[lbo-talk] DADT

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Fri Dec 10 12:07:43 PST 2004


Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com, Thu Dec 9 17:54:12 PST 2004:
>This just in from my friend Ken Sherrill, chair of the Hunter
>College poli sci department... Interesting pattern in "Don't Ask
>Don't Tell" discharges of same-sexers from the military: up during
>the Clinton years, down during Bush's. Guess they need the queers as
>cannon fodder.
>
>1994 617
>1995 772
>1996 870
>1997 1,007
>1998 1,163
>1999 1,046
>2000 1,241
>2001 1,273
>2002 906
>2003 787

There is nothing like a labor shortage to create a new attitude toward the oppressed and marginalized. Ken Sherrill's documentation of the reduction in DADT discharges since 2001 is in synch with the military's newly accommodating policy toward the disabled (cf. <http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/12/double-v-campaigns-world-war-2-and-so.html>). Anne Hull of the Washington Post reported: "In a shift in military culture, the U.S. armed forces have recently announced new efforts to keep seriously wounded or disabled soldiers on active duty" (December 1, 2004).

John Adams jadams01 at sprynet.com, Thu Dec 9 18:17:57 PST 2004:
>(Doesn't seem that they'd be needed as cannon fodder but not linguists.)

Washington naturally takes its occupation of Iraq more seriously than its rhetoric of "war on terror" -- intelligence be damned.

BTW, those who are used as cannon fodders are more pro-queer than officers, according to the 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey: <http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/12/striking-difference-by-rank-attitudes.html>.

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu, Fri Dec 10 06:53:12 PST 2004:
>Assuming that gays are underrepresented in the military for obvious
>reasons - these 9,682 purged souls may represent nearly the entire
>queer population in the valiant US armed forces.

I'd think that, if anything, gay men are probably overrepresented in the military (as well as in priesthood) -- for obvious reasons. -- Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * "Proud of Britain": <http://www.proudofbritain.net/ > and <http://www.proud-of-britain.org.uk/>



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