Listen. If disgraced ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich can’t succeed in subpoenaing President Obama to testify at his fraud trial, no judge is going to grant Lt. Dan Choi and Cpt. James Pietrangelo’s request to have the president appear at their civil disobedience trial stemming from their White House fence arrests, for which they plead not guilty and opted to head to court.
Particularly because the defendants say they they were just following the commander-in-chief’s orders to “pressure” him into repealing DADT. Reads an advisory put out by their counsel: “The subpoena of the President is necessary for the defense to prove that Defendants were following and obeying lawful orders or directives by their President and Commander in Chief, and were therefore under an obligation and authority to act as they did in order to pressure him – in a non-violent, visible way – on this important public issue. In addition, these statements support the contention that Defendants were acting out of necessity, in order to prevent discrimination and greater harm to gay service members now serving.” I love the gesture, and the knack to generate press. But: Ain’t gonna happen.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
With respect, that you apparently believe they actually believe it’s “going to happen,” that you don’t get that this is nothing more than the kind of additional attention-getting device that opponents to the war in Vietnam used in subpoenaing LBJ and Nixon knowing they’d never succeed is, to use your word, “ridiculous.”
OSTV
Watch Dan Choi and other prominent LBGT figures speak their minds as part of OURsceneTV’s exclusive pride coverage!
http://www.ourscenetv.com/pride2010
ctownlee
I reiterate my former comments on LT Choi from earlier this week. As a open to family and friends and somewhat to the military, fellow officer here I can say that this guy is a hack, a wanna be and a disgrace. Every time I see him in the same uniform I wear I want to puke. Put more bluntly in Military Jargon, he is an Ate Up Shit Bag and the biggest Blue Falcon aka buddy fucker I’ve ever been ashamed to say I’ve met. What began as a ill advised self outing has morphed into a self absorbed self promotion tour. The military, the people we really need to convince if we want a smooth transition, values loyalty, respect, honor and discipline above all else. Chaining yourself to the White House is despicable. The fact that he violated standing orders by participating in a political stunt in Uniform showed a complete lack of respect to the Uniform, which is suppose to stand above politics, and a disturbing lack of discipline. I just hope more impressionable young men and women in uniform do not follow his lead. If you want to fight DADT there are plenty of ways to do it without resorting to this kind of behavior. So do me a favor LT, go raise some money for SLDN and start concentrating on being a good Army Officer first because thats how we will gain acceptance by our peers in uniform.
James E. Pietrangelo, II
If “CTOWNLEE” had been in the German Army in the early 1930s he would have been the first to say that some Jewish soldier made him sick. He would have completely towed the Nazi line.
He simply doesn’t have his facts straight and he stoops to ad-hominem attack rather than engage in cogent argument.
He talks about values like “honor” but states at the beginning of his diatribe that he is “somewhat” open to the military. Is that like “somewhat honorable”? He is one of many in history who have “gone with the flow” in response to injustice and then tried to convince themselves that they are courageous by attacking and criticizing those who have had the courage to stand up.
In fact, we don’t need to “convince” people in the military of our right to equality. This country is not a military junta. Someone like “CTOWNLEE” who talks about military obedience should know that military folks ultimately take their orders from civilians, ie the American people.
Do me a favor “CTOWNLEE,” disclose your real name and complete unit. Let’s see how tough you are when you aren’t hiding behind a computer screen. No? That’s what I thought. You can’t hold a candle to Dan in terms of courage and honor.
Goodbye “somewhat honorable” person.
P.S., please hurry up and post your tawdry opinion of me, I can’t wait to see you make an ass of yourself again, although anonymously I’m sure.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
[img]http://michaelsydney.edublogs.org/files/2008/05/pavlov.jpg[/img]
@ctownlee:
Congratulations on having been perfectly brainwashed! Like Pavlov’s dogs you drool obediently upon sight of a uniform, placing respect for it above respect for the Constitution people wearing such uniforms are sworn to defend. I bet you’re positively multiple-orgasmic whenever you see THE FLAG!
Your irrational, incoherent, scatalogical seizure tells us all we need to know about you: you’re the 2010 version of the “Good German,” willing to follow orders into the abyss and demonize anyone unwilling to go with you.
