The Christian Nationalists and the Christian Reconstructionists are enough to turn this agnostic into a full-fledged atheist. Sorry if I offend anyone but these people are truly anti-American.
I am not offended, but I do not conflate CNs and CRs with Christians. They are their own sects that use Christianity as a convenient political prop to try to reshape our country and subvert our constitution.
Then they’d have to return to the draft. The military has
a problem as it is recruiting enough men or women to fill their ranks. At 17%, women are carrying a significant load of personnel overall.
As for killing, Mr Hegseth would do well to revisit some of history’s greatest female warriors or murderers. He might be more on guard concerning who he rapes the next time.
Some enhancements to Tim's excellent exposition of Hegseth's (probable) ghostwriters' rhetoric. In the last 2 or 3 years archaeological excavations of early medieval Scandinavian and northern European/Northern Scotland/Northern Isles sites, including graves, have demonstrated that a significant number of northern fighters popularly known as "Vikings" (sorry folks: viking is a verb not a noun: people went "a-viking") were in fact female. Excavations in London in areas known to have significant Roman remains have identified at least two women who were gladiators buried with high honors. The whole mythology of a) those scary, scary Amazons (now identified with the Scythian warriors Tim mentions, but largely invented by Herodotus based on hearsay rather than actual contact) and b) gender binaries and the supposed superiority of males (Aristotle) is entirely based on a fear and loathing of women because, well, women are in fact tougher, more resilient, and more disciplined as a group than are men. Sorry guys: take a look. If rape, torture, and outright oppression are the only mechanisms men have for keeping women under their thumbs that tells you that, given a chance to get even a small step away from the psy-ops that men engage in against women, they will rebel. That is the message Atwood is teaching--and that is why it scares the gonads off of a lot of men.
Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Women (published 1792), completely debunks the idea that women are inherently stupid by pointing out that male soldiers, who are abysmally ignorant and poorly educated, are less able than the downtrodden and poorly educated mothers, sisters, and daughters they want to oppress. And yet soldiers at the time were often chosen to be MPs--because they were docile and followed orders, not because of any inherent ability. One of the most significant movements in the 19th century was the one white males promoted to counter women's suffrage, which in England involved the actual torture of women jailed for protesting against their oppression. And yes: I know that there are women who also adhere to this anti-female rhetoric, but the sociologist Denise Kandiyoti decades ago pointed out that this is because they see some kind of personal benefit in agreeing to what she called the Patriarchal Bargain. And Gayatri Spivac, using a similar approach, identified the ways in which especially men in colonized countries who sought power, embraced what she calls the Postcolonial Bargain, which takes on the rhetoric of the colonialist oppressors in order to succeed them. I would also like to point out the hypocrisy of women like Phyllis Schlafely, Ronnie Ray-gun's fave female, who vigorously sought the spotlight while telling women they should remain hidden in the kitchen and the bedroom--two places she probably rarely interacted with.
Linda, you mention Hegseths tattoos. It was one particular tattoo "Deux Vult" which was noticed by a fellow National Guardsman and lead to Hegseth being removed from Security Detail at President Biden s Inauguration. Article here https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseth-insider-threat-biden-inauguration/
Yes, Sara: I know. I'm a medieval historian, as are David and Matt. Deus Vult was supposedly the chant (God Wills It) the western soldiers in the First Crusade used as they slaughtered civilians in Jerusalem after breaking through the wall. The French chronicler Fulcher of Chartres described the scene as "rivers of blood from the slaughtered as high as our ankles flowed from the Holy Mount through the streets." Nice imagery, eh? But as David and Matt point out he has other tattoos, such as the Jerusalem Cross, which has been associated, like the Islamophobic "Deus vult", with white supremacist groups. I recommend you read their post, as they--unlike CBS News--are professionals. To identify only the Deus Vult tattoo misses the point. The guy is a thoroughgoing white "Christian" nationalist. Here's another crusades tidbit for you: during the so-called Albigensian Crusade of the first part of the 13th century, Simon de Montfort, who was chosen to lead the attack on people in the south of France who disagreed with the papacy about things like the importance of the papacy, the efficacy of "works", and the designation of who comprises the Elect, asked the the ecclesiastic who was in charge of the attack on Béziers, Cistercian abbot Arnaud Amalric, how to tell the difference between the orthodox and the "Cathars" (what the Roman Church called this group of sectarians). Arnaud's reply was "Kill them all: God will sort out his own." I bet CBS didn't tell you that. Deus vult was also the rallying cry for that crusade.
I think the proper name for Hegseth and his fellow travelers is the American Taliban. The “god given” law they wish to impose on everyone, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, and anyone else who disagrees with their bizarre interpretation of the bible resembles Sharia Law.
