Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was finally repealed today, and I suppose that’s a good thing. It’s high time the military moved on. But another significant advance of freedom for military members, at least those in the US Air Force, is also cause for rejoicing: USAF Chief of Staff General Schwartz has outlawed unconstitutional promotions of religion. This, I hope, means the end of forced Christian indoctrination and unchecked proselytilizing of cadets at the US Air Force Academy, and the Jesusification of missile officer training.
Mandatory Christianity was never a big issue for me when I was in the USAF, but I was certainly aware of it. Every now and then commanders would put informal pressure on their troops to attend chapel services on Sunday morning, and when they interviewed NCOs and officers who were up for quarterly or yearly awards, they’d slip in sly questions about Sunday activities and “family values.” Some commanders forced staff officers to attend weekly or monthly prayer breakfasts … I was lucky I never had a boss like that.
For a year in Alaska I was the wing commander’s executive officer. Part of my job was to review officer and NCO fitness reports that came to colonel’s desk for endorsement. A surprising number of those reports extolled and praised officers’ religious faith, as if that had anything to do with job performance or leadership qualities. I rejected those reports out of hand, and the colonel always backed me up … had I had a different kind of boss I would have faced a real crisis.
So yea for you, General Schwartz! The time seems ripe to re-engage you on my crusade to get Rush Limbaugh taken off Armed Forces Radio. Expect a letter shortly!
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No shit? “Those of us who grew up around the NRA are all too familiar with one of the more striking facets of the organization’s relentless fearmongering, its paranoid style: namely, it not only traffics in wild and groundless conspiracy theories about ‘gun grabbers’ and Bircherite ‘New World Order’ takeover schemes, but it forms deep associations with the very extremists whose far-right worldview fosters such paranoia.”
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This blog post about Michele Bachmann and her HPV vaccine lies asks the age-old question: what does a right-wing extremist have to say before anyone in the mainstream media will come out and call crazy candidate statements crazy?
I should think the answer to that would be clear to everyone by now. Rick Perry could say that Jesus was for starving the poor and tomorrow’s headline would be “What Is Christian Virtue? Views Differ.” The MSM isn’t going to call right wing and religious crazies on anything, ever. When it comes to figuring out who is lying to you and who isn’t, today it’s a DIY world … you have to suss it out yourself, because the media has abandoned journalism for he said/she said stenography.
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Arizona is truly the tea party racist meth lab of the nation. Sheriff Joe has deputized a posse (literally, a posse) to investigate Obama’s birth certificate.
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I consulted Google to find out whether the American Family Association ever took a position against Truck Nuts. Apparently they have not. Then I Googled “AFA Ben and Jerry’s.” Apparently they have.
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I’m not going to go for the obvious tea bagger joke here, but I know which of the two I’d rather have in my mouth!