For members of the Front Porch, this is old news … but for a lot of people, they are just now getting in the fight. For the last couple of decades, those they relied on to defend the fundamentals of a fair society kept saying this hill or that hill was “not worth dying on” and surrendered without a fight, so the Cultural Marxist cadres have most of the high ground from the service academies to The Pentagon. We are not quite surrounded as of yet.
We are so screwed. This ball is rolling down hill and anyone with a basic understanding of gravity knows crap rolling downhill doesn't easily change direction.
This crap isn't fixed just by electing "conservatives." Bush was generally conservative. No, more than just being conservative, anyone elected to fix this will have to be a person of courage who won't wilt at being called names for opposing this garbage.
I used to think Bush was conservative too. The picture of him virtually sitting in Big Mike's lap with his smiling head resting on Big Mike's ample pecs has dispelled any illusion I had about him 20 years ago. I wish to rescind any vote or defense I ever provided that waste of political skin.
It's going to be brutal since the stench of weakness is going to finally provoke a war that will will require Americans to stand in the line of fire. A very brutal Darwinian culling of woke and trans. More-so than the naval task force no in the Red Sea. And, that my be the first America casualties if those ship clean out their quivers and the Houthis get lucky. Remember, WWII didn't start out so hot for us with Pearl Harbor, the Philipines, Java Sea and Kasserine pass. The lesson of the previous wars fought seem to get lost in the latest political fads.
The key difference is the the generation nthat went to war in '41 had solid values AND had the hardship of the great depression behind them. Folks also still had faith in their public institutions. NO ONE in my conconservative family has any faith in governing anything and no one will die for Chervon or Genocide Joe either...
It may be too late. If the service academies are this bad, the problem will likley persist until the power goes out for a few months. That may be due to foreign or domestic malice or incompetence or both (or God winding up the meteor we need), but it's going to happen eventually. None of this garbage will really go away until it does.
A complex problem, with no simple solution(s). The U.S. has been the most successful example of "mixing pot" population aggregation in history. Degrading it by patiently teaching the citizens that breaking free of the "lineage" / immutable characteristics model is wrong / criminal / against humanity seems be close to reaching critical mass. Taking over the education of teachers a long time ago has allowed the young to be taught to hate their country. G.K. Chesterton has a quote (which I'll probably mangle): "The true soldier does not hate what is in front of him, he loves what is behind him." If you've been taught your country is evil, how many young people will choose to fight for it? There's lots more, but this is enough for now...
I was listening to an interview show on YouTube regarding the NATO parasites who don’t even meet the modest 2% of GDP defense spending. One panel member uses the term “post patriot society” to describe the Europeans, but it equally applies to America. Sure, all, the alphabet people want to get into the service academies in order to be the “First [Insert Your Degeneracy] to Attend [Insert the Service Academy]”, but I don’t imagine any of them would every be interested in fighting for America.
The young men being imported to country now are not here to fight for us, but to fight for the government against us. Senators are already promising the illegals citizenship to join up.
They know for the most part Bubba and Tyrone aren't going to lay waste to the American towns and cities they grew up in and their own families. They need foreign recruits to hold us down.
Correct....the British empire used Indian police and Gurkas in Hong Kong for example. The Canadian government seems to have used foreign police to suppress the recent protests in Ottowa as well.
It has not been very successful as a mixing pot at all. It did alright when it was dealing with a small population of Africans and everyone else was some stripe of Christian of European descent, but it is already beginning to go downhill after only 60 years of mandated Civil Rights and immigration opening up to the entire globe. I think when the dust settles and the US has failed Rome will still hold the record for longest lasting mixing pot society.
Wait wait wait. Is this for real? In the US Army/Navy? WTH? I thought (being not from US) that only universities and tech companies were afflicted by this.
I can't believe this. I mean, Annapolis - even I know the name. A _naval_ academy. Gender studies? WTDF???
Maybe this is it - the answer how great old empires died, by corruption from within. Making an unrelated comparison - the WH40K universe seemed to me when I learned about it many years ago very very exaggerated (their continuous fight against heresy and any suspicion of it), but it becomes less and less so, month by month.
It's too late to course correct. The leadership has been embracing this poison for more than 30 years, and every new class gets worse. Only a hard reset is going to make this go away. Perhaps the Angels ask "have we tried turning it off and on again?"
Oh it's quite real and has been coming out bit by bit for some time now. And the proponents of this orthodoxy will simply attached new terms and labels to skate around any attempts to peel back what gains they've made. These leopards are not going to change their spots because a bunch of elected politicos start foisting their "remedies" on them. And we have raised up a lot of senior leadership that are just as invested in this. And as for Pax Americana, there is a lot of rust and corrosion on that machinery along with a boat load of intellectual squish baked into the controls.
I hate Donald Trump and still hope he won't be the nominee. I pray for DeSantis administration.
IN SPITE OF THAT...I will crawl a dozen miles over crap-stained broken glass to vote for Trump IF he is the nominee, because there is NO future for this nation unless we arrest the slide into this nonsense.
All the "Never Trump" arguments fall apart. Whatever Trump's faults, they cannot and will not amount to a hill of beans in the face of the determined leftist onslaught that has been ENABLED by so-called conservatives that were upset TRUMP was dictatorial or unpresidential.
Tell me, what is presidential about a POTUS compromised by Chicom money, with a degenerate son selling the office? What is presidential about an administration determined to destroy and gender confuse our military? I could go on ad nauseum but you get the point.
Never in a million years could a 2nd Trump admin be as bad as this administration has been.
And imagine how unencumbered Biden's handlers would be in a 2nd admin, when they know they can RULE in spite of a POTUS with historic unpopularity.
If you think Biden won fair, at this point, your an idiot, and I have no words for you.
Were was the fraud? baked in. Mail-in voting and canvassing. You HONESTLY think that wasn't abused?
So, to all the never Trumpers. If Sniffy get's a 2nd round to destroy us, this is ON YOU!
