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Ask, Tell, Don't Kill
Seventeen years after Bill Clinton's “Don't Ask Don't Tell” compromise, the institutionalized closet in the military should soon be gone. With the Senate vote to repeal, lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans have won the right to serve openly without fear of losing their jobs. Next it should be all workers. Congress needs to pass a comprehensive Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And then we all need to think about coming out.
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has cost more than 13,000 trained troops their jobs. In addition it’s cost some activists their health and well-being. Lt. Dan Choi, a tireless crusader, who chained himself to the White House fence for repeal, was involuntarily committed to a Veterans Hospital earlier this month after a breakdown.
No activist should be portrayed as superhuman, Choi wrote to friends. The failures of government and national leaders carry consequences, he said, that go far beyond the careers and reputations of corporate leaders, and elected officials. “They ruin lives. “
With ruined lives in mind, before the vote on Don't Ask Don't Tell, last Thursday, 131 demonstrators--many of them veterans--were arrested outside of the White House, protesting war. Among them were GRITtv guests Chris Hedges and Daniel Ellsberg. Hedges wrote eloquently of what drove him to act: the horrors of armed conflict and the cost of militarization to civil society and its citizens.
This Friday, Bradley Manning spent his 23rd birthday in a six-foot by twelve foot cell, accused of the crime of revealing information about this nation’s wars in the hopes of stopping them. He's been there for seven months. In solitary. Manning may have acted alone, but he’s not alone. Militant action helped change Don't Ask Don't Tell—and militant action is needed to get him out of solitary.
And then, it's time to take a tip from those LGBT service members. As they came out for their rights openly to serve in our wars, are wars' opponents as willing to come out, loud and proud -- leaving no-one to stand alone -- against our nation's waging of them?
7 Comments so far
Show AllTax deal and DADT; twins and the only reason DADT passed. Tony
And don't hold your breath till all those confirmed supporters of getting G/L's celebrating their "freedom and equality" into the US global murder/torture/devastation machine voice a word of support as gay Bradley Manning is slowly tortured into insanity. It is a stunning display of mental gymnastics as people and organization who know and have reported on and described the horrifying and criminal activities of the US military for years, now celebrate the fact that G/Ls can now join the murderous melee as free and equal criminals under international law. Can we expect them to soon turn their attention to the fact that children and grandpa and grandma are likewise excluded and grossly discriminated against. Hell, with modern drone remote control technology everyone can join the fun right in their living room. Just have the Pentagon wire you up as a drone pilot and you too can watch while the Hellfire missle destroys the mud brick homes of families on the far side of the globe. Wonder of technological wonders, now everyone who wants can help the empire murder and slaughter worldwide, if that's what gets you off. While political liberation vanishes into a police state, we can all be liberated to join the slaughter. Hope some of the pastors and theologians of the Prince of Peace can work out the ethical/theological weasel words to cover all this in Jesus name, we pray.
I'm not gay, but I was a non-conforming airman in the days when working-class boys were required to put on a uniform. I took a ration of crap from my superiors and other phony patriots I had to serve with. Openly gay soldiers will have the same experience. Hazing will be commonplace, and intimidation by those higher in the chain of command will be accepted practice, just like sexual abuse of women is now. It will be said of gays, as it is of female recruits, that they join up for sex. Of all the rights to struggle for, the right to enlist in the military is the most ludicrous imaginable.
Of all the gays in the military who have appeared on TV, usually on Rachel Maddow's show which has been the point telecast for this issue, none of them acted the least bit gay, none of them camped it up or showed signs of the gay sense of humor. OK, you don't have to do gay schtick to be gay; gay people for whom that does not come naturally are the ones who can "pass" most easily.
But what's the fun of that? One of the joys of being gay, or being like me a "friend of gay guys," is not acting like the boring respectable straight people. I'm glad to see the hateful prejudice against gayness slowly being chipped away at, but social acceptability has homogenized a lot of they gay community. Now most of the gay people you see on TV are "partnered," not joyfully promiscuous -- which, proper precautions being used, it is still possible to be . . . I'm told.
Gay women appearing on TV shows to talk about this are more problematic. They are usually a bit butch, but that doesn't mean anything. Most of the women in the military were a bit butch; a frilly girly girl type would have a rough time fitting in. When I was in the Army, there were quite a few women about whom it would have been believable to characterize as "dykes," but who were sexually active with men.
Go figure.
I do not support the U.S. military occupations,or the wars of choice and bombardment of civilians with robotic drones and misguided missiles.
Who these tools of the military industrial complex want to hook up with does not mean shit to a corpse.
peace
Iraq Veterans for Peace and Citizen Soldier among others are fighting to prevent the military from drugging( Paxil and Zoloft) troops suffering with PTSD and sending them back to battle before they are recovered. The military is desperately in need of more troops. Today a report by Education Trust found that 23% of recent high school graduates don't get the minimum score needed on the enlistment test to join any branch of the military.
If the military cannot send PTSD, TBI and MST soldiers back before they are healed and the recruits are flunking the enlistment tests they will need to end the wars for lack of soldiers to serve the MIC.
Rather than end the wars and occupations the military agreed to repeal DADT.