As an American Jew I have a particular loathing for crusades, as each of the three medieval ones included Crusader pogroms against the European Jewish communities that lined their path to the Mideast. Religious antisemitic fervor resulted in the thefts & destruction of Jewish property in addition to the rapes & murders of thousands. A modern crusader spirit born of purported personal knowledge of what God wills is more prone to animate ignorant, lowlife mobs than anything more wise or constructive.
The reference to Mordor is noteworthy. The blurred line between fantasy fiction and historical reality is important. Psychologically this shows us what is going on in the brains of conspiracy adherents and these advocates for radical authoritarianism.
They feed on myth, not fact. Myths are not all bad, but when they entirely supplant facts and science, the mind becomes unmoored.
Many of us spend too much time in fantasies and fictional narratives as part of our identity. We fail to face up to our challenges because of fear and disappointments.
When we face our real lives head on, we are always the better, the stronger for it. That's what I have learned, including from these posts and comments.
That jumped out at me too. Hegseth has actually read, or at least heard of, Tolkien? What he doesn't seem to realize is that he's on Sauron's side of the gates, so of course he's threatened by the separation of church and state.
We need to remember that religion and the Bible were used in Hitler’s Germany to justify cruelty and also used to justify slavery here. Also it is used for cruelty to anyone who does not share their extreme beliefs. They are definitely not following what has been attributed to Jesus.
The religion brings Christ, hence its name, Christianity. Its name is not Jesusism.
Manifold are the crimes and errors committed in the name of Christ, but for a particular relevance to the US right now, focus on the Jesus freaks. Mostly they are the ones pushing the rigid, evangelical, fundamentalist literalism that does not owe allegiance to any tradition, but tries to justify itself via its misreading of the Bible. Its preachers are their own authority, and they speak from a defective revelation .
Timothy, your synopses of Hegseth’s books are frightening. Thank you for reading them so we don’t have to, but it must have been traumatic. I do hope you did some meditation afterward to re-center yourself.
Why aren't we still fighting for the ERA? Why aren't we still fighting for Civil rights? We might stop jumping up and down with outrage over particular figures. In this case especially - it is a distraction. I can hardly inhale for the lack of air. Combat, bathrooms, sports teams...etc..should be absorbed into - food, health, safety, shelter, contact. (being able to communicate with one another free from persecution). We can stop. we can just stop and redirect away from this sh8t being flung out into the atmosphere. We can step back and fight for causes that are inclusive. If we are going to be specific- we should fight for Civil rights and Women's rights. if anyone has an answer as to why I never hear about the Equal Rights Amendment besides "we tried it died". I'd love to hear about it. Handmaid's tale is in excellent example of a society that took these things for granted and then......
“Herodotus, reminds us that the greatest warriors of the age, famously undefeated by Persia, were the Scythians. And the Scythians did have female warriors, cavalry armed with recursive bows. Custom and technology permitted them to fight, and they did!”
Well said Tim. Let’s not forget that Israel also deployed female troops successfully in its wars in the Middle East, until female captives were repeatedly raped by their enemies.
Furthermore, there is another perfect example of women in the military with the Syrian Kurds.
“Women's Protection Units (YPJ): The YPJ is the all-women fighting force of the Kurds. The number of members in the YPJ fluctuated over time, but was estimated to be between 7,000 and 20,000 between 2014 and November 2016. As of August 2017, the YPJ had 24,000 members. In 2021, Commander Ahmed estimated that the YPJ had around 5,000 member.”
And the Kurds have led one of our most successful campaigns against the War on Terror. With only 2,500 US special forces troops in support roles: intelligence, special forces and air support, they managed to destroy the ISIS caliphate.
As for Hegseth and MAGA, being an ignoramus is a feature, not a bug!…:)
Pay attention to the jokes that the trumpsters are making about repealing the 19th Amendment and taking away women's right to vote. They don't joke really and this is the beginning of slipping the concept into the MAGA subconscious.
The Christian Nationalists and the Christian Reconstructionists are enough to turn this agnostic into a full-fledged atheist. Sorry if I offend anyone but these people are truly anti-American.
I am not offended, but I do not conflate CNs and CRs with Christians. They are their own sects that use Christianity as a convenient political prop to try to reshape our country and subvert our constitution.
The stronger the faith, the closer the devil 😈 #TaxTheChurches
Mr Snyder, please send a copy of your article to the US Senate.
My thoughts exactly!
Good idea! Send this to the Senate!
Thank goodness for your cogent and vital writing. I tell everyone I know to read your work in order to understand what we are living through.
BTW- The Hegseths of the world are the reason we women say: “ Men are lucky we just want equality not revenge.”
Hopefully Hegseth will not be confirmed. The rape allegation is disqualifying. He would want an all-male military if he was in charge.
