germans supported their troops too

The Cut Is Very Tough, You Bit the Big Bluff. Take Another Bite.

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Alone:

The problem isn’t with women in the Senate, but rather its celebration, which these dummies blindly participate in.  Is it putting on a face for the American public, the way the first face I see on Goldman Sachs’s website is a black woman?   Is it cosmetic?  She’s probably proud, she should be proud, that she made it to GS, but for the rest of blacks and women, what is the significance?  It may be regressive to ask this, but it is illuminating: “hey…. why did they let so many of us in?”

This is part of a larger, systemic problem with the way power has shifted not from Group A to Group B, but from ground up to top down, and top down works in a very specific way: it concedes the trappings of power while it retains the actual power.

And so, while browsing various sites, I likewise can’t help but notice all the chattering about The Significance of women in combat. As with gays and atheists, the problem isn’t with the right to participate, but with the dummies celebrating it.

And then I watch the Daily Show, and see Jon Stewart yukking it up with some drone — ‘scuse me, unmanned aerial vehicles, they’re not stupid — expert from M.I.T., who assures us, in between jokes about FedEx and UPS delivering packages like bombs, or Death Stars, that the military has lots of regulations, even an entire conference which spends a lot of time discussing the ethics of remote warfare. Oh, good. You wouldn’t want to belong to any club that couldn’t discuss Augustine and Aquinas like civilized folk, after all.

And Br’er Rabbit smiles contentedly in his briar patch.

E Bellicus Unum

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Linda Hirshman:

On Thursday, the Pentagon released a report allowing a trickle more of estrogen into the front lines, with women now officially assigned, instead of informally attached, to battalions. But despite an explicit recommendation from a panel of neutral experts, still no ground fighting, no combat infantry, no special forces. In a press release, the women veterans’ Service Women’s Action Network “regretted” the failure to lift the “unfair” Combat Exclusion Policy, which precludes women from becoming infantry members.

Will they never learn? A year ago, the lame duck Congress finally voted an end to the despised exclusion of openly gay men and women from the service, “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The same arguments – unit cohesion, unfitness for combat – that were used against open gay service now live on as the last barriers to women. For however many women are fit enough and inclined to take those hard-line jobs, as for the many dedicated gay and lesbian service members, the exclusions are an insurmountable barrier to their aspirations and a costly waste of human power for the country.

…But like the gay movement and marriage, feminism has mostly moved beyond the contention that women are morally superior or that war is always and incontestably wrong. If the society is sufficiently threatened, sometimes even liberal states must invoke the willingness to sacrifice, even life itself, for the good of the enterprise. At crucial times in Western history – classical Athens, revolutionary France – full military service was indistinguishable from citizenship itself. Why should women who can serve be excluded from this service to the state?

Merciless Mary, mother of Fuck. “If the society is sufficiently threatened.” Well, it’s not, so may we consider the rest of your blathering null and void? In fact, this particular society is downright threatening. I’m fairly sure I’ll make it to the end of my life without seeing a foreign enemy powerful enough to invade and occupy the lower 48, but I expect to see Uncle Sam setting up shop and constructing military bases in quite a few other far-flung regions of the world between now and then.

This is what I utterly despise about mainstream liberals. Like the Greenwald article stressed the other day, these scum are perfectly fine with unprecedented militarism as long as a member of their tribe is in command of it. Aggressive foreign policy is perfectly fine as long as the soldiers prosecuting it display the superficial diversity of a Benetton ad. Guilty white liberals who obsessively sanitize their language lest they grievously offend each other aren’t concerned at all with the actual death and destruction their nation causes elsewhere, and consider it the height of activism to agitate for everyone to have a chance to participate in it. Wherever there’s a fight so transgendered endomorphs can suit up in combat fatigues, they’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beating up an OWS protester, they’ll be there (cheering the cop on). Fuck every last one of them.

…adding, this seems tangentially related:

The US Navy named a new warship after Gabrielle Giffords on Friday, honoring the former Arizona lawmaker who survived a gunman’s bullet to the head a year ago.

…Mabus also said the ship’s sponsor would be Roxanna Green, the mother of a nine-year-old girl — Christina Taylor-Green — who was killed in the same shooting spree that left Giffords seriously wounded.

Under naval tradition, a sponsor’s “spirit and presence guide the ship throughout its service life,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

Well, of course. What better way to honor the victims of random individual violence than to bestow their names upon a massive instrument of state violence? There’s such a pleasing symmetry in imagining the spirit of little Christina guiding a warship on its way to help deal death to other, unimportant, nine year-old girls, wouldn’t you say?