No matter how much I despise Trump (and it is alot), he is still far preferable, and we have NO chance with Sniffy v2.0
And we have to beat the margin of fraud.
Anyone other than die-hard liberals who fails to vote for WHOEVER the Republican candidate is, YOU are to blame if this country goes down in flames in Grandpa Biden's 2nd coming.
Why do you hate Trump? I know he's a NYC liberal, but every element of the entrenched state hates and fears him enough to destroy the country to keep him out. That alone is enough to make him attractive to many voters. I don't like the man's demeanor, but I approve of almost all of his policies.
DeSantis has done well in Florida, but I suspect he is by now indebted to the Bushies and the rest. I think he's been allowed to make localized progress on some peripheral social issues as red meat to the "base" but in the end will be no better than Jeb (OG skirtless) or Hailey (Jeb in a skirt).
Honestly? Because for all he sells himself as a populist for the little people, I don't think he actually cares. He doesn't care about the details. He just wants to be President for his ego.
He totally screwed the pooch on COVID, by listening to all the authoritarians instead of those preaching common sense. Then he turns around and baldfacedly lies claiming that DeSantis was doing all the things HE was doing on COVID.
He gave us Warp Speed. He gave us Pharma immunity. HE failed to prepare for the giant mail fraud.
He surrounded himself with sycophants in his inner circle who cared more about 1-upping each other then actually doing the hard work of pushing through conservative policy.
He UTTERLY failed to rein in the bureaucratic state until the last few days of the admin, all of which was then undone by Biden.
He had 4 years. He could have GUTTED the senior executive service, filled the plum book with solid conservatives who could then be converted, like the dems do, filling the upper ranks of government with real conservatives who would fight for conservative policies.
Instead, he utterly failed to grasp how you fight the bureaucratic state, and thus left it even more powerful. He failed to put down rebellion in multiple agencies when he had the power, he let himself be limited at every step by the very establishment repubs he knew were determined to undermine him.
I think Trump got a bum wrap on a lot of it, and never had a chance for anything domestic. He had to fight tooth and n ail every day against the administrative state and the RNC/DNC party. He tried to issue orders for the military about DEI and CRT and they just blew him off. He had every corner of DC against him from the outset. Even with supposedly Republican congress they wouldn't do anything to secure the borders. I don't agree he could have gutted the SES. He tried to cut back on the NSC and wasn't even allowed to do that effectively.
That said, I think he put together a decent economic team, and that's the only place he was able to do anything for a little while.
With respect to Covid, I think he was naïve. Comi9ng form an older generation, I think he initially believed what they were telling him. Even then he still had more faith in our institutions than I've had in 20 years. Pharma immunity was in place before Trump, and it was the OOC NIS and FDA that declared war on ivermectin and HCQ in order to maintain their EUA for the new mRNA therapies. Also, in 2020 Ron was no better than Don. Initially he bought into all of it too. He's just had three more years in power to respond to facts.
Regardless, it seems like we have similar concerns and want to see a lot of the same things happen. We may disagree about who can or will do them best, but the truth is the President has very little power over a mutinous executive branch and intelligence community. It will be very difficult to end their unconstitutional power unless we rebuild representative government from the ground up, because the current two major political parties are just two conferences playing each other in the All Government League. They don't care which conference wins as long as the league makes money and gains power..
Trump had a childlike trust of senior military officers and the people running the government 'public health' system. I suspect that is not so true if he gets back in.
Yes, I agree. Most of the older people in my family are like that. The only person I knew born in the 40's that wasn't worked SF/Intelligence in the 60s for the UK.
Agreed on everything, but my frustration was that before he even got into office, he turned his back on conservatives who got him elected and let CHRIS CHRISTIE run his administrations staffing efforts, and then he was surprised when the RINO elite sabotaged him left and right.
I get it, being from outside govt was a selling point.
But you can't REMAKE something unless you understand how it works in the first place, and he made NO effort to do so..
Regardless, I pray by some miracle we are able to get the change we all appear to agree we need, and is starts by GUTTING the Senior Executive Service.
If I was advising either the Trump or DeSantis campaigns, the day after the election was called in their favor, I would release a prepared statement that said, in effect:
"Ever person in govt at the grade of GS-15 or above, every person in uniform at the grade of O-6 or above, is hereby given notice that they will be terminated from their current position/billet effective February 1st, next year, and any person desiring to remain in their current position/billet must apply within the next 30 days tot he administrations staffing team to have their resume and qualifications and actions reviewed for consideration for this position".
Note, we can deal with the issue of actual firing later. The President has the authority to remove ANY Flag officer or SES from their BILLET. They may still draw a paycheck, but they will be Out of the chain of command.
This idea that the military can't function because a few flag offices can't get promoted is a joke and half.
The entire DoD could be run by O-4's and O-5's for several years if need be till Trump got the right number of promotions pushed through
And to start with, from now on, flag officers who oversee disastrous plans or actions of their own design will see their careers ENDED.
We are in complete agreement on that prepared statement! I was also somewhat gob-smacked when he involved Christie.
I like to think that we still have an opportunity to restore Constitutional, non-international government, starting locally, without an epoch-defining violent conflict. I'm a math and numbers guy, never understood people much at all (or at least, I understand a lot of them but never was able to determine if a given individual was lying to me early enough to matter) but at some level I think there is a core of people who still believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit, and the value of Constitutional government, inn this country.
I have a stable of center-leftists in my family, and I'm starting to be able to show them that 80-90% of all of us believe the same things and desire the same outcomes. The reason every election is 51-49 and the opposing sides live in dire fear of each-other is because our establishment (RNC/DNC, administrative state, elite academia, and media) feed off our conflict with each-other as citizens. Even a discussion as polarized as abortion, when discussed and not narrativized (word?) can be resolved with 80-90% approval of all citizens in any given state legislatively.
