We all know, primarily because of Kay’s excellent work, about the recent acts by the Republican-controlled legislature to end early voting for everyone in Ohio who is not a uniformed servicemember three days prior to the election, and the Obama campaign’s lawsuit to overturn the law and return the same rights to all Ohioans, whether they be Veterans, Drilling Reservists, non-vets, or any other type of person. You may also know about how the Romney campaign is suing to prevent the law from being changed and how several military organizations, from the Association of the US Army, to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and various other groups have joined the Romney suit.
On the face of it, Romney’s actions seem like they are nothing more than cold political calculus to paint President Obama as anti-military and that the Veterans Service Organizations just got sucked in. But some things you should know is that a lot of these groups have in their recent past pretty much been taken over by some of the worst of the worst of the teabagger political element. The Veterans of Foreign Wars supporting non-vet Peter Roskam over actual Veteran of a foreign war (and VFW member) Tammy Duckworth comes immediately to mind. Read the crazy winger shit that is all through the American Legion Magazine, and you’ll see very quickly that the Legion not only never really got over it’s fascist roots, but has taken up the cause of winger historical revisionism as its primary raisson d’etre. Some of the other groups that are involved in this lawsuit have become nothing more than front groups for defense manufacturers, while others have never been anything but that.
What I’d like to direct your attention to is my concern about the fact that while the Romney campaign is doing this bullshit lawsuit and the attendant PR push for solely election-year political reasons, the VSOs seem to have something much more (I believe) sinister in mind. These organizations are not stupid. They have lawyers. They collectively spend tens of millions of dollars a year lobbying Congress, the White House, and the state governments for various things. They have lawyers to deal with VA on behalf of Veterans who’ve engaged their services in relation to benefit claims and appeals. They write model legislation. In short, I think that they know exactly what they are doing, which is to create a special privilege for active duty mmilitary personnel. They will be able to vote in person where others will not. They are supporting a the creation of a special class within American society to have special rights that others will not. The idea that military personnel should be able to vote in special ways that others, such as non-active Veterans (oh, the irony), police officers, firefighters, plumbers, retired persons, and all the other members of society for whom a right is supposed to be a right, not a privilege. As Jason Fritz, writing at the Ink Spots blog points out, this is not the first time that a special privilege was created for the military recently. He refers, of course, to the recent “Stolen Valor” act that criminalized lying about military awards. If you get a chance, read his post which per usual is so much more articulate than my ramblings. I agree with him whole-heartedly that the last thing we as a society should be doing is turning collective guilt or feelings of responsibility to those who fight in our name (such feelings being generally laudatory in a society) into a license to create a special Warrior Caste. Such urges must be continually fought in a free society. And it’s not just the right wing of Veterans groups that seek such status for military and veteran personnel. It’s the bomb-makers who need a lilly-white front. It’s the proto-fascists who need an unassailable image of patriotism from behind which to push their schemes to shred the Constitution. Other societies have been down this road before, and unless its stomped out, it doesn’t lead anywhere I want to go.
gogol's wife
This is very depressing. I didn’t know about it.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@gogol’s wife: It is very depressing. Adding, forget kansas, what the hell is the matter with Ohio?
On a lighter note, despite Ohio being rigged in time for the next election, Romney is doing everything in his power to lose.
This is why I can sleep at night.
Redshift
It’s even more disturbing when you consider that they’re working to support a party that is demonstrably worse for both veterans and active-duty military personnel.
Carl Nyberg
Weren’t the VFW and American Legion founded as pro-war organizations?
When I came back to the States in the 90s I looked into joining one of them, the VFW, I think.
I lived in a civilian community and thought it would be fun to go drinking with the vets.
Part of joining was taking an oath that I believed in God.
I never joined. If you’re going to make your Right Wing politics that overt, fuck you.
These organizations have always appealed to Right Wingers.
Seriously, what percentage of veterans get their rocks off marching flags around and doing these ceremonies and rituals?
The parts of being in the Navy I remember fondly were not performing colors. The veterans into this stuff are not the people I hung out with when I was in the service. Even at the Naval Academy we considered people like this goobers.
japa21
Well said. Unfortunately, the common person is not aware of the real makeup of some of these groups. My brother-in-law, a Vietnam vet will have nothing to do with the VFW.
The VFW endorsing Roskam (which actually may have been just a local leader who also happened to be a friend of Roskamn saying the VFW endorsed him) was a major issue in that election. If it hadn’t happened just a couple days befrore the election, and more had come out about it at the time, Duckworth may well have beaten Roskam.
Cargo
We’re just getting a little bit closer to Verhoeven’s future documentary Starship Troopers every day – the film called satire just for filming heinlein’s novel literally.
Carl Nyberg
The VFW and American Legion were pushing the flag burning issue during the Clinton years.
The Republicans were cutting money for the VA and the VFW and American Legion had as their top issue flag burning.
This is old news.
What’s also old news is that your taxes subsidize these organizations. But vets organizations that lean to the left, e.g. Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Iraq Veterans Against the War, don’t get these subsidies.
Villago Delenda Est
I’ve related this before, but in my first actual, non-training assignment, I was the junior lieutenant in a tactical Signal company in Germany.
One of my many additional duties was company voting officer.
I had all sorts of information at my fingertips on when states held their primaries, what the deadlines were for getting an absentee ballot into the postal system, how to get registration processed in time to vote, etc.
Every voting officer did. The deadlines had to be met, but if you planned properly, it was not burdensome to do so.
This is what astonished me about the entire “oh noes active duty absentee ballots are not being counted!” crap in Florida in 2000. Cripes, any competent voting officer would have cajoled his troops into getting their ballots in with time to spare. This is not rocket science, although if you believe a Rethuglican, it’s just more terrible red tape tossed up by Democratic leaning voting officials to deny active duty military (who will OF COURSE vote heavily Rethuglican, ha!) their chance to elect Rethuglican officials who will happily slash veterans benefits and PXs in order to pay for one more F-22.
Yeah. Right.
I call bullshit all the way around on this. It is an outrage. Rmoney, draft dodging coward, has no fucking shame.
Carl Nyberg
When I contacted the Chicago chapter of the U.S. Naval Academy alumni association it was all old codgers. And they were obsessed about opposing women in the military. This was the late 90s. None of these guys had seen active duty since early in the Vietnam War.
These organizations attract Right Wing dorks.
Smiling Mortician
@Carl Nyberg:
Seriously? How is that possible? I’m not challenging your assertion — just pleading ignorance and wondering whether you know what the justification is.
scav
Like it or not, it also re-enforces the idea that the military (and not just these organizations) may not be so actively in support of rights for all, but more into protecting rights for themselves (and perhaps certain other subsets). The whole Fighting to Preserve Democracy thing looks a little dicier and it exacerbates the military / civilian split in society. That’s rather disturbing to think about, thinking of examples historically and worldwide.
schrodinger's cat
Soonergrunt@top
This is kinda off topic, but I finally successfully changed the hard drive on my aging Dell laptop, made an image of the old hard drive, and now my laptop has a new hard drive with 100GB of memory to spare and works exactly the same as before. Thanks for all your help and also the BJ commenters who helped with good suggestions.
schrodinger's cat
@Carl Nyberg: Annapolis was my favorite place to hangout when I used to live in Maryland near DC. It is a beautiful place.
halteclere
An uncle of mine who I really like in all aspects except for his politics, is a couple years from retiring from the National Guard. His politics is very teabaggerish, and all his news comes from Fox news which he watches at the nearby Air Force base where he works out.
The last time he forwarded me a political e-mail I responded to it, and included reference to Snopes about it being incorrect. He responded that Snopes cannot be believed because one of founders is a “communist”. So much for looking outside the bubble if you won’t consider other sources of info!
GregB
Andrew Bacevich has been warning of preatorianism.
This seems like a classic case.
By the way, one of the defining characteristics of fascism is a cult like devotion to the military and militarism.
Soonergrunt
@Smiling Mortician: We loan them vans, free internet access for their offices here in the hospital–Oh yeah, we give them free space in the hospital. They are tax exempt organizations and on and on and on.
Martin
Man, Romney is getting killed in the polls right now. And Obama just put out a ‘Son of Boss’ ad against Romney.
These guys aren’t saving any of their powder.
