While I think this is a fantastic turn of events, and I'd like to give credit where it's due (including to the disappointingest president evah), it pains me to hate Joe Lieberman even a tiny bit less than I used to.
I know, isn't it maddening? Luckily, hating him somewhat less still allows me to focus hatred like unto nine hundred million exploding suns on him, so the missing fine edge isn't that significant.
So, are you on hiatus as well, or are you carrying EOTAW singlehanded?
I hate it when the content providers for my procrastination material decide to slack off. Work harder for free, bitches!
That was in reference to those lazy jerks at EOTAW, not gays in the military, who receive salaries after all.
I began hiating before hiating became cool. But yeah, now that I have the place to myself, I might start posting again.
I think you should follow tedra's lead and start two new blogs for every one you quit.
[I]t it pains me to hate Joe Lieberman even a tiny bit less than I used to.
Now, now, there are plenty of reasons to hate Mr. Mackey the droning Senator from the insurance state.
it pains me to hate Joe Lieberman even a tiny bit less than I used to.
Fuck Joe Lieberman. That bastard has managed to lower expectations to the point where his decision to side with the Democrats on an easy political issue looks like a special bit of decency - and the fact that he did so somewhat aggressively imbues him with a halo.
Moynihan would describe Lieberman as defining dickishness down. Lieberman had a big hand in creating the current political environment - the very environment in which repeal of DADT is a minor miracle.
The Afterthought is great, LB. I totes chuckled at your slogan.
I actually gave a Facebook shout-out today to Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), who voted in favor, to my surprise. I had imagined many impassioned emails to him, arguing for the repeal, but never sent any. Today I did send a thank you email via his website. God I hope I don't get fired for all that. I was pleasantly surprised.
Now, if we could do something about the senseless war we are sending the gays off to fight for us....
This heartwarming tale of unit cohesion may be appropriate:
Scene: a club in a garrison town. In the centre of the dance floor, a gunner is dancing manically. A rifleman approaches.
Rifleman: Why are you dancing like a big gay?
Gunner: Because I am a big gay.
At this point the rifleman punched the gunner.
Several of the gunner's friends then approached and expressed sentiments along the lines of "he may be a big gay, but he's our big gay". A frank and wide-ranging discussion ensued.
The gunner was mildly bruised. The rifleman went home in an ambulance with broken bones.
Unit cohesion, if anything, enhanced.
To the Afterthought: Unfeasibly long slogans have a charm of their own which can lead to surprising popularity especially among the sort of bloody minded people who tend to yell slogans. I remember hearing a crowd of a few thousand shouting in unison:
Unemployment and inflationI'm sure you could come up with a LGBT militarist chant along similar lines.
Are not caused by immigration!
Bullshit! Come off it!
The enemy is profit!
The best semi-militant chant I've ever heard at Pride was the enthusiastically delivered, "Ten percent is not enough! Recruit! Recruit!"
I am thrilled that this passed. My inner 19 year old is a little sad that he'll never get drafted just so that he could have shown up in a dress made of the Canadian flag. Ah well.
My Lieberman-hate goes by unabated. That he did one decent thing does not make me hate him less. Doing one decent thing barely crosses meets the standard for being treated like a human being. Personally, I think he got behind this and pushed for no reason other than to get back at McCain for not being his pick for VP.
Personally, I think he got behind this and pushed for no reason other than to get back at McCain for not being his pick for VP.
Boy, this rings true. I've just been reading "August 1914" and it's disturbing how much of the 20th century's history was the result of minor fits of personal pique rather than gravely-considered acts of national strategy or vast inexorable economic forces.
The best semi-militant chant I've ever heard at Pride was the enthusiastically delivered, "Ten percent is not enough! Recruit! Recruit!"
I bought a Lesbian Avengers tshirt at a pride parade years back that says WE RECRUIT on the back. Mostly I bought the shirt because I dug the kind of situationist slogan on the front of the shirt: "Be the Bomb You Throw."
to get back at McCain for not being his pick for VP
God, how those two douchebags deserve one another.
17: I thought of that, but it doesn't really add does it? If was so angry about that, he could have done something during the election to really hurt McCain.
