Marxist Brainwashing of our Future Military Leaders: The Long March Through the Service Academies

This is the talk Col. Scott gave at the recent webinar, Red Ed: Marxist Brainwashing and Subversion of America:

By Col. Ron Scott, PhD, USAF ret, USAFA ’73
STARRS President

The idea for a new educational nonprofit, Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, or STARRS, began on July 7, 2020.

This is the day US Air Force Academy football coaches published a 3-minute video chanting “black lives matter” seven times and claiming five examples of racial injustice—all five being false.

Yet the video’s message certainly launched the specter that haunts today’s ideological developments. I will return to the notion of a specter shortly.

Our Board chair, Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAFA Class of 1974, and I, a member of the Academy’s Class of 1973, approached Academy leadership with our concerns.

We quickly and painfully realized they fully endorsed the specter, best described as critical race theory and its diversity, equity, and inclusion army of ideological soldiers.

Critical race theory is Marxist at its roots. Its ideological development in America is indisputably traced to the Frankfurt School at New York’s Columbia University in the 1930s.

Its German scholars knew that America’s large middle class was not susceptible to Marx’s economic class warfare. So, they modified the class warfare in terms of social and political identity groups: oppressors, that is the white male; and the oppressed, all minority groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and so forth.

About the same time, German intellectuals and political elite advanced a doctrine called Gleichschaltung. This was the prevailing ideology that was anti-Semitic and enabled less than 10% of the population to advance the Nazi movement.

Remember Nazi was the term used for national socialism. No dissent was allowed. Advocacy and enforcement were expected. Dissenters were ostracized, some even executed. Think of Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in particular.

In 1978, years before he became the newly liberated Czech Republic’s president, Vaclav Havel published an essay with the title, Power and the Powerless. Here is the opening paragraph:

A specter is haunting Eastern Europe: the specter of what in the West is called “dissent.” This specter has not appeared out of thin air. It is a natural and inevitable consequence of the present historical phase of the system it is haunting. It was born at a time when this system, for a thousand reasons, can no longer base itself on the unadulterated, brutal, and arbitrary application of power, eliminating all expressions of nonconformity. What is more, the system has become so ossified politically that there is practically no way for such nonconformity to be implemented within its official structures.

A specter seems very appropriate to emphasize STARRS concerns about today’s system.

The Air Force Academy has recently launched a Let’s Be Clear Campaign, ostensibly inspired by recent sexual assault reports. But it is more than that—the Superintendent said it represents quote “full-scale culture change” at the Academy, enforced through his second priority of accountability.

A recent Air Force Academy Strategic Communication article is introduced with a picture of the black one-star commandant standing at a lectern with an extended clenched fist. The title of the article is “Marks Place Culture at Top of Priorities.” (Marks places culture at top of priorities • United States Air Force Academy (usafa.edu)).

Now, the Academy has a new black, female director of admissions, who in 2021 authored an op-ed in the Air Force Times with the title: “We need radical change to fix the racial disparity in our Air Force”.

Finally, this past Friday, the Department of the Air Force released its Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Strategic Plan (see DAF Political Commissar News | STARRS). The Secretary of the Air Force states:

This requires all Airmen and Guardians to intentionally challenge behaviors, biases, and barriers negatively impacting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Air Force and Space Force leaders at all levels must accept and reflect this commitment every day within every interaction.

Former Guardian, below-the zone, squadron commander Lt Col Matthew Lohmeier paid a price for such dissent. He documents this experience in his best-selling book, Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military.

Others express dissent as well. Navy Commander Robert A. Green Jr., Defending the Constitution Behind Enemy Lines: A Story of Hope for Those Who Love Liberty; and John Hughes, American Doctor: Coming Home to War.

Incidentally, in an effort to preserve the sacred honor of the Long Gray Line, John now serves as the first president of the newly formed MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates.