"In the past few decades, the Army has pulled its officer training and recruiting programs out of the Northeast and big, ethnically diverse urban centers, choosing to concentrate on campuses in the South and Midwest.
There is no Army ROTC program in the Detroit area, with its large middle-class Muslim population, and only one in Miami and Chicago. In New York City, which produced more than 500 military officers a year in the 1950s and early 1960s, the two remaining ROTC programs last year yielded 34 Army officers."
Ever the "call me paranoid" type, and having read Sinclair Lewis' classic book, IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, this makes me wonder. It makes me fear that the leaders of the military, already proven, in my eyes, terribly incompetent, are building an army of red state volunteers, right wing, imbalanced, who see places like New York City as strange, foreign lands, where there are many people who look like the enemy. Consider this example, reported in the article.
Master Sgt. Darrel Jolley got his papers sending him to teach at St. John's University while he was in Iraq. The official Army order listed his assignment as "Jamaica, Queens." "I thought I was going to the island of Jamaica," he says. When he found out he was going to New York, the 43-year-old sergeant says he tried to get out of the assignment. He failed.
Driving through Brooklyn and Queens Sgt. Jolley said he was initially taken aback by the clamor and the large number of people who looked as if they recently arrived from the Middle East. "There were times when I felt like I was back in Iraq. There were people dressed in those man-dresses that they wear in Iraq. The women had veils. I know I shouldn't say this, but it made me want to look for IEDs," he says, referring to improvised explosive devices.
When I get really paranoid, and I look at how the Pentagon enabled Bush to deceive and defraud the US into the Iraq war, when I see how the military is happily helping Bush and company destroy constitutional freedoms, like right to a trial, habeus corpus and privacy... I wonder what advantage there might be to have an army intentionally recruited from the most conservative states. It's not healthy. It counters the American way of diversity. When I'm really paranoid, I think that, like the book, Can't Happen Here, an army of handpicked conservatives from conservative territories would be much easier to manage, much easier to command to get to do things that you and I might find intolerable.
I add to this the recent change in the law eroding Posse Comitatus restrictions in the US and it adds up to some more evidence that the US could be tottering on the brink of totalitarianism. These are just pieces, parts of a big puzzle. But I think it's important to talk about these. I wonder if the German people talked about the ominous developments that happened in Germany before it metamorphosized into a thing of horror.
Getting the most paranoid-- what about internment camps? It would be far easier to get a homogenous red state officer corps that sees liberals as traitors and threats to the nation, as right wing radio casts them, to follow orders to arrest and imprison Americans. It would be far easier for red state right wingers to arrest and take dissidents and activists who engage in civil disobedience into custody. This is scary stuff.
I'm not saying it's going to happen tomorrow or next week. But if you were aiming to produce, over years, a situation that would support such a totalitarian vision, this might be a likely step-- change the composition of the military leadership. Control it so it is less likely to challenge actions, particularly actions done in areas where there would be the most resistance. I know. Call me paranoid.
The military argues that it is more cost effective to recruit in the south and midwest. Yet, the article reports that one effective recruiter was able to drastically increase the participation in New York programs. Having a military is a necessary evil. If we're going to have one, it should include leaders from all parts of the country, geographically and demographically. Failing to make this happen brings us one more step further on that dangerous path away from national unity. Congress should hold hearings on this and pass laws requiring officer training to be developed in all regions of the US. Anything less is bad for America.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
The framed magazine cover, with the word "IDEAS" spelled out in lightbulbs, is based on an article Rob wrote for Writers Digest, telling the magazine's quarter million readers how to come up with and pitch article ideas.
To learn more about me and OpEdNews.com, check out this article.
and there are Rob's quotes, here.
To Watch me on youtube, having a lively conversation with John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here Now, wouldn't you like to see me on the political news shows, representing progressives. If so, tell your favorite shows to bring me on and refer them to this youtube video
My radio show, The Rob Kall Show, runs 9-10 PM EST Wednesday evenings, on AM 1360, WNJC and is archived on www.whiterosesociety.org Or listen to it streaming, live at either www.wnjc1360.com or here.
Or check the archived interviews at:
whiterosesociety.org
A few declarations.
-While I'm registered as a Democrat, I consider myself to be a dynamic critic of the Democratic party, just as, well, not quite as much, but almost as much as I am a critic of republicans.
-My articles express my personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.
I had to laugh ... I attended one of those down at the heel red state cow colleges with, what was then, a mandatory ROTC program for all freshmen and sophomore males. If those good ole boys were to be called anything, red was not on their list! Sure our school colors included crimson ... but it was crimson and not red. Red had to do with, well reds!
There are though, conservatives (amongst them rednecks) and then there are neo-cons ... and for my money I'd take a good ole boy, redneck officer any day over a neo-con! The redneck probably would come from a small town and have some sense of community ... whereas a neo-con would come from some sort of intellectual background contemptuous of the small town community feelings of the red neck.
As a viet nam era spear-chucker for empire, one thing I know (or think I know since viet nam took certainty out of just about everything I knew) is that you want an officer that gives a shit about his men ... and not some Kerry-like doofus looking to acquire medals for his politically inclined chest. Viet nam was a place where the values of community were destroyed, and the men who developed relationships, then lost those buddies and then lost the ability to feel or believe in what america was supposed to be, may never heal. They are still fighting the betrayal of viet nam as an American memory.
Still, I agree with the generqal tone of your argument ... and like I said, it did make me laugh. Not that you are wrong ... it is just like everybody else, none of us are ever right any more. The things we thought we believed were stripped away by viet nam, and iraq will have the same salutary affect on the capitalist empire that was spawned at the end of the middle ages.
I'm red, now you figure ... am I red state or just red ... and what the hell does it matter anyway.
G
by
rgaylor (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Friday, February 23, 2007 at 5:24:12 PM
"As a viet nam era spear-chucker for empire, one thing I know (or think I know since viet nam took certainty out of just about everything I knew) is that you want an officer that gives a shit about his men ... and not some Kerry-like doofus looking to acquire medals for his politically inclined chest"
says much, much more about you than about him. Kerry served three tours, I served one, and I dont know shit about you. The vast majority of our legislature and our executive served none at all. Kerry was wounded twice and by many accounts, those who really served with him and not the agendised and paid for "swift boaters", was a brave and good leader. To characterise his service as politically motivated, especially as, upon returning home he leaped into the politically unpopular anti war movement is to plummet the depths of thoughtlessness or agendised point making. I did not vote for him for President, but I do not make such pointless and inaccurite attacks upon him either.
Rob, it is very possible that this move of recruitiment to red states is simply economy and practicality. That we are recruiting for our armed forces in South and Central America, with offers of citizenship for service, is a much more serious problem, in my opinion.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Sunday, February 25, 2007 at 9:54:38 AM
Although officers & enlisted men from the Southern United States have, since the American Civil War, anyway, always been overrepresented in the US Armed Forces, I do think you have a point with your analysis. I wonder, too, even within the regions in the South and Midwest they are now focusing on, are they recruiting more from urban areas or smaller towns and rural areas. I think that when the Pentagon talks about "more cost effective" recruiting, it is a polite euphemism for recruiting among the most economically stressed and dispossessed WHITES in this country. Urban Black people in this country seem to be more politically aware of the larger implications of the war and are more likely to question the motives and less likely to support the imperial mission.
In a related vein, the Army is recruiting chaplains less and less from traditional denominations whose ministries require a Doctor of Theology degree to practice, and more and more recruiting among more fundamentalist, less intellectually rigorous denominations, where just "being moved by the spirit" is enough to be bestowed the title of preacher...more and more Army chaplains are less and less college educated, coming from such conservative/evangelical congregations as Assemblies of God, the Southern Baptist Convention (one of the few religious orders NOT to issue an anti-war proclamation in recent years, fyi), etc.
I think Standing Armies PERIOD are an abomination and a threat to liberty. The founding fathers were mostly concerned about standing armies composed of foreign mercenaries, which spoke to their experience (Hessians, etc), but their warnings (and the raison de etre for the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution) are no less applicable to home grown Standing Armies. It is only since the end of WW2 that Americans have tolerated and grown used to having such a large "peacetime" full-time military...and public opinion was carefully massaged on this, with the hysteria of the early Cold War, etc. Ike tried to warn us (as Lincoln had nearly a century before).
I've read of indications that some military Judge Advocate Generals are horrified and appalled by what Bush is doing to the legal system (including military law) in this country...the more intelligent and conscientious once probably opt for early retirement, resign their commissions outright, etc...leaving behind mediocre little Eichmanns to do Bush's bidding.
Echoes of the founding fathers come to mind when I read the US military is also recruiting more intently among foreign nationals of friendly nations, trading military service for an expedited road to US citizenship.
I'm just holding my breath waiting for them to revive the draft in some form or other. They almost have to if they're going to try and grab Khuzestan from Iran.
Well, at least West Point is still in Kings Point, NY.
The Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD
The Air Force Academy's presence in megachurch land of Colorado Springs is producing some weird effects and the controversy there is still not adequately resolved. Too many USAF officers surrounded by end-times preaching, conservative Christianity...and these people have their finger on the BOMB. Gives me the willies.
Paranoia in this day and age just means "being aware", I think.
by
John (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 16 comments)
on Friday, February 23, 2007 at 6:02:36 PM
In many liberal areas, there have been concerted efforts by groups in those communities to have college ROTC programs kicked off campuses. Also, there is, as has been noted by other folks in their responses, a more general tendency for people in the Red states to volunteer to serve.
I've actually warned people who were for booting ROTC's off campus that we need liberals and progressives in the military to balance out the conservatives, but I got few people to listen to me I'm afraid. Now we face exactly what you said, Rob, and this coupled with the changes in Posse Comitatus are very frightening indeed.