Then they’d have to return to the draft. The military has
a problem as it is recruiting enough men or women to fill their ranks. At 17%, women are carrying a significant load of personnel overall.
As for killing, Mr Hegseth would do well to revisit some of history’s greatest female warriors or murderers. He might be more on guard concerning who he rapes the next time.
Some enhancements to Tim's excellent exposition of Hegseth's (probable) ghostwriters' rhetoric. In the last 2 or 3 years archaeological excavations of early medieval Scandinavian and northern European/Northern Scotland/Northern Isles sites, including graves, have demonstrated that a significant number of northern fighters popularly known as "Vikings" (sorry folks: viking is a verb not a noun: people went "a-viking") were in fact female. Excavations in London in areas known to have significant Roman remains have identified at least two women who were gladiators buried with high honors. The whole mythology of a) those scary, scary Amazons (now identified with the Scythian warriors Tim mentions, but largely invented by Herodotus based on hearsay rather than actual contact) and b) gender binaries and the supposed superiority of males (Aristotle) is entirely based on a fear and loathing of women because, well, women are in fact tougher, more resilient, and more disciplined as a group than are men. Sorry guys: take a look. If rape, torture, and outright oppression are the only mechanisms men have for keeping women under their thumbs that tells you that, given a chance to get even a small step away from the psy-ops that men engage in against women, they will rebel. That is the message Atwood is teaching--and that is why it scares the gonads off of a lot of men.
I would direct you to David Perry and Matt Gabriel's excellent essay about Hegseth's tattoos and his fantasy of being a "medieval crusader." They're on Buttondown because Substack is happy to field pages written by self-avowed Nazis, by the way. https://buttondown.com/ModernMedieval/archive/a-wannabe-crusader-in-the-trump-cabinet/#comments
Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Women (published 1792), completely debunks the idea that women are inherently stupid by pointing out that male soldiers, who are abysmally ignorant and poorly educated, are less able than the downtrodden and poorly educated mothers, sisters, and daughters they want to oppress. And yet soldiers at the time were often chosen to be MPs--because they were docile and followed orders, not because of any inherent ability. One of the most significant movements in the 19th century was the one white males promoted to counter women's suffrage, which in England involved the actual torture of women jailed for protesting against their oppression. And yes: I know that there are women who also adhere to this anti-female rhetoric, but the sociologist Denise Kandiyoti decades ago pointed out that this is because they see some kind of personal benefit in agreeing to what she called the Patriarchal Bargain. And Gayatri Spivac, using a similar approach, identified the ways in which especially men in colonized countries who sought power, embraced what she calls the Postcolonial Bargain, which takes on the rhetoric of the colonialist oppressors in order to succeed them. I would also like to point out the hypocrisy of women like Phyllis Schlafely, Ronnie Ray-gun's fave female, who vigorously sought the spotlight while telling women they should remain hidden in the kitchen and the bedroom--two places she probably rarely interacted with.
Linda, you mention Hegseths tattoos. It was one particular tattoo "Deux Vult" which was noticed by a fellow National Guardsman and lead to Hegseth being removed from Security Detail at President Biden s Inauguration. Article here https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseth-insider-threat-biden-inauguration/
Yes, Sara: I know. I'm a medieval historian, as are David and Matt. Deus Vult was supposedly the chant (God Wills It) the western soldiers in the First Crusade used as they slaughtered civilians in Jerusalem after breaking through the wall. The French chronicler Fulcher of Chartres described the scene as "rivers of blood from the slaughtered as high as our ankles flowed from the Holy Mount through the streets." Nice imagery, eh? But as David and Matt point out he has other tattoos, such as the Jerusalem Cross, which has been associated, like the Islamophobic "Deus vult", with white supremacist groups. I recommend you read their post, as they--unlike CBS News--are professionals. To identify only the Deus Vult tattoo misses the point. The guy is a thoroughgoing white "Christian" nationalist. Here's another crusades tidbit for you: during the so-called Albigensian Crusade of the first part of the 13th century, Simon de Montfort, who was chosen to lead the attack on people in the south of France who disagreed with the papacy about things like the importance of the papacy, the efficacy of "works", and the designation of who comprises the Elect, asked the the ecclesiastic who was in charge of the attack on Béziers, Cistercian abbot Arnaud Amalric, how to tell the difference between the orthodox and the "Cathars" (what the Roman Church called this group of sectarians). Arnaud's reply was "Kill them all: God will sort out his own." I bet CBS didn't tell you that. Deus vult was also the rallying cry for that crusade.
Wow! Such important knowledge.
And thankyou from the bottom of my heart for having the intelligence and the understanding to put "Christian" in inverted commas in this context.
In this, you show more wisdom than Dr Snyder.
Thank you.
I think the proper name for Hegseth and his fellow travelers is the American Taliban. The “god given” law they wish to impose on everyone, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, and anyone else who disagrees with their bizarre interpretation of the bible resembles Sharia Law.
Isn’t Hegseth also a “wannabe war criminal?” Intentionally attacking civilians being the definition?
Yes, I understand that international laws are for international crimes, but I think it bears attention as to how depraved his ideology is.
As an American Jew I have a particular loathing for crusades, as each of the three medieval ones included Crusader pogroms against the European Jewish communities that lined their path to the Mideast. Religious antisemitic fervor resulted in the thefts & destruction of Jewish property in addition to the rapes & murders of thousands. A modern crusader spirit born of purported personal knowledge of what God wills is more prone to animate ignorant, lowlife mobs than anything more wise or constructive.
The reference to Mordor is noteworthy. The blurred line between fantasy fiction and historical reality is important. Psychologically this shows us what is going on in the brains of conspiracy adherents and these advocates for radical authoritarianism.
They feed on myth, not fact. Myths are not all bad, but when they entirely supplant facts and science, the mind becomes unmoored.
Many of us spend too much time in fantasies and fictional narratives as part of our identity. We fail to face up to our challenges because of fear and disappointments.
When we face our real lives head on, we are always the better, the stronger for it. That's what I have learned, including from these posts and comments.
Thank you.
That jumped out at me too. Hegseth has actually read, or at least heard of, Tolkien? What he doesn't seem to realize is that he's on Sauron's side of the gates, so of course he's threatened by the separation of church and state.
We need to remember that religion and the Bible were used in Hitler’s Germany to justify cruelty and also used to justify slavery here. Also it is used for cruelty to anyone who does not share their extreme beliefs. They are definitely not following what has been attributed to Jesus.
The religion brings Christ, hence its name, Christianity. Its name is not Jesusism.
Manifold are the crimes and errors committed in the name of Christ, but for a particular relevance to the US right now, focus on the Jesus freaks. Mostly they are the ones pushing the rigid, evangelical, fundamentalist literalism that does not owe allegiance to any tradition, but tries to justify itself via its misreading of the Bible. Its preachers are their own authority, and they speak from a defective revelation .
And the Vatican made a deal with Hitler 😇
Timothy, your synopses of Hegseth’s books are frightening. Thank you for reading them so we don’t have to, but it must have been traumatic. I do hope you did some meditation afterward to re-center yourself.
Why aren't we still fighting for the ERA? Why aren't we still fighting for Civil rights? We might stop jumping up and down with outrage over particular figures. In this case especially - it is a distraction. I can hardly inhale for the lack of air. Combat, bathrooms, sports teams...etc..should be absorbed into - food, health, safety, shelter, contact. (being able to communicate with one another free from persecution). We can stop. we can just stop and redirect away from this sh8t being flung out into the atmosphere. We can step back and fight for causes that are inclusive. If we are going to be specific- we should fight for Civil rights and Women's rights. if anyone has an answer as to why I never hear about the Equal Rights Amendment besides "we tried it died". I'd love to hear about it. Handmaid's tale is in excellent example of a society that took these things for granted and then......
“Herodotus, reminds us that the greatest warriors of the age, famously undefeated by Persia, were the Scythians. And the Scythians did have female warriors, cavalry armed with recursive bows. Custom and technology permitted them to fight, and they did!”
Well said Tim. Let’s not forget that Israel also deployed female troops successfully in its wars in the Middle East, until female captives were repeatedly raped by their enemies.
Furthermore, there is another perfect example of women in the military with the Syrian Kurds.
“Women's Protection Units (YPJ): The YPJ is the all-women fighting force of the Kurds. The number of members in the YPJ fluctuated over time, but was estimated to be between 7,000 and 20,000 between 2014 and November 2016. As of August 2017, the YPJ had 24,000 members. In 2021, Commander Ahmed estimated that the YPJ had around 5,000 member.”
And the Kurds have led one of our most successful campaigns against the War on Terror. With only 2,500 US special forces troops in support roles: intelligence, special forces and air support, they managed to destroy the ISIS caliphate.
As for Hegseth and MAGA, being an ignoramus is a feature, not a bug!…:)
Robert—
Dr Snyder got it wrong: in prehistory circa 3000 BC women didn't need permission. They gave it.
The patriarchy only began to rule after that.
I wonder if Hegseth has a Grindr account and a subscription to Twink Toilet Magazine.
Sounds like Hegseth's calling for a jihad of some kind against us "infidels". Familiar?
Exactly
Pay attention to the jokes that the trumpsters are making about repealing the 19th Amendment and taking away women's right to vote. They don't joke really and this is the beginning of slipping the concept into the MAGA subconscious.