Gay General at Repub debate is on Hillary's GLBT Steering Committee

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=2196

Keith Kerr, retired Colonel., U.S. Army; retired Brigadier General, California National Reserve

However, he's also a Log Cabin Republican

http://online.logcabin.org/photo_gallery/2004_convention.html

He stood up to those damned homophobes. Good for him.

and when the Repugs try to spin this against CNN, they should be reminded that the guy is a Log Cabin Republican who can't even bring himself to vote for his own party because they are so out of synch with America on this issue.

Not surprised he's supporting Hillary.

Never heard that used before.

who are socially liberal, re. gay rights, abortion, etc. Usually, they're rich trust-fund brats or well-off members of the Georgetown or Manhattan cocktail party circuit (i.e. high-ranking members of the corporate media, Hamptons-party-attending stockbrokers, etc.) They believe in cheap labor/outsourcing, repealing the estate tax (which only affects the top 1% or 2% of the nation; huge amounts of money which the estate-tax-repealers are drooling to inherit, and which, because most wealthy people's investments are in securities, were never taxed in the first place), Bahamian tax shelters, and the corporate media/K-Street/beltway way of doing politics (in addition to a lot of other things which benefit themselves financially but which screw over the other 95% of the nation).

basically, it's the World Bank and IMF lovers. They support "free trade" (as opposed to fair trade), and want to privatize everything.

"Neo-liberal" is a common phrase throughout the rest of the world (but is used much less here in the US), and refers to corporate power, backed by the military might of the state. NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, and other trade agreements that benefit multi-national corporations and externalize social costs (pollution, workers too poorly paid to live, subsidies for our petro-supply-lines, etc.) are considered "neo-liberal" instruments of policy.

While America's neo-cons are more rabidly warlike than your typical WTO corporate lawyer, they are basically neo-liberals in that they spout off about "free" trade while disguising massive subsidies to their corporate crony friends.

-app

I should have said they want to privatize everything except the costs.

Also, neoliberal doesn't just refer to the people we think of as neocons. Bill Clinton is considered a neoliberal.

The sad fact is that America's trade policy remained essentially unchanged as the presidency transitioned from Bush41 to Clinton.

We have been almost entirely governed by neo-liberals since the conclusion of WW2. Corporate power has not been substantively curtailed by any occupant of the Whitehouse (of either party) since FDR (though I have to give credit to both Nixon and Carter for at least pushing corp's toward better environmental policies, and Eisenhower's speech about the Military Industrial Complex at least opened some eyes).

Your point about the importance of debt in a neo-liberal system is also a good one.

-app

One of my good friends took time to explain neo-liberalism to me a while ago, and debt-leverage imperialism is pasted from one of his emails. :)

but the rest of us experience it's effects daily so we sure understand it.

The paradigm was pushed by Reagan and Thatcher through the IMF, World Banks etc. It is destroying the middle class across the globe not to mention the anhilation of the poor.

http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/econ101/neoliberalDefined.html
<snip>
The main points of neo-liberalism include:

1. THE RULE OF THE MARKET. Liberating "free" enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government (the state) no matter how much social damage this causes. Greater openness to international trade and investment, as in NAFTA. Reduce wages by de-unionizing workers and eliminating workers' rights that had been won over many years of struggle. No more price controls. All in all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services. To convince us this is good for us, they say "an unregulated market is the best way to increase economic growth, which will ultimately benefit everyone." It's like Reagan's "supply-side" and "trickle-down" economics -- but somehow the wealth didn't trickle down very much.

2. CUTTING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR SOCIAL SERVICES like education and health care. REDUCING THE SAFETY-NET FOR THE POOR, and even maintenance of roads, bridges, water supply -- again in the name of reducing government's role. Of course, they don't oppose government subsidies and tax benefits for business.

3. DEREGULATION. Reduce government regulation of everything that could diminish profits, including protecting the environment and safety on the job.

4. PRIVATIZATION. Sell state-owned enterprises, goods and services to private investors. This includes banks, key industries, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water. Although usually done in the name of greater efficiency, which is often needed, privatization has mainly had the effect of concentrating wealth even more in a few hands and making the public pay even more for its needs.

5. ELIMINATING THE CONCEPT OF "THE PUBLIC GOOD" or "COMMUNITY" and replacing it with "individual responsibility." Pressuring the poorest people in a society to find solutions to their lack of health care, education and social security all by themselves -- then blaming them, if they fail, as "lazy."

other than providing Rush and Repugs a faux Hillary scandal.

I applaue the General.

?

only compromise that all parties (Congress, Defense, Executive) could live with.

He wanted to lift the ban outright, but the climate forbade it.

On the bright side, it worked so well that BushCo didn't get rid of it, and they've had two whole terms to do it. And if it WAS the end of the world, well, wouldn't they have?