I believe what our greatest ally in Congress, Rep. Patrick Murphy, the first Iraq veteran to serve there, said when asked his opinion of Dan, and, by inference, Jim, after their first arrest is more credible:
“Dan Choi is a hero.”
ctownlee AKA The Good German
If either of you think for a minute that every Gay service member does not want to charge into his commander’s office every morning and tell him that he is gay you are more out of touch than I already think you are. Everyone wants to be completely out. In a perfect world there is no reason for all of us to out ourselves and chain ourselves to the White House, although it would make more sense to do it at the capital building. That being said….. The “Good German” in me realizes that we are at war and have been at war for almost 9 years now against an enemy whose belief system makes the most ardent right wing religious nut job in this country look like Jesse Jackson. You have no concept, none whatsoever, of what they are capable of. I would be forced to routinely listen to our “allies” talk about their hatred for faggots and all but openly admit that they were being hunted and killed. These were Iraqi Army Officers, not AQI or insurgents or gangs, these were men educated in universities not just in Iraq but throughout the world, one went to Penn State. These were the Moderates in the Muslim world. So yes, I stay in the closet not by choice but by sacrifice because I can serve my country more by being there and fighting to make sure that kind of ignorance and hatred is at the very least contained.
As far as your miss guided belief that I am going with the flow you couldn’t be more wrong. My friends and my partner and I, the other “Good Germans” have done everything from fundraisers to meeting with our senators and congressman to manning tables discretely with SLDN and other organizations. We have done interviews with local and national media and had more than one story in national print.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/09/AR2010020903505.html
My point is this; if you were familiar with the military and how it operates you would understand that there is a right way and the wrong way to do this kind of thing. I am not saying we need the military to vote on it, or even love it before we repeal, but what we don’t need is stunts like the ones Lt Choi is pulling. If the military believes it is having this shoved down their throats and that their opinions don’t matter whatsoever they will find ways to make this integration as painful as possible.
Oh and I only get a hardon, not orgasmic, when I see my countries flag, now the Star Spangeled Banner….. yea that gets me orgasmic.
Cam
@ctownlee AKA The Good German:
Glad to hear that you find the back of the bus so comfortable.
gayairman
I’m very inclined to agree with ctownlee.
Lt. Choi has shown three things about himself during all this in my eyes:
1: Violates standing orders
2: A willingness to violate the law
3: Hes an attention whore
That makes him a very dangerous unknown element in my eyes and I’m very happy to say I cannot foresee a future where I have to work with him.
Personally, I think if anyone should be doing mass media appearances right now its Lt Col Fehrenbach. He was outed by a 3rd party. He has through a long and solid career proven himself to be a very capable and effective officer, and he hasn’t violated any laws or standing orders to bring the issue to attention.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
@ctownlee AKA The Good German:
1. Jim can speak for himself.
2. I don’t mock “patriotism,” only blind patriotism, and its variants such as placing “devotion” to pieces of cloth, whether they’re Army green or red, white, and blue, above people. E.g., I conceived of and organized the placing of a wreath in the name of LGBTs at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier last fall, for which Dan was one of the leaders.
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF6Z03mDJzs
COMMENTARY: http://www.gaymilitarysignal.com/0911Bedwell.html
[img]http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/10/wreath-oct-12-3-2.jpg[/img]
3. Sure, it would shock America into changing if every gay person in the military came out [just as it would in the civilian world], but it ain’t gonna happen, even IF discharges ever stop.
4. Perhaps you meant to express something else, but as written, you contradict yourself while passing through the obvious:
“In a perfect world there is no reason for all of us to out ourselves and chain ourselves to the White House
although it would make more sense to do it at the capital building” VERSUS “what we don’t need is stunts like the ones Lt Choi is pulling.”
(A) If it were a “perfect world” there would be no need for this discussion, or even a military.
(B) Which is it: a “reason[able], sens[ible]” act for those who can “to chain [themselves] to the White House/capital [sic]” OR a “need[less] ‘stunt'”?
5. Your assertion that the more appropriate focus should be members of Congress makes clear your misunderstanding of the problem, and, perhaps, repeat perhaps, your actual motivation for the viciousness of your ad hominem attacks on Dan and Jim: metastasized Obamaitis. If that’s the case, studies prove that in most cases it’s incurable with reason and facts.
Assuming it’s the former, one doesn’t care which group’s propaganda you’ve been fooled by, but take it from the lips of some who know why you and at least 66,000 others are NEEDLESSLY having to serve in silence 17 months after Barack Obama was sworn in [minus the 800 or so who have been NEEDLESSLY shitcanned during that time, and the approximate 6000 who have left on their own by choosing not to reenlist], AND will, at minimum, have to NEEDLESSLY continue to serve in silence for several months, AND possibly permanently.
(A) From the second he was sworn in, the President has had the unilateral legal authority under a law passed by Congress in 1983 to stop override any other law and stop any discharges in the name of national security. While he has pretended he has no such power, he stated himself a year ago Tuesday that there is an “URGENCY of reversing this policy not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because” it “WEAKENS national security.” [Some “urgency”!]
