***A Twist On The Military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy – For Gay And Lesbian Bolsheviks In The Military

Click on the headline to link to a Huffington Post entry on the Republican-led Senate defeat of an amendment to change the "don't ask, don't tell" military policy on gays and lesbians sexual orientations.

Markin comment:

The Republicans (and some Democrats, naturally) really don’t get it on the gay rights in the military issue, at least on this simple democratic issue of the right for someone’s sexual orientation not to be an issue, one way or the other, in any social setting in the first decade of the 21st century. The recent defeat of an amendment to a bill annulling that previous military policy speaks volumes. In that sense they, the august Senators, are not far removed from the punishment freaks, chattel slavery-worshippers, and other assorted denizens of the netherworld called the tea party movement. Moreover, on this issue, as far as I know from the public testimony of major members of the military general staff who were called before Congressional committees on this saw no further reason to continue the policy. After all, this late in the game, who knows who on the general staff is or is not gay? And what of it. So, what is the big issue?

But here is my little twist on the matter. Look, those of us of the anti-war left really do not want to advocate, one way or the other, for how the imperialists use their soldiers, as a general proposition. Except, of course, to get those soldiers, one way or the other, to stop fighting for the American imperial state. That said, we are seriously interested, imperial soldiers or not, that those soldiers, including gay and lesbian soldiers, get the same democratic rights as civilians. Thus we oppose this hare-brained “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. At least as far as sexual orientation goes.

Now what we really want to do is to turn all those soldiers through our communist propaganda into soldier-Bolsheviks, whatever their sexual orientation, for our side. Thus, while we do not support that “don’t ask, don’t tell policy for sexual orientation I think that today it is the beginning of wisdom if we do continue to has that policy for political orientation. After all that “democratic” military brass might get just a little nervous, and have horrid nightmares about those 1917 days, with the notion of Bolsheviks in the ranks, including gay and lesbian Bolsheviks. We will just keep that part our little secret, okay?

Political Thoughts in the Summer Doldrums

Of This and That

Commentary

Just a couple of observations to while away the summer doldrums.

California Gay and Lesbian Marriage Vote

Earlier this year the California Supreme Court held that, as a matter of state law, legislation on the books that discriminated against gays and lesbians on the question of the democratic right to marriage was unconstitutional. As in Massachusetts, there was furious backlash by various right-wing elements, some organized religions notably the Catholic Church, other usual suspects on this issue and the usual quota of married (or, as is usually the case, re-married) heterosexual types who can’t breath right if marriage is not defined in law, society and the eyes of god as the bonding of one male and one female human being.

Needless to say, such groups have some resources and have enough wherewithal to have this issue placed on the ballot this November. As the presidential race in California is likely to be a walkover for Obama this fight may get more than its share of attention. At this point I am not sure how this initiative petition question will appear on the ballot so I do not know how to call the vote (any help here?). In any case, we want to vote against the overriding of the court’s action down with both hands. Defend, extend the democratic right of gays and lesbians to marry (Markin adds -and good luck to them, they will need it. We are already starting to see gay and lesbian divorces in Massachusetts, just like heterosexuals).


**Integration of the American military

Within the past couple of weeks there has been a ceremony in Washington, D.C. honoring the 60th Anniversary of President Harry S. Truman’s signing of an executive order integrating the armed forces of American imperialism. While militant leftists have a very definite position in opposition to American governmental foreign and military policy we nevertheless, until working people take power, have a very definite interest in fighting for equal access and rights for all in almost any bourgeois institution. We do not encourage people to join the military but if they do then the full range of rights and opportunity should be open to them. That premise also underlines our position on the question of gays in the military (the current ‘see no evil’ policy is not an example of equal access but a bandage) and permitting women soldiers to become combat troops.

In one article about this commemoration that I read an interesting point was made that while blacks (who the original order was directed toward integrating) make up a proportionally larger (at least until recently due to the Iraqi quagmire) part of the various branches of the services than in the population as a whole they are underrepresented in the higher echelons of the military (senior NCOs and General Staff officers). Despite, the occasional Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Barack Obama story this remains a deeply race-divided society with blacks STILL disproportionately at the bottom of the pile. Our job is to rectify that when the above-mentioned working people take power. And pronto.

I would also be remiss here in a comment about the American military machine if in the summer of 2008 after more than five years of constant war I did not put a reminder that our task is still- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal From Iraq And Afghanistan of All American/Allied Troops And Their Mercenaries! Make that pronto, as well.

*** The Youth Vote

Although I have, in general, sworn off observations on the American presidential campaigns, such as they are, I have recently come across some statistical information that only verifies what I have been trying to point out about future political possibilities for extra-parliamentary militant leftists. Polls have shown that Barack Obama has significant leads among the young over Republican John McCain in several key states in the upcoming elections. Moreover that trend applies to the national picture, as well.

Ho hum you say. Well, in part, you would be right just on the basis of the age difference between McCain and Obama. To speak nothing of some of their policy differences and personal technological capacities (Obama can work an iPOd. McCain, apparently, is still using a transistor radio). However, I would point out that one Richard M. Nixon in 1972, a time beyond the high water mark of the 1960’s yet still within memory of those days, split the then just passed 26th Amendment –enhanced youth vote with George McGovern. And George McGovern was far, far to the left of anything that Obama has been saying (or, as of late, not saying).

In short, youth as a segment of society is not always left, not always progressive or for that matter not always even political. What the above-mentioned statistics tell me though is that something more like the swirl around John Kennedy in 1960 is forming and not the resignation and acceptance of defeat represented by Nixon’s reelection in 1972 by a significant segment of the young. As I pointed out in a recent small commentary on Obama’s rush to the right in order to gain ‘victory’ we will get our share of the political spoils once the disillusionment with Obama sets in (as a look at his social networking site will already confirm) with all the weighty social problems confronting this society still in need of solution.