Lt Gen Rod Bishop: America faces an enemy that is clearly “inside our gates”

STARRS Chairman of the Board Lt. General Rod Bishop, USAF ret, USAFA ’74, recently gave a talk at a VFW in Connecticut:

SPEECH

“America”. Ah, “America”.   Just a simple word, but a word that inspires; a word that excites; a word and a place that was but a dream that people for centuries had a hard time conceptualizing―and they made that dream a destination.

A country born from a vision never before imagined in thousands of previous years in human history.

A vision that emerged from a divine thought: that indeed all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights that come from a Creator―not from man or a government that man creates, but from the Creator.

That vision and those men who dreamt these dreams and wanted to see them realized, formed a “more perfect union”… a Republic (not a Democracy by the way) that many would say is among the “best forces of good in our world today.”

When Ben Franklin left the Constitutional Convention, Elizabeth Willing Powell asked him, “so Doctor Franklin, what kind of government are you going to give us?”  Franklin replied, “a Republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

But today, approximately 250 years later―only ½ the time of passage of the existence of the Roman Republic―America faces an enemy that is clearly “inside our gates”.  And it can be said we are close to “not keeping it.”

Technology does indeed accelerate the compression cycles of time needed for a change in culture.

As Abe Lincoln warned us is his lyceum speech when he was only 29 years old, recognizing at that time the formidable ocean frontiers were too great to be crossed to defeat the USA,

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”

I would suggest, even with the external threats and technology of the modern world, our greatest enemy today is still “inside the gates.”

Referring to our oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”, the greatest threat to our survival as a Constitutional Republic, is not “foreign”― it is “domestic”.

The Enemy

This enemy comes in the form of a very insidious force―a powerful ideological movement―that has taken control of almost all the elements of power in our country. From our media to Hollywood, from our educational institutions to our legal system. From Disney Land to Disney World. From the University of Southern California to Columbia University.

This force may not represent a majority of us, but it does control many leverages of power and influence and it has the megaphone.

One of the reasons this movement is so strong is because it has synchronized the doctrines of Marx, the propaganda of Goebbels, the processes of Stalin, the cultural revolution of Mao and the application of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals in its execution.

The combined effect this is having upon the institution probably all of us in this room love: the US military, the institution I served in uniform for 38 years, is disheartening!  We see:

―a growing weakness

―a lowering of standards

―discrimination from service academy admissions to general officer promotions to command selection

―failing retention and disastrous recruiting results

All of the above just breaks my heart!!!

The Language

As alluded above, one of the reasons this movement has met with so much success is because, in Saul Alinsky fashion, it controls our language. To remind: Alinsky taught us in his Rules for Radicals handbook:

“He who controls the language controls the masses.”

Examples of this abound:

― “abortion” has become “woman’s reproductive healthcare”

― “global warming” got a bad rap, so it is now “climate change”

― “chemical castration” becomes “gender-affirming care”

― “illegal immigrants” become “undocumented citizens” or more recently “newcomers”

Words are also “appropriated” for a totally different use than originally understood.

For example:

― “gender” no long means “male or female”. If we are buying into it, now “gender” means more than (whatever the latest number is—let’s say 70+) different descriptors of self-identity.

― “equal opportunity” no longer means ensuring everyone has an equal shot at an opportunity. It now means advancement preferences for minorities through discriminatory practices. Why not do our best as a nation to level the playing field at the earliest time in one’s life possible?  Before doing so through discrimination which negatively impacts the aspirations, the dreams of others?

Worst:  the Leftist movement can just cancel its opposition in the snap of a finger. Our precious First Amendment right to “freedom of speech”—squashed.

Just this month, one of our Board of Advisors members, Matt Lohmeier, was cancelled from giving a speech at San Diego University, I was shut down from speaking at a veteran’s retirement community in DC, and 17 of us were cancelled from attending a meeting “in-person” of the committee advising the SECDEF on diversity and inclusion.  I hope you join with me and consider this a harbinger of societal failure.

Hopefully, laying this foundation helps in making us all better aware of how this movement, “the enemy within,” is operating and we have created a common blueprint from which we can further explore “diversity, equity and inclusion.”

DEI and Its Impact on the Military: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

What follows is not opinion. Period. It is all easily proven.

