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PaperclipPerfector  11d ago (text post)   25655 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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Ignoring that fires do, in fact, "just happen" sometimes on aircraft carriers

Indeed. I realize that technically it was an "amphibious assault ship" but the fire that wrecked the Bonhomme Richard was only a few years ago! According to the wiki, pretty much all of the usual suspects were to blame for the fire. New and improved Naval safety protocols weren't being followed, "leadership failures" in the chain of command, poor communication between sailors and officers, the various firefighters and civilians, etc. etc. etc.

I am not a military bird, and I know this is my own nature and bias speaking, but whenever I see those sorts of "after action" reports I can't help but read between the lines and suspect that over-emphasis on $LATEST_SHINY_THINGS as the underlying culprit to these sorts of things, which is to say that when there are too many priorities, then nothing is a priority. The Dilbert Principle is universal. Update: Looks like it was sabotage after all, see Bleep's response below. Friends don't let friends trust Wikipedia, and I can't even blame Gell-Mann amnesia because I knew better.

That's not a good example for this argument. In the USS Bonhomme Richard case, it was likely sabotage likely committed by a Black Lives Matter sailor (EM). The Navy decided they weren't going to push that case during the Summer of Race Riots for reasons we're left to speculate about, so they went after leadership, who attempted to blame and frame (and succeeded) some white kid (Mays) and used as motive the white kid's frustration with the Navy's incompetence, record of attempting to get leadership to address the issues which eventually lead to the ships destruction, and didn't care the white kid had acted competently and heroically fighting that fire attempting to save the ship.

And the Navy went along with that. Sure, let's destroy the life of the one sailor in the entire story who acted competently and responsibly and then heroically attempted to save the ship because otherwise it would inflame racial tensions. So they created evidence, coerced witnesses, and destroyed evidence, threw that sailor in jail for at least months, and then put him on trial which could land him in jail for life.

That sailor, luckily, won his case and only his life/career was destroyed and he'll only be permanently tarnished for the rest of his life.

NYT article with a bunch of the facts. CBS article talking about the evidence against the BLM sailor. EM = Elijah McGovern, a name which is pretty shockingly difficult to find given the scenario while Mays's name is plastered everywhere.

Honestly, it's a great story which could be a top-level post about how the US Military works, its current state, and what they're willing to do.

Wow. Appreciate the context, fellow Mottizen, and after that I'd agree that it'd be a great top-level post. I was divorced enough from the Culture Wars at that time of the fire to only be aware that there were allegations of sabotage and that the prosecution of Mays was total bullshit, and this is the first time I've seen any of that detail. I am guilty in this case of cross-referencing Wikipedia, despite being well aware of their general biases, again because I wasn't aware of a connection to the culture wars. As you say, Mays' name is on the wiki 5 times, while McGovern's name is completely absent from the page. If even the NYT and CBS are covering that angle then I know it's bad! And I wish I could say that the Navy's behavior surprised me, but honestly, that sounds way too much like SOP these days.

The Navy's investigation and prosecution should end many careers, including permanently tarnishing the head of the Navy who apparently signed off on it. But it won't. The Navy's initial suspicions were almost certainly correct and all available evidence pointed to the BLM sailor who was interviewed 4 times with contradictions and lies piling up and so that sailor, Elijah McGovern, tried to kill himself. He failed and was administratively separated from the Navy only a few days after the suicide attempt which is, uh, about 10x faster than normal even in very straight-forward typical cases.

Then the Navy, laughably, quickly claimed it therefore had no jurisdiction to hold him which is completely ridiculous because the Navy has repeatedly and routinely throughout the last few decades at least court martialed retirees from the Navy not to mention civilian contractors, terrorists, and everything in-between. It's just a complete lie to claim the Navy couldn't continue the investigation, bring charges, imprison the "retired" sailor, and convict him because he was administratively separated in what appears to be an obvious cover-up.

And even then, they couldn't just cover it up and give slaps-on-the-wrist to the shoddy leadership directly implicated in the disaster, they had to frame and destroy the life of seemingly the only sailor in the entire story who acted commendably before and especially during the crisis.

And that's the US Military for you.

whenever I see those sorts of "after action" reports I can't help but read between the lines and suspect that over-emphasis on $LATEST_SHINY_THINGS as the underlying culprit to these sorts of things, which is to say that when there are too many priorities, then nothing is a priority.

Too many Shiny Things, and too much "distributed responsibility". After all, "safety is everyone's responsibility", right? But to paraphrase Incredibles, when everyone is responsible for something, nobody is. And to return to a different subsection of the Navy...

"Responsibility is a unique concept; it may only reside and inhere in a single individual. You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you. You may disclaim it, but you cannot divest yourself of it. Even if you do not recognize it or admit its presence, you cannot escape it. If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion, ignorance, or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible."

Strongly agree. Sure, there's too much external pressure that creates and distorts the excessive and conflicting priorities and too little time to actually attend to all of them, but it's still always a "leadership failure" when the inevitable Bad Things happen. The solution to the problem of too much bureaucracy is, of course, more bureaucracy.

There was another great quote about "When something happens, and a leader tells you they are 'not responsible', believe them. That is to say, they are correctly claiming to be irresponsible".

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