Marines Ban Loser Tattoos

Our guest columnist this morning is Gene Andrews, 1st Lieutenant, 3rd Marine division, Vietnam.

I have always been proud of my time spent as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. I served in the Republic of Vietnam in 1969 and, while I was certainly no “John Wayne” type, I tried to do my duty to the best of my ability and I did bring all of my platoon out of Vietnam alive.

This past summer, the son of a frend of mine was very ‘gung ho’ about joining the Marines and asked my opinion, which I tried to give as honestly as possible, warts and all. I don’t know if my discussions had any influence on him, but he enlisted, completed all of the pre-enlistment tests and physical exams and went to all of the pre-enlistment meetings. To say the least, he was very excited about serving his country in the Corps.

Shortly before he left Nashville for boot camp, he was told he could not serve his country because he had a Confederate Battle Flag tattooed on his shoulder in an area that would be completely covered by a t-shirt, and certainly by his uniform.

When informed of this, I went to the local recruiting station that had processed this young man to see if I were getting the entire story. The recruiter, a staff sergeant, told me, “Yes, sir. The Marine Corps considers the Confederate Flag a ‘hate symbol,’ but if the young man in question had a state or U.S. flag tattoo, that would be acceptable.”

I informed the young sergeant that my family had defended the State of Tennessee (also his home state) against a sadistic invasion under that flag and to call our sacred flag of honour a ‘hate symbol was an insult to ALL southerners, but especially to those southereners who had risked or even given their lives in service to the Marine Corps. Southerners had served at Belleau Woods, at Taraw and Iwo Jima, at Inchon and the Chosin Reservoir, and at Khe Sahn and Hue City, but now we are no longer wanted in the politically-correct don’t-offend-any-minorities military? (This was just prior to the Fort Hood massacre)

He was polite, even sympathetic, but said the flag policy was a Marine Corps policy from Headquarters Marine Corps and not a local decision. After informing the sergeant that it seemed to me that our military was building a mercenary force of illegal aliens while rejecting native-born Americans in order to have a ready force to turn, without question, on American citizens, I asked the sergeant if he had taken out the trash yet. He replied that he hadn’t.

I then said, “Please add these to the day’s garbage,” and returned my lieutenant’s bars, my gold and silver Marine Corps emblem from my dress blues, my shooting badges and my Vietnam ribbons.

I, like many of you, have always been told, “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” and “There are no ex-Marines, only former Marines,” but for me that is no longer true.

I was born in the South. I was raised here. I raised my family in the South and some day, God-willing, I hope to be buried in the native soil of our Southern homeland. I have always considered myself a Southerner first, and will remain so, despite any other organization that I may temporarily join.

I will never make a critical remark about a veteran, from any branch of the service, but from now on, I will do everything in my power to discourage any Southern young man, or lady, from becoming a future veteran. I am now an ex-Marine.

A Southerner Speaks [Missouri Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, James Morgan UTZ Camp #1815, Florrisant, Missouri]

U.S. Marines boot recruits with Confederate tattoos [WND]

Amplification to the Marine Corps Tattoo Policy [USMC, 1/15/2010]

“America’s Losers” bumper sticker [Stinque/CafePress]

44 Comments

I have a tattoo and yet am an officer in the Homofascist Army.

“I have always considered myself a Southerner first, and will remain so, despite any other organization that I may temporarily join.”

Semper Fi?

@ManchuCandidate: SemperOpportunis Fi

Fixed (although I wouldn’t know a proper declination if it slapped me in the head).

Good on the Marines. If this policy keeps out dicks who consider themselves Southerners first and Americans second, or third if he’s a Republican, I think the Marines and the country are better off.

After informing the sergeant that it seemed to me that our military was building a mercenary force of illegal aliens while rejecting native-born Americans in order to have a ready force to turn, without question, on American citizens, I asked the sergeant if he had taken out the trash yet.

I love how he so rationally reports on his utterly irrational ideas.

I am also wont to utterly discard past experience based on comparatively minor changes in current policy.

Apparently back in 1969 this guy thought the Vietnamese were a direct threat to the state of Tennessee. I wonder if it had anything to do with Volunteer football recruiting.

A Tennesseean in the spirit of Nathan Bedford Forrest (slave trader before the Civil War, cavalry commander and senior officer at the Fort Pillow massacre during the war, early member of the Ku Klux Klan after the war).

While smiling pretty for the camera when the Rah Rah Confederate monument was placed, Gene poo-pooed the Middle Passage monument marking those killed on slave ships.

