By Michael R. Shevock, USCGA ’76
“The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.”—Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Those of us who embrace the ideal of a colorblind military committed to excellence must come to terms with the fact that, so far, the woke movement is winning.
To prevail, we need to first correctly assess the nature of the forces marshalled against us.
They comprise an alliance of four distinct factions which may not share the same motivations, but are all in step with the same tactical agenda.
The Radical Leftists
More than a few distinguished minds have made the claim that DEI has its foundation in Marxist theory. They’re not wrong, but I doubt this argument will move the needle. Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger, who is known to have uttered problematic positions with regard race, but few if any people today include that fact in their assessment of where they stand on abortion. Marx believed the great struggle defining the age was between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat – verbiage that is clearly out of vogue.
Today’s revolutionaries are more in line with the likes of Kimberlé Crenshaw. She’s the professor who authored the doctrine of intersectionality – the study of how overlapping or intersecting social identities relate to systems and structures of oppression, domination, or discrimination. This doctrine relies heavily on the assumption that any variety in group performance is ipso fact proof of injustice in action. To examine the cerebral contortions associated with what part of the struggle is and isn’t true Marxism is a journey through mind-numbing, pedantic tedium.
What one needs to know in order to be in step with the new catechism is that everyone with the exception of cis-gendered, native-born males of Western European heritage are oppressed by somebody – and, as such, are morally superior to their oppressors. In the Victimhood Olympics, there exists a layered pyramid which determines where on the podium one gets to stand, but it’s complicated. According to the Coalition for Communities of Color, if you happen to be a blonde-haired, blue-eyed immigrant from Russia, you can still qualify as a person of color. (Extra points if you’re gay. Triple extra points if you’re gay, autistic, physically challenged, left-handed, and trans.)
Theoretically, one could find a radical leftist anywhere, but if one was intent on accomplishing a verifiable sighting, it would be best to erect a blind on a university campus, not too far from the faculty lounge. As per Thomas Sowell, “Too much of what is called ‘education’ is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.” Thus, it has been in elite universities where the amazing discipline of gender studies was hatched, the malformed offspring of sloppy scholarship inbred with itself during a fevered delirium.
The foundation upon which these experts erect their Genderbread Person monument is the belief that gender is a social construct. This is nonsense, of course, but, among the academic elite, it’s regarded as a self-evident verity. The flaws of the doctrine are evident even in the discipline’s very language. The term, ‘sex assigned at birth’ is an absurdity. Sex is not ‘assigned’ anywhere, it manifests, and does so at conception. That’s when the chromosomes present themselves as XX or XY, and they will continue to do so for the life of the organism – in most of our cases, that will mean human, except for those who happen to be species-fluid. (Yes, that’s a thing.)
For years, feminists labored to deconstruct gender stereotypes. They succeeded. Today, a woman can be a fighter pilot, a construction worker, or a professional athlete. She’s still a woman. She can ride a motorcycle or get a rattlesnake tattoo, and nobody will tell her no. A man can be a nurse, or a kindergarten teacher. He can dress up in a gown and call himself Aphrodite, but he’s still a man. Weirdly, XY-actor Dylan Mulvaney aped the most offensive and condescending female stereotypes possible, and was heralded by Attitude Magazine as ‘Woman of the Year’. Really.
This all invites the question: how do our most prestigious bastions of alleged scholarship promote such idiocy? If the Harvard plagiarism scandal involving Claudine Gay hasn’t already made it clear, American academia is spiraling into terminal decline. We’ve gone beyond the days when George Orwell famously said, “There are some ideas so stupid, only an intellectual could believe them.” Today, the custodians of the nation’s young minds have contorted themselves into a consciousness indistinguishable from madness.
Legitimate scholar Peter Boghossian, along with colleagues James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, authored a number of spoof academic papers, each of which amounted to convoluted drivel, and managed to get them published in supposedly respectable academic journals. For example, there was one titled, ‘The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct’. Therein, he contended, among other things, that the male sex organ “… is exclusionary to disenfranchised communities based upon gender or reproductive identity, is an enduring source of abuse for women and other gender-marginalized groups and individuals, is the universal performative source of rape, and is the conceptual driver behind much of climate change.”
Such is the milieu in which we find today’s revolutionaries.
The True Believers
This group is accurately described by Eric Hoffer in his famous book by the same name. Arguably, they could have been titled, ‘The Useful Idiots’. Whereas genuine radicals like Patrisse Cullors and Derrick Bell manifest as high-profile visionaries and organizers, the True Believers are the anonymous, often-masked, faces in the crowd.
It’s understood that the utopian future will be commanded by wise and benevolent masters, admittedly dictatoresque, but certainly “lots better than Stalin”, while the True Believers will remain content to stay in the infantry, knowing it was their passion and commitment that brought the people’s paradise of endless equity into being. They present as being ideologically driven, but that is a pose.
As Hoffer so aptly points out, they are lost sheep, desperately trying to replace the emptiness in their souls with meaning. The ruder they act, the stronger they feel. The cause they champion may as well be arbitrary. The more vague and abstract the details, the more appealing they will find it. And, of course, it has to be big. They might not be able to negotiate a manual transmission, but they’ll more than compensate by saving the galaxy.
These are the confused ivy-league children wearing their oh-so charming keffiyehs, while chanting, ‘From the river to the sea’. They don’t know what river or which sea, but that’s beside the point. A few years ago, they were in the streets, informing the rest of us about the startling revelation that black lives mattered.
