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LLast year, self-proclaimed and committed murderous war enthusiast Christian Pete Hegseth rounded up every general in the US military – forcing some to fly from as far away as South Korea – to call them fat and scream about how much he hates DEI.
The beards were out, the “war fighters” were in, AMERICA WAS BACK (only to be bogged down in eternal wars in the Middle East) and Hegseth was able to preen by talking about strength and integrity and all those other things he wouldn’t know if he passed them in a dark alley. It was a hell of a speech.
Today, dear reader, he has brought the generals together again for another announcement. And he took the lessons of last year even further.
There was, of course, the standard introduction about “reviving the warrior ethos,” about making the U.S. military “the most capable, most focused, and deadliest,” and how “telling someone to lose weight” is “not discrimination, it’s leadership.” There was a great aside about how there would be no more “drag queen shows,” which made the military under Biden a lot more fun than I had assumed. And there was also an incredible claim that there would be “no more gender pronouns”, which would make basic communication quite difficult, but damn it: let’s commit to this bit. No more adjectives! MORE VERBS! NO MORE FUCKING BASIC GRAMMAR! Let’s go all the way, boys!
We were treated to Hegseth’s meme-tastic little slogan, exhaustively designed to offend: “No fatties, no trannies, no bearded guys, no weirdos, no wimps and no radicals.” ” And then we were told that the “crazy media” and “fake news,” run by “anti-American losers” and “haters,” are worse than Iranian state propaganda.
“A free press, of course, is important,” he added – deliberately drawing out the word “important” in a sardonic way that seemed to imply that he simply meant important. in theory – but unfortunately, today’s free press is “fundamentally anti-American. It’s sick. It’s a national betrayal. It’s a betrayal, actually.”
This was a classic Hegsethean nuance. And look, this is all obviously fascist and weird, but it’s also what you’d expect from a Pete speech. What you are only Sometimes get is a spiral into bizarre religious fervor, and it turns out that that This was what was going to happen today.
“Jesus said do unto others as you have done unto yourself,” Hegseth continued, and that’s why he’s turning every unit in the War Department (a Jesus-like name if ever there was one) into a platoon he’d be happy to send his own children to join. Would Jesus send his children to fight deadly battles in this platoon?! If the answer is “not only no, the answer is hell no”, then something is wrong. And to be fair, when Jesus is involved, isn’t the answer always “no”?
As part of these Jesus-style unit improvements, Hegseth also did away with psychological testing because, according to the Secretary of War, not Defense, those tests were only there to attract more black women into the military or something. Instead, they will now have a “merit-based evaluation” on how to “win on the battlefield” because it’s fucked up to check whether these kids are psychologically stable or not before handing them AR-15s.
This kind of awakened bureaucratic nightmare of psychological testing, Hegseth continued, standing in front of a huge digital overlay of an American flag, only happens when your department is run by “strong patriots, not weak weirdos.” Thank goodness we now have a man who has never once projected “weak and weird” energy at the controls, eh?
There was another announcement that the military would be open for business with “new agile startups” funded by the likes of Steve Feinberg, “a patriotic billionaire” (and is there any other kind of billionaire?). This will lead to “a drone war supercharged by SI compatible operation”, so essentially killer robots, which moreover will not be limited by any “bureaucracy”, so they will arrive. real Soon. The term “autonomous warfighters” has been used often, which is not exactly reassuring.
But don’t worry! Hegseth also announced today that he is launching Project Meridian, an effort led by America’s three “best minds”: Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey and 83-year-old Newt Gingrich. The room was, of course, in military silence when he said this – one presumes any room would be – so he had to ask everyone to stand and applaud. Applause, assortment of fatless, unwoke generals! Hooray for Newt Gingrich’s superior intellect!
We will put our lives in the hands of “President Trump, a man who understands leading from the front and also from the edge,” Hegseth added. But wait, what? Which edge? Don’t worry, because Hegseth returned to his religiosity: he’s turning Christianity back to murder, he said, because we need fewer “anti-American, DEI-worshipping woke factories” like liberal arts colleges with their “Che Guevara and their critical theory,” and we need more students who understand Rome, Philadelphia, and Jesus (those are his real examples).
Thus, chaplains, churches and “religious support” will become a new priority. No more “political correctness and secular humanism” (to hell with the thought!). Instead, there will be an Office of Religious Affairs that “reports directly to the top.” (By the top, he means himself, by the way, not God, and like all Christian groups, “it’s going to have real teeth.”)
Hegseth then quoted Psalm 33:12: “Blessed is the nation whose god is the LORD. This line from the Bible refers specifically to Israel, but of course.
“Even though we are fighting a physical war,” he continued, “we know that the real battle is spiritual. ” The book of Isaiah, he says, sees God asking Isaiah who he can send in his name, and Isaiah responds: “Send me.” Hegseth then expanded this verse to suggest that Isaiah might also be saying, “Send me to fight the communists. Send me to fight the Islamists,” before concluding to the generals that “lethality is your calling card and victory your only acceptable end state.”
What is actually said in the book of Isaiah is instructive, as the biblical author in question suggests in these verses, that if people “always hear, but never understand” and “always see, but never perceive,” with “calloused hearts,” then they will never truly be able to “see with their eyes,” “hear with their ears,” “understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
Oof, how embarrassing for War Daddy Pete! But that doesn’t matter because, as Hegseth concluded his speech: “We are the War Department and we never back down.” Neither in the face of logic, nor in the face of real quotes from the Bible, nor in the face of people trying to give us university educations!
And then he walked off stage after giving a few poker-faced thumbs up, ready to lead us all into a bold future. Good luck, brave companions! And boy, oh boy, won’t Jesus in ecstasy that he returns to the US military just in time for AI-powered killer robots?!
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