And I believe this shouldn’t be a Republican vs Democrat issue, but instead, an issue that should be uniting us all, as a freedom-loving people wedded to the great vision of our Founding Fathers about the equality of all—if people would only take the time to understand!!!

If people can put love for our country first, keep an open mind and be interested in objective truth and just stop talking past one another.

So let’s dissect DEI and its impact on the military: the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

Let me quickly dispense with the good―and there is some good―and that is when it comes to the military, most service members are not buying the indoctrination. I live outside the north gate of the US Air Force Academy and am repeatedly told that “only about 20%” of over 4,000 cadets are buying into it. Although that is a sizeable number, the majority are rejecting the ideology.

And relatedly, over 30 states have passed or have legislation pending eliminating DEI, more and more universities, too, are walking away and in the corporate world, DEI hiring is down some 60% compared to last year.  Elon Musk and hedge fund progressive liberal Bill Ackman have both called the movement “racist.”

But in our Department of Defense, which is unfortunately under the thumb of political ideologues who tell us “DEI is a national security imperative” without a scintilla of evidence that is the case, it is a different story.

It shouldn’t be. The military long had a reputation of being the most integrated, welcoming, diverse, and cohesive organizations in our federal government.

And let me tell you folks a bullet, bomb or missile doesn’t care one bit about the color of your skin.

But the road this movement has taken our military down is a superhighway, been decades in construction and is paved with brainwashing techniques—not witnessed in our military since Vietnam—and back then it was done at the Hanoi Hilton by the north Vietnamese amplified by the mainstream media.

Yes, the indoctrination has been going on for a long time; it has been continuous, and it runs deep in all our institutions.

Let me show you. This video is fast and meant to overwhelm:

DEI

The major tool of all the directives and regulations shown in the film used in this indoctrination used to be known as Critical Race Theory (CRT).

But in yet another example of language control, CRT was getting bad press as people were discovering the Marxist roots, history, lineage and intent of CRT and what happened? “Poofffff”—it magically disappeared from our vernacular and the construct was transformed into three very nice sounding words: “diversity, equity and inclusion” or DEI for short.  Who in the world can argue with those three words, so pleasing to the ear?  In other words, we now have put lipstick on a pig—but it is still a pig.

But what is critical to understand here is as self-described progressive liberal and former New York Times editor Bari Weiss has told us:

“In theory these three words represent noble causes—but in actuality DEI is not about any of those words—rather it uses those words as camouflage… those words are now in fact a metaphor for a powerful ideological movement bent on recategorizing every American, not as an individual worthy of equal rights and dignity because of their individuality, but as an avatar of an identity group—a person’s behavior prejudged according to that group, setting all of us up in a kind of zero sum game”.

DEI is a Trojan Horse, hiding inside is the cancer called DEI (click to enlarge):

I believe we begin stopping talking past one another on DEI with a common understanding of what it is—Ms. Weiss gives us a great starting point.  In another video about DEI, she calls it an “ideological rot”—an ideology that separates people into identity groups of oppressors (usually white males) vs oppressed (all of the minorities, gays, transgenders, etc).

Three Additional Ground Truths

Add to this common foundation, three more “ground truths” I would hope we all could agree upon:

#1. DEI is an undeniable, irrefutable, unadulterated Marxist-based infection of our institutions. I have been saying that ever since the ideology came on the scene, so I have seen lots of eyes roll, and have heard many friends say, “Oh come on Rod, do you really believe that? Let’s be more positive.”

My response is always—ok—if this ideology didn’t originate at the Frankfurt School (which used to be called the Marxist School until they changed its name) that came to America to escape Nazi Germany and set up shop at Columbia University in the 1930s (still a hotbed of Marxist activity today), then where did it come from?

#2. Its intent is to divide as it is all about the “Revolution.”  Traditional Marxist “economic disparity- based division wasn’t working in the West; our middle class was just too well off. So the Marxists had to find another way to “divide” and create discord so the Revolution could occur.  They chose “race” as a focal point.  Don’t believe?  Read what they wrote.

