Call Me Paranoid. Pentagon Creating Red State Officer Corps

[babylonsister]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rob_kall_070223_call_me_paranoid__pe.htm

Call Me Paranoid. Pentagon Creating Red State Officer Corps

by Rob Kall

Army Shuns Officer Recruiting in Northeast, Shutting Dozens of ROTC Centers in Blue State America

The US military has moved reserve officer training corps (ROTC) out of big cities and the northeast part of the US-- to the south and midwest.

No wonder troops are so conservative. The army doesn't try very hard to recruit leaders from blue states.

An article published in the Wall Street Journal and Military.com, reports,

"In the past few decades, the Army has pulled its officer training and recruiting programs out of the Northeast and big, ethnically diverse urban centers, choosing to concentrate on campuses in the South and Midwest.

There is no Army ROTC program in the Detroit area, with its large middle-class Muslim population, and only one in Miami and Chicago. In New York City, which produced more than 500 military officers a year in the 1950s and early 1960s, the two remaining ROTC programs last year yielded 34 Army officers."

Ever the "call me paranoid" type, and having read Sinclair Lewis' classic book, IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, this makes me wonder. It makes me fear that the leaders of the military, already proven, in my eyes, terribly incompetent, are building an army of red state volunteers, right wing, imbalanced, who see places like New York City as strange, foreign lands, where there are many people who look like the enemy. Consider this example, reported in the article.

more...

[SteppingRazor]

1. It could also be that they're just going where they can get more recruits n/t

[sinkingfeeling]

4. You're not paranoid. But add some of these to your reading list:

Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire by Morris Berman
Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson
American Fascists by Chris Hedges

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. New York City, which produced more than 500 military officers a year in the 1950s and early 1960s

There's no reason to think that a population base of that size could not still produce those numbers. So what is the rationale for shutting down recruitment there?

I, too, would suspect they are angling to hook fundie authoritarian types - such as those who now are the vast majority in the AF and Marine office corps.

More evidence of the slow-motion coup occurring in this country.

[SteppingRazor]

7. I agree with the first part of your assessment...

I think they are angling for conservative types. I just think they're doing so because those types are an easier sell, not because of some overarching evil plot to turn the Army into some sort of fundie militia.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Well, don't worry.

After all, it can't happen here.

[madmax]

2. You think you're paranoid now?

Add "American Fascists - The Christian Right and the War on America" by Chris Hedges to your must reads.

[Benhurst]

3. Another piece of the puzzle. Recommended #3

[grasswire]

5. very interesting, thanks

Wow, they are playing for keeps.

[meldroc]

9. They're looking for right-wing authoritarians.

When the orders come down from high to start launching nukes, or to start tossing people in boxcars, sending them to concentration camps, or even committing genocide, they want leaders in the military who will pull the trigger. No attacks of conscience will be tolerated.

Yep. All of you here on DU who say the military won't go along with Bush's and Cheney's plans for fascism? In a few more years, you'll be completely wrong. All the officers with conscience are getting held down, not getting promotion, getting pushed out of the military, and they're all being replaced by Kool-Aid drinkers. When Bush declares martial law, the military will follow orders. When ordered to kill civilians, they will kill civilians. They're already killing civilians in Iraq. What makes you think they won't do it here?

[cascadiance]

10. Which is why we need a California State Militia...

That is exempt from any national conscription to places like Iraq like the National Guard is now. If we pay for them purely out of state funds, we could argue that they are strictly for California's use and perogative of use, not for any national usage. That way, we'd both make sure to protect ourselves in event of earthquakes and fires, etc. here, but also if we did get to a very serious point where Bush tries to abuse Posse Comatatus and take over the country, that we can say HELL NO and have our own forces to stand in their faces when they try and come in (and get a secession proposition on the ballot too if Bush tries to stay on past 2008 through some fascist efforts).

[Anywho6]

13. I'm all for CA secession even that doesn't happen!! n/t

[TrogL]

11. They're gearing up to implement Jesusland/United States of Canada

[EVDebs]

12. Officer corp in NSA spying on Quakers...

What the Quakers found out that's got them so upset

If the U.S. is ultimately leaving Iraq, why is the military building 'permanent' bases?
http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/bases.htm