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To: Anonymous Sometimes it takes a blunt instrument to wake people up. In this case, you should remind yourself that it was Mike and Stewie who used such pejoratives as; 'looney,' and '...writes crap' to impugn my reputation for the others on your list. I merely set the record straight with some solid factual information. Actually, I welcomed their ill-considered remarks. It gave me a golden opportunity to make our case with a group of the Navy's future flag-rank leaders. And please don't think that these insults bother me in the least. I have a very thick skin. You see, many of us who fought in the Vietnam War were labeled 'baby-killers' by the 'power elites' of your generation and we let that go like water off a duck's back. We were, and are, professionals. And we carried on with fruitful, productive lives. We carry no grudges. And I am sure that Mike, Stewie, and maybe even you are 'moral men who are serving our nation well.' But that is not where we, who criticize the current flag-rank Navy leadership, are coming from. Let me put it stright up. It can be explained no better than has Mark Helprin (a reconstructed 'elite' Boomer who demonstrated against the Vietnam War in the mid-1960s) in the Dec 2000 issue of Military Magazine in an article entitled, 'Mr. Clinton's Army.' He reminds us that, "Many people have come to believe that thinking about war is akin to fomenting it, preparing for it is as unjustifiable as starting it, and fighting it is only unnecessarily prolonging it. History suggests that as a consequence of these beliefs they will bear heavy responsibility for the defeat of American arms on a battlefield and in a theater of war as yet unknown." "They will bear it along with the partisans of feminist and homosexual groups who see the military as a tool for social transformation. And they will bear it with a generation of politicians who have been guilty of willful neglect merely for the sake of office." Helprin then lists a panoply of ills that have plagued the military over the past eight years -- eight years of magnificent neglect. "The reduction of the military budget to two-thirds of what it was...in 1985, and almost as great a cut in force levels, combined with systematic demoralization, scores of 'operations other than war,' and the synergistic breakdown that so often accompanies empires in decline and bodies wracked by disease, have produced a tidal wave of anecdotes and statistics. Twenty percent of carrier-deployed F-14s (CAPT Dutch Rauch USN (Ret.) says 40%) do not fly, serving as a source of spare parts instead...84% of F-15 pilots had to be waived through 38 categories of flight training...The Osprey in the April 2000 crash that killed 19 Marines had only 80 hours in the aircraft, and the pilot who sliced the cables of the Italian aerial tram in 1998, killing 20, had not flown a a low-altitude training flight for seven months." Paragraph after paragraph of such graphic evidence in his article leads Helprin to the conclusion that, "...the Vice President of the United States does not speak the truth when he characterizes as he does those forces that for two terms his administrations have mercilessly run down. The American military does not deserve this. It is not a cash cow for balancing the budget, a butler-and-travel service for the president, an instrument of sexual equality..." "If [our leaders] are in effect, the enemies of our own fighting men, what will happen when they go into the field? The military must be redeemed. Should Gov. Bush win [the election], he should bring forward and promote soldiers and civilians who understand military essentials and the absolute necessity of readiness and training, people both colorful and drab, but who would, all of them, understand that [the] words of Gen. George S. Patton are the order of the day:
And now we all can see the totalitarian impulses of the 'power elites' of the Boomer generation as they force the nation into a constitutional crisis rather than concede a presidential election. So, given all of this Anonymous-Baby , it puzzles me that you bring up the mundane subject of the New Age 'ethics' program at the Naval Academy, one that I assume you must be a part of. I seriously doubt that the others on your list are seriously moved to debate that subject, given the BIG STUFF above and in my original essay. Nevertheless, I will respond since you asked me to answer a few of your questions. Our problem is not with you and the other field-grade officers who are stuck with trying to do the best you can with an incoherent, ill-designed, and fundamentally flawed new 'ethics' program. It is with your leaders. Instead of standing for tradition, they allowed the political leadership to cram a New Age civilian faculty down your throat along with a new 'ethics' curriculum designed by a radical feminist 'change agent,' Dr. Nancy Sherman. And they allowed her, along with her political allies, to appoint the civilian 'ethics' faculty. [Note: The USMA and USAFA have military officers teaching these ethics 'theory' classes].
So, just who is Dr. Nancy Sherman? Dr. Sherman is a member of the New Age academic elite. The Harvard-trained scholar is also a radical feminist, a 'change agent,' from the Boomer generation who carried her political correctness to fruition while at the Academy. She is a Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University and held the first Visiting Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy. But Dr. Sherman is much more than that. What she stands for, personally and professionally, can readily be ascertained from a television program, 'Religion & Ethics,' WNET-TV, PBS, on which she appeared on 29 May 1998. On that nationally televised show, she shilled for the right of homosexual 'couples' to have equal rights to those of traditionally married heterosexual couples in the debate on New York's domestic partners law. If you like, I can send you a full transcript of that show. If it isn't clear to you now that Ms. Sherman is a committed extremist radical, a far-left activist who is in the forefront of urging political measures that are destructive of the family, destructive of religion, destructive of our American civilization, then go to the back of the room and stand in the corner -- you are part of the problem. How the U.S. Naval Academy could allow such a person to come in and completely redesign an 'ethics' curriculum to fit the agenda of the radical feminists in the Clinton administration and their allies in Congress is beyond us. How anyone, from CAPT Clemente [who wrote a spirited defense of the new 'ethics' program in the February 2000 issue of the Proceedings] all the way up to the Superintendent could defend Ms. Sherman's contribution to the new 'ethics' curriculum is beyond belief. And Anonymous-Baby, if you aren't embarrassed enough at this point for your flag-rank leaders, chew on the following. It may be a bit closer to your pay grade. Below is a transcript of a letter sent to me this year by a 'concerned citizen' at the USNA who sees your new Leadership and Ethics program 'from the inside.' "I write to you as a last resort. I have been [associated with] the Department of Leadership, Ethics and Law at USNA...and I am discouraged by the lack of any of the aforementioned qualities in the school that we both love. Perhaps the cynicism and fraud have always been a part of this institution, but I did not ever sense it when I was a midshipman. No, I think it is a recent phenomenon. I am writing to ask for your continued investigation and support -- it is needed! I certainly cannot speak to CAPT Clemente, as he has made it clear that any voice of dissent from the program established by Dr. Sherman will not be tolerated. What I think you might not be aware of, is how entrenched the 'politically correct' model is becoming here at USNA. The ethics section is now headed by Dr. George Lucas, a man universally despised by the midshipmen and by those who are required to work with him. The junior officers are subject to his continual complaints against the lack of military leadership while he boasts of the two other jobs he holds while making nearly $100,000 a year as a professor at USNA. [the enclosed copy of a fax was left in our common work room for over a week -- showing Lucas' significant salary and expense account for the 'American Academy for Liberal Education' in Washington, DC.] It is a national disgrace to have this waste of tax dollars on a man who 'stops by' the office every few days and then spends the rest of his time on his consulting jobs -- at taxpayer expense." "The leadership (or lack of) must be exposed for what it is -- fraudulent. Midshipmen deserve better than this and our nation deserves better than this. The lack of morale and lack of values in this department is a national disgrace and I ask for your help." P.S. Sorry I didn't have space to answer your specific questions but that will have to wait for Part II of my response. In the meantime, why don't you take a peek at my Web Site at: http://www.newtotalitarians.com and navigate through the Women-In-Combat link to the Danzigization of the U.S. Military essay? It has a thorough discussion of where we are coming from, including stuff about the New Age 'ethics' program at the Academy. After reading that essay, you will be in position to understand my answer in Part II to your question.
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