This seeming move in the right direction regarding the repeal of DADT is actually both pathetic and a virtually guaranteed death by a thousand cuts!
[Defense Secretary Robert] Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, support a repeal of the law but want to move slowly to ensure the changes won't hurt the military's effectiveness. Gates ordered a review, due Dec. 1, on how the military would implement a repeal, should Congress change the law.
"Doing it hastily is very risky," Gates said Thursday.
The changes he announced take effect immediately and apply to current as well as future cases. Pentagon officials said they were unsure how many people the new rules might affect.
This is not Rocket Science! Many other countries have openly Gay people serving in their military without incident and without any threat to the troops or to national security, and the Obama Administration knows this fact!
There is absolutely no reason why DADT can't immediately be repealed!
By continuing to "study" the likely consequences of the repeal of DADT, and stating that Doing it [repealing DADT] hastily is very risky, merely sets the stage where a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs whereby there will likely be excess revulsion expressed both by the troops and by society at large that wouldn't likely have occurred had Obama had the guts and moral compass to sign a stop/loss order last year, or even at this time, and tell Congress that he wants DADT repealed right now.
After all, it is a Democratic Congress! Up to now, the Democrats could blame the Republicans who had the Presidency and the majority of Congress for maintaining DADT.
Now, the only ones to blame are Obama and the largely Democratic Congress who, by their foot-dragging and what I perceive to be negative rhetoric as evidenced by Robert Gates in the following video, might well help create a level of backlash against Gay people that otherwise wouldn't have occurred once DADT is finally repealed.
4 comments:
Obama does not give a damn about this issue, and the situation is made worse by "advocacy" organizations like Servicemembers United. SU jas proposed that the military repeal DADT quickly but delay its implementation indefinitely so the brass can "study" the likely impact. I was infuriated when I read about it on gay.americablog.com (whose staff also supports this asinine approach). Delayed implementation is a gift to the Right Wing fear and hatemongers, wrapped up in a big red bow! It bolsters their talking points about repeal being too risky to do right away. Apparently, even Gay veterans' groups think Gay soldiers are a potential danger to unit cohesion! Once again, Gay activists prove to be their own worst enemy. There was a scholar who wrote that if you can control the way people think about themselves, the task of subjugating them is halfway done; I wish I could remember who it was.
Great points, Don Charles. You state: "Once again, Gay activists prove to be their own worst enemy." These are not Gay activists, but self-sabotaging reactionaries claiming to be "activists." No activist takes the talking points of the oppressor and makes it his/her own! Best wishes, Jerry.
And something else goes without saying, Jerry, but I'm going to say it anyhow: Self-respecting LGBT people don't take the insults of their oppressors and make them their own. Transsexual folk who reject the label "tranny" seem to be the only ones who understand this obvious truth . . . and unfortunately, it's only some transsexual folk. Why is this concept of respect so difficult for us to grasp?
Hi Don Charles: In answer to your question, I honestly don't know! But I do have some ideas about this phenomenon.
Some people use those words because they are told by others who describe themselves, and feel themselves to be, "activists"; others use those words under the illusion that by so doing they are "empowered" or "liberated"; others use those words because they "sell" in the media and they get financial and other rewards for using those hateful words.
Despite what many of those who use those hateful self-identifiers say, those words are those used by the oppressor, and only a clueless or self-loathing (conscious and/or unconscious) person would use such words.
What those who use these words don't seem to understand, if they even care, is that they are gravely hurting, in fact betraying, the LGBT Civil Rights movement.
I have yet to hear a Jewish person refer to him/herself as a "Kike"; an Italian refer to him/herself as a "Wop," etc.
People who have dignity and self-respect do not refer to themselves by words that their oppressor uses! Best wishes, Jerry.
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