ROGER SIMON: Don’t Defund the Police. Defund the Military!
Ah, but the military.
It used to be the safe haven—or so we thought.
But who but the most adamant supporter of critical race theory could not help but be astonished and depressed by the weirdly evasive responses of Adm. Michael M. Gilday’s to questions from Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) at last week’s House Armed Services Committee hearings?
If you haven’t seen this exchange, replayed frequently on the more conservative cable channels, go here.
As The Daily Signal put it:
“Adm. Michael M. Gilday, the chief of naval operations, did not answer questions Tuesday about whether author-activist Ibram X. Kendi’s opposition to interracial adoption and capitalism is extreme.
“But, Gilday did tell the House Armed Services Committee that Kendi’s controversial book ‘How to Be an Antiracist‘ would lead to ‘a better Navy’ by promoting more discussion on racism in America.”
The book was on the list of the Navy’s recommended reading and as The Daily Signal further noted:
“Gilday’s passive view of his recommended reading list wasn’t entirely accurate, said Brent Sadler, senior fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense.
‘The reading list is lopsided with anti-racism and a bent toward critical race theory,’ Sadler told The Daily Signal. ‘A reading list is an endorsement.’”
I had been hearing about the military’s infection by “woke” politics for some time, but there it was in front of my eyes. I can only imagine what it’s really like inside the upper echelons of the Pentagon. Patton must be turning over in his grave.
As a frightening reminder, it’s Gilday and his ilk who are responsible for our deterring Communist China in the South China Sea and elsewhere.
You can see the temptation to defund the military, but, of course, we’re trapped. China and Russia are not about to defund theirs.
As for Mr. Kendi, his work—much like that of BLM co-founder and aspiring real estate magnate Patrisse Khan-Cullors—is largely about the money. You don’t write a best seller or win the approval of the aforementioned New York Times, as he did, by once again endorsing Martin Luther King and that “tired” equality Dream speech of his.
You have to be edgy. Critical race theory is edgy.
It’s also racist, stupid and wildly divisive—but no matter.
Where is this headed?
When I was in high school I remember reading James Baldwin’s powerful book “The Fire Next Time.” Its title came from a couplet in the moving spiritual “Mary Don’t You Weep”:
“And God gave Noah the rainbow sign
No more water, the fire next time.”
Since then there have been a fair amount of fires, mostly from black communities motivated by exploitative racialist leaders the likes of which Baldwin and Ralph Ellison would undoubtedly have recognized.
But as an eighty-year old once said, “The times, they are a-changin’.” The roles are reversing. The fire may be coming from the other side.
In a fascinating article at the “Gold, Goats ’n Guns” blog, Tom Luongo writes:
“There will be political surprises all across Europe this year and next. By the time they are done the Democrats will look like Labour in the UK, a brittle shell of a party built on equal parts envy and smarm, and the Republicans, guided by Trump, will return to power with a vengeance we’ve never experienced in U.S. politics. It will not be pretty.”
Hmm…. If true, and it’s beginning to look increasingly likely for a variety of reasons (Luongo was writing of Jon Stewart’s take down of Colbert), the future does not look promising for Admiral Gilday and his Pentagon cronies. They had better wake up from “woke” and, as they used to say in appropriately nautical terms, be prepared to shape up or ship out.
No matter what happens, as we learn more and more about the CCP’s perfidy and aggression, headlines like these need to be transitioned into the dustbin: Biden Administration Will Offer Gender Transition Surgery Through VA Healthcare.