We Got a Kinder, Gentler Machine Gun Hand

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Shannon Gilreath:

But having gotten to where we are—to a place at which the law no longer bars Gays’ entry into the armed services, the question of whether Gays should serve stands out in bold relief. This is, at bottom, a question of priorities. The modern “gay rights” movement, at least since the 1970s when the Gay Activists Alliance split from the Gay Liberation Front, has been governed by a politics that values only that which is paradigmatically straight and, accordingly, has striven mightily to get Gays into the two institutions through which most of the world’s violence is accomplished—the state sanctioned home and the military—without much critical analysis of how participation in these institutions actually affects Gay people.

Yup. I recently read an interview with David Graeber where he said that the only plausible scenario where a genuine revolution can occur is when the forces of order refuse to shoot. A preliminary to that would be for more people to refuse to join the forces of order and pick up a gun in the first place.

Assumes Facts Not in Evidence

By in augean stables, germans supported their troops too, waiting for the barbarians No Comments

Joy provides emotional closure, which we never got after 9/11 and the distraction in Iraq. Maybe this joy at Osama Bin Laden’s death can provide that for us. And maybe then we can finally have politicians say that we won, and so we can finally shut down the illegal prisons, the ongoing war, and maybe even the ridiculous security theater at airports. But if we scold and silence the joy away, we’ll never get a chance to find out.

And maybe, and maybe, oh baby, just maybe. I’m not sure how Amanda manages to achieve such a dense ratio of WTF/word count, but let’s just marvel at it anyway, what do you say? So, how many quantum leaps of logic and non-sequiturs do we have here? Let’s tally ’em up.
• Gloating and exulting like barbarians over a revenge killing is one of the refined pleasures of life, like a good smoke or drink, or uninhibited sex. People who object to either are Puritans who are haunted by the fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy, as Mencken put it.
• The tiny minority of people who do object to treating displays of military force like a college football game have the power to make the slightest dent in the fist-pumping, chest-thumping, dick-swinging AMERICA FUCK YEAH celebrations.
• Osama’s violent death will provide emotional closure and allow us to declare “mission accomplished” and leave, uh, Afghanistan, I guess. Just like how the last declaration of “mission accomplished” and the emotional closure provided by Saddam’s violent death allowed us to leave Iraq and let the flowers start blooming. Just like how Gaddafi’s impending violent death will mean likewise for Libya. Etc.
• Politicians, out of the moral considerations that inform their every decision, actually want to close Gitmo and the black sites, end the occupations of however many countries we’re currently bombing the fuck out of, and dismantle the national security apparatus, but have been forced to keep them going for lack of a clear-cut national feel-good moment. So quit complaining, Puritans, unless you love all those bad things which are totally aberrations and can in no way be shown to have predated the War on Evil Incarnate or to be reflective of our national character. On a related note, if there’s one thing we can say with certainty about our political climate, it’s that judicious, rational, humane decisions always manage to prevail, despite however they may contravene the interests of those in power.

But We’ve Got the Biggest Balls of Them All

By in gender, germans supported their troops too, macho macho men, ohferfucksake, waiting for the barbarians No Comments

You know, when I survey the last decade or so of Myrrhkin culture and foreign policy, one thought comes immediately to mind: Not bad, but it needs more testosterone. The cable news court jester agrees with me:

Last night on “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart broke down the deeper implications of Osama bin Laden’s death. Namely: America grew some balls, and we’re back.
“I suppose I should be expressing some ambivalence about the demise of another human being, but no,” Stewart said, before admitting that he was too close to the story of bin Laden and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to be objective. “Last night was a good night, for me. Not just for people in New York and Washington, but for human people.”
Watch through the end to watch America literally grow a pair.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Yes, do! Balls are funny! And balls = courage! Men have balls! The bigger the better! Real men like to swing their balls around for everyone to see and rub them against things, don’t they? Hey, you know who doesn’t have balls? Wimps. And women. But I repeat myself. You know what women have? Pussies. Pussies = cowardice! Pussies are the absence of balls! The anti-balls! You don’t want to be a pussy, do you, boy? Then show us your balls!
Sorry, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, whoever else we’re attacking right now. Sorry ’bout all yr dead d00dz, but you understand, our balls. We lost ’em. We had to avenge ’em. It’s what menfolk do! (The ones who aren’t big gay pussies, that is.) It’s like that whole sordid Osiris/Seth/Horus saga. Dicks being chopped off and thrown into a river to be eaten by fish, retaliatory castrations, what a mess. But we’ve got our balls back now, so we’ll be content to sit around on the couch scratching them.
If we don’t see some leaked photos of the Navy SEALs all taking turns draping their hairy beanbags on Osama’s forehead right next to the bullet holes, I’m going to be severely disappointed. Maybe Wikileaks can get on that. For now, I’m going to photoshop a pair of bumper nuts to a picture of the Myrrhkin flag and have it airbrushed onto the back of my truck. FUCK YEAH WOOHOO….