Gene Andrews, former commander of the Sam Davis Camp 1293 Sons of Confederate Veterans, called the monument’s placement “a foolish little sophomoric prank.”

“According to Marx, people value objects that they can use (i.e. objects that have “use-value”), and virtually all these objects (air is a notable exception; Marx 1867 p.61) are the products of human labor. A use value becomes a commodity when it is produced for the use of another, that is, when it takes on a social character (Marx 1867 p.61). Thus, where people can use one object to acquire another whether through barter or the market, goods thus take on “exchange-value” (Marx 1867 p. 55). Eventually the development of productive forces reaches the stage of industrialization where a smaller and smaller group of people monopolize the means of production (i.e. any tools required to manufacture use-values; i.e. capital accumulation) and more and more people must seek work as wage-laborers, in other words, selling their labor power on the market (Marx 1867: 874). Marx labels this arrangement the capitalist mode of production. Human labor, the source of all use-values, is reduced to another use-value with a price like any other use value (Marx 1867: 90). And money is that commodity whose only value is to serve as a means of exchange, i.e. to buy and sell use-values, including labor (Marx 1867 p. 101). Under these conditions, people come to view people as things, and money as creative (Marx 1867pp. 109-110, 120-121). This is commodity fetishism.

Marx argued that commodity fetishism tends to subordinate social relations among people to relationships between humans and objects: for example, the relationship between producer and consumer is obscured. The producer can only see his relationship with the object he produces, being unaware of the people who will ultimately use that object. Similarly, the consumer can only see his relationship with the object he uses, being unaware of the people who produced that object. Thus, commodity fetishism ensures that neither side is fully conscious of the political and social positions they occupy. The object of Marxist critique is to reveal the social relations that are hidden behind relations among objects, and to reveal the creativity of the worker hidden behind the objectification of human beings.”

Ahh, that feels better.

I read that policy twice. Didn’t see anything expressly banning the flag of the silver medal winner in the War Between the States.

Lonely? Wanna help raise funds so “young rebs” can see what life was like in the Good Ole Days? Feel free to give Gene a call, shoot him an email or write a check!

Contact Chairman Gene Andrews @ 615-833-8977 or genecsmc@yahoo.com for questions regarding schedule & vendors.

And, of course, Merrill Lynch is happy to take the Lynch mob’s neo-confederates’ monies.

It is in the FORREST BOYHOOD HOME COMMITTEE report.

Gene Andrews reports:

“Our Forrest Homecoming and Southern Heritage Festival raised over $4,300.00 on the 23rd of June and we have over $5,000.00 in our Merrill Lynch Forrest Home Account.”

@redmanlaw: WND makes the call:

WND contacted the Tennessee recruiting station, and a Marine sergeant explained, “The policy is if a tattoo can be construed by anyone as being gang-related or racially biased, then we can’t accept them.”

I also like this line from the rules:

For generations, Marines have served proudly in every region of the world, fulfilling our role as America’s ambassadors and defenders of freedom. We are recognized around the globe for our military prowess and high standards of military bearing and appearance. The growing trend of excessive tattoos limits world-wide assignability of marines and detracts from one of the most visible hallmarks of our corps — our distinguished appearance.

No proselytizing either, grunts.

Gene is also a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) headed by Gordon Lee Baum (yeah, he’s a white supremacist — was George Wallace’s campaign manager in Missoura). The CCC replaced the WCC.

Vendors at the conference sold Confederate flags and bumper stickers, Celtic jewelry, and books and pamphlets that opposed immigration, promoted “Southern heritage,” and ridiculed African Americans. More than 100 people were in attendance, mostly white men, though CCC president Tom Dover said he was glad to see “a lot of fine looking ladies” in attendance, as well as “the young people getting involved.”

[snip]

Gene Andrews, a CCC member from Nashville, Tennessee, said the protest was “the same left-wing socialist propaganda these people always put out.”

@nojo: So a guy with the logo for the syndicated “Ask a Mexican” newspaper column might not get in?

http://www.askamexican.net/

Here in Santa Fe, kids at the school with the most Mexicans are getting suspended for wearing clothes or tats with images of la Virgen de Guadalupe or a crucifix or who are wearing rosaries because they are “gang related.”

Mrs RML has a friend who is a Union Civil War dress up and have battles guy. The shit is weird, but not as weird as the WW2 guys who want to dress like Germans.

@redmanlaw: Depends on the OC recruiter, I guess.

