Army Gen. Mark Milley pushed back on claims from Republicans that the military is “woke” and as a result not prepared to take on modern threats, saying he’s “not even sure what that word truly means.”
“What I see is a military that’s exceptionally strong. It’s powerful; it’s ready. In fact, our readiness rates, the way we measure readiness, is better now than they’ve been in years,” Milley said in a CNN interview Sunday.
Republican politicians and candidates have blasted the Pentagon for so-called woke policies, pointing to efforts to recruit a diverse group of military service members and be inclusive to transgender soldiers.
Those claims have also headlined efforts to reduce military spending.
How can a military be “woke”? They literally tour the world killing brown poor people.
The word has no meaning any more, and likely never did.
“Woke is the word I use to express my absolute and utterly baseless hatred for any Person, Thing, Idea or Concept, without having to resort to the hard slurs that would get me eviscerated and remove my plausible deniability” - Republican Zeitgeist
Before the right co-opted it, it was a reference to being awake to social injustice and aware of systemic discrimination. Then the right grabbed onto it and decided that everything social justice is ‘woke’ and pretty much replaced SJW with it. Today it means anything ‘liberal’ with regards to social matters per the American Overton window metric.
It gets more and more simple over time. Now it just means “things I don’t like”. Your tie is woke.
Authoritarianism requires the support of the military and a military that’s full of LGBT people won’t support authoritarians that wants to execute LGBT people.
It’s got nothing to do with the actual quality of readiness of the military. It’s theatrics to let minorities know they’re not welcome.
Didnt they already prevent the military from trying to purge white supremacists or am I miss remembering?
Two sides of the same coin
They caught a lot of criticism for being ‘woke’ (in the sense of being socially progressive) a few years ago when they air this video as parts of an recruiting campaign.
https://youtu.be/MIYGFSONKbk?si=CmbnyWYptJfnxOH8
For the lazy it’s an animated story of a woman that became a soldier who was raised by two moms. It touches on her advocating for the LGBT community and empowering women in the video.
It’s stands in contrast to the typical recruiting method of portraying tanks and generic disposable 18yr old men blowing things up by highlighting a personal story of a woman.
It was part of a series of other similar videos released at the time. I think the controversy was from the perception that it was an attempt to appear socially progressive in a performative manner without actual resolving any of their problematic behavior like covering up sexual assaults.
Another example of it I’ve heard from a LT I know is holding suicide prevention meetings and then treating soldiers in a way that makes them hate their life.