I Read the News Today, Oh, Boy

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Glenn Greenwald:

But beyond the emotional fulfillment that comes from vengeance and retributive justice, there are two points worth considering. The first is the question of what, if anything, is going to change as a result of the two bullets in Osama bin Laden’s head? Are we going to fight fewer wars or end the ones we’ve started? Are we going to see a restoration of some of the civil liberties which have been eroded at the alter of this scary Villain Mastermind? Is the War on Terror over? Are we Safer now?
Those are rhetorical questions. None of those things will happen. If anything, I can much more easily envision the reverse. Whenever America uses violence in a way that makes its citizens cheer, beam with nationalistic pride, and rally around their leader, more violence is typically guaranteed. Futile decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may temporarily dampen the nationalistic enthusiasm for war, but two shots to the head of Osama bin Laden — and the We are Great and Good proclamations it engenders — can easily rejuvenate that war love. One can already detect the stench of that in how Pakistan is being talked about: did they harbor bin Laden as it seems and, if so, what price should they pay? We’re feeling good and strong about ourselves again — and righteous — and that’s often the fertile ground for more, not less, aggression.
In sum, a murderous religious extremist was killed. The U.S. has erupted in a collective orgy of national pride and renewed faith in the efficacy and righteousness of military force. Other than that, the repercussions are likely to be far greater in terms of domestic politics — it’s going to be a huge boost to Obama’s re-election prospects and will be exploited for that end — than anything else.

I don’t care about Osama bin Laden, and to be quite frank, I never really did. Anyone can kill 3000 people, but it takes a willing nation to kill 1,000,000. 9/11 did not introduce the world to just one monster, it was a day that created two. So don’t expect me to dance, or celebrate, I am not even going to smile. While one monster may have died, the other one still holds a knife to my back, a gun in my mouth, and collects my taxes.

Also, etc. I hadn’t heard anything of this until this morning, when the usual morons at work started chortling about how “we got him.” I assumed they must mean Gaddafi, given that we’d just killed his son and grandchildren over the weekend. But eventually I figured it out, and after listening a little while longer in silence, I was struck by something: all they were doing was complaining.
Complaining about liberals. Complaining about people who “probably wanted him to have a trial so we could put him on probation. Maybe sit down and talk to him about his feelings.” Snort, haw, yuk yuk. Complaining about those liberals who are going to whine about how we have no right to be carrying out military activities inside Pakistan to begin with. Complaining that the NYT and WaPo didn’t have big bold screaming headlines about it despite holding up the press runs for an extra hour (due to their Islamist sympathies, you see). Complaining about all the people who are going to call America evil. Complaining about how Obama doesn’t deserve credit for doing what a six year-old could have figured out to do. Complaining about how, when attacked by all these bleeding-heart liberals for disrespecting Bin Laden’s human rights, Obama was “probably going to blame Bush somehow, you watch.” Sneering about Muslims in general who are probably wailing on their prayer rugs right now. Running their mouths about how liberals should be shot, or beaten in the streets.
This is how they celebrate something they’re happy about. With nothing immediate to complain about, they imagine what a bunch of liberal caricatures might think and say and proceed to complain all the more venomously about that. They’re really that addicted to the dubious joy of venting their neverending hatred of anyone who doesn’t belong to their resentful tribe. They simply don’t know what to do with themselves if they’re not twitching with rage over some intolerable affront to their worldview.
I’ve recollected before some Taoist passage, perhaps from the Hua Hu Ching, that talks about how, when faced with the occasional inevitability of lethal violence, to treat it as an occasion for mourning, sad that it should ever have to come to this, not something to take joy from. I thought of it again this morning, while simultaneously nauseated and pitying over how bitter, miserable, rancid and hateful these people are. I composed myself with a grimace and a shudder and left as quickly as I could. They can have their political and military victories if this is what it leads to. I’d rather spend my time thinking about all the things I have to be grateful for.