(B) Despite repeatedly promising to begin personally fighting “when I take office” for the five-year old Military Readiness Enhancement Act [MREA] which would have GUARANTEED an end to discharges in six months [two months longer than ANY of the other 25 countries which have lifted their bans took], he dawdled for over a year while continuing to discharge hundreds, drive out thousands, and allowing his DOJ to kill Jim’s legal challenge to DADT by NEEDLESSLY defending it to the Supreme Court in the same homophobic terms used to pass it originally, a despicable strategy they continue to this day by trying to kill the challenge by Log Cabin Republicans, SU head Alex Nicholson, and “John Doe,” an gay active duty soldier serving in Iraq. They even tried to have “Doe” removed as a co-plaintiff, insisting that since he was still IN the military he couldn’t CLAIM he was being hurt by DADT.
(C) When the President finally did act in May of this year, it was only because he was forced. And, even then, it wasn’t to lead our Congressional allies to the victory that THEY had brought us to, but to force them into also surrendering to what the Pentagon wanted as he wiped Gates’ ass with the MREA and threw it away.
“Levin and others made it clear that the train was leaving the station and the White House not only was not conducting but they weren’t even on board. They were backed into a corner and it was blatantly obvious.” – Servicemembers United Director Alex Nicholson, Talking Points Memo, May 26, 2010.
“At the end of the day, extraordinary power was given [to the Pentagon].” – SLDN Director Aubrey Sarvis, Politico, May 26, 2010.
“Pelosi said the House weakened its repeal language to mollify the White House. Military leaders refused to accept language that would bar discrimination, so the clause was dropped.” – The Huffington Post, June 3, 2010.
In addition to his forcing them to gut any guarantee of an end to discharges ever, the mandate for allowing those previously discharged to reenlist was thrown away.
5. No matter how you parse it, in the end your “don’t upset them too much too quickly” philosophy translates into surrendering the “advantage” to the homophobes at whatever level in the military which is just not morally wrong but strategically. No less than the 518-page 1993 RAND study, commissioned by SECDEF Les Aspin and, then, ignored, made it clear that such an approach would be a part of the problem not the solution, a condition already created in part by the current “study” based upon the homophobic, poisonous premise that straight Pvt. Tater, Mrs. Tater, and the Tater tots should have a say on whether or not gay Americans are created equal.
RAND: “The message of policy change must be clear and must be consistently communicated from the top. Given the fact that senior leaders of the military are on record as opposing any change, it will be necessary, if policy is changed, for these and other leaders to signal their acceptance of the change and their commitment to its successful implementation. It must be clear to the troops that behavioral dissent from the policy will not be permitted.
The option selected should be implemented immediately. Any sense of experimentation or uncertainty invites those opposed to change to continue to resist it and to seek to ‘prove’ that the change will not work.
Attitudes may change over time, but behavior must be consistent with the new policy from the first day.”
THIRTY-FIVE years after Leonard Matlovich became the first to sacrifice his career to end the ban….when Barack Obama was only 13 years old….we are at the moment in history in which what we say, what we do, will determine whether or not the ban COMPLETELY ends in a reasonable amount of time or is perpetuated for years to come. There is no time left to baby the naive; no time left to wait for the self-deluded, civilian or military, to snap out of it on their own. We will only have a decisive victory if WE are decisive, unwavering, uncompromising.
While some cry at my uncompromising candor within the costless comfort of cyberland, somewhere this very minute someone is being stomped on by some homophobic dinosaur from the Pentagon’s Jurassic Park, shitcanned because their Commander-in-Chief is still “intimidated,” as McCrystal observed, by brass bigots. Somewhere at this very minute, some gay service member has gone from serving in silence to dying in silence, lying in a box in the dark, their hopes and dreams and words of love never to be heard by anyone ever again, beneath a flag representing their country without a leader of moral courage. Weep for them, not for those who confuse debate with tea and crumpets and effecting change with merely clicking our heels together three times.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
@gayairman:
The first two words that come to mind when stepping in your drool are: sieg heil.
But it is not just your own “Good German” attitudes, but your abysmal ignorance about which you pontificate.
LT COL Fehrenbach has repeatedly violated federal law 10 USC 654 aka “Don’t Ask, Don’t TELL”: when he TOLD another man he was gay [the one who, then, outed him to others], when he TOLD the police he had engaged in homosexual acts after that man falsely accused him of rape, when he TOLD Rachel Maddow and millions of her viewers he is gay, everytime he’s TOLD an interviewer, and when he asked the President for help.