Edit: Oh yeah; Happy New Year! I hope 2024 brings you, yours, and all of us happiness and prosperity.
Where the attacks on DeSantis fall apart is COVID. Ron has run 100% in the face of Pharma, and the bushies and establishment are 100% beholden to Pharma.
There is zero chance they have Ron under their control, and he would still attack pharma and the bio-medical industrial complex the way he has.
Ron's support in the establishment comes from people who are, right or wrong, terrified of Trump.
But those same people are jumping ship and piling on Haley since she is far more their kind of tool.
Hell, I would prefer Trump over Haley (and DeSantis over Trump) and I'll STILL vote for Haley if she gets the nom. I'd even vote for that slimy little shit Ramaswamy, who is a self-promoting snake oil salesman if ever there was one, if it keeps the Dems out of control of the executive branch.
about the only Rep I couldn't vote for would be that fat pig Christie, because if he got the nom, it would be proof positive that the establishment has rigged the game, and it's time to start polishing bayonets
How can you wax so eloquently about Biden's son, yet ignore all the Trump grifting? Jared Kushner’s spends four years ass-kissing and murder-excusing the Saudis and gets paid off in the form of a $2 billion investment from the kingdom‘s sovereign wealth fund to his newly formed private equity firm and Joe Biden is crooked?
Trump had minor grift with NY elites to make himself rich, the kind EVERY major businessperson in the US has. Until he dared challenge the entrenched elite, nobody cared.
Biden sold out to foreign hostile governments, enabled insanity on an industrial scale (gender whacky doodles in the military, supporting sex changes for kids, race baiting, etc).
See, everyone who is never Trump got their Hates wrong.
Is he uncouth and unpresidential? sure. He's a narcissist and totally lacking in class, and a bit of a bully.
But all the crap people said he was? Racist? LIE. Starting wars? LIE
cozying to dictators? LIE! He knows how to negotiate, and you don't get it by calling Putin bad names and then expecting him to honor treaties like we do.
Putin invaded Crimea under Obama, then cooled his heels while Trump was in office, then went for the full enchilada once Biden showed how weak we were in Afghanistan.
For all I despise Trump, there is literally nothing he did other than the petty unpresidential behavior stuff, that is in any way approaching how bad Biden has been.
And we all KNEW Biden would be this bad based on who he surrounds himself with.
But some people deluded themselves into thinking Trump was worse.
BTW, Jared got 2 Arab countries to recognize Israel. He and Trump made more progress on ME peace than the last 4 Presidents combined.
Which is why Biden had to undermine it, and Hamas attacked, because Iran cannot stand the thought of Israel at peace with moth of the Sunni states.
Most Muslims may be peaceful (most I met over there were) but ISLAM is an EVIL CULT that is 100% incompatible with Western Civ. The Saudi leadership are NO WORSE than any other ME leaders, but if they work with us, they are better than those who work against us.
Always strange to see you post on a Thursday Tommyboy. But what about Sal’s essay? What about the issues he brings up on every Diversity Thursday, issues that your party is responsible for? You always seem to be light on the defense of your party’s ideas.
I’m usually in agreement with the Cdr. on diversity, but my level of interest in the subject is low, so I don’t get fired up enough to post. As for “my party’s ideas,” the Democratic Party is so broad, with so many factions, that you can’t even say what the party’s ideas are.
In America’s two party system, at least where I live, if you are not registered in a party, you can’t participate in elections. Many folks like me are more “not Republicans” than we are Democrats.
Thank you, Sal, for your long term, focused, diligent, persistent, highly illuminating efforts to expose the "D"-thing; the Diversity Industrial Complex -- DIC, for short. Indeed, bless you for your Herculean labors in those Augean Stables of toxic thought and destructive intent.
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Meanwhile, let's give a nod of thanks to the governing board of the Harvard Corporation, and Harvard president Claudine Gay for elevating (unwittingly, to be sure) the case against DIC to a much higher level of visibility; far beyond the noble efforts of humble, retired Navy bloggers. Because really... Just in the past month, these two entities have placed the entire matter of cultural and academic rot on both the front and editorial pages of news sites across the land. Long and short; the public is becoming educated, and the Overton Window is shifting in ways that solidly register on national level political seismographs
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Ponder this: if it was just a bunch of Old Salts bellyaching about bizarre English or Literature courses at the Naval Academy, would many voters ever pay enough attention to care? But now, post-Harvard, one can put a finger exactly on the pinnacle example of egregious academic charlatanism, and from there draw a straight line to the classrooms of service academies. Providentially, the line can also be extended directly into the dark recesses of US service structure! In other words, it's now far easier to name it, blame it, shame it, destroy it. And may 2024 be the year of reckoning for this, and for much else.
In "November 1942," by Peter Englund, the author intersperses his excellent book on the turning point of WWI with anecdotes on the retreat of the Italian soldiers in North Africa. The author notes that the Italian military has ever since been tarred with an undeserved reputation for cowardice, but the reason for the collapse of Italian forces in North Africa lies elsewhere. Englund writes:
"All those words again. Honor, sacrifice, venerable traditions, decisive hour, greatness of the mother country. All those words, images and fantasies they have been living on for decades. Their logic has been less important than the emotions they stir up. According to his own account, they make Vallacella feel like throwing up. The fact that many Italian soldiers are reluctant to fight says nothing about defects in the national character. It is above all a result of the fascist system that has made its mark on Italy for almost 20 years and has led to levels of corruption, nepotism and incompetence that the war has brought to a head ...."
The DEI system will make a similar mark on the US military. With leaders being chosen by the neo-nepotism of the DEI elite, military competence will suffer. Worse, we may not see the corrosive effect of this incompetence until it is ultimately revealed in a time of crisis.
There's a road marker about 30 miles west of Alexandria, Egypt, the point of farthest advance by Italian troops during the war. It was placed there postwar by an Italian veterans' group, and says: "Mancava la Fortuna, Non il Valore." (We lacked good luck, not valor.)
