this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 86 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Based General for not even entertaining the idea of knowing what the W word even means.

It's too bad all our journalists are sold out to corpos otherwise they should respond to anyone wanting woke with "what is that? Idk what you are talking about please elaborate".

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Not that "based" makes sense here either, but yes, exactly: "woke" means whatever the speaker wants it to mean at the time, like "cromulent".

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 years ago

That's not entirely true. To pass the "stop WOKE act", the bill had to have a definition of"wokeness". You know what the definition is? Awareness of systemic injustice.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Jesus Christ, we all have the goddamn internet:

Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more woke verb past of wake1.

This isn't hard!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Thats..... Not the meaning of woke according to alt righters

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

PersnicketyPenguin was being sarcastic 😂

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Finding satire on the internet is really hard sometimes

[–] [email protected] 83 points 2 years ago (3 children)

The first few times I heard "woke" used, it was in the context of people who don't follow the sheep because they aren't asleep. Hence, they have woke up.

[–] [email protected] 84 points 2 years ago

Yes, and now the sheep are using it as an insult.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It was always a vacuous ambiguous way to say someone was liberally enlightened without having to justify the claim with anything specific. That is true for both the positive and pejorative use of woke. I enjoy the song "Wide Awake" by Parquet Courts that made fun of the term in it's original use.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That is true for both the positive and pejorative use of woke.

At this point, from what I can tell, there is no truth for the pejorative use of 'woke.' It means whatever the Republican saying it wants it to mean. If they want it to mean anything at all but 'this is a bad thing.'

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

Well playing some bozos' advocate here, but

At one point it was very woke to expect the actors from Friends to apologise because they weren't Black

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I think it comes from like “wake up sheeple”

[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 years ago (1 children)

How's not being woke working out for the slowly imploding Russian military?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You mean the one only staffed by minority serfs and white male convicts?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

Where raising morale is when they shoot anyone who retreats?

[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 years ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago

"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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

It gets more and more simple over time. Now it just means "things I don't like". Your tie is woke.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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, using the currently fashionable trigger word.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Didnt they already prevent the military from trying to purge white supremacists or am I miss remembering?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

Two sides of the same coin

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Absurd on the face of it. But making a cogent point is beside the point here, all they're really doing is sending the message that as soon as they're back in power, the military will be politicized.

Edit: Or possibly given the Russian military treatment; contracts awarded, real units never delivered, and the money all absconded with by craven oligarchs until the only way to prosecute a war is with mercs.

Edit 2: Merc squads padded out with penal legions. We do have plenty of prisoners, after all.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

The military would be changed to defend the regime instead of the country.

Part of it was communicated via Trump's pardon of the war criminal. In Trump's mind, he was signaling that he would let the military do whatever they wanted in exchange for loyalty. For most of the military senior brass, it was a symbol of giving up on their ideals.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 years ago

These people never change. They complained when they allowed non white people to enlist. They complained when they stop segregating the units. They complained about woman, about inclusivity etc. They just keep moving the goalpost whenever there is progress then, claim the next thing will destroy the military. Just their thinly weiled prejudice.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Can you imagine going through everything it takes to become a high ranking officer to then have to answer to these asshats?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Just look at this guy's career. 44 years with his nose to the grindstone and boots on the ground just to have chickenhawks scream at you about "wokeness."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

General Milley is honestly my favorite Amaerican

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 years ago

I love how republicans navigated themselves into a position where the best thing anyone else can do is ignoring them.

No discussion, because it doesn’t lead anywhere.

No listening to them, because they talk about the end of the white race, autism from vaccines or woke stuff.

It’s like living with children, but you at least listen to a child when something bothers them. You don’t care for republicans, conservatives or nazis. It doesn’t matter how they call themselves. At this point, they march together and therefore are the same.

If only they hadn’t the right to vote…things could be easier.

(If you read any kind of 4chan conspiracy theory about leftist communist cannibals from lizard space who want to abolish their right to vote, now you now where it came from.)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago

Most accurate headline ever, on both counts 😂

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I find it hard to believe that the largest and most effective organization designed specifically to kill or otherwise incapacitate whichever opposing forces their set against, isn't woke.

It's pretty obvious that Gen. Milley is wearing a wig, and what do you think he's hiding below that wig? Yep, you guessed it, blue and purple dyed hair.

I guarantee you that after this sham of a hearing, Gen. Milley's entire polycule was laughing at how xe hoodwinked us yet again.

FYI Gen. Milley's preferred pronoun is Xe, so put some respect on that shit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

It's pretty obvious that Gen. Milley is wearing a wig, and what do you think he's hiding below that wig?

My guess would be an M1A1 Abrams, painted in blue, pink and white.

Gen. Milley's preferred pronoun is Xe, so put some respect on that shit.

And if those idiots are going to keep up with this 'military woke' shit, Gen. Milley is going identify as a fucking/problem.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago

when you've got an organization filled with high school grads, funded by religious gun nuts, you're not gonna get the brightest people

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

"Woke" could be taken as the opposite of "denialist".

Wikipedia defines "woke" as "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination", although today it's often extended to other prejudices besides racism.

Thus, "anti-woke" can be taken to mean "in denial about racial (etc.) prejudice and discrimination".

For example, we could say that the Association of German National Jews, the pro-Nazi Jewish group that existed from 1921 to 1935, was an "anti-woke" organization. This group sought to convince German Jews that they could drop their Jewishness and assimilate within a Nazi-dominated Germany.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

Why does anyone care what Miley Cyrus has to say about the military?!? I mean, she sits on a wrecking ball naked!!

What?

Oh, nevermind.

— Roseanne Roseannadanna

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

Not that I'm all stoked on a bloated US military, but the main reason our forces would not be prepared is due to republican fuckery, so to see a general get grilled about it by the GOP proves that irony and self awareness is long dead where those fossils are concerned

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

“This is a military that’s dedicated to maintaining our readiness, our capabilities, our lethality. And the thing that we also need to focus on is the modernization for the future character of war that I see fundamentally changing,” Milley said.

“This military is a lot of things, but woke, it’s not. So I take exception to that. I think that people say those things for reasons that are their own reasons, but it’s not true. It’s not accurate,” he continued. “It’s not a broad-brush description of the U.S. military as it exists today.”

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

On the other hand, reducing military spending would be nice. Just wish we didn’t have persecute people to do it

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


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.”

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.

Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who announced he will retire at the end of this month, said the U.S. military is actually in better shape now than in years past.

And the thing that we also need to focus on is the modernization for the future character of war that I see fundamentally changing,” Milley said.

Ron DeSantis (R) argued that the military is being ordered around by a civilian “political ideology” and is “being infected by the woke mind virus.”

Those criticisms from Republicans have created “a real crisis” of confidence in military institutions, according to defense analysts.


The original article contains 393 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 57%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Woke ≠ Boogeyman in MAGAspeak.

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