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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.
Dec 21, 2010
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?
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© 2023 Laura Flanders
Laura Flanders
Laura Flanders interviews forward-thinking people about the key questions of our time on The Laura Flanders Show, a nationally syndicated radio and television program also available as a podcast. A contributing writer to The Nation, Flanders is also the author of six books, including "Bushwomen: How They Won the White House for Their Man" (2005). She is the recipient of a 2019 Izzy Award for excellence in independent journalism, the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing women's and girls' visibility in media, and a 2020 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship for her reporting and advocacy for public media. lauraflanders.org
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?
Laura Flanders
Laura Flanders interviews forward-thinking people about the key questions of our time on The Laura Flanders Show, a nationally syndicated radio and television program also available as a podcast. A contributing writer to The Nation, Flanders is also the author of six books, including "Bushwomen: How They Won the White House for Their Man" (2005). She is the recipient of a 2019 Izzy Award for excellence in independent journalism, the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing women's and girls' visibility in media, and a 2020 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship for her reporting and advocacy for public media. lauraflanders.org
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?
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