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Understandably, Italian soldiers thought they fought well and bravely. The reference to "good luck" is more a euphemism for bad logistics and poor decisions by operational leadership, both of which tend to be functions of long term political dysfunction.
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And yes, we surely will see the effects of DEI/DIE/DIC for generations yet to come.
The ‘06 USNA striper list (assigns highest ranking leadership positions within the Brigade) was recalled, redone, and re-issued 3 days later because the original version did not include sufficient “diversity” at the highest levels. This problem runs deeeeeeep and has had decades for its tendrils to latch in place.
My father was a friend of ADM Frank Kelso. I met him a few times and remember two things distinctly,
He was very personable and gave me a compelling sales pitch for why I should become a naval officer. I went in another direction, much to the surprise of my family (my grandfather was also a decorated UDT in WWII). Nevertheless, the Admiral put in a good word for me that changed my world (thank you, sir). Just six months ago, a young man, a friend of our family, asked me to write a recommendation for him so that he might be accepted to Navy OCS (specifically for nukes, apparently). This young man is brilliant and mentally tough, fully qualified for the endeavor. I told him I would gladly do so but he must first listen to what I had to say about that. To his credit, he really considered my words. The gist of it was that all current FOGOs made their rank under regimes that do not see their prime directive as breaking things and killing people when required. They use the military as a vehicle for implementing marxist principles, or just a jobs program. Command ability was not the reason they were promoted, political reliability was. Don't forget that, I said, because you will be taking orders from political errand boys, not warriors. When I turned in the background and recommendation I said to him "I need my navy to keep ruling the waves." and off he went.
It is deeply troubling to me that I should have to say that about our military and country in general. There are those who see the world as they want it to be and those that see it for what it is. I assume all of us on the porch ascribe to the latter.
Army, NATSEC, contractor....imagine their disappointment. I once told a supervisor that I knew the CNO and he said "and your dumb ass isn't in the Navy?". I laugh about that now.
Well meaning but weak-spined “conservative” leaders who should have stood athwart the left’s line of advance didn’t. Indeed, many - especially in the Bush43 Administration, helped smooth the path.
Let me stop you right there, Sir! None of this was well-meaning! It was either promoted for the better part of the last 25 years by malignant leadership that fully intended to cause division and undermine the military, or it was encouraged by those who completely ignored the waste of time this was, or the scarce resources and seats in the academies that this nonsense was usurping, even as those with feet on the ground said the diversity poison was promoting those who couldn't make the cut legitimately. They ignored that this was setting people up to fail at the cost of life and limb even. And yet they persisted in the face of all evidence, even while sending unprepared personnel to the front lines armed only with righteously toxic ideologies swimming in their heads. And the Milleytary under Fat Bastard could only scratch its head and ponder about the anger of white males as it treasonously undermined itself against a growing PRC threat. Nope. None of it was well-meaning. Strike that out.
The course is an upper level one, and the people taking are most likely true believers or know enough to not start a fight. Disappointing, isn't it?
It was put out at Huskey Hockey State U to not take "Human Relations" courses in an informal manner in the Student Vets group, because all it was hate on white men. It colors my view of the field today. To be honest, I never saw much interest in those courses outside of those who really were interested. The problem is they have a very loud voice, and are sure of themselves.
Eventually, yes. But in the People's Democratic Farmer-Labor Republic of Minnesota, it won't happen until certain politicians and their client voters are run out of the state.
The military academies should be STEM schools and nothing else. TIme to get rid of "Poly Sci and Fly." Why should the taxpayers spend 250k on degrees that are irrelevant to the community?
Well, they fail at teaching military history. No reason to assume they would be any better dedicating themsleves to hard sciences and engineering. Besides, their football teams would be even worse than they are now.
At least 2 + 2 still equals 4. We haven't gotten to the point yet where Big Brother determines if the answer is 3, 4, 5 or all of them at the same time.
I used to think that way as a n EE myself. Now I see the benefits of Naval Officers that have a good understanding of history and diplomacy, but they are not allowed to study those fields. Rather they are indoctrinated into worship of global organizations like the UN, the WHO, and the World Bank.
As long as “The Squad” and the rest of the Democrat congresscritters are allowed to send their candidates to the academies, things will only get worse.
Marx believed that control of the means of production leads to control of the culture.
Today's Marxists believe that control of the culture leads to control of the means of production.
Different bottles, but the same old whine i.e. life consists of class struggles that can only be ended by the absolute rule of the highly educated elites.
Marx believed that religion was the opiate of the masses whereas in reality it is Marxism that is the opiate of the intellectuals who adhere to its fine words despite its massive and costly failures.
Last point is that Marxism is older than Marx and its tenets can found in Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Plato's Republic and is sure to reappear in the future in some other malignant form.
When in Rome...
https://images.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2019/91/10982726_2729952f-0a97-4fc0-80a9-bf9d14925a1b.jpeg
41°52'31.1"N 12°28'39.8"E
Good.
Fresh flowers at the site. Probably sent FTD by an admiring Air Force colonel.
too bad his cultural Marxist ideology BS wasn't buried along with him.
Our society certainly meets his ideas on hegemony.
We are so screwed. This ball is rolling down hill and anyone with a basic understanding of gravity knows crap rolling downhill doesn't easily change direction.
This crap isn't fixed just by electing "conservatives." Bush was generally conservative. No, more than just being conservative, anyone elected to fix this will have to be a person of courage who won't wilt at being called names for opposing this garbage.
I used to think Bush was conservative too. The picture of him virtually sitting in Big Mike's lap with his smiling head resting on Big Mike's ample pecs has dispelled any illusion I had about him 20 years ago. I wish to rescind any vote or defense I ever provided that waste of political skin.
Thanks a lot. I found the photo of W and Big Mike that you referenced and now need eye bleach.
