that word "survive" really means what it says for the functional part of DoD, and the policies, procedures, and personnel advancement mandated by the blunt end of the spear are going to cost a lot of lives someday.

Expand full comment

Concur 100%. Upon reflection, would use "succeed" (stay IN business) vice "survive". As long as there is a government, DoD will "survive". Success is apparently in the eye of the Executive branch.

Expand full comment

My own experience in almost 30 years of work as a contractor to DoD was that when a minority/disadvantaged/woman owned company received a set-aside contract, they were rarely able to do the job on their own, and commonly then sub-contracted the vast majority of the work to a larger company that could perform the task. So all that really happened was an extra layer of bureaucracy, cost, and potential confusion - in addition to the transfer of tax dollars to someone the government deemed “worthy”.

Expand full comment

Funny thing is they might have had a 8a address, but I don't know a single 8a business owner that had anything but the minimum number of 8a people and they were doing the most menial of jobs.

Expand full comment

Was peripherally involved when an "A" School DIVO in contracting with civilian companies writing curriculum, and also knew some retirees filing for SBA loans. Seemed to me that the "minority/disadvantaged/woman" part of it was just a company's veneer. Moral? If there's a game out there, it will be gamed.

Expand full comment

Maybe DEi victims can seek reparations from the government and the corporations.

Expand full comment

Well, maybe this will put to rest the canard that civil rights laws do not protect white people, men, etc.

The term "protected classes" has been entirely misunderstood by many.

Expand full comment

Kinda' depends don't it? You and your ilk have certainly not been protecting the Jews on college campuses have you? Surely you're old enough to remember and honor the Cvil Rights Act of 1964 passed by your sainted LBJ of "Ni@@er Bill" of 1957 fame.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-voting-democratic/

Expand full comment

The First Amendment even trumps a lot of civil rights law.

Expand full comment

Yes, like spitting on Jews or threatening them with gas chambers.

Expand full comment

There should be no such thing as "protected classes" unless one considers "citizen" to be class (with the obvious corollary that non-citizens are NOT in that protected class)

Expand full comment

The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Note the "any person." Sorry, you can't just abuse, wantonly discriminate against, imprison, or enslave non-citizens.

Expand full comment

But you most certainly CAN expel them

Expand full comment

Window dressing. The USG is fully committed to DEI and will remain so until demographics and its Great Replacment policies produce the desired result: a majority-minority nation. We're only some 12-20% away (depending on how you count white-adjacent or mixed populations) and 7 states are already majority-minority. I wonder if DEI will work the other way around once minorities are the majority...hmmm.

Expand full comment

Richard: I agree with you. There's no turning back. The demographic changes are not reversible.

Expand full comment

I want to be optimistic but I don't wonder, Richard. All I get is the smell of stringy meat in a stew pot a few years after the lights go out.

Expand full comment

If I don't improve my exercise regimen I fear that I will be the stringy meat in the pot a few months after the power goes out.

Expand full comment

Be careful, Orwell. I plan to go into the stew pot as stringy meat rather than well marbled meat. I've raised a fair amount of livestock to know what tastes best. Be defiant to the end and afterward. Just sayin'.

Expand full comment

Can we stop using the "minority" verbiage? Generally, I dislike discussing race as I think it should have no bearing on law, and I feel that a focus on these immutable characteristics serves only to divide the citizenry.

That said, Caucasians are not in any sense the majority of people on this earth. They are in the minority and become more so every year as Western Europe and North America have decided to inundate their populations with propaganda to prevent women from having children.

For most of our existence the US has been a "majority Minority" country, and the leaders who derive from that Minority have decided to end that situation, along with most of Western Civilization (but i digress).

Expand full comment
Sep 26·edited Sep 26

Agree entirely. Also humans are not the majority of lifeforms on this earth. Insects are (I'm purposely discriminating against bacteria). I'm also an idiot, a racist, and a MAGA lunatic. But I digress.

Expand full comment

Does this mean I can no longer self-identify as a 8a small business, service disabled, lesbian latina?