The fact that we've had two administrations, Democratic and Republican, over the course of almost four presidential terms, that have 'managed' with the knowledge that there ARE gays serving in uniform under DADT, that these personnel didn't have to answer "THE" question on the enlistment contract paperwork, makes it apparent that the NEXT step is just getting rid of the damned ban in its entirety. And the best way to do this isn't with a great deal of fanfare--even though some might like that--but with a simple professional and declarative statement that doesn't give the right wing any fodder to cry and make a huge issue about it. Right the inequity, and move on.

Hows that for context?

opposition, had he, say, been a Vietnam War hero, instead of an ROTC-ducker and draft avoider, he might have been able to deliver. But he couldn't, because he didn't have that Five Sided support from over Arlington way, and the GOP team on the Hill were whipping the population up into a fucking FRENZY over the issue.

He would have been a one-term president if he hadn't effected that compromise.

I was aware of many of the machinations behind that whole business. It was the very best deal he could get and still remain politically viable. He did, believe it or not, take it as far as he could.

See, that's what happens when inexperienced young politicians make rash declarations on the stump. He INTENDED, but he did not have the power he thought he had.

> No. Put that in CONTEXT. It was the very best he could
> manage, and the only compromise that all parties (Congress,
> Defense, Executive) could live with.

Funny -- I thought he had the *POWER* to do it.

Wasn't it Truman who desegregated the Army based on
nothing more than his executive order?

Clinton did what he *ALWAYS* does; he triangulated
because doing the actual *RIGHT THING* was too hard
for him.

Tesha

He didn't want to be a one-term president.

Truman's situation was somewhat different. He desegregated the military AFTER the war, while the greatest DRAWDOWN in the history of the world was in full swing. And that order didn't automatically create these vast mixed crews and units. Even after military desegregation happened on paper, it was still a defacto state for some time thereafter.

And Truman took MASSIVE shit for it, too. His approval ratings were in the toilet. It wasn't until Nixon that we saw worse polls...and under Nixon, there were STILL race issues in the military--major ones, too. They were doing standdowns and workshops on USN carriers to try to deal with race RIOTS, in essence--and that was twenty years or more after 1948.

Let's do a little fact checking and see how quickly that stroke of the pen worked out for old Harry, now: http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/integrate/welcome.html

On 26 July 1948, President Harry S Truman signed Executive Order 9981, establishing the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. It was accompanied by Executive Order 9980, which created a Fair Employment Board to eliminate racial discrimination in federal employment.

Segregation in the military services did not officially end until the Secretary of Defense announced on 30 September 1954 that the last all-black unit had been abolished. However, the president’s directive put the armed forces (albeit reluctantly) at the forefront of the growing movement to win a fully participatory social role for the nation’s African-American citizens.

The true fulfillment of the entire scope of Executive Order 9981—equality of treatment and opportunity—actually required an additional change in Defense Department policy. This occurred with the publication of Department of Defense Directive 5120.36 on 26 July 1963, 15 years to the day after Truman signed the original order. This major about-face in policy issued by Secretary of Defense Robert J. McNamara expanded the military’s responsibility to include the elimination of off-base discrimination detrimental to the military effectiveness of black servicemen.

this is what happens when an oxymoron becomes a hypocrite and collides with a win-at-all-cost corporatist...

But hey, don't let facts get in the way of your preconceived notions.

So he's a Gay general who is a log cabin Repub on a committee set up by Hillary's staff...

but still an oxymoronic hypocrite affiliated with a corporatist's campaign for President.

Got it. Whew, glad we cleared that up. :evilgrin:

he is one person... asking a question about an issue that he obviously cares very much about. I can't imagine it was easy for him to stand up in a room full of homo-phobes, and pro-kill people and ask that question.

and started hammering out the legislative initiatives to revoke DADT and lift any and all restrictions against military service by gay personnel. That's probably why he's on her committee--or WAS on her committee--to come up with that sort of gameplan; because he's got credibility via over four decades in uniform as to the effectiveness of gay personnel in service.

Guy asks one of the best questions at the debate, and instead of focusing on the real issue that people are being asked to die while not being able to live honestly, now people will focus on this bullshit. Why is it exactly that this man would put himself in this position? Didn't he know we'd all find out about this?

Bill Clinton promised he would let gays serve openly in the military in 1992 if he got elected.

He didn't deliver.

David Mixner, Clinton's gay point man, says he was used by Bill.

When the DOMA issue came up, Bill signed it.

When the National GLBT March on Washington took place, Bill and Hillary tiptoed out of Washington so they wouldn't be there at that event which was planned years in advance. I know. I was there.

I hope that my brother and sisters in the GLBT community understand that past is prologue.

The are the top opportunists. Bill Clinton is a master con man.