It's going to be brutal since the stench of weakness is going to finally provoke a war that will will require Americans to stand in the line of fire. A very brutal Darwinian culling of woke and trans. More-so than the naval task force no in the Red Sea. And, that my be the first America casualties if those ship clean out their quivers and the Houthis get lucky. Remember, WWII didn't start out so hot for us with Pearl Harbor, the Philipines, Java Sea and Kasserine pass. The lesson of the previous wars fought seem to get lost in the latest political fads.
The key difference is the the generation nthat went to war in '41 had solid values AND had the hardship of the great depression behind them. Folks also still had faith in their public institutions. NO ONE in my conconservative family has any faith in governing anything and no one will die for Chervon or Genocide Joe either...
We and they must fix this or we will go the path of world war III and lose badly.
It may be too late. If the service academies are this bad, the problem will likley persist until the power goes out for a few months. That may be due to foreign or domestic malice or incompetence or both (or God winding up the meteor we need), but it's going to happen eventually. None of this garbage will really go away until it does.
A complex problem, with no simple solution(s). The U.S. has been the most successful example of "mixing pot" population aggregation in history. Degrading it by patiently teaching the citizens that breaking free of the "lineage" / immutable characteristics model is wrong / criminal / against humanity seems be close to reaching critical mass. Taking over the education of teachers a long time ago has allowed the young to be taught to hate their country. G.K. Chesterton has a quote (which I'll probably mangle): "The true soldier does not hate what is in front of him, he loves what is behind him." If you've been taught your country is evil, how many young people will choose to fight for it? There's lots more, but this is enough for now...
I was listening to an interview show on YouTube regarding the NATO parasites who don’t even meet the modest 2% of GDP defense spending. One panel member uses the term “post patriot society” to describe the Europeans, but it equally applies to America. Sure, all, the alphabet people want to get into the service academies in order to be the “First [Insert Your Degeneracy] to Attend [Insert the Service Academy]”, but I don’t imagine any of them would every be interested in fighting for America.
They despise what America was and view it as the greatest evil the earth has ever seen.
The young men being imported to country now are not here to fight for us, but to fight for the government against us. Senators are already promising the illegals citizenship to join up.
They know for the most part Bubba and Tyrone aren't going to lay waste to the American towns and cities they grew up in and their own families. They need foreign recruits to hold us down.
[Gaius Marius has entered the chat]
:)
Correct....the British empire used Indian police and Gurkas in Hong Kong for example. The Canadian government seems to have used foreign police to suppress the recent protests in Ottowa as well.
It has not been very successful as a mixing pot at all. It did alright when it was dealing with a small population of Africans and everyone else was some stripe of Christian of European descent, but it is already beginning to go downhill after only 60 years of mandated Civil Rights and immigration opening up to the entire globe. I think when the dust settles and the US has failed Rome will still hold the record for longest lasting mixing pot society.
I think the answer has already been expressed by way of the recruitment numbers...
PS (edit). If you were entering military service today, would you want to navigate a daily minefield of what all this entails?
If this course existed I would not have gone to USNA
Wait wait wait. Is this for real? In the US Army/Navy? WTH? I thought (being not from US) that only universities and tech companies were afflicted by this.
I can't believe this. I mean, Annapolis - even I know the name. A _naval_ academy. Gender studies? WTDF???
Maybe this is it - the answer how great old empires died, by corruption from within. Making an unrelated comparison - the WH40K universe seemed to me when I learned about it many years ago very very exaggerated (their continuous fight against heresy and any suspicion of it), but it becomes less and less so, month by month.
Very troubling, but very enlightening, thank you.
It is definitely happening, Pop. We will all pay an irretrievable price without an immediate course correction. Decline is a choice.
It's too late to course correct. The leadership has been embracing this poison for more than 30 years, and every new class gets worse. Only a hard reset is going to make this go away. Perhaps the Angels ask "have we tried turning it off and on again?"
Oh it's quite real and has been coming out bit by bit for some time now. And the proponents of this orthodoxy will simply attached new terms and labels to skate around any attempts to peel back what gains they've made. These leopards are not going to change their spots because a bunch of elected politicos start foisting their "remedies" on them. And we have raised up a lot of senior leadership that are just as invested in this. And as for Pax Americana, there is a lot of rust and corrosion on that machinery along with a boat load of intellectual squish baked into the controls.
BTW, Pop, if you want to see one of the more notorious examples of what's going on and what has been, look this up: Lt. Spenser Rapone, USA.
I would sooner frag that SOB than take orders from him.
I will say this for all.
I hate Donald Trump and still hope he won't be the nominee. I pray for DeSantis administration.
IN SPITE OF THAT...I will crawl a dozen miles over crap-stained broken glass to vote for Trump IF he is the nominee, because there is NO future for this nation unless we arrest the slide into this nonsense.
All the "Never Trump" arguments fall apart. Whatever Trump's faults, they cannot and will not amount to a hill of beans in the face of the determined leftist onslaught that has been ENABLED by so-called conservatives that were upset TRUMP was dictatorial or unpresidential.
Tell me, what is presidential about a POTUS compromised by Chicom money, with a degenerate son selling the office? What is presidential about an administration determined to destroy and gender confuse our military? I could go on ad nauseum but you get the point.
Never in a million years could a 2nd Trump admin be as bad as this administration has been.
And imagine how unencumbered Biden's handlers would be in a 2nd admin, when they know they can RULE in spite of a POTUS with historic unpopularity.
If you think Biden won fair, at this point, your an idiot, and I have no words for you.
Were was the fraud? baked in. Mail-in voting and canvassing. You HONESTLY think that wasn't abused?
So, to all the never Trumpers. If Sniffy get's a 2nd round to destroy us, this is ON YOU!
No matter how much I despise Trump (and it is alot), he is still far preferable, and we have NO chance with Sniffy v2.0
And we have to beat the margin of fraud.
Anyone other than die-hard liberals who fails to vote for WHOEVER the Republican candidate is, YOU are to blame if this country goes down in flames in Grandpa Biden's 2nd coming.