We need Liberals/Progressives in the Military and the intelligence services.
by
Steven Leser (189 articles, 35 quicklinks, 32 diaries, 1265 comments)
on Friday, February 23, 2007 at 6:28:38 PM
Well I think that may be the plan but it won't work either.Neocons just do not understand the people they hope to subjugate.Neocons think they needed all this control and look what they have done with it.Turned dyed in the wool conservatives against the republican party.They can recruit all the people they want from the south and rural regions but the times, they are a changing. Free thought is everywhere. On the net, on TV, and world communication's truth comes out.Truth is like me trying to slim my fat behind, with a girdle, the fat comes out over the top. You can hide it but it will come out eventually.Even the vets who return home, will find cold comfort in a job well done, and they will remember who to blame. Neoconservatives vision for world domination.
by
cluelessfl (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 184 comments)
on Friday, February 23, 2007 at 6:42:56 PM
when I was in the navy 30 years ago, my captain on one of the ships I served on used to meet with men who had just been stationed on his ship for an hour or so to have an informal talk (Captain Scott--a really great guy). He informed us that he was from New Jersey and as far as he knew, he was the only flag officer in the Navy from north of Virginia. Or words to that effect. The navy, he said, is a southern service. Most of my shipmates were also from south of the mason dixon line. I expect that upper-class grandsons of slave owners made better officers--they knew how to treat a servant.
by
gabby hayes (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 15 comments)
on Friday, February 23, 2007 at 8:47:02 PM
What difference does it make who is right, and who is wrong, or what is right, and what is wrong, or for you to know 'right from wrong'?
It makes no more or less of a difference, than what brand of toilet paper you use, or if Pepsi is better than Coke. Has it ever made a difference?
There was a time though, when it did make a difference if you were paranoid, or not. During those times, the one who was not did a lot better than the one who was, just because he was well, and the other not.
I can assure you, that I am not paranoid. I have always been afflicted with the exact opposite problem. All my life I have thought, that every one had only my best interest in mind.... but that does not mean anyone is interested.
In the past, I have not been paranoid, because I didn't know enough to know about right and wrong. Now, I am not paranoid, because I do know what's right and wrong. And, as far as the issues Rob discusses are concerned, both right and wrong are equally wrong. You don't have even the imagination to guess what's going on.
I am certain that I am sick, and I am sure that Rob is not. And as far as his mental health is concerned, being paranoid, I guarantee you, is 'NOT'.
But I would sacrifice him for the cause, and wish he was sick. So would he, I am sure.
In ending, once again, it makes absolutely no difference who is right, and who is wrong.
Or would you turn wherever needed, and run down the right street, and risk your life, and fight, and prevail...depending on having those answers?
Right and wrong are never a cause for motivation. (only preaching is)
Only, and always, there must first be charged fuel behind all of that. And the 'that' is rarely a consideration, or even needs to be 'written in stone', or serve as 'hard evidence', for man to act.
And I have aquired the knowledge not to wait for a lawyer to work with justice. They have long been 'sold out' to the ones who need them all, and always.
by
Katrin R. (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 522 comments)
on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 2:58:44 AM
As a professional of "The Draft," I wouldn't want any of my grand children to go through that boiling hell. Just in front of the Draft Board made me mad and sick. I shall never support a draft - never! I consider myself a professional and would expect the same treatment by The Draft Board.
by
Dale Hill (55 articles, 0 quicklinks, 98 diaries, 341 comments)
on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 5:19:21 AM
It doesn't matter where the military recruits, the military will always tend conservative. Recent statistics say 40% of career officers are conservative, 7% liberal and the remaining middle of the road or nonpolitical. College professors are 33% liberal. 7% conservative, the rest middle of road or nonpolitical. (Conservatives have a fit about the liberal tilt of college faculties, have no problem with the military's conservative tilt.)
There's a reason or this. Brain scan research reveals that conservatives do not empathize with the pain and travails of others; so they will go to careers where unconcern for others is beneficial. That includes the military, law enforcement, business and football coaching.
The same research shows liberals "feel the pain" of others and show great empathy for their suffering. Therefore liberals go into careers where serving others is of paramount importance, such as education, entertainment, journalism and nursing.
That militaries will always be conservative is possibly what concerned the Founding Fathers, who for the most part were free-thinking progressive intellectuals, (i.e. liberals) when they opposed creating a professional standing army.
by
tabonsell (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 246 comments)
on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 1:06:29 PM
however, we need to come up with a counterbalance because the Conservatives have come up with one for Liberal academia. Its those hundreds of idiotic right wing think tanks that come up with stupid right wing agendas that are wrong but muddy the waters enough to prevent progress.
by
Steven Leser (189 articles, 35 quicklinks, 32 diaries, 1265 comments)
on Monday, February 26, 2007 at 10:07:37 PM
rob, i enjoy your work, and thanks for work on the site.
a group has formed. it's aim is to bring the u.s. its first national convention--or at the least influence the congress by gathering support for one. http://www.foavc.org
please keep this in mind should its need become more clear in the coming weeks.
john de herrera
by
john de herrera (32 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 119 comments)
on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 5:25:49 PM