Them Vultures Robbin’ Everything, Leave Nothin’ but Chains

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That five-sided fist-a-gon
That rotten sore on the face of Mother Earth gets bigger
The trigger’s cold, empty your purse
– RATM
In defense circles, “cutting” the Pentagon budget has once again become a topic of conversation. Americans should not confuse that talk with reality. Any cuts exacted will at most reduce the rate of growth. The essential facts remain: U.S. military outlays today equal that of every other nation on the planet combined, a situation without precedent in modern history.
The Pentagon presently spends more in constant dollars than it did at any time during the Cold War — this despite the absence of anything remotely approximating what national security experts like to call a “peer competitor.” Evil Empire? It exists only in the fevered imaginations of those who quiver at the prospect of China adding a rust-bucket Russian aircraft carrier to its fleet or who take seriously the ravings of radical Islamists promising from deep inside their caves to unite the Umma in a new caliphate.
…The duopoly of American politics no longer allows for a principled anti-interventionist position. Both parties are war parties. They differ mainly in the rationale they devise to argue for interventionism. The Republicans tout liberty; the Democrats emphasize human rights. The results tend to be the same: a penchant for activism that sustains a never-ending demand for high levels of military outlays.
But let’s not fail to mention an overemphasis on military expenditures and unused industrial areas, Orlov insisted, describing them as mis-investments made by both empires.
“To this day, the former Soviet Union is littered with abandoned or semi-abandoned industrial sites just as the United States is,” he noted.
By Orlov’s estimation, the US military will never voluntarily quit being the world’s largest oil consumer and largest polluter. Moreover, any plans suggested to the military to end its oil dependency in 30 years are an act of “desperation,” he said.
“They have set their hair on fire and are running around in circles. That’s their drill right now,” Orlov quipped.
And yet, the progressive blogosphere thinks the best use of its time and energy is trying to make it easier for more people to be part of this institution. This is why I barely bother reading political blogs anymore.

Death, the Great Equalizer

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So I click on the Huffington Post – which probably means I have no right to complain in any event; caveat lector and all that – and I’m greeted with a gigantic headline: Military Panel Backs Women in Combat (on a post tagged “women’s rights”).

“Women in the military are exposed to the same kind of dangers that combat service exposes a soldier to, but the difference is that the women are not getting combat pay, and they’re not getting combat-related opportunities for promotion,” NOW President Terry O’Neill said in an interview with The Huffington Post. “So it’s only fair to recognize that women belong, as much as men do, in combat units.”
In 2005, the Washington Post interviewed dozens of U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq — men and women of various ranks — about the exclusion of women from combat, and they “voiced frustration over restrictions on women mandated in Washington that they say make no sense in the war they are fighting. All said the policy should be changed to allow, at a minimum, mixed-sex support units to be assigned to combat battalions. Many favored a far more radical step: letting qualified women join the infantry.”
I don’t have much to say that I haven’t already said about the same topic as it relates to gays, atheists, the big-boned, the developmentally challenged, the sight-deprived, the assisted-living community, the recently paroled, the Amish, the homeless, the children not tall enough to ride this roller coaster, bestiality enthusiasts and everyone else our equal-rights fetishists would dearly love to dress up in combat gear for the glory of America. Just this: I submit to you that no one belongs in a combat unit. That the Iraq war itself is what made no sense. And that the most radical step of all would be for people to reject the imperial mindset that leads them to look at a world-straddling, resource-devouring, death-dealing colossus and see, first and foremost, a great opportunity for civil rights and career advancement.

First They Came to Recruit the Gays, and I Said Nothing…

By in atheism, germans supported their troops too, moralizing No Comments

Did you know that the United States Army is concerned with the spiritual well-being of their soldiers? Did you know that if you choose not to believe in the supernatural that the United States Army can consider you unfit to serve?

Really? It’s that easy? Well, hot damn, that’s great news! I only wish someone had told me that before I went and got all these gang tattoos on my neck and face, thinking that would keep me out of Afrakistan.

This is not even an insinuation. The US Army has taken the position that a soldier who does not feel connected to a deity is an incomplete person, and that a lack of belief will somehow compromise their principles and values. It’s right there, in black and white. That the US Army would take such a position is deplorable, and the fact that it is mandatory appears to be a direct violation of the First Amendment of the constitution that these very soldiers put themselves in harms way to protect. It is discriminatory in every way and undermines the confidence that every soldier should have that their Government is supportive of them, regardless of their belief or disbelief in a deity.

Okay, look. I promise to not dwell on the bullshit assertion that our freedom of speech and assembly has fuck-all to do with occupying sand-strewn tribal battlefields across the world if you guys promise not to make this a thing. Some of us are just fine with being discriminated against by what we see as an immoral institution. And when did the fucking U.S. military become the vehicle of choice for obtaining equal rights anyway?
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