Why do you hate Trump? I know he's a NYC liberal, but every element of the entrenched state hates and fears him enough to destroy the country to keep him out. That alone is enough to make him attractive to many voters. I don't like the man's demeanor, but I approve of almost all of his policies.
DeSantis has done well in Florida, but I suspect he is by now indebted to the Bushies and the rest. I think he's been allowed to make localized progress on some peripheral social issues as red meat to the "base" but in the end will be no better than Jeb (OG skirtless) or Hailey (Jeb in a skirt).
Agree on Trump, disagree on DeSantis who I see as Trump minus his juvenile tweets, and possibly more effective to boot.
I do hope I am wrong about RD. I would still vote for him should it come to that. I'm not sure I could say the same about Hailey.
Honestly? Because for all he sells himself as a populist for the little people, I don't think he actually cares. He doesn't care about the details. He just wants to be President for his ego.
He totally screwed the pooch on COVID, by listening to all the authoritarians instead of those preaching common sense. Then he turns around and baldfacedly lies claiming that DeSantis was doing all the things HE was doing on COVID.
He gave us Warp Speed. He gave us Pharma immunity. HE failed to prepare for the giant mail fraud.
He surrounded himself with sycophants in his inner circle who cared more about 1-upping each other then actually doing the hard work of pushing through conservative policy.
He UTTERLY failed to rein in the bureaucratic state until the last few days of the admin, all of which was then undone by Biden.
He had 4 years. He could have GUTTED the senior executive service, filled the plum book with solid conservatives who could then be converted, like the dems do, filling the upper ranks of government with real conservatives who would fight for conservative policies.
Instead, he utterly failed to grasp how you fight the bureaucratic state, and thus left it even more powerful. He failed to put down rebellion in multiple agencies when he had the power, he let himself be limited at every step by the very establishment repubs he knew were determined to undermine him.
I think that's a starting summary.
I think Trump got a bum wrap on a lot of it, and never had a chance for anything domestic. He had to fight tooth and n ail every day against the administrative state and the RNC/DNC party. He tried to issue orders for the military about DEI and CRT and they just blew him off. He had every corner of DC against him from the outset. Even with supposedly Republican congress they wouldn't do anything to secure the borders. I don't agree he could have gutted the SES. He tried to cut back on the NSC and wasn't even allowed to do that effectively.
That said, I think he put together a decent economic team, and that's the only place he was able to do anything for a little while.
With respect to Covid, I think he was naïve. Comi9ng form an older generation, I think he initially believed what they were telling him. Even then he still had more faith in our institutions than I've had in 20 years. Pharma immunity was in place before Trump, and it was the OOC NIS and FDA that declared war on ivermectin and HCQ in order to maintain their EUA for the new mRNA therapies. Also, in 2020 Ron was no better than Don. Initially he bought into all of it too. He's just had three more years in power to respond to facts.
Regardless, it seems like we have similar concerns and want to see a lot of the same things happen. We may disagree about who can or will do them best, but the truth is the President has very little power over a mutinous executive branch and intelligence community. It will be very difficult to end their unconstitutional power unless we rebuild representative government from the ground up, because the current two major political parties are just two conferences playing each other in the All Government League. They don't care which conference wins as long as the league makes money and gains power..
Trump had a childlike trust of senior military officers and the people running the government 'public health' system. I suspect that is not so true if he gets back in.
Yes, I agree. Most of the older people in my family are like that. The only person I knew born in the 40's that wasn't worked SF/Intelligence in the 60s for the UK.
I wonder what Trump thinks of Admiral Rachael Levine.
To be fair, the nomination of Mattis looked brilliant but he turned out quite disappointing. If I was president I might have made the same mistake.
Yeah, Mattis and McMaster both looked like brilliant choices and were disappointments.
Agreed on everything, but my frustration was that before he even got into office, he turned his back on conservatives who got him elected and let CHRIS CHRISTIE run his administrations staffing efforts, and then he was surprised when the RINO elite sabotaged him left and right.
I get it, being from outside govt was a selling point.
But you can't REMAKE something unless you understand how it works in the first place, and he made NO effort to do so..
Regardless, I pray by some miracle we are able to get the change we all appear to agree we need, and is starts by GUTTING the Senior Executive Service.
If I was advising either the Trump or DeSantis campaigns, the day after the election was called in their favor, I would release a prepared statement that said, in effect:
"Ever person in govt at the grade of GS-15 or above, every person in uniform at the grade of O-6 or above, is hereby given notice that they will be terminated from their current position/billet effective February 1st, next year, and any person desiring to remain in their current position/billet must apply within the next 30 days tot he administrations staffing team to have their resume and qualifications and actions reviewed for consideration for this position".
Note, we can deal with the issue of actual firing later. The President has the authority to remove ANY Flag officer or SES from their BILLET. They may still draw a paycheck, but they will be Out of the chain of command.
This idea that the military can't function because a few flag offices can't get promoted is a joke and half.
The entire DoD could be run by O-4's and O-5's for several years if need be till Trump got the right number of promotions pushed through
And to start with, from now on, flag officers who oversee disastrous plans or actions of their own design will see their careers ENDED.
We are in complete agreement on that prepared statement! I was also somewhat gob-smacked when he involved Christie.
I like to think that we still have an opportunity to restore Constitutional, non-international government, starting locally, without an epoch-defining violent conflict. I'm a math and numbers guy, never understood people much at all (or at least, I understand a lot of them but never was able to determine if a given individual was lying to me early enough to matter) but at some level I think there is a core of people who still believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit, and the value of Constitutional government, inn this country.
I have a stable of center-leftists in my family, and I'm starting to be able to show them that 80-90% of all of us believe the same things and desire the same outcomes. The reason every election is 51-49 and the opposing sides live in dire fear of each-other is because our establishment (RNC/DNC, administrative state, elite academia, and media) feed off our conflict with each-other as citizens. Even a discussion as polarized as abortion, when discussed and not narrativized (word?) can be resolved with 80-90% approval of all citizens in any given state legislatively.
