Pentagon teaches socialism

George Rebane

Promoting public benefits without including public costs is the hallmark of charlatans and evil politicians.  Accepting public benefits without inquiring about their public costs is the way of the useful idiot and the ignorant.

More evidence pours in that our military under progressive federal governments no longer considers national security as its prime and overarching mission.  The latest comes from the Pentagon which recently sponsored and hosted ‘Responding to China: The Case for Global Justice and Democratic Socialism’. (more here)

The event featured the French socialist economics professor Thomas Piketty whose widely panned ‘masterwork’, Capital in the 21^st Century (2013), is still celebrated by progressives everywhere.  Most real economists and students of economics – certainly of the Austrian and Chicago schools - consider ‘socialist economist’ to be a demonstrated oxymoron.

The Pentagon event was put on by DoD’s Institute for National Strategic Studies and featured Piketty’s ideas about how the west should reorganize its socio-economics for the remainder of the century, and specifically to successfully “meet the challenge of China”.  Piketty also wrote Time for Socialism (2021) in which he argues “that the right answer in addressing China's growth lies in ending Western arrogance and promoting a new emancipatory and egalitarian horizon on a global scale, a new form of democratic and participatory, ecological and post-colonial socialism," … "If they stick to their usual lecturing posture and a dated hyper-capitalist model, Western countries may find it extremely difficult to meet the Chinese challenge."

The obvious thrust of what our Pentagon mavens now promote is that to counter communist China and its new approach to state-capitalism, the west must become a socialist society and also develop a form of state-capitalism on its road to a Marxist world. (here)  Most free-market economists and business leaders not yet in the embrace of corporatism see such nostrums as advising us to destroy our economy in order to save it.  (There’s more to be said about that as we consider what is happening under the aegis of the Great Reset.)

In today’s military we take valuable hours from the training day to devote to ideologically indoctrinating our soldiers, sailors, and airmen to correct modes of collectivist groupthink. Since the Obama administration, we have increasingly started doing this instead of increasing and honing our troops’ warfighting skills with the ever newer and more complex technologies that already dominate today’s battlefields, and which demand a more highly trained warrior cohort to meet the enemy with modern weapon systems instead of ideological indoctrination.

The new emphasis from such programs is not the continued maintenance of a secure and powerful America as a sovereign nation-state and world hegemon.

Comments

[George Rebane]

Administrivia - This morning I found a bunch of readers' comments in TypePad's spam folder and published them. Apologies. TypePad has not revealed that there is any rhyme or reason behind its yanking of perfectly legitimate comments.

[scenes]

re: "Administrivia"

The funny thing is that I've found a sure-fire way to go to the TypePad trash compactor is to include links from a handful of what appear to be reasonably independent reportings on the war going on. I guess I need to post CNN news on Russian evil deeds.

(which reminds me, I ran into a series of pictures showing (a)a selfie of some self-congratulatory guy in Ukraine in a school gym in his uniform standing in formation with a bunch of other guys in uniform and (b) what appeared to be that same gym once the accurate munition made it's way there. Pro tip: Don't do that, no matter how good you feel about yourself. Social media kills.).

"participatory, ecological and post-colonial socialism,"

I can't say that's a phrase that'll get young men to rush a strongpoint. Maybe if you add torchlight parades, blood oaths, and soldier songs to Piketty's ideas you might have something.

It's a bummer that modern Wokeists have cobbled together creeds that make for poor self-defense (or offense for that matter). I expect they have two possible end games in that big version of Darwinism that cultures compete in. The first is to disappear without trace, the second is to build an expansionary war-fighting apparatus run completely through pressing buttons.

[Paul Emery]

George

Do you have any links to sources that support your "Pentagon teaches socialism" contentions?

[Don Bessee]

Hey lets have a big one handed clap for the comic stylings @408! As if he actually reads the links. LOL

;-)

[Scott O]

re Paul 4:08 - Hey, Paul! Do you have any links that back up your contentions over the last few years?
No, I didn't think so.

[Paul Emery]

Scott

I include inks forp ractially all my posts. I got one coming u showing Bidens increases in the polls and Trumps numbers at the same date in his presidency

[Don Bessee]

Step away from the bar - inks forp ractially all

;-)

[Paul Emery]

Don

I followed Georges so called "link" and it was Newmax, hardly a credible news source.

[inks forp ractially]

@ 0 Drunk Thirty

hardly a credible news source, unlike the Guardian and Raw Sewage.which are.

[Scott O]

"I got one coming u showing Bidens increases in the polls"
Yeah 5 dollar gas is waaaay popular. All the kids are cheering!
And continuing to fund Putin while he shells civilians?
Man - you Dems are the bees' knees.
Say - hows that death toll from covid during the reign of Biden vs Trump?
Hilarious.

[scenes]

re: Paul Emery@5:49PM

You can just cut to the chase.

https://inss.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/2870082/responding-to-china-the-case-for-global-justice-and-democratic-socialism/

more:
The Problem with a 'Woke' Military (originally from National Review)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-problem-with-a-woke-military/ar-AAKKZnr

The Woke Takeover of the U.S. Military Endangers Us All
https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/the-woke-takeover-the-us-military-endangers-us-all

Why do all of this? I admit, it bears a passing resemblance to:

https://www.sovietarmy.com/the-soviet-army-the-political-officer-zampolit-in-the-soviet-army-by-kent-j-goff-maj-mi-usar/

"Political control of the military forces challenges all states, democratic, authoritarian, or totalitarian, to balance the need for an effective military against allowing the military to grow into a threat to the internal political order. "

This whole situation doesn't strike me as a way to improve the military, but as a way to control it.

[Scott O]

OK, I'll get back to the topic. From Pick-a-my-nose
"Western countries may find it extremely difficult to meet the Chinese challenge."
This is a true statement.
And just what is the "Chinese challenge"?
To start with - Overt racism, hyper nationality, totalitarian governance, complete lack of civil liberties, massive govt corruption, foreign policy centered on imperialism, a massive surveillance infrastructure, a passive govt controlled news media, govt supported piracy of foreign technology...
Yes - it is difficult to meet that challenge.

[Barry Pruett]

Paul. I think that you would have an argument with more force if you focus on the contents rather than the author. Quick dismissal of information is actually a sign of a weak argument.

[Ho Hum Sam OL whatever]

Who wore it better? Joe Biden or Inks forp ractially?

[Paul Emery]

Here's some verified contet Barry:

Biden up nearly 5 points since late January. He is now down 10,1. On Jan 24 he was down 14.4. That's a 9 point gain in 6 weeks.

Trump on the other hand was down 14.9 on March 7 2018, same day in his Presidential term as Biden.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president-biden-job-approval-7320.html

[Bill Tozer]

take it to the Sandbox Paul Emery.

[Paul Emery]

Sure Bill that's the proper place for it.