Churchlady320
Well – prior to WW II, the Japanese created an historic warrior class they called the gunbatsu You see how well THAT worked out for them.
American vets today come in all varieties. The old boys, anti-commies all, never did attract most vets even from WW II. Yes they are somewhat powerful, but they are dying off. The thoughtful and more influential vets who fought more recently from Vietnam on are simply not so unreflective, knee jerk, and ridiculously blind to their own interests. I’m far less worried we will have a gunbatsuthan that we will have a permanent Tea Party made up of chickenhawks who extoll the VFW and American Legion while never having served a day. But time alone will remove them. Very few are following in either the unthinking veterans’ shoes or the Baggers’ strides.
But they sure do expend a LOT of energy and suck out a lot of ours along the way.
Culture of Truth
But what if too many people vote?
Churchlady320
@Culture of Truth: Gasp! OMG – then, then, then – we’d have DEMOCRACY!
Villago Delenda Est
@Martin:
Furthermore, every shot is telling.
The target is bracketed, there’s no need for the FO to do anything at this point but say “fire for effect.”
BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin:
I’d bet they are, and they got some really good stuff for Oct.
Culture of Truth
Thanks for all your help and also the BJ commenters who helped with good suggestions.
Communist!
Soonergrunt
@Martin: Do you have a link to that? Cause I’d like to see it.
Martin
Time to rewatch Seven Days in May.
Martin
@Soonergrunt: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/new-obama-ad-son-of-boss-pushes-romney
Villago Delenda Est
@Martin:
The great thing about that movie is the hero is another member of the military, who sees what is going on and becomes the President’s mole in the Joint Chiefs.
Soonergrunt
@Martin: It’s not the services themselves that are pushing this kind of thing, and I think we’re a long way off from something like that. It’s these right-wing controlled groups.
Dennis SGMM
Just this regarding the VFW; when I returned from Vietnam in 1972 I wanted to find some vets with whom I shared the experience of combat. I was having difficulty with returning to normal life and I thought that being with other vets, no matter which war they’d fought, would make the transition easier.
The first VFW post I tried was frequented by a bunch of sodden REMF’s who wanted to explain to me why it was the fault of people like me that we hadn’t won (Whatever the fuck that might mean) in Vietnam. It was the same at the second and the third.
Even I can recognize a pattern if it’s repeated often enough. Fuck the VFW up the ass with a two by four.
piratedan
sounds like they’re looking to setup a society based on Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, where only those that have “served” their country get to decide that country’s. affairs. I’m sorry, while I am grateful for their service and believe that we need to do more for our vets (namely not roll back the stuff that has been in place since the 40’s, tyvm Republicans) I don’t want to see us go down this road. What I can’t understand is how so many vets cling to the R’s like abused spouses. The evidence in their treatment over the last 30 years shows that the R’s treat them as cannon fodder.
Martin
@Soonergrunt: No, I understand, but the motivations of the antagonist were not dissimilar. It’s a great movie though, and I love the fact that it and Dr. Strangelove came out in the same year, sharing many similar plot elements.
MeDrewNotYou
@Soonergrunt: My (fairly uninformed) perspective is that the military in general is conservative in an institutional sense and a little more comfortable with Rs than Ds, but is pretty much non-partisan. (With the exception of the AF, which is chock full of right wing nuts and American Taliban types.) Is that a fair statement, or am I missing something?
Anya
Voting is a RIGHT and not a privilege. Supporting the troops is admirable but they should not get special rights. Countaries like Egypt where the military is so powerful that it can make an election void give their army extra rights. This kind of shenanigan should not be tolerated.
Also, too, a preamptive fuck you iPhone.
Davis X. Machina
@GregB:
The original praetorians, of course, emerging from the wreckage of a great Republic….
J. Michael Neal
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
It’s Ohio.
/Ann Arbor native
Scott
As an AF retiree, I agree with you completely. As I wrote on another site, the whole premise is BS. The one big active base in Ohio is Wright-Patterson AFB (I spent 5 years there), a massive complex but pretty much white collar active duty, most of who work 8-5 jobs. They have no problem getting off work to vote, unlike a lot of Ohio working class. There might be some Guard and Reserve units but quite frankly I highly doubt they have missions that prevent them from voting with everybody else.