Guy is a little off the handle. The confederate flag ban is an over-reaction to the large-scale incursion of neonazi groups into US armed forces, to give the appearance that they are cleaning house but his argument isn’t with the corps at all. Neonazis can read and tell their brethren joining the service to laser scrape their tattoos before joining, so it does nothing to actually keep crazies out of the ranks. Given the overwhelming proportion of recruits that come from southern states, they’re doing nothing so much as alienating one of the last crowds of people with an affinity for active service.

@redmanlaw: And nowhere near as weird as the Russian reanimator crowd. There was a story a couple of years ago about a lady reanimator who died in a reenactment of the siege of Stalingrad or something.

@Prommie: Karlo Marx and Friedrich Engels came to the checkout at the 7-11. Marx was skint but he had sense, Engels lent him the necessary pence.

You lot!

@Nabisco: He answers all the questions, Bisco, he explains the inexplicable we see around us every day. I don’t take Marx as a prescription for a cure, but he is absolutely accurate in his diagnosis of the dynamics of the disease.

Why do working stiff poor whites vote against their self-interest?
How does the oil and war oligarchy control public opinion?
Is it true that “free trade” is really just the oligarchy’s response to the labor union movement and the efforts of liberal social democrats to moderate the excesses of capitalism with labor, safety, environmental, and consumer-protection regulation?
Whats with our society’s orgy of mindless consumption?

All these questions and more are answered in Communetics, the amazing manifesto by L. Ron Marx.

@FlyingChainSaw: Playing Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko, no doubt. She had 309 kills against the Germans.

Holy Crap! Woody Guthrie wrote a song about her!

Miss Pavilichenko[SIC]’s well known to fame;
Russia’s your country, fighting is your game;
The whole world will love her for a long time to come,
For more than three hundred nazis fell by your gun.
CHORUS:
Fell by your gun, yes,
Fell by your gun
For more than three hundred nazis fell by your gun.
Miss Pavlichenko’s well known to fame;
Russia’s your country, fighting is your game;
Your smile shines as bright as any new morning sun.
But more than three hundred nazidogs fell by your gun.

etc . . .

http://www.snipersparadise.com/history/pavlichenk.htm

@Dodgerblue: Pvt. Pavlichenko fought about two and a half months near Odessa. There, she recorded 187 kills. The Germans gained control of Odessa, and her unit was pulled to be sent to Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. In June 1942, she was wounded by mortar fire . In May 1942, Lieutenant Pavlichenko was cited by the Southern Red Army Council for killing 257 German soldiers. Her total confirmed kills during WWII was 309 enemy. Lyudmila killed 36 enemy snipers. She found the kill logbook of one of the Nazi snipers she killed. He had taken the lives of over 500 Soviet snipers.

Because Lyudmila was a hero, less than a month after receiving her wound, she was pulled from combat. She was sent to Canada and the United States. She became the first Soviet citizen to be received by a U.S. President. President and Mrs. Roosevelt welcomed her at the White House. Lyudmila was invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to tour America relating her experiences.

Having attained the rank of Major, Pavlichenko never returned to fighting but instead became an instructor. She trained hundreds of Soviet snipers until the wars end. In 1943 she received the Gold Star of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Lyudmila returned to Kiev State University. From 1945 to 1953, she was a research assistant of the Chief HQ of the Soviet Navy. She also was involved in numerous international conferences and congresses. She was active in the Soviet Committee of the Veterans of War.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko died on 10 October 1974 at age 58 and is buried at the Novodevichiye Cemetery in Moscow.

Gene sounds like he deserves a Code Red from some Marines whose ancestors died defending the Union from *his* ancestors.

On a related note, I’m *sure* he’d be totally OK with recruits with an Islamic crescent tattoo. NOT.

What are the teabaggers? Lets ask L. Ron Marx:

“In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852), Marx refers to the lumpenproletariat as the ‘refuse of all classes,’ including ‘swindlers, confidence tricksters, brothel-keepers, rag-and-bone merchants, beggars, and other flotsam of society.’ In the Eighteenth Brumaire, Marx describes the lumpenproletariat as a ‘class fraction’ that constituted the political power base for Louis Bonaparte of France in 1848. In this sense, Marx argued that Bonaparte was able to place himself above the two main classes, the proletariat and bourgeoisie, by resorting to the ‘lumpenproletariat’ as an apparently independent base of power, while in fact advancing the material interests of the bourgeoisie.”

Thats interesting; does Trotsky have anything to add?

“Leon Trotsky elaborated this view, perceiving the lumpenproletariat as especially vulnerable to reactionary thought. In his collection of essays Fascism: What it is and how to fight it, he describes Benito Mussolini’s capture of power: “Through the fascist agency, capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie and the bands of declassed and demoralized lumpenproletariat — all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy.”[7]”

Why yes, yes indeed, Lumpenproletariat, thats what the teabaggers are, led by the uber-lumpen grifter, Sarah Palin, bringing on the fascism!

