(This is an editorial from the Combat Veterans for Congress Political Action Committee that describes the peril in which the US Navy finds itself through implementation of cultural Marxist personnel policies. It is posted here with permission of the author. CVFC PAC supports the election of US military combat veterans to the US Senate and House of Representatives. Their cause is righteous, and generous donations are welcome at the links at the end. Note: I am on the PAC’s board of directors in the capacity of Director of Congressional and Public Relations.)

Someone should inform the leaders of the Navy that United States is defined by values, not by race or ethnicity!

Through the centuries, “Combat Readiness” was the way experienced naval flag officers predicted a unit’s success in combat at sea and evaluated which individuals would perform well under stress. Today “diversity” and “political correctness” have become the measure of the US Navy instead of combat readiness in Biden, Harris, and Obama’s new Woke Navy. In June 2020, US Navy flag officers who were screened and promoted during the Obama era created and are developing the “Task Force One Navy” (TF1N). It included the disgraceful pledge below that all sailors, petty officers, and naval officers will not even fully understand the need for – yet Navy members of the “Task Force One Navy” were required to swear to:

As a key member of Task Force One Navy I will invest the time, attention and empathy required to analyze and evaluate Navy-wide issues related to racism, sexism, ableism and other structural and interpersonal biases.

I pledge to be actively inclusive in the public and private spheres where I live and work, and proactively encourage others to do the same.

I pledge to advocate for and acknowledge all lived experiences and intersectional identities of every Sailor in the Navy.

I pledge to engage in ongoing self-reflection, education and knowledge sharing to better myself and my communities.

I pledge to be an example in establishing healthy, inclusive and team-oriented environments.

I pledge to constructively share all experiences and information gained from activities above to inform the development of Navy-wide reforms.

The TF1N radical socio-cultural-sexual indoctrination program is for all its enlisted and officer service members. Under the guise of an effort to “address the issues of white racism, sexism, extremism, and other destructive biases,” the leaders of the new Woke Navy are in the process of indoctrinating members of the US Navy about the “white racism” and “extremism” that exists in its ranks, and effectively destroying “unit cohesion,” “retention.” and “combat readiness.” The Obama-era admirals developed “Task Force One Navy” with blinders on while the violent riots being led by Black Lives Matter domestic terrorists were destroying $2 billion in US infrastructure and putting 2000 police officers in the hospitals.

Now TF1N is requiring white sailors to acknowledge their “intersectional identities.” This bizarre, subjective, open-ended, neo-Marxist mandate opens the door for ideological and political indoctrination of service members in almost every area of life. The press release that the US Navy released about the TF1N indoctrination, sounded like it came from a liberal university diversity officer’s “woke” racist dream: “The Task Force will seek to promptly address the full spectrum of systemic racism, advocate for the needs of underserved communities, work to dismantle barriers and equalize professional development frameworks and opportunities within the Navy.” Among many recommendations, TF1N leaders had recommendations related to matters surrounding gender minorities, and updating naming ships, buildings, and streets, and countering hate speech.

The False Narrative that Biden, Harris, and Obama keep pushing – that the US is a “systemically racist” nation – is right out of the Marxist propaganda being promoted by Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA Marxist domestic terrorists who led the violent riots in over 200+ Democrat-controlled sanctuary cities for over a year. They were responsible for hundreds of American deaths, for looting thousands of businesses, and torching thousands of police cruisers.

Obama-screened Navy flag officers have allowed the lie that the US is a “systemically racist” nation to be discussed in the Critical Race Theory training classes at the US Naval Academy. Midshipmen are indoctrinated in Critical Race Theory while at the same time the Superintendent has eliminated the Honor Code. Critical Race Theory degrades a person’s immutable individual unique characteristics, regardless of race or gender, while it does not encourage midshipmen to focus, most importantly, as they were once taught, on individual non-racial characteristics.

The Father of the Navy, John Paul Jones, did not intend that midshipmen should be indoctrinated in at the US Naval Academy. Rather, he stated, “An officer of the Navy must be the soul of tact, patience, justice, firmness, kindness, and charity. No meritorious act of a subordinate should escape his attention…” In addition, consider what the Rev Martin Luther King said: “People should not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Critical Race Theory is abhorrent, bigoted, racist, and is too divisive to be taught to midshipmen at USNA or in ROTC programs at US universities, to millions of students in thousands of colleges nationally, and to all young Naval personnel. Forcing this political rot into leadership classes exposes the true character of the leadership of the Navy and the Naval Academy – the antithesis of the kind of leaders needed to develop professional officers and warfighters.