Edit: Oh yeah; Happy New Year! I hope 2024 brings you, yours, and all of us happiness and prosperity.
And a Happy New Year to you and yours as well! Thanks for good convo! We more of this!
Where the attacks on DeSantis fall apart is COVID. Ron has run 100% in the face of Pharma, and the bushies and establishment are 100% beholden to Pharma.
There is zero chance they have Ron under their control, and he would still attack pharma and the bio-medical industrial complex the way he has.
Ron's support in the establishment comes from people who are, right or wrong, terrified of Trump.
But those same people are jumping ship and piling on Haley since she is far more their kind of tool.
Hell, I would prefer Trump over Haley (and DeSantis over Trump) and I'll STILL vote for Haley if she gets the nom. I'd even vote for that slimy little shit Ramaswamy, who is a self-promoting snake oil salesman if ever there was one, if it keeps the Dems out of control of the executive branch.
about the only Rep I couldn't vote for would be that fat pig Christie, because if he got the nom, it would be proof positive that the establishment has rigged the game, and it's time to start polishing bayonets
Sharpen the bayonets? Yes. Polish them? No, leave them rusty and dirty.
Extra point for stabbing in the bullet hole
I'm sorry but Trump?
How can you wax so eloquently about Biden's son, yet ignore all the Trump grifting? Jared Kushner’s spends four years ass-kissing and murder-excusing the Saudis and gets paid off in the form of a $2 billion investment from the kingdom‘s sovereign wealth fund to his newly formed private equity firm and Joe Biden is crooked?
Trump had minor grift with NY elites to make himself rich, the kind EVERY major businessperson in the US has. Until he dared challenge the entrenched elite, nobody cared.
Biden sold out to foreign hostile governments, enabled insanity on an industrial scale (gender whacky doodles in the military, supporting sex changes for kids, race baiting, etc).
See, everyone who is never Trump got their Hates wrong.
Is he uncouth and unpresidential? sure. He's a narcissist and totally lacking in class, and a bit of a bully.
But all the crap people said he was? Racist? LIE. Starting wars? LIE
cozying to dictators? LIE! He knows how to negotiate, and you don't get it by calling Putin bad names and then expecting him to honor treaties like we do.
Putin invaded Crimea under Obama, then cooled his heels while Trump was in office, then went for the full enchilada once Biden showed how weak we were in Afghanistan.
For all I despise Trump, there is literally nothing he did other than the petty unpresidential behavior stuff, that is in any way approaching how bad Biden has been.
And we all KNEW Biden would be this bad based on who he surrounds himself with.
But some people deluded themselves into thinking Trump was worse.
BTW, Jared got 2 Arab countries to recognize Israel. He and Trump made more progress on ME peace than the last 4 Presidents combined.
Which is why Biden had to undermine it, and Hamas attacked, because Iran cannot stand the thought of Israel at peace with moth of the Sunni states.
Most Muslims may be peaceful (most I met over there were) but ISLAM is an EVIL CULT that is 100% incompatible with Western Civ. The Saudi leadership are NO WORSE than any other ME leaders, but if they work with us, they are better than those who work against us.
That's real.
Always strange to see you post on a Thursday Tommyboy. But what about Sal’s essay? What about the issues he brings up on every Diversity Thursday, issues that your party is responsible for? You always seem to be light on the defense of your party’s ideas.
I’m usually in agreement with the Cdr. on diversity, but my level of interest in the subject is low, so I don’t get fired up enough to post. As for “my party’s ideas,” the Democratic Party is so broad, with so many factions, that you can’t even say what the party’s ideas are.
In America’s two party system, at least where I live, if you are not registered in a party, you can’t participate in elections. Many folks like me are more “not Republicans” than we are Democrats.
Thank you, Sal, for your long term, focused, diligent, persistent, highly illuminating efforts to expose the "D"-thing; the Diversity Industrial Complex -- DIC, for short. Indeed, bless you for your Herculean labors in those Augean Stables of toxic thought and destructive intent.
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Meanwhile, let's give a nod of thanks to the governing board of the Harvard Corporation, and Harvard president Claudine Gay for elevating (unwittingly, to be sure) the case against DIC to a much higher level of visibility; far beyond the noble efforts of humble, retired Navy bloggers. Because really... Just in the past month, these two entities have placed the entire matter of cultural and academic rot on both the front and editorial pages of news sites across the land. Long and short; the public is becoming educated, and the Overton Window is shifting in ways that solidly register on national level political seismographs
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Ponder this: if it was just a bunch of Old Salts bellyaching about bizarre English or Literature courses at the Naval Academy, would many voters ever pay enough attention to care? But now, post-Harvard, one can put a finger exactly on the pinnacle example of egregious academic charlatanism, and from there draw a straight line to the classrooms of service academies. Providentially, the line can also be extended directly into the dark recesses of US service structure! In other words, it's now far easier to name it, blame it, shame it, destroy it. And may 2024 be the year of reckoning for this, and for much else.
In "November 1942," by Peter Englund, the author intersperses his excellent book on the turning point of WWI with anecdotes on the retreat of the Italian soldiers in North Africa. The author notes that the Italian military has ever since been tarred with an undeserved reputation for cowardice, but the reason for the collapse of Italian forces in North Africa lies elsewhere. Englund writes:
"All those words again. Honor, sacrifice, venerable traditions, decisive hour, greatness of the mother country. All those words, images and fantasies they have been living on for decades. Their logic has been less important than the emotions they stir up. According to his own account, they make Vallacella feel like throwing up. The fact that many Italian soldiers are reluctant to fight says nothing about defects in the national character. It is above all a result of the fascist system that has made its mark on Italy for almost 20 years and has led to levels of corruption, nepotism and incompetence that the war has brought to a head ...."