#3. As an instrument of causing division—Marxism is working.  I remember one instance and lesson from 1966 very well. It was when my high school freshman History 101 teacher, Mr. Lowney, was teaching us about socialism, an economic system associated with Marxism. His words were along the lines of “socialism has a disastrous record of success―and it is because of the make-up of the human spirit. Most people inherently want to work hard, to achieve, to have the sense of pride and self-satisfaction that comes with accomplishing something worthwhile.  Socialism tries to just make everyone the same.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”

As opposed to free market capitalism which rewards people with the fruits of their labor, socialism provides no inspiration, no motivation, no stimulation of individual self-worth when wealth is taken and distributed by the state.

Relatedly, when DEI is applied in and to our military when people, for example, observe discrimination occurring in Academy admissions: A recent West Point IG report detailed turning away white male candidates on average with 13% higher scores and sometimes up to 20% higher than minority candidates.

When military members see discrimination in promotion and command selection boards.

When servicemembers see others because of race, gender, sexual orientation being given a boost,  pushed and unfairly advanced, it is understandably seen as:  discriminatory, demoralizing, divisive and demeaning.

It cannot help but to create resentment, plunging a knife right into the very heart of what is the most valuable characteristic of a successful military: unity or cohesiveness.

Ladies and gentlemen, “diversity is NOT our greatest strength.”  “UNITY is our greatest strength”, made all the more great because we are a diverse nation.

Examples of this resentment abound. Just check out our website at STARRS.US and you will see literally thousands of examples shared by vets, parents and many still serving. Over 150 pages of them.

What Military People are Saying 25APR24 (pdf)

Let me just share a few examples of this divisiveness/this indoctrination with you.

Hop with me, if you will, on a plane to Colorado Springs, the home of our on premier service academies—the US Air Force Academy. We all see the beautiful snow-capped Pike’s Peak, the green mountains of the Rampart Range, feel and smell that fresh Rocky Mountain air as we step outside the airport.  A short drive north on I-25 and we are at the Air Force Academy.  We have been invited to attend class with one of the cadets named Tom. So let’s walk across the terrazzo from the dorm to the academic building to class with this cadet.

Tom has wanted his entire life to join the Air Force and the Air Force Academy. His dad is graduate and was an Air Force doctor.  Tom wanted to join the Air Force so badly that he took a scholarship to a prep school meant to improve his academic capability―a year of his life that he didn’t need to spend as his college board scores (SATS) were already 1450 out of 1600.

The family, after discussion with the staff of the congressman who nominated Tom to USAFA, strongly believe that USAFA picked a less-qualified minority candidate from that congressional district his first year of applying (under the guise of “equity” to ensure diversity and inclusion), to both fill that congressional vacancy and also help USAFA meet a specific minority goal.

Anyway, today on our journey happens to be a date in the first week of January and we can feel the excitement and anticipation of a new semester from the other cadets all around us. First day of a class called Econ 101 is our destination. As in all classes on the first day, introductions are in order. The instructor is a white female with a master’s degree and PhD from Cornell—the same university, by the way, where USAFA sends its faculty to get DEI certificates.

She begins Day 1 by going around the room to learn her student’s names and ensure she has the correct pronunciation.  She comes to the first cadet, a female: “Cadet Robertson, is that correct?” the professor asks.  Next a black cadet, “Cadet Jones, nice to meet you”. Now on to Tom. “Let’s see,” she says, “I am going to call you ‘White Boy 2’ because that White Boy in the back row is taller. I will call you back there, ‘White Boy 1’. And you over here, you will be ‘White Boy 3’ because all you white boys look alike.” True story!

Other Examples

Folks, that is how DEI is manifesting itself at one of our premier military academies.  An academy that is supposedly preparing leaders for a profession in which “unity” is central to success.

I think all can see that this example is antithetical to building unity and cohesiveness in a profession that demands it. But it is far from being the only example.

How about a new freshman cadet telling me, just after finishing basic cadet training, “If I heard ‘we need leaders of diversity’ one more time, I was going to throw up.”

“Yes, I felt like I was constantly being indoctrinated,” adds his friend.

I was thinking, now that is pure indoctrination. The academy admissions office has already done its thing, the ethnic/racial makeup of the class is not changing. So why continually denigrate/slight the largest segment of the cadet population?

The very same month, those cadets are subjected to additional DEI-related training. Perhaps you saw these examples as we got national exposure on this.