Expand full comment

go with trans latinx

Expand full comment

Maybe, which carries more equity buzz word gravitas?

Trans or LGBTQIA2S+?

Expand full comment

Trans or LGBTQIA2S+?

note the "T"

Expand full comment

I read recently that the haters are now saying that the "B", which stands for "bisexual", meaning just 2 genders, gives lie to the whole "LGBTQIA2S+?" matrix. Maybe something like "¿" which can be both latinix & gender questioning.

Expand full comment

No, Man. You be you!

Expand full comment

Tsk, Orwell. Assumes gender, bad parsing.

"No, U B U." Better? ☺

Expand full comment

I apologize; I shall endeavor to be, and more importantly to do, better!

Expand full comment

Defense industry is still in the DEI mind lock. As a recently retired military, every single interview I had with a large defense industry company asked me more questions about my views on DEI than asking job title related questions. It was disturbing. I can only hope my being passed over for everyone of those jobs was because they picked a better engineer/manager/innovator, and not someone who answered the DEI questions better.

Expand full comment

I look forward to the wrongful termination suits. "You only hired me for DEI, not competency!"

Expand full comment

The emotional damage component of the final settlement is going to be huge. It'll be a fitting end to all the companies that embraced DEI.

Expand full comment

Hope springs eternal from the hearts of men.

Either way, I'm not getting in a airplane or crossing bridge designed after 2010.

Expand full comment

"Cable giant Comcast limited a small-business grant program to companies at least 51% owned and operated by someone identifying as Black, indigenous, a person of color, or female—people the company said had been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic."

I don't think "limited" means what they think it does. Everybody is eligible except white males. Strange that a CCP biowar lab would avoid targeting white males

Expand full comment
Sep 26·edited Sep 26

The Drill SGT: Some Bank of America representatives visited my business and handed out flyers promoting loan programs with the same discrimanatory, insulting, and probably illegal terms that you noted in your comments. The "out" was that applicants had to "self-identify." I see myself as a female Pacific Islander, but the mirror says otherwise.

Expand full comment

Weekly reminder. DEI = Didn’t Earn It.

Expand full comment

America, the real one, not the one you see on TV.

Expand full comment

I see enough of the real America on the fairer TV and internet news programs to know that the fundamental change wrought lately is more like the buttocks meaning of the root word "fundament".

Expand full comment
founding

I thought I would never see the day when I was happy with lawyers suing my Navy, but here we are.

Expand full comment

Lawyers are OK, but wouldn't some fired up SeaBee's wading in be better? I can't recall ever knowing or hearing of a woke Seabee. Heh...as a civilian I worked for a retired CWO4 SeaBee, with a retired BUCS(SCWS), BUC(SCWS) and an LDO CDR & an LDO LCDR SeaBee, a LCDR SeaBee and have an EO1(SCWS) son-in-law and BUCS (SCWS) cousin. Fine people.

Expand full comment

Sal's having a hard time facing reality regarding the iron-clad commitment to DEI of the fundamental institutions of the USA. I don't blame him—it makes me sick to my stomach as well.

Expand full comment

I can take Pepsid AC and Pepto Bismol for the stomach, Richard. But what's the cure for soul sickness? ...rhetorical question. Prayer.

Expand full comment

Mine is doing the best I can for family and friends. The rest of humanity can get stuffed. Let's see how the ants make out...

Expand full comment

A Randian outlook. Ant & Grasshopper. Three Little Pigs...the house of brick. All good, Richard.

Expand full comment

It's really all I can do. I can feel Mother Nature loosing my grip on the future as I write this. It's up to mine and yours to do what they can and will.

Expand full comment

The only diversity we should care about is that we have new accessions from all the states of the federal Union in the military. It cannot be representative of a few regions, classes, or races, it must represent all Americans. Otherwise, we'll end up more divided.

Expand full comment

Too bad the public schools in some areas can't even provide candidates qualified for the least technical ratings.

Expand full comment

That is the true pity. We cannot provide the hand to those who need it and want out of those places.

Expand full comment