Yes, there is a growing set of entitlements accruing to the military. My favorite totally egregious example is what I call the inheritable GI Bill. If a retiree doesn’t plan to use his education benefits he can use them for his kids. Talk about feeding at the federal trough!
Gopher2b
Add this to the ongoing and deliberate effort to Christianize the military’s officer corps (talk to any secular West Point, Naval or Air Force Academy graduate) and you start to see what the sauce looks like.
jwb
@MeDrewNotYou: In the sane services (i.e., everywhere except the AF), I think officers skew fairly hard to the right; enlisted folks are more center-left. In addition, the general tenor of military towns is quite right wing, so that tends to nudge almost everyone at least one or two slots to the right.
Carl Nyberg
@Smiling Mortician:
The Veteran Service Officers that work for American Legion and VFW are subsidized by the government.
They assist veterans going through the claims process. They also recruit for their respective organization. I assume that when a veteran gets his disability payment the VSO has kept the parent organization in the loop. “Now’s a good time to hit up W.T. Door.”
MeDrewNotYou
@jwb: I have a HS friend that was an enlisted man in the Army that seems to fit that. He’s fairly oblivious to politics, but when he pays attention, he usually ends up on the left, often after hearing the crazy POV and the accompanying BS.
Carl Nyberg
One study pre-9/11 showed that three- and four-star officers were more pro-multilateralism. The one- and two-stars were more in favor of unilateralism.
Of course, at that point, the Clinton administration would have had significant influence in shaping the senior flag corps.
Scott
@Carl Nyberg: Actually that makes sense in terms of opportunities for promotion. At the 3-4 star level, the generals are generally of a more diplomatic perspective while 1-2 stars need a good operational experience (such as war) to get promoted.
Scott
@Carl Nyberg: Actually that makes sense in terms of opportunities for promotion. At the 3-4 star level, the generals are generally of a more diplomatic perspective while 1-2 stars need a good operational experience (such as war) to get promoted.
Carl Nyberg
@Gopher2b:
There was very limited evangelizing happening when I was at Canoe U, 1985-89.
My impression is that is mostly an Air Force Academy problem and a problem in the Air Force officer corps.
I just spent a bunch of time with one of my old bosses who did 30 years and was an aid to the CNO. He was probably a mainline or slightly more liberal Dem who is trending Left since getting out.
I think he would have mentioned if there was a Christian mafia deciding promotions in the Navy, like is pretty widely acknowledged in the Air Force.
Carl Nyberg
@Gopher2b:
There was very limited evangelizing happening when I was at Canoe U, 1985-89.
My impression is that is mostly an Air Force Academy problem and a problem in the Air Force officer corps.
I just spent a bunch of time with one of my old bosses who did 30 years and was an aid to the CNO. He was probably a mainline or slightly more liberal Dem who is trending Left since getting out.
I think he would have mentioned if there was a Christian mafia deciding promotions in the Navy, like is pretty widely acknowledged in the Air Force.
joes527
Warrior Casts are sooooo yesterday.
We are on to Olympic Athlete Casts these days.
Soonergrunt
@MeDrewNotYou: An Officer of my aquaintance, who has a PhD. in Poly Sci once said to me that if military services can be said to have political lives in the partisan sense, that the USAF was right-wing, the Navy was probably pretty neutral or centrist, and that the the Marines were probably the most liberal, or more accurately the least conservative. The Army can be more evenly divided in my experience between the combat arms and the non-combat or support arms, with those most likely to face fire being typically the least likely to hold conservative foreign policy views.
All this of course has to be taken with the caveat that military personnel tend to be rather conservative in the social political sense. Not religiously conservative, especially not the younger troops, but conservative in the sense that if somebody can’t find work, he should join the Army like we did, if you get my meaning. This is especially true for those people who came from poorer backgrounds, who can frequently see the Army as their escape from poverty and tend to be somewhat suspicious of those who wouldn’t make the same conscious choice.