Some of them are currently blocking traffic and throwing soup on paintings, which, as everyone knows, can save the planet from a climate catastrophe. They’ll certainly be up for the next fad that falls from the sky, but you can wager your classic muscle car that they’ll always support DEI. It’s the cause with no expiration date, and, best of all, it excuses and validates mediocrity.
What these delicate flowers are craving is potency. How eager they are to flip the script and manifest as bullies. You must acknowledge and use my preferred pronouns! What the bullies seek to accomplish with their demands is the humiliation of those whom they envy, and no amount of concessions will ever be enough.
For some, it might seem incongruous that privileged undergrads at top-flight schools would be so vulnerable to the rantings of pied-piper radicals, but it is precisely their privilege and lifestyle of constant study which put them at risk. Most of them have never worked in a real job such as auto repair or construction. People who perform honest labor that clearly benefits another human being are never lacking purpose. Not so for those who expend all of their time and intellectual capital mastering the nuanced doctrine of the conceptual penis.
Mock them if you will (and they certainly deserve it), but keep in mind that, as of this writing, the shrieks and bongo drums of these pampered imbeciles are literally affecting US policy with regard the war in Gaza.
The Democratic Party
I recoil at the suggestion that being at odds with one political party implies one whole-heartedly embraces the other. That said, the Democrats en mass have boarded the woke train, and there’s only one set of tracks. The official White House National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality specifically boasts that it endorses an “intersectional approach” to social justice – i.e. acknowledging the ascending pyramid of competing layers of oppression and domination. No doubt, many rank-and-file Dems sincerely believe they are on the side of the angels, but those in charge are clearly more cynical and calculating.
Barack Obama, at the 2004 DNC Convention, famously said, “There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.” As president, however, he abandoned that message and redefined race in America by further polarizing us. Even CNN reported that, under his leadership, race relations worsened instead of getting better. Division inspires passion, and passion is good for politics.
In a gesture that defies parody, the current sitting president gave a performative filmed audience to Dylan Mulvaney, who showed up looking like Audrey Hepburn. Nowhere near as funny is Joe Biden’s reprehensible position on gender-affirming care for minors.
Playing with hormones to validate the delusions of confused adolescents is dangerous, with possible side effects including sterility, cardiovascular disease, and cancers. Hormones in high doses are known to sometimes yield psychoactive effects such as mood swings and even psychosis.
The Journal of the International Pediatric Nephrology Association recently reported, “Evidence does not support the notion that ‘affirmative care’ of today’s adolescents is net beneficial.” Drawing on evidence collected over decades, we now know the clear majority of gender dysphoric children who are able to go through puberty without being subjected to hormone blockers outgrow their dysphoria and lead normal lives.
Yet this White House continues to promote ‘gender affirming care’, and all that implies – including the possibility of life-altering mutilation and sterilization for patients, and a guaranteed windfall for the transgender industrial complex. Are there tragic cases of buyer’s remorse? Of course there are, but the money-making juggernaut of trans medicine rolls on, emboldened by the blessing of the DNC.
Possibly the most dispiriting aspect of the great master plan of DEI is how relentlessly it is applied. Up and down the chain of command in both civilian and military service, everyone is constantly reminded that they’re either evil perpetrators or sanctified victims in a repressive, sexist, nativist, ableist, poly-phobic, racist patriarchy. As I previously reported, even on the Coast Guard Academy’s athletic teams, there’s no escaping indoctrination.
I hold the masters of the DNC in contempt, but, as I stated earlier, the rank-and-file Dems are acting in good faith. There is a clear connect-the-dots logic supporting the premise of DEI. Some of us, correctly I believe, contend the theory doesn’t survive outside of a book. This same some-of-us might also point out that a walking tour of any blue-run city would call the entire progressive/postmodern agenda into question. In any case, as certain as we are that our cause is just, we are opposed by legions of fellow countrymen who feel the same way about theirs.
The Careerists
There exists an obscure Mark Twain essay titled, Corn-pone Opinions, which I value as his most profound work ever. He begins the composition with a contention that humans tend to craft their opinions such that they meld nicely with their self-interest. Our political masters decreed the military will be woke, and we’ve watched a stampede of would-be flag officers climbing over each other to raise the BLM flag with rainbow streamers atop Mount Look-At-Me.
They’re not just going through the motions, they actually believe it’s a noble cause. For a certain type of officer, and there’s a lot of them, the validation that comes with advancement is no less important than oxygen. They’ll crawl towards it on their stomachs over broken glass and thumbtacks with the same focus of purpose as a gasping man escaping a burning building.
Advancement = Good. Supporting DEI = Advancement. Supporting DEI = Good.
For the ambitious careerist, that is the entire equation. Nothing else matters. Once the program is imprinted, it will take years of Rogerian therapy to get it erased.
If the GOP sweeps the White House and US Congress next November, some will rejoice, but do not expect a unanimous ‘ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead’ party in the Pentagon. We can outlaw the acronym, but DEI will survive under a different name. Winds shift. The woke faithful are certain that, if they wait things out, there will be rewards aplenty when the kommissars return.
We can’t let that happen. As much as we’d like for this struggle to be settled within the confines of the services, we must come to terms with the fact that we’re in a cultural civil war for the soul of the nation, and the battlefield is everywhere. Were Churchill alive today, he might tell us we’ll have to fight the woke mind-virus on the beaches, in the fields, and in the streets. We must bring every legitimate instrument of persuasion to bear in every possible venue.
Yarr matey! Prepare to board!
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Michael R. Shevock is a 1976 graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Following graduation, he served three years afloat in the Bering Sea, and four years with Coast Guard Intelligence. From there, he worked as a criminal investigator/special agent with the Naval Investigative Service, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Department of Homeland Security.
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