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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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Something I've seen today:

US Navy Used Drag Queen Influencer To Attract A ‘Wide Range’ Of New Troops As Recruitment Plummets

So, admittedly, I do not know much about the recruiting to the Navy (or any other military branch) and as a first generation immigrant, may misunderstand some larger things. But does it really make any sense to anybody else? I mean, sure, there are people that choose to lead this lifestyle, and I personally have no problem with that. But I always thought the intersection between them and the people that go to the military - and also the people that the military actually wants - is if not zero then small enough. And yet, this is what is happening, and I am struggling to make sense of any of it.

As I see it, the military is probably the last place that would be under pressure to go woke - the Left hates it unconditionally and passionately anyway, it is impossible to "cancel" it in any meaningful way, you can not really orchestrate an ideological boycott against the military (they have trillions of dollars, and most businesses would give an arm and a leg to be a military supplier, as I understand... maybe Google can afford to choose, but even they at the end are glad to be friends) and the advancement system does not really depend on the SJWs in any way up to the very top where only the very few get the chance to be anyway.

So, I see only these possible explanations:

  1. Army recruiting is stunningly incompetent and literally has no idea what they are doing and why, they literally are desperate to try absolutely anything, on the tiny chance it may work, because they are completely out of ideas and can not think of anything that would attract the youth to join the military anymore, so they are just running through the options, however bizzarre, because it couldn't be any worse than it already is. Are things really this bad?

  2. It is part of some kind of 4D chess complex strategy that I fail to understand because I am too dumb. Please ELI5 it to me then.

  3. I am stunningly ignorant and there's actually a huge untapped reserve of drag queens that dream about joining the Navy (and the Army, and the Marines) as long as their penchant for womanface performances ceases to be a barrier. This is so significant audience that the need to address it absolutely overrides any negative effects that can be caused by such outreach effort to traditional macho-man audience which has been the traditional target of the military recruting efforts before. Is that the case? Any data I could see that supports it?

Any other explanations?

The US Navy isn't about defence, the threat of invasion for the US is next to zero. The US Navy exists to ensure liberal hegemony. Their job is to ensure that the world has Netflix, Amazon and is run by black rock. Their job is to ensure the world's culture is super hero movies and McDonalds. Their enemies are de facto civilizational states such as China, Persian/Iran and Russia. Their job is essentially to replace them with radical individualism. The pride flag is the flag of the American empire. A pride parade is the ultimate sign of victory for the American empire and no two countries with official pride parades have ever fought a war against each other.

A transgender woman of colour makes more sense in the US military than a conservative white man, since her values align with the mission. The most important factor for a military is loyalty to the system and the values that the military fights for. A transgender soldier has fully committed to the American empire.

A transgender soldier has fully committed to the American empire.

Chelsea Manning has joined the chat.

I was under the impression she only really transitioned after she was arrested and sentenced. Like, sure, that wouldn't rule out her wanting to transition when she was still in the military, but still.

I think the party line is that the transgender person has always been of the post-transitional gender since birth, and the transition is just "affirming" that fact. So Chelsea Manning is and has always been a female. Also, Wikipedia says:

Manning stated in 2013 that she had a female gender identity since childhood and wanted to be known as Chelsea Manning

And the last thing we want to do is to disbelieve a woman.

Their enemies are de facto civilizational states such as China, Persian/Iran and Russia.

What are you talking about those states in the way they exist today are very recent creations. Iran wasn't even Shia until the Safavid Dynasty and wasn't ruled by Islamists until less than 50 years ago and the young people revolting now against the regime aren't CIA plants. China was a US ally until it was taken over by communists and the Republic of China in Taiwan remains a US ally. Russia was a monarchy until it became communist suddenly and was an ally of the USA in WW2.

These states were neutral or allied to the USA in living memory and the ideologies governing them were pushed on the population in living memory. These aren't 'civilizational' differences.

These civilizations weren't Shia or communist historically.