I’ll mention that my Father in Law spent 30 years in the Navy and retired as an O-6 Captain. He graduated USNA in 1962, and spent his career in Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarines, mostly, including two command tours. He had the key to end the world more than once. Two of his former subordinates served as technical advisers to the movie ‘Crimson Tide.” He hates nuclear weapons with a passion, calling them “the stupidest damn things man ever invented”, “the biggest waste of taxpayer dollars since the USAF”. For all of that, he’s certain he would’ve turned the key if the order came, but he’s perfectly happy to have never had the question come up while he was in command, and his politics (as often as the subject comes up) are pretty moderate on the foreign relations side, and pretty liberal on the domestic side and trending even more lefty since he retired.
Patricia Kayden
Very simple for me. I’ve already emailed a Vet org to let them know that I will not support their donation efforts anymore. I usually get calls for donations of clothing/household goods from them on a regular basis. I will no longer support them since they support the ridiculous claim that President Obama is trying to restrict military members’ votes in Ohio. They know that’s a lie.
MeDrewNotYou
@Soonergrunt: Huh. I would’ve guessed that the Marines were the furthest to the right, in a sane, non-AF way. But on a little reflection, that makes sense. Most depictions of the branch give the feel that they’re eminently pragmatic and go with what works. (“Gung-Ho” is a word I’ve often heard.) Oh, and go figure the folks being shot at are leery of getting into other situations where they’ll be shot at.
One of the interesting bits about DADT’s repeal I remember reading was centered on Marines-a story on a local GLBT celebration in some mid-western city. It had only been a few weeks since the repeal took effect, but the Marines already had some recruiters ready to go and were the only branch that showed up. There was a quote (paraphrased) that was basically, “We weren’t sure about getting rid of DADT, but now that’s its gone, we’re going to bring in every damn Marine in that group.”
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@piratedan: The thing people forget about Starship Troopers is that any service counted for the vote. Peace Corps and CCC sorts of work also qualified.
Bago
Would you like to know more?
Soonergrunt
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: That refers to the book, of course, because the movie doesn’t say anything like it and implies that military service is the only way to secure citizenship.
gvg
The thing about it being illegal to claim service when you hadn’t served in the military I see more as a protect the voter from fraud. People respect military service. I admit I wonder if I would have had the courage and those who served could have been shot at even if they weren’t. Now I do think I probably would have been able to face danger but I don’t know it and I despise chickenhawks soooooo I politician who claims service that didn’t, is doing it for personal advantage and several publicly got caught after they had fooled voters for year.
It doesn’t create a special right for the military, it tries to prevent a respect that already exists from being exploited. If you had served, how would you feel about your dead buddies blood being used by con men to get votes from someone who never did anything?
I personally think the soldiers are worthy of respect, its just that so are a lot of other useful types. society sometimes has financial crisis or killer influenza and needs smart other skills just as badly. I can multi-respect (to make up a word), but a lot of people can’t apparently.
Mnemosyne
@MeDrewNotYou:
I think I remember seeing similar quotes around the time that the DADT repeal became official policy. It was basically, Marines are great at taking orders, and if these were the new orders, then by God they were going to be the most goddamned welcoming branch in the service.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Soonergrunt: Well, the movie wasn’t Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, now was it? :p
That’s one of the things my hubby hated about the movie. Also, it needed moar power armor.
Nunca el Jefe
See, I agree with what you’re saying here and see it as a general problem with how we want to shape society we live in.
What I am having trouble reconciling is why this is more of a problem than what Bernard described the other day with the Olympians and their taxes. I will grant that the question of scale may contribute in a pragmatic sense, but it seems to me that any legislative efforts to stop this kind of thing would require the same political capital as for the tax thing.
I think both are dangerous, let me be clear. What I don’t understand is why this post is getting so much love, but the other, by this point in the comments, had Bernard filleted and breaded. The politics in both cases are a total minefield for the left and at this point in the life cycle of the issue our MSM has done its best to paint the particulars of the early voting lawsuit in exactly the wrong way. Fucking nuance, how does that work?
Soonergrunt
@Nunca el Jefe: I happen to agree with Bernard 100%. I didn’t get a chance to read his column until yesterday evening though.
Marita Clary
Brilliant title! What do you expect from the BBC who are always politically correct. And dear BBC, Romney is no fool and will be our next President. Thank God for that. We can not endure another four years of a communist dictator!!
Lucrecia Cobourn
What National Standards actually needs is a National Standard way of obtaining the numbers. In business talk it’s called Quality Assurance.