Tag Archives: US Naval Academy

WhoWhatWhy: Trump Silences Dissent in the Military

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Behind closed doors, the Trump administration is advancing a chilling project: silencing dissent, lowering intellectual standards, and purging independent oversight — all within what was the most powerful military in the world. 

Sound familiar? It’s Donald Trump’s playbook: Reward loyalty, punish competence — this time with an armed force, trained to kill, and stripped of oversight.

Military officers, legislators, legal scholars, and defense experts are raising alarms about a series of directives that appear to reshape the US armed forces — from a constitutionally grounded institution into a politically compliant weapon.

Trump Silences Dissent in the Military – WhoWhatWhy
With dissent punished, critical thinking suppressed, and standards lowered — the military becomes easier to control and less able to defend the Constitution. What orders will they follow?

Salon: Pete Hegseth’s Orwellian purge leaves US military academies less free

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I was shocked and upset to learn recently that Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” was, under orders of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, pulled from the shelves of Nimitz Library on the campus of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. As if the removal of this seminal text of American literature were not egregious enough, in this “DEI purge,” staff also jettisoned “Memorializing the Holocaust,” by Janet Jacobs’ and “Jack Johnson: Rebel Sojourner,” by Theresa Runstedtler. 

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Nearly four hundred other books were purged, prompting members of the House Armed Services Committee to demand that the Navy, “stop the removal of books from the service academy’s library.” Every American should make the same demand.  Moreover they should urge their representatives in Congress to also demand that Hegseth return the purged books to the library. 

Pete Hegseth’s Orwellian purge leaves US military academies less free
I was one of the few Black students at the Naval Academy in the 1970s, and had more freedom than students do now

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pete-hegseth-s-orwellian-purge-leaves-us-military-academies-less-free/ar-AA1DKRk2