I think we are just going to have to deal with the possibility that Joe Lieberman isn't all bad.
19 -- improved version! now with less missing words! -- I thought of that, but it doesn't really add up does it? If he was so angry about that, he could have done something during the election to really hurt McCain.
I think we are all just going to have to deal with the possibility that Joe Lieberman isn't all bad.
I think we are just going to have to deal with the possibility that Joe Lieberman isn't all bad.
Jamais.
More likely: Like today's Winter Solstice/Lunar Eclipse, what we have is a rare alignment -- of What Is Good for the Country and What Is Good for Joe Lieberman (senate candidate, 2012).
Very few people are all bad. People do more or less bad things for various reasons. Lieberman is ambitious (which is unbecoming at his age) and unprincipled (which is a dominant trait among politicians). That's enough to explain his quotidian douchery. And yet there are still one or two things he believes in. Good, and not particularly astonishing. Perhaps he was an idealist as a lad.
re: 12
My Dad's unit, when he was in the army [late 60s, early 70s] had an out gay man in it. This occasioned a Special Branch investigation, iirc, into various (straight) members of the unit, including nattarGcM père, because there was, after all, something intrinsically suspicious about soldiers who were happy to work and socialise with a poof.
Could LB or someone give or link to an explanation of how we know having openly gay people in the military won't cause cohesion problems? I'm just thinking of poker games with the guys, which get all socially competitive/unfun/people start acting differently when there's girls around. I've never been in the military and am VERY willing to be convinced. Just haven't seen the fully-argued case against DADT.
how we know having openly gay people in the military won't cause cohesion problems
acting differently when there's girls around
I'm not trying to sound condescending, honest, but gay men aren't women.
gay men aren't women, but it feels like the disruptiveness comes from the fact of sexual attraction (that's in-the-open and acceptable to act on), not gender.
the wikipedia article is somewhat convincing. although they keep saying that "studies show no associated decline in military performance", but I don't know how the hell you'd measure that.
The latest fallback argument I've seen running around, about why removing DADT will be a world-ending disaster, is that all of those other militaries around the world which do allow openly gay servicemembers implicitly rely on the all-powerful all-hetero US military to back up their own sissy forces.
One suspects this has never been uttered within earshot of members of said services.
gay men aren't women, but it feels like the disruptiveness comes from the fact of sexual attraction (that's in-the-open and acceptable to act on), not gender.
Yeah but, no but. As I understand it the US armed forces are full of women, straight and, we assume, gay, in all imaginable military roles. So the fact of sexual attraction is a given, whatever gender's involved.
all of those other militaries around the world which do allow openly gay servicemembers implicitly rely on the all-powerful all-hetero US military to back up their own sissy forces
I wonder how this works with regard to Israel?
As I understand it the US armed forces are full of women, straight and, we assume, gay, in all imaginable military roles.
No women in US combat units. Although there are two Marine officer women who go to my gym who can kick about 99% of guys asses at just about anything and make a total mockery of that rule.
"studies show no associated decline in military performance"
Gotta say, even if there was an associated decline: so? It's still the right thing to do, and any decline is probably temporary. Like all those loving and understanding racists who had to get over integration, and more or less DID. Or all those elightened sexists who more or less got over the fact that women would be doing their air resupply or fixing their gear.
I'm just thinking of poker games with the guys, which get all socially competitive/unfun/people start acting differently when there's girls around.
This is some highly-refined satire, right? Or you're just otherwise fucking kidding? I have to assume you've never played poker with a shit-talking queen or that you're a queen who's never been friends with an equally shit-talking breeder.
I'm not trying to sound condescending, honest, but gay men aren't women.
Man, I have got to say, this explains a lot about appointments with my gynecologist.
30: I thought Iraq pretty definitively established that non-combat forces see plenty of combat in modern war? I recall reading a story about a female solder whose arm was blown off on top of a building, and her (male) unitmates carefully went and retrieved her wedding ring for her.
24, I assume there will still be rules against fraternization, so there will still be limits to how openly attraction can be acted upon. In any case, I'm not sure that the awkwardness of last night's poker game is really on anyone's mind when they get ambushed on patrol.