The DEI system will make a similar mark on the US military. With leaders being chosen by the neo-nepotism of the DEI elite, military competence will suffer. Worse, we may not see the corrosive effect of this incompetence until it is ultimately revealed in a time of crisis.
There's a road marker about 30 miles west of Alexandria, Egypt, the point of farthest advance by Italian troops during the war. It was placed there postwar by an Italian veterans' group, and says: "Mancava la Fortuna, Non il Valore." (We lacked good luck, not valor.)
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Understandably, Italian soldiers thought they fought well and bravely. The reference to "good luck" is more a euphemism for bad logistics and poor decisions by operational leadership, both of which tend to be functions of long term political dysfunction.
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And yes, we surely will see the effects of DEI/DIE/DIC for generations yet to come.
The ‘06 USNA striper list (assigns highest ranking leadership positions within the Brigade) was recalled, redone, and re-issued 3 days later because the original version did not include sufficient “diversity” at the highest levels. This problem runs deeeeeeep and has had decades for its tendrils to latch in place.
My father was a friend of ADM Frank Kelso. I met him a few times and remember two things distinctly,
He was very personable and gave me a compelling sales pitch for why I should become a naval officer. I went in another direction, much to the surprise of my family (my grandfather was also a decorated UDT in WWII). Nevertheless, the Admiral put in a good word for me that changed my world (thank you, sir). Just six months ago, a young man, a friend of our family, asked me to write a recommendation for him so that he might be accepted to Navy OCS (specifically for nukes, apparently). This young man is brilliant and mentally tough, fully qualified for the endeavor. I told him I would gladly do so but he must first listen to what I had to say about that. To his credit, he really considered my words. The gist of it was that all current FOGOs made their rank under regimes that do not see their prime directive as breaking things and killing people when required. They use the military as a vehicle for implementing marxist principles, or just a jobs program. Command ability was not the reason they were promoted, political reliability was. Don't forget that, I said, because you will be taking orders from political errand boys, not warriors. When I turned in the background and recommendation I said to him "I need my navy to keep ruling the waves." and off he went.
It is deeply troubling to me that I should have to say that about our military and country in general. There are those who see the world as they want it to be and those that see it for what it is. I assume all of us on the porch ascribe to the latter.
I’m curious, what “different direction” did you go in?
Army, NATSEC, contractor....imagine their disappointment. I once told a supervisor that I knew the CNO and he said "and your dumb ass isn't in the Navy?". I laugh about that now.
Well meaning but weak-spined “conservative” leaders who should have stood athwart the left’s line of advance didn’t. Indeed, many - especially in the Bush43 Administration, helped smooth the path.
Let me stop you right there, Sir! None of this was well-meaning! It was either promoted for the better part of the last 25 years by malignant leadership that fully intended to cause division and undermine the military, or it was encouraged by those who completely ignored the waste of time this was, or the scarce resources and seats in the academies that this nonsense was usurping, even as those with feet on the ground said the diversity poison was promoting those who couldn't make the cut legitimately. They ignored that this was setting people up to fail at the cost of life and limb even. And yet they persisted in the face of all evidence, even while sending unprepared personnel to the front lines armed only with righteously toxic ideologies swimming in their heads. And the Milleytary under Fat Bastard could only scratch its head and ponder about the anger of white males as it treasonously undermined itself against a growing PRC threat. Nope. None of it was well-meaning. Strike that out.
The course is an upper level one, and the people taking are most likely true believers or know enough to not start a fight. Disappointing, isn't it?
It was put out at Huskey Hockey State U to not take "Human Relations" courses in an informal manner in the Student Vets group, because all it was hate on white men. It colors my view of the field today. To be honest, I never saw much interest in those courses outside of those who really were interested. The problem is they have a very loud voice, and are sure of themselves.
Tax dollars should not fund any of this destructive, hateful garbage. It makes one ill to consider
Eventually, yes. But in the People's Democratic Farmer-Labor Republic of Minnesota, it won't happen until certain politicians and their client voters are run out of the state.
The military academies should be STEM schools and nothing else. TIme to get rid of "Poly Sci and Fly." Why should the taxpayers spend 250k on degrees that are irrelevant to the community?
Well, they fail at teaching military history. No reason to assume they would be any better dedicating themsleves to hard sciences and engineering. Besides, their football teams would be even worse than they are now.
At least 2 + 2 still equals 4. We haven't gotten to the point yet where Big Brother determines if the answer is 3, 4, 5 or all of them at the same time.
At least 2 + 2 still equals 4
I knew you were racist
I used to think that way as a n EE myself. Now I see the benefits of Naval Officers that have a good understanding of history and diplomacy, but they are not allowed to study those fields. Rather they are indoctrinated into worship of global organizations like the UN, the WHO, and the World Bank.
As long as “The Squad” and the rest of the Democrat congresscritters are allowed to send their candidates to the academies, things will only get worse.
Engineers can’t lead.
Hermann Haupt, Alexander Humphreys, Gouverneur K. Warren, and Horatio Wright have entered the chat.
Marx believed that control of the means of production leads to control of the culture.
Today's Marxists believe that control of the culture leads to control of the means of production.
Different bottles, but the same old whine i.e. life consists of class struggles that can only be ended by the absolute rule of the highly educated elites.
Marx believed that religion was the opiate of the masses whereas in reality it is Marxism that is the opiate of the intellectuals who adhere to its fine words despite its massive and costly failures.
Last point is that Marxism is older than Marx and its tenets can found in Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Plato's Republic and is sure to reappear in the future in some other malignant form.
A failed ideology formulated by a despicable man with a poor understanding of both history and economics.
And what he produced was pure drivel.
Bbbbbut, It's a "warfighting imperative!"
https://thepoliticsbrief.com/air-force-academy-blasts-end-of-race-based-admissions-bemoans-loss-of-dei-standards/
Perhaps these people should examine the root causes of why there are so few minorities applying and address those.
The root cause of everything is slavery, discrimination and microaggressions.