Okay, I lied. That was just a teaser “hed,” Clickbait. I apologize—sort of.
(Who will be our Neville Chamberlain—John Kerry or Anthony Blinken?)
Nevertheless, if I had to make a real world choice between defunding the military and the police, I’d go with defunding the military in a heartbeat.
These days, there’s no group of people more urgently needed than the police, with crime escalating horrifically across the country, largely in black neighborhoods, but almost everywhere as well.
The murder rate has gone up thirty-seven percent on average in major American cities.
If anything, the police need more funding—considerably more with a return to some version of Rudy Giuliani’s successful “Broken Windows” policy.
And don’t even get me started on the mayor of Chicago, an arrogant racist who won’t talk with white reporters while the black children of her city get plugged in the head by drugged-out gangs.
Ah, but the military.
It used to be the safe haven—or so we thought.
But who but the most adamant supporter of critical race theory could not help but be astonished and depressed by the weirdly evasive responses of Adm. Michael M. Gilday’s to questions from Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) at last week’s House Armed Services Committee hearings?
“Adm. Michael M. Gilday, the chief of naval operations, did not answer questions Tuesday about whether author-activist Ibram X. Kendi’s opposition to interracial adoption and capitalism is extreme.
The book was on the list of the Navy’s recommended reading and as The Daily Signal further noted:
‘The reading list is lopsided with anti-racism and a bent toward critical race theory,’ Sadler told The Daily Signal. ‘A reading list is an endorsement.’”
I had been hearing about the military’s infection by “woke” politics for some time, but there it was in front of my eyes. I can only imagine what it’s really like inside the upper echelons of the Pentagon. Patton must be turning over in his grave.
As a frightening reminder, it’s Gilday and his ilk who are responsible for our deterring Communist China in the South China Sea and elsewhere.
You can see the temptation to defund the military, but, of course, we’re trapped. China and Russia are not about to defund theirs.
You have to be edgy. Critical race theory is edgy.
It’s also racist, stupid and wildly divisive—but no matter.
Where is this headed?
When I was in high school I remember reading James Baldwin’s powerful book “The Fire Next Time.” Its title came from a couplet in the moving spiritual “Mary Don’t You Weep”:
“And God gave Noah the rainbow sign No more water, the fire next time.”
“There will be political surprises all across Europe this year and next. By the time they are done the Democrats will look like Labour in the UK, a brittle shell of a party built on equal parts envy and smarm, and the Republicans, guided by Trump, will return to power with a vengeance we’ve never experienced in U.S. politics. It will not be pretty.”
Hmm…. If true, and it’s beginning to look increasingly likely for a variety of reasons (Luongo was writing of John Stewart’s take down of Colbert), the future does not look promising for Admiral Gilday and his Pentagon cronies. They had better wake up from “woke” and, as they used to say in appropriately nautical terms, be prepared to shape up or ship out.
Friends Read Free