You know what definitely hurts military performance, though? Discharging perfectly qualified soldiers because of their sexual orientation. Or suffering the stress of living a lie on top of the stress of being shot at and blown up in a foreign country that you've been sent to occupy for no comprehensible reason.
Absolutely, which is another reason why the no women in combat units rule is stupid.
33. It's just amazing how war so brilliantly illuminates both the best and the worst that human beings are capable of.
Oh, hey, Halford's around and mentioned his gym. That reminds me, I recently heard about the Cannibal Sandwich:
Many Milwaukeeans love the "cannibal sandwich," a barbaric combination of raw ground sirloin served on dark rye bread or crackers and topped with thin-sliced raw onion.
You pretty much have to try it and report back.
37. Wisconsin tends Scandinavian, no?
37: Sounds insufficiently barbaric for Halford. Dark rye bread or cracker isn't Paleo, right?
It's great. I've eaten it often, as a standard part of my grandmother's smørrebrød . If you prefer raw mutton, go with kibbeh.
38: Milwaukee itself had more German , Polish and Serbian immigrants. My first search for any further info merely brought many reminders that Jeffrey Dahmer had lived in Milwaukee.
Yeah, rye bread is for peasants, not warriors. Sans bread, sounds great!
But what do you spread it on? A lettuce leaf?
But what do you spread it on?
Why, another piece of meat, of course.
26: Leaving aside the tedium, in this entire segment of the debate, of the implication that treating people as human beings is illegitimate if it means a 1% greater dollars:deaths ratio oh Jesus Christ... anyway, here's some formal research on the subject (drawn from RAND's big-ass study):
Members of combat and noncombat units [in surveyed IDF members] were equally likely to report knowing a gay member, but in neither type of unit was there any relationship between knowing a gay member and ratings on the social cohesion index.
@RMMP: social competitiveness as distinctive from competitiveness, meaning like social hierarchy-type shit as opposed to playful I'm gonna kick your ass.
but 31 and 34 and 45 make sense to me.
Of course, my position is that the US gov't and military are utterly undeserving of any LGBT members. I certainly would never admit that I worked for the gov't or was a soldier in any social circumstances or to my family.
I was thinking about (late, 67-68) MLK and Malcolm X when this vote came down. Asking the system to give you your right to be an equal partner with the system, and then expecting not be compromised into protecting those parts of the system that don't uniquely pertain to you or harm you...it just don't feel like liberation to me. Feels like signing on. Sorry.
or to my family
"Mom? Dad? I'll be gone for the next year or so, but I'm unfortunately honor-bound not to tell you any of the details."
Chris Hedges, just read a minute ago, on leaving the New York Times because of his opposition to Gulf War II
The public statements of support for the invasion of Iraq by fellow reporter John Burns did not see him ousted from the paper. The approved mythic narrative is "neutral" and "apolitical" because it serves the empowered classes. Those who honor these myths remain valued members of the liberal class. Those who do not are banished.
[Deleted]
47: On behalf of magical queers everywhere, bob, thank you.
I thought Iraq pretty definitively established that non-combat forces see plenty of combat in modern war?
Quite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Nesbitt
As did Afghanistan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Norris
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-11717615
Horsetrading. I'm thinking of changing the noun I use to describe the men held in GTMO from "prisoners" -- I never liked using "detainees" -- to "hostages."
What you go and do
You go and give the boy a gun
Now there ain't no place to run to
Ain't no place to run
Now we'll all be at his mercy
If he decides to hunt us down
Cause there ain't no place to run to
Ain't no place to run
If he wants the chances that you took from him
And nothing that you own
Then there'll be no place to run to
There'll be no place to run
And if he finds himself to be
A reflection of us all
Bang bang bang
He'll shoot us down
Before you can raise your eyes to read
The writing on the wall
Bang bang bang
He'll shoot you down
Before you can bridge the gulf between
And embrace him in your arms
Bang bang bang
He'll shoot you down
Because it came up in the rotation
Behold: my charitable view of all world religions! I like Slurpees, too.
I'm dressed like a reindeer, guys!
