Rally at McCormick’s office

25Sep22

We were supposed to have an indoor meeting today, but for various reasons (Our leader David Gibson explained those reasons at length), the indoor meeting didn’t happen.

Please keep in mind that if you’re attending the “No Kings” march on October 18^th, that the Speaker of the House says:

“They have a ‘Hate America’ rally that’s scheduled for Oct. 18 on the National Mall,” Johnson claimed. “It’s all the pro-Hamas wing and, you know, the ANTIFA people.”

But no, Democrats are not saying that they want to delay opening up the government until after the march. That’s just more of the Speaker’s delaying tactics. Also, MSNBC host Chris Hayes takes exception to what the Speaker says.

Which brings up the very positive news on the shutdown, Democrats are winning it! They thought carefully about what was really important, made that one demand, to extend the ACA/Obamacare subsidies, and they’re sticking to it. Republicans are all over the map in their response. They don’t appear inclined to run up the surrender flag yet, but they’re definitely losing the public opinion fight.

I guess the most immediate concern that people had when hearing that a meeting had been called by Secretary of Defense/War Hegseth for, I believe, 800 of the most senior officers in the US military was the danger from drone strikes (Didn’t happen, most likely because notice was too short). The real concern seems to have been a replay of Hitler’s 1935 meeting with all of his top military officers, where he demanded that they swear loyalty to him as opposed to the Weimar Republic. Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges wrote about this meeting on social media,

What does Hegseth’s “Cool story, General” reply mean?

It’s a slang phrase that dismisses something as dull or unimportant, but critics say it downplays a serious warning.

The first piece suggest that Hegseth could have been starting a purge or was going to demand loyalty oaths. Officers might well be told that the civilians are now the enemy and must be corralled/controlled. Update: the first possibility of demanding loyalty oaths didn’t happen, likely because of what this piece suggests, that this is just the first round in what Trump knows will be a lengthy process.

Update: This blogger correctly predicted that Trump would join the gathering so that he could treat it like a campaign rally. He doubts that the more sinister predictions will occur. 

Update II: The speeches Hegseth and Trump made to the officers weren’t quite as bad as predicted. Hegsth’s speech presumed that every conflict we ever take part in will be a no-holds-barred, desperate fight for survival with none of these “silly” rules based on the Geneva Conventions and basic notions of decency and the idea that wars should be conducted according to some set of rules. Oh, and unless you’re a thin white guy, get out of the military! Trump’s speech wasn’t any better. He treated his audience like his usual campaign rally-goers, like worshipful sycophants who completely supported everything he said.

My own thoughts on Hegseth’s speech is that he does indeed specify that

it was important that certain combat positions return “to the highest male standard,” acknowledging that it may lead to fewer women serving in combat roles.

It’s important that he specifies “certain combat positions” as I’ll show here that it isn’t really necessary that everyone in military service has to reach the highest standards. Now, back in the old days, a Roman Legion would consist entirely of front-line fighters, so everyone in the legion had to be a tough badass.

Of course even then, when Legionnaires traveled, they had a “baggage train” or “supply train,” where

tents, equipment and bulk supplies were transported by separate train detachments composed of mules and wagons under the control of camp servants.

Legionnaires were the “tooth” and the baggage train was the “tail.” Note that this did not mean that people on the baggage train could be complete slackers, they had to travel long distances and to keep up with the legions.

Likewise, noncombat people today can’t be out of shape. They need to know which end of the gun to point at the enemy because the “front line” is not as neatly defined as it was in the past. Logistical people don’t need to be expert sharpshooters, but they need to have some familiarity with weapons in case they’re attacked. Bottom line is that there are many people in the service who simply don’t need to be as rough or as tough as front-line troops.

Just because there are lots of “tail” people doesn’t mean that women can’t serve as “tooth.” The Army Ranger school loses 50% of its people before graduation, and that’s after they’ve been rigorously screened  to get in. 2.2% of Army Rangers are women.

In 2024, Ukraine employed as many as 68k women soldiers. A few of them in front-line combat roles, but most as snipers, drone operators, medical persons, intelligence and staff. There is much discrimination against LGBT personnel in Ukrainian society at large, but they serve openly in the military. Ukraine has been holding out against the much larger Russian Army that was widely considered the second best in the world after the American Army when the full-scale war began in 2022.

In conclusion, I understand the values of uniformity and discipline, but I also understand the value of diversity and creativity. I think Trump and Hegseth overvalue uniformity at the expense of diversity.

Negotiations for keeping the government open are going poorly. A meeting between the House Minority Leader, the Speaker, the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders and the President  “has not seemed to move the needle.” Trump then proved that he was completely unserious by posting an AI deepfake video of Schumer saying Democrats are “woke pieces of shit” with Jeffries nodding along in a sombrero — not exactly the move of a serious and engaged negotiator.

The problem is that Trump’s much-hyperf negotiating skills are just that – hype. “Critics mock Trump’s negotiation skills amid shutdown” In early 2019, Trump was frustrated because the Republican House and Senate both refused to give him a wall on the Southern border and now Democrats were in charge of the House.  Neither Senate Minority Leader Schumer nor the newly-minted Speaker of the House Pelosi  were sympathetic. Why weren’t they sympathetic? Well, Trump wanted the wall for free. He offered the two Democrats nothing that would make such a vote worth their while. To this day, Trump’s negotiating skills haven’t improved any.

Update:  “Trust is at the heart of all effective negotiations, which makes it all the more significant that the president keeps lying”

Does Trump deserve credit for the peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza? The blogger admits to that, but points out that the crown princes of the Gulf share the credit and that Trump’s close personal relationship to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was also quite important.

RLGardner.net