The Obama-screened Navy admirals have accepted the Black Lives Matter Marxist doctrine and the lie that there is “systemic racism” in the US Navy and the Fleet. According to a news release of February 3^rd, the admirals created a bizarre, Marxist-inspired socio-cultural-sexual and ideological indoctrination program outlined in the “Task Force One Navy” to “identify” and then “eliminate” certain individuals who are considered not to conform to Obama’s definition of “politically correct” – all – under the guise of eliminating ‘systemic racism’ from the naval force.” Class action lawsuits may be filed against the woke inept leaders of the Navy in order to expose them and prevent them from evicting personnel with many years of honorable service.

The TF1N report includes the 5-point “Pledge” mentioned above that makes sailors and Marines promise to fight “ableism” – whose definition is unknown. The pledge uses “woke” vocabulary words like “intersectionality” and “disparate impact.” Those concepts and mandates inevitably lead to percentage-based “diversity metrics” – another name for quotas. Still to be announced is what the punishments will be for violating the new pledge, and whether it will be required to be read aloud in unit formations. It is difficult to ascertain whether this is more like George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘1984’ or Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in Communist China.

Referring to the Pentagon-wide, 60-day “extremism” stand-down, Navy Times notes that: “Among other things, the stand-down must also include listening sessions focused on the Navy’s core values and Culture of Excellence campaign, along with the findings of Task Force One Navy.” Based on that dangerously subversive Task Force One Navy report, almost anything that is considered offensive by the most “woke” observer can also be considered extremism and subject someone to sanction by the Navy.

The Orwellian hunt for the yet-to-be defined extremists in the US Navy has just gotten much more concerning. According to Vice Admiral John Nowell, Jr., Chief of Naval Personnel, simply liking or sharing a social media post found to be offensive could brand a sailor as an extremist. As quoted in a Navy Times article, VADM Nowell said: “You may not personally know any shipmates with extremist beliefs, but I assure you that those forces of darkness are among us. Just by posting, retweeting, or liking an offensive post on social media — you could be participating in extremism.”

Sailors, petty officers, chiefs and naval officers are entering a bizarre and unknown arena with mine fields, where a biased accusation of being an extremist can be made against someone for liking or sharing a social media post that is arbitrarily termed offensive. While the terms “extremist” and “offensive” have still not been clearly defined and will be highly subjective to different accusers, different commanding officers, and different retention boards in different commands – it is approaching insanity! – only white members of the Navy must be careful. Black members have nothing to worry about because BLM supporters are not being targeted in the extremist purge.

This destructive Task Force One Navy policy is dividing a once-unified and combat-ready US Navy, and it will further erode the US Navy’s combat effectiveness and unit cohesiveness. Communist China, Marxist Russia, and the Islamic terrorist state of Iran have fully unified fighting forces in their navies; they don’t tolerate woke-ism. At the same time, they are building and modernizing their navies to outstrip and overtake the US Navy, with the ultimate goal of winning any future war at sea against the US.

The US Navy is responding by indoctrinating their personnel in the divisive Marxist critical race theory rot that will divide personnel in the Fleet by race and gender and ultimately drive conservative sailors and officers of all races out of the US Navy in disgust. That is exactly what Biden, Harris, and Obama want – so they can recruit more woke, transgender, and personnel of color into the Navy who will be more supportive of the Democrat’s socialist policies.

The Navy’s and the Republic’s collective future with freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and a Navy free of political indoctrination and brainwashing depends on the Congress and the American people having the courage to stand up to the dangerous and divisive ideology of Critical Race Theory and the Task Force One Navy recommendations being pushed by the Marxist ideology of Black Lives Matter and by those admirals in the Navy who support the BLM ideology.

Black Live Matter activists and street thugs are the true bigoted racists. No white organization rioted daily for a year in over 200 cities, created $2 billion in destruction, and put over 2000 police officers in hospitals. Those Obama-era screened Navy admirals, including the Superintendent of the Naval Academy, are in support of Black Lives Matter’s Critical Race Theory indoctrination of Navy personnel.  Navy admirals should keep politics out of the training of Navy personnel; they are creating racial division within the Navy while developing a racially-hostile and politically-charged training environment within the Brigade of Midshipmen at USNA and in the US Navy at large that is dividing personnel on racial grounds.

“Extremism” in the Navy is a problem manufactured out of whole cloth at the highest level of the Biden Administration, along with Biden’s appointees to DoD and the Obama-era screened politically correct flag officers who created the aggressive and dangerous woke Task Force One Navy to root out undefined extremists. It is truly disgraceful and dishonest to be wrongfully labeling hundreds of thousands of naval personnel who have been taught to eliminate all forms of discriminations for the last 50 years and have for the most part done so very successfully. This new Biden Woke Navy must be challenged publicly, legally, and repeatedly, or they will destroy the most professional Navy in the world.

Joseph R. John, USNA ‘62

CAPT, USN (Ret’d)/Former FBI

Chairman, Combat Veterans For Congress PAC

2307 Fenton Parkway, Suite 107-184

San Diego, CA 92108

https://www.CombatVeteransForCongress.org

https://www.facebook.com/combatveteransforcongress?ref=hl

The end.