In a perfect illustration of the woke ideology, cadets viewed formal training slides strongly suggesting that in discussions they not refer to parents as “mom and dad” but “parents” or “guardians” instead. The same slide deck also instructed cadets to not be “colorblind” but “color conscious” instead.

In other words, tried and true, decades-long military traditions that stressed the virtues of ideas like one team, one fight; we all bleed red; one team no seam—tossed aside, so the neo-Marxist ideology of identity politics can be injected into the force.

One final example, at the Air Force Academy: 90 cadets have received additional training in DEI and wear purple braided ropes. In a horrible example of “unity of command” reminiscent of the Soviet Political Commissars, they report not to their cadet chain of command, but to a completely separate DEI chain of command, guided by a civilian PhD DEI officer.

“I like being a DEI officer,” one minority senior cadet explained to a graduate friend of mine.  “It allows me to monitor fellow cadets and make sure they are using the correct pronouns while allowing me to enforce all the other aspects of DEI,” he went on to add.

Cadets pose for a photo after graduating from the Cadet Wing Diversity and Inclusion Program this summer, allowing them to advise students on diversity at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Each cadet wears a purple rope across their left shoulder symbolizing their position as a diversity representative. (U.S. Air Force Academy photo and caption)

So to recap:  if people understood that DEI is:

―really a metaphor for a powerful ideological movement

―is clearly rooted in Marxism

―was created to, and its intent is, to divide

―and as an instrument of sowing division, it is working

Then why would we, a country that sacrificed over 95,000 of our precious lives and millions of our national treasury fighting against this same exact ideology in Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War, just open up the front door and invite it in, with a warm embrace as it enters disguised as DEI?

Abe Lincoln had it right! The threat has indeed come from within.

The Way Ahead

So in closing, what are we going to do about it?

I believe I am speaking to a large veteran audience here, certainly at least a large number of people who love our country.  I agree with many who say the veteran population is the last best hope for America. You all are our moral compass. You have given. You have served.

I think Sebastion Younger has it right in his book “Tribe”, though. He writes (paraphrasing here) that veterans have no problem in being willing to die for our country, but they have no idea how they are supposed to live for it.

How does one live for a country that is tearing at its own morale fabric from every direction: race, gender and politics?

Well, I believe not one of us wants to see our military being weakened.  We don’t want to just go to Arlington Cemetery and recognize names.

Merit and equal opportunity were always our bedrock—but now we are instructed we have to genuflect at the altar of “diversity,” “equity” and “inclusion.”

For the love of our kids, grandkids and our country, duty is calling us once more.

So what do we do?

I hope many of you feel you have taken the first step by just coming here tonight. I hope you now have a better understanding about what is happening to our military and realize we all need to do something about it before it is too late.

You know,

“The history of failure in war can almost be summed up in just two words: ‘too late.’ Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy; too late in realizing the mortal danger; too late in preparedness; too late in unifying all possible forces for resistance.”  —General Douglas MacArthur during World War II

So beyond that initial understanding, the next step is becoming even smarter so you can better help others better understand.

Here I would refer you to STARRS.US. There you will find some tremendous resources. Sign up for our weekly newsletter, and in our marketing section we have a number of great resources you can print out and use and share with others.  You can even hit the “donate” button and help us produce more videos like the one you just saw that will provide and alternative message to the Marxist one coming from our own DoD.

Getting involved is key!  One of the reasons Rome fell is because the population became complacent.

As John Stuart Mills has shared:

“A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

Bottom line: speak up and out in all of your circles.  Pub to pub, school to school as Mark Levin writes. Just like we convinced early Americans to revolt against tyrannical British rule. Remember, those early Americans gave us a Republic and it is up to us to see “if we can keep it.”

Remember Ronald Reagan’s warning:

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”

Or as Guilford’s very own Colleen has written in her book, “No Surrender”:

“We all are the custodians of the legacy of freedom and constitutional government that previous generations have bequeathed to us.”  In other words, it is OUR Republic and it is up to US to keep it!

Won’t you please join with us and give Americans back that beautiful dream, that wonderful vision of our Founding Fathers of what it is, what it means to be an American.  “American” without a hyphen before or after that word.  Just plain, unhyphenated, color-blind Americans.

E Pluribus Unum!