Fighting Extremism In The Ranks: Progress Or Backfire?

SecDef Lloyd Austin, late of Raytheon, famously started his tenure by announcing a "stand-down" to address a perceived problem of "extremism in the ranks". More specifically, "right wing" extremism:

Shaken by concerns of possible right-wing radicalism among the troops, incoming Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on February 5th announced that every single unit of the United States military; Active, Reserve, and Guard would be required to stand down within the next 60 days in order to conduct sensitivity training. The training will last at least one day and will be focused around discussions including the importance of the oath of office; a description of impermissible behaviors; and procedures for reporting suspected, or actual, extremist behaviors.

In possibly related news, Fox and numerous other outlets are reporting:

3 Army soldiers charged after guns found at Chicago mass shooting traced to illegal weapons pipeline

Fort Campbell soldiers allegedly transferred dozens of firearms from Tennessee and Kentucky

From the DoJ announcement:

More Sedition Hoax, White Supremacy, Christian Terrorism

A hat tip to commenter Dutchmn007 for pointing out a very nice piece at The Burning Platform:

WHO IS SHAKING THE JAR?

The point of the piece is twofold, and develops the ideas that I tried to present yesterday (The Sedition Hoax):

1. American public life, ruled by a prog class that controls most of the means of societal communication, has been characterized in the 21st century by serial hoaxes.

2. The political class, while deeply involved in perpetrating these hoaxes, is to a significant extent controlled by financial interests--including, of course in the "tech" sector (which now embraces much of public communication as we've come to know it in the digital age).

The author provides the evidence in considerable detail, involving more hoaxes--incontestable hoaxes, involving the dissemination by news and social media of undoubted false narratives--than I got into. The point of these hoaxes has all been to present false narratives of reality in America. Those narratives can be boiled down into a simple binary: America is engaged in a struggle between progressive forces of science and enlightened humanism against the forces of racist white supremacy and anti-science obscurantism. There are numerous sub-memes, but that's good enough for government work--and, indeed, that appears to be the narrative that informs the activities of our federal bureaucracy, including those agencies that control the tools of coercion, such as the FBI.

The correct stance for conservatives who wish to understand what's going on is captured in a quote from the writing of a liberal reporter, Glenn Greenwald:

“If you think the real power centers in the US are the Proud Boys, 4Chan & Boogaloos rather than the CIA, FBI, NSA, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and spend most of your time battling the former while serving the latter as stenographers, your journalism is definitionally shit.” – Glenn Greenwald

Now, obviously Greenwald is addressing the fact that corporate jouralism, as privileged by the SCOTUS line of decisions stemming from NYT v. Sullivan, amounts to scribbling down what the real masters of American tell them to scribble. At the same time, lets be clear about Conservativism Inc.: for most of the 21st century conservatives have generally lionized the Deep State (think, Tom Clancy novels, etc.) and the Tech Giants as embodying the best in America. While progs of the everyday variety remain Benighted for the most part (excepting a few like Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald), four years of Trump and the hysterical prog response has led to what appears to be a Great Awakening among conservatives--the scales have fallen from the eyes of many. Evidence for this can be found in the tough sledding that Fox News has faced, and the immediate pushback against Mitch McConnell and other establishment GOP figures to restore their vision of "normality."

Here are excerpts of the Big Picture from the Burning Platform piece linked above (read it all--you won't regret it):

Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland--Cool!

I've just finished a four part series on the Patrick Deneen's book Why Liberalism Failed. A key part of Deneen's presentation is the ironic way in which liberalism, by espousing total liberty for the individual, actually paves the way for a vastly expanded and authoritarian state apparatus:

Liberalism reconceives liberty as the opposite of this older conception. It is understood to be the greatest possible freedom from external constraints, including customary norms. The only limitation on liberty, in this view, should be duly enacted laws consistent with maintaining order of otherwise unfettered individuals. Liberalism thus disassembles a world of custom and replaces it with promulgated law. Ironically, as behavior becomes unregulated in the social sphere, the state must be constantly enlarged through an expansion of lawmaking and regulatory activities. "The Empire of Liberty" expands apace with an ever-enlarging sphere of state control. 

Deneen seems to envision a sort of "soft" totalitarianism. However, we've also noted the FBI's recent claim that vaguely identified "conspiracy theories" are breeding grounds for domestic terror. The FBI report is notable for identifying virtually any "antigovernment" ideas--including "belief in a deep state" and ideas that fall outside "official" explanations--as potentially terroristic. The FBI report is thinly reasoned; it's main point appears to be a thinly disguised attack on the Trump demographic. While actual authorities were quick to debunk the FBI report (follow the link, above), it's important to note that this report was not written in a vacuum. Nor has it just been filed away. The FBI is, in fact, seeking greatly enhanced surveillance powers.

Today, Angelo Codevilla notes similar reports (The White Supremacy Hoax) that have been appearing in recent years, all warning about "white supremacists" and advocating the use of the US military--that's right!--against the threat. It's important to be aware of this context as we listen to the enormously increased chatter about the supposed threat of "white supremacists." Incredibly, one of the authors of such articles was featured very recently in the "mainstream conservative" WSJ: