What military discipline in the White House sounds like
We worried from the start about Trump’s penchant for hiring military people for his top jobs. We were wary about the excitement when Kelly took over as chief of staff…but we were also so sick of Trump’s rages and tantrums and explosions that we perhaps hoped it was worth the risk.
It wasn’t. Masha Gessen does a great job of saying why. She argues that Kelly’s press briefing was like a preview of what a military coup here would look like.
First Kelly argued that people who criticize Trump don’t know what they’re talking about because they haven’t served in the military.
Fallen soldiers, Kelly said, join “the best one per cent this country produces.” Here, the chief of staff again reminded his audience of its ignorance: “Most of you, as Americans, don’t know them. Many of you don’t know anyone who knows any of them. But they are the very best this country produces.”
Yes well they should have gotten a gardener up there to tell us gardeners are the best one per cent, or how about a fashion marketer or a real estate tycoon?
No, soldiers aren’t the best one per cent. A strong military is an unhappy necessity (or not), but they don’t become as gods.
Workers in construction and farming risk death too.
A total of 4,836 fatal work injuries were recorded in the United States in 2015, a slight increase from the 4,821 fatal injuries reported in 2014, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Also I don’t believe Kelly’s claim that soldiers are all doing exactly what they wanted to do. The military is also a job with some good benefits; that’s part of the motivation too.
Kelly also argued that Trump did the right thing because he did exactly what his general told him to do.
A week earlier, Kelly had taken over the White House press briefing in an attempt to quash another scandal and ended up using the phrase “I was sent in,” twice, in reference to his job in the White House. Now he seemed to be saying that, since he was sent in to control the President and the President had, this time, more or less carried out his instructions, the President should not be criticized.
It’s just foolish to think that telling Trump what he should do is adequate. Trump is not equipped to make that kind of phone call, not equipped in any way.
It was his last argument that was the worst.
At the end of the briefing, he said that he would take questions only from those members of the press who had a personal connection to a fallen soldier, followed by those who knew a Gold Star family. Considering that, a few minutes earlier, Kelly had said most Americans didn’t even know anyone who knew anyone who belonged to the “one per cent,” he was now explicitly denying a majority of Americans—or the journalists representing them—the right to ask questions. This was a new twist on the Trump Administration’s technique of shunning and shaming unfriendly members of the news media, except this time, it was framed explicitly in terms of national loyalty. As if on cue, the first reporter allowed to speak inserted the phrase “Semper Fi”—a literal loyalty oath—into his question.
Before walking off the stage, Kelly told Americans who haven’t served in the military that he pities them. “We don’t look down upon those of you who haven’t served,” he said. “In fact, in a way we are a little bit sorry because you’ll have never have experienced the wonderful joy you get in your heart when you do the kinds of things our servicemen and women do—not for any other reason than that they love this country.”
Nonsense. They are bound to have other reasons. Loving the country may be the overriding reason for many or most, but it can’t be the only reason for all of them. Kelly is talking as if they all do become a Higher kind of human by joining the military, and yes, that is a bordering-on-fascist way of thinking.
When Kelly replaced the ineffectual Reince Priebus as the chief of staff, a sigh of relief emerged: at least the general would impose some discipline on the Administration. Now we have a sense of what military discipline in the White House sounds like.
Discipline is necessary but not sufficient. So not sufficient.
I weld on the parts that keep our bloody jets in the air in a rather dangerous factory. Soldiers are not better or more necessary…
Thanks for proving that you’re also a piece of shit Kelly…
My point exactly. There are a lot of dangerous jobs – fishing, lumberjacking, mining, chicken processing, factory work, firefighting, on and on. The more I think about Kelly’s disdain for all the rest of us the more it creeps me out.
Not being a Latin scholar, Semper Fi always reminds me of our military’s shorthand for The Enemy: Fi for Fienden. Fraught with risk for mistakes though, since on radio it can sound very much like Vi = We. Hence Friendly Fire.
Also, Semper is a big baby food brand over here … :p
Wonder why they never made me General?
I pity those Americans who have never taught. Having not taught, they have never experienced the wonderful joy you get in your heart when you do the things that teachers do – for no other reason than that they love the people of this country.
Somehow that actually doesn’t sound so disgusting as the above…but it still is wrong, because it diminishes all the many Americans who are not teachers, but who perform many important things every single day, things that keep our country running. In fact, I would say that the ordinary everyday workers perform a far nobler service for this country, especially since most of our wars have really been wars where we are trying to impose our will on someone else, and very few of them have been fought for the purpose of preserving American values (except the pro-business values and the jingoistic values and the xenophobic values).
The military people whom I know are, I would agree, professional and competent. But then so are the fire fighters whom I know. And, as iknklast said, the teachers. And the medical professionals. And even the run of the mill software engineers, like me.
And nobody offers their seat to teachers with a “Thank you for your service.” Or to doctors. Or to social workers. Or to sanitation workers. Only soldiers matter.
Nothing chilling about that.
I pity those Americans who have not been Australian. Having never been Australian, they have never experienced the wonderful joy you get in your heart when do the kinds of things Australians do – wakin up to kookaburras and pipin shrike heraldin the mornin with the scent of eucalypts waftin through the window, avin a barbie in the blazin summer with some acca dacca playin, laughin at new zealanders but then defending them when someone from any other nation tries to laugh at them, they’re an orright bunch afta rall – it’s the flamin poms n yanks ya hafta wot chout for.
Anyway, fuck Kelly and fuck military worship.
Holms, you sold me. I think it’s time for me to be Australian. (I saw a job for an Environmental Science professor in Queensland the other day; if I weren’t 57 years old, I might try for it, but everyone wants young).
Iknklast@8
Based on my casual survey, half the oceanographers and marine biologists here in Australia have American accents, there’s been a long term brain drain for decades. When I returned to university in the 90s, the head of the Asian dept was an American and two of the professors. One of them described himself as an ‘economic refugee’ which amazed me, I’d always assumed US academics were much better paid than their Australian counterparts.
Holms,
Jeez maaaaate, you should have provided a translation from the Strine. WTF is ‘ acca dacca’ ? You forgot to mention the Jurassic Park-sized crocodiles, the world’s most venomous snakes, giant flightless birds and Roos capable of disembowelling humans and the spiders, oh god, the spiders. The magpie swooping season is on btw.
RJW – that seems appropriate, since so many of the professors in America have accents that are decidedly not American. In our small department of our small campus, we have instructors from Malaysia, from Syria, from Thailand, from Nigeria, and from Venezuela. We’ve also had an instructor from Kyrgyzstan.
iknklast,
Yes. About 40% of the teaching staff in Australian universities are international and 25% of the students. That’s nothing new, academics and students have been ‘international’ since Greco-Roman times.
Which is one of the things I like best about the academy – the ability to access differing viewpoints from those you see in society surrounding you (especially if, like me, you grew up in an all-white town, and college students/faculty were the first time you got to experience true diversity other than the all-pervasive rich/poor divide, which I was on the “wrong” side of).
I also suspect this is one of the reasons Trump and his little Trumplings despise academia. Not only does it not look like them, it allows their children to see that people who do not look like them who are extremely intelligent, holding down a good job, and may be truly nice people (I say may be because academia has its fair share of assholes of all races, genders, and creeds). So they want to abolish it, because erasing the fear of the other takes away their biggest (for Trump, probably his only) bargaining chip.
Iknklast,
I’d agree about the social and intellectual benefits of meeting and communicating with people outside one’s narrow cultural/ethnic group. I grew up in the inner suburbs of Melbourne, a city of about 4 million, a large percentage of the population in my neighbourhood were recent immigrants. They were far more interesting people to talk to than most of my fellow Australians who were obsessed with sport, barbecues and holidays.
Perhaps you’re crediting Trump and the Trumplings with coherent thinking and a constructed agenda, that doesn’t seem like Trump. Certainly the plutocracy has been hostile to mass education of the working class for generations, unless of course it’s practical, ie it provides more skilled workers.
Now that tertiary education has been completely commodified and is expensive, the future for the humanities and social sciences seems rather bleak. Consequently the prospects for a well-informed citizenry also seem rather bleak.