Just Between Us Fascist Youth Programs

Baden Powell was often quite…effusive in his musings on the psychical fitness and athleticism of pubescent boys as well…

As a former non molested scout, I don’t recall working towards a White Supremacist badge but then again I’m one of those “pathetic” non-whites who needed to be protected by the White Man.

@ManchuCandidate:

It’s less of a badge than an extra-curricular focus.

HAha, this post is reminding me of the time we went to the leather/uniform ball at the Black-and-Blue Party in Montreal and my group dressed as a Boy Scout Troop.

We had fun.

@Tommmcatt Say Relax: Anyone dress as a Webelo?

@blogenfreude: Nabisco Jr. is a webelo, and is very likely going to give up on the scouting world after one week of summer camp. Most of the leadership are actually okay people, but we drew the short straw and got the ubergeek for den leader. My boy showed his colors (and made me proud) when he told the visiting preacher man that he was a non-believer. Apparently the church basement was silent but for the weak coffee percolating in the kitchen.

@Nabisco: A friend of mine, a secular gay-friendly woman, works for a local Boy Scout organization here in LA. She says a lot of the local troups are fine, but the national organization is truly fucked up, not knowing whether they hate gays or atheists more.

@blogenfreude:
We didn’t have to, that was implied.

Any overarching intent that may have been in the minds of the founders is completely lost on the kids. Baden Powell founded the scouts, what, 30 or 40 years before Hitler? Like anyone else who has a narrow focus, a life mission, in his case, kids, physical and moral education, I would bet the old man focused on and paid attention only to the parts of Mein Kampf which he agreed with, which concerned him.

I don’t want to sound like a breeder talking down at the non-breeders, but if you have never had a kid, you really don’t have the real, visceral understanding, that kids are mean, brutal and nasty, almost nazis, in their natural state, and you do have to teach them, to inculcate in them, you have to teach them things like sharing and cooperation and tolerance, they are all id, they are all narcissists and little dictators, unless they are trained, brought up, raised, to be civilized. You all have memories of the viciousness and intolerance of kids in school, everyone has read the Lord of the Flies.

Scouting, well, the old cliche, it teaches them to help old ladies cross the street. Its a fine line, with an authoritarian leader, it turns into brainwashing to be a good little soldier ant and follow orders, but on the whole, these days, its not that.

This is true of any organized social institution, there is a fine line between an authoritarian organization and an organization which preserves the element of individual freedom.

Like this is news? So proud I got thrown out of the scouts for laughing though it stung at the time. By the way, for all you dear yanquis, it’s pronounced baden-pohl, not powell. And why the hell are they calling that animated film I have no intention of seeing The Book of Kells? It’s pronounced Keys. The Book of Keys. And such as. Oh. And while we’re on the subject, whoever told Neil Pat H that he can sing is not a friend. And who made the women wear shower curtains? Now I go bye bye. And no, I have not so much as thought about making a martini.

TJ for my dear Stinque friends who are religious believers (I can already hear the sound of Tommy and Flippin’s heads hitting the desk):
Glenn Beck tells listeners to abandon religions that preach social justice

@Benedick be Jackpot: I heart you, doll.

@SanFranLefty:

For my thoughts on this matter please consult my magnum opus Glen Beck is an Enormous Peen, available by clicking back through the posts on this very website.

back in the 70s we watched Network, and didn’t think that the reality would be worse, Glen Beck, Howard Beale was so sane in comparison.

Incidentally, I first learned the word “Nazi” through the scouts. When I was, maybe, in second grade, I used to be a cub scout. Somewhere down the line, our troop leader stepped down and one of the other kids’ fathers took his place. It was at that point that my mother stopped taking me because the new troop leader was, and I quote, “A Nazi.”

In unrelated, news, a three-year-old apparently shot herself and the mother says she may have thought the loaded, unsupervised gun that had its safety off was a wiimote.

@Dodgerblue: Some of the activities have been fun: community trash pickup, minor league hockey, touring the local police station (Jr. nearly fainted when he caught a speck of blood in the “padded room”), handing out candy at the Halloween parade. But we don’t do fundraising, and the meetings are 90 minutes of UberGeek getting all techno-preachy on the 9 y.o. with his intimate knowledge of electronic circuitry and the importance of minimizing friction in order to smoke the competition at the pinewood derby.

Jr. came home from camp last year a liberated boy: a week on his own with his peers, assuming the role of Spider Clearance Guy as everybody else was terrified of the creepy crawlies in their leaky canvas tents whereas he just wanted to get the bugs out of harm’s way so he could settle in with his comic books and get some rack time. He bathed every day and even kept down the bile when faced with latrine duty: I couldn’t have been prouder, and shelled out $15 for a Genuine Indian Walking Stick ™ (apologies RML, but that’s what it was called) despite the fact that I personally IDed a dozen perfectly good downed tree limbs that would have served equally well. The Boy earned it.

@JNOVjr: Our Den Leader Milquetoast has actually kept the nazi element at bay. There are a couple of fathers itching to put on that uniform and shape that den up.

@SanFranLefty:

He’s just reading from the New New Testament, American translation, in which Jayzus makes a surprise appearance at Caesar’s Palace (30 A.D. version) and dramatically begs the Emperor of Rome to exterminate the less fortunate: “Fuck them!” Jayzus shrieked,”for my Father wants you to be wealthy. Bow down before the keys to my Golden Chariot! The greater the bank account, the more Holy the owner,” the son of Gawd concluded.