People don’t read L. Ron Marx enough, I tells ya.

Why are the democrats so ineffectual, why do they roll over, capitulate, to the conservatives? Comrade Trotsky, has this sort of thing ever happened before?

“Fearful of the revolutionary mobilization of the workers, the Italian reformists banked all their hopes on the “state”. Their slogan was, “Help! Victor Emmanuel, exert pressure!” The German social democracy lacks such a democratic bulwark as a monarch loyal to the constitution. So they must be content with a president — “Help! Hindenburg, exert pressure!”

[NOTE: Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), Junker general who gained fame in World War I and later became president of the Weimar Republic. In 1932, the social democrats supported him for re-election as a “lesser evil” to the Nazis. He appointed Hitler chancellor in January 1933.]

While waging battle against Mussolini, that is, while retreating before him, Turati let loose his dazzling motto, “One must have the manhood to be a coward.” [Filippo Turati (1857-1937), leading reformist theoretician of the Italian Socialist Party.] The German reformists are less frisky with their slogans. They demand “Courage under unpopularity” (Mut zur Unpopularitaet) — which amounts to the same thing. One must not be afraid of the unpopularity which has been aroused by one’s own cowardly temporizing with the enemy.

@Prommie: Based on my dated knowledge, it’s because the center right is where most of the money is. Sure, there’s a few hardcore serious lefties with some cash who like to throw it around to fund progressive candidates or causes, but it’s nothing like what Wall Street, insurance companies, etc. have to spread around.

Example: Nancy Pelosi’s top donors by sector per opensecrets.org:

Industry Total Indivs PACs

Health Professionals $147,250 $11,850 $135,400
Lawyers/Law Firms $139,350 $96,850 $42,500
Pro-Israel $80,400 $60,900 $19,500
Securities & Investment $68,200 $27,200 $41,000
Lobbyists $60,850 $60,850 $0

and here’s Denny the K:

Industry Total Indivs PACs

Retired $19,090 $19,090 $0
Industrial Unions $10,000 $0 $10,000
Building Trade Unions $6,500 $0 $6,500
Lawyers/Law Firms $5,500 $500 $5,000
Misc Unions $5,000 $0 $5,000

ADD: Obviously, the Speaker and a lot of other MOR Dems are not going to say or do anything to piss off their supporters. True, we all have one vote, but we all don’t have wheelbarrows of cash to get our message out. The message is whatever the pol can sell to the fat cats, or what the pol agrees to say in exchange for cash.

Next up: Water is oily.

@redmanlaw: You’re fooling yourself, mate. You’re concentrating on the trees. See the forest. (you know I am kidding?)

Today, Comrades, is L. Ron Marx’s birthday.

Damn Walt Whitman for ruining a good word, “comrade.” You can’t hardly use it, or people will think you are a poet. And “comarado,” please.

@redmanlaw: But seriously, Trotsky is describing a major labor uprising in Italy, which seemed to scare the party that would correspond to the democrats of that place and time. Fascism arose as a response to the labor uprising, and the social democrats went along with it, as the democrats today go along with the GOP fascism.

Now just slow down the running out of events. Instead of a labor uprising, we here in the US had a gradual increase in regulated labor union power, over say 30 years, from the 1930s to the 1960s. Our fascists resisted gradually throughout that time, but it was really on with Reagan announcing open-season on unions with the ATC strike. Our fascists took over slowly, silently, and gradually, but the fact is, thats what we are now, a fascist state.

@Prommie: There are still good fights out there in the electoral landscape, like trying to keep some corrupt fuckhead off the state court of appeals whose motivation for running in the Democratic primary is his vendetta against the Virtuous (shh!) Lesbian former civil rights attorney who is the sitting judge.

Observers fear he might take the northern part of the state solely because he’s the local Hispanic vs. the non-native (g-a-y!) Italiana or whatever, despite regular coverage by the (anti-Hispanic/Indian/Democrat) Albuquerque paper about the challenger’s ethical lapses and disciplinary actions by the State Supreme Court.

Damn. Might have to get involved.

@Prommie: I was always an Antonio Gramsci guy: “The liberals are incapable of bringing about peace and the International, because private and national property bring about splits, borders, wars, national States in permanent conflict with each other.”

@Nabisco: That week in August is good, we be in touch, OK?

@Prommie: I believe you are generally spot on, mate. A quibble though: why phrