Anyone who imagines that the theocrats--this article dubs them the theocons and I'm pleased to adopt that term -- aren't out to win complete control of our nation is so naive that they really ought not be allowed to buy things on credit. Take, for example, the "Officers' Christian Fellowship, a private organization with 14,000 active-duty members on more than 200 U.S. military bases around the world. In its mission statement, the OCF says its goal is 'a spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit.'"
The WaPo article profiles Mikey Weinstein, "51, [and] once a White House lawyer who defended the Reagan administration during the Iran-contra investigation. Three generations of his family -- his father, himself, both of his sons and a daughter-in-law -- have gone to U.S. military academies." Weinsten became upset about the theocon's attempts to subvert our military when, on " July 29, 2004 [,he] visited the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs that day as a proud parent. His son Curtis, who was entering his second year at the academy, had just finished three weeks of combat survival training. Weinstein spotted him across a room and knew instantly that something was wrong. They drove off campus, in stormy silence, and pulled into a McDonald's.
"All right, Curtis . . . I can't take any more of this. What the hell have you done?" Weinstein remembers asking.
"It's not what I've done, Dad. It's what I'm going to do," Curtis answered, according to his father. "I'm going to beat the [. . .] out of the next person that calls me a [. . .] Jew or accuses me or our people of killing Jesus Christ."
At that moment, Weinstein says, "everything kind of telescoped. I could hear my heart in my ears. For a guy who talks a lot . . . I was speechless."
Weinstein says Curtis recounted eight or nine separate incidents in which cadets and officers had made anti-Semitic remarks. One came in the heat of athletic competition, when an upperclassman taunted: "How does it make you feel to know that you killed Jesus Christ?"
"What hurt me the most was . . . you know, he's a tough kid, he was the city wrestling champ of Albuquerque as a sophomore in high school . . . [but] he said, 'Dad, I don't really know what to do when they say that,' " Weinstein recalls.
Since that day, Weinstein says, he has talked with hundreds of present and former cadets and staff at the academy, and has become convinced that the conflict is not between Christians and Jews, but between aggressively evangelical Christians and everybody else."
When Weinstein bitched, an "internal inquiry substantiated virtually all of his specific allegations. It found, for example, that Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, the commandant of cadets, taught the entire incoming class a "J for Jesus" hand signal; that football coach Fisher DeBerry hung a "Team Jesus" banner in the locker room; and that more than 250 faculty members and senior officers signed a campus newspaper advertisement saying: "We believe that Jesus Christ is the only real hope for the world."
But the Air Force's report concluded that there was "no overt religious discrimination" -- no I am not making this up.
In the usual up-is-down, hot-is-cold, nasty-is-virtuous bullshit we've all come to expect, it turns out, of course, that it's actually THE THEOCONS who are being discriminated against! ""I consider my constitutional right to discuss my faith without censorship or fear of retribution as valuable to the military and the future of our nation as the aircraft, bombs and bullets I am trained to employ," Air Force Capt. Karl Palmberg, one of the would-be interveners, said in an affidavit." Forget the fact that there's a difference between what you get to do on Saturday on random street corners or big, ugly megachurches and what you do during the week on the government's dime. It's the xians who are, as per always, being persecuted by being told that they can't impose their monotheistic, patriarchal crap on the rest of us.
Go, Mikey.
3 comments:
The Navy's always been the aristocratic branch of the war machine. The Luftwaffe seems to have taken up the mantle of theocracy. We can only hope the Army still upholds democracy...
The theocons don't seem to understand that freedom OF religion also means freedom FROM religion.
When I left the Army 5 years ago, I remember meeting more Wiccans than theocons. But if anyone got in my face about religion, I would have complained to my chain of command.
professor -- You forgot the Marines! (OK, I know that they're part of the USN, but don't try telling them that!)
The USAF had never been part of the armed forces (a USN officer told me that -- HEH!) but the academy has certainly been taken over by fundies of the worst sort -- trouble is, if real Xians are going to follow the Gospel, they won't be in the armed forces.
As to the Army -- they are democratic when you have high levels of conscription & the membership reflects the society as a whole -- if they are mercenaries paid by the government -- maybe not so much...
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