Further, he has probably been in violation of military regulations everytime he has advocated for the political “cause” of repeal of that federal law, particularly when in uniform as he appeared at the SLDN annual dinner this year. [The Air Force explicitly forbade him from wearing his uniform when he went to the White House last year.]
[img]http://leonardmatlovich.com/images/250_1FehrenbachSLDN.jpg[/img]
Per Department of Defense Directive 1344.10, “Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces on Active Duty,” those impermissable include:
“Use official authority or influence to: interfere with an election, affect the course or outcome of an election, solicit votes for a particular candidate or issue, or require or solicit political contributions from others.
Participate in partisan political management, campaigns, or conventions (except as a spectator when not in uniform), or make public speeches in the course thereof.
Allow or cause to be published partisan political articles signed or written by the member that solicits votes for or against a partisan political party, candidate, or cause.
Speak before a partisan political gathering, including any gathering that promotes a partisan political party, candidate, or cause.
Participate in any radio, television, or other program or group discussion as an advocate for or against of a partisan political party, candidate, or cause.”
ctownlee
@Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com: I agree with most of what you said. As far as the process and what has happened and what more could have happened since The President took office, I am in complete agreement. The Democrats have taken things far to slow, and the President could have ordered the Military not to continue with discharges, at least that’s my understanding, but since that could be in conflict with the law… idk either way he could have been more forceful.
That being said…. I think it was extremely naive of people to believe that this was going to be at the top of the agenda. Yes it is vitally important to gay rights, it is hardly going to be a priority. However a lot of the blame for that can be put squarely back on the gay rights movement as a whole, which had consistently treated DADT, until recently, as a side show. Instead of seeing it as a stepping stone to further rights. It becomes very difficult to tell a group of people they are not entitled to full rights if they are also expected, and have already, sacrificed themselves for their country.
The gay rights movement has instead spent the last how many years now blowing wads of cash and political capital on the gay marriage fight. I have a partner of 7 years, I get it, but all we have managed to do is lose and scare the shit out of a lot of moderates who aren’t ready for it. It’s to late now, the cats out of the bag so to speak, but going for civil unions and concentrating on hate crimes and work discrimination, including DADT would have gotten us a lot farther. But as they say, spilt milk.
“don’t upset them too much too quickly” If that’s how you interpreted it then that’s my fault. It’s going to upset them either way. The military is more closely aligned with the religious right and the Republican Party than ever before, and yes there are studies and numerous incidents confirming that, including my own experience with a full bird chaplain knocking on my door twice a week to try to save my soul. All of that being said, it is still the best military and probably the best educated major military in the world. It has been fighting for 9 years now. The men and women of the armed forces will obey the law no matter what it is, and it will adapt. However I believe no matter how painful it is to hear, especially from my own men, they have earned the right to have some kind of say in the process. Either way it must happen, but pretending that the military’s concerns don’t matter is dangerous. They have to be part of the process or integration will be horrible and messy and will end tragically for some. Hell no time for wiki but I believe Truman gave the military a year or two before he de segregated for them to figure it out.
gayairman
@Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com:
I stand corrected about Lt Col Fehrenbach. Every time I’ve seen him speak he hasn’t been in uniform. I’m becoming more and more disheartened about the outed service members we have representing us. It seems like every time we have one there is always a major flaw that is easily pointed out and exploited to discredit them.
Either way, my opinions about Lt Choi do stand.
ctownlee
@Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com: Ok could we all agree that constant references Nazis is a ridiculous insult to the magnitude of the crimes perpetrated by them during that tragic period of history and an insult to the millions who died at their hands. We may be suffering under state supported discrimination, but saying it comes even close to the crimes of Fascism is ridiculous. I may live in fear of losing my job but I also know that no one is putting me in a gas chamber or chemically castrating me.
Also, yes by the book your right LtCol Fehrenbach did technically violate the military’s prohibition on wearing uniforms to political functions. That being said what is the difference between what he did and an Officer wearing his uniform to a Mormon Temple, or any church for that matter that lobbies or participates in political activities. However comparing what he has done to Lt Choi’s antics is silly. He has made logically and eloquently delivered speeches and interviews on behalf of fighting DADT and he has done so in the appropriate and respectful ways in regards to his uniform. Honestly LT Choi in uniform marching in Pride isn’t even THAT bad, although wearing the sash is a no go its a uniform, you don’t get to accessorize, but there is a world of difference between that and chaining yourself to the White House.
Paid To Protest
Dan Choi is a joke. He just wants attention. I feel sorry for him. His 5-day hunger strike told me he needs professional help. His speeches are not moving they are incoherent. I wish he would just go away. It is painful to watch.
Evan
Did you guys miss the “partisan” throughout all the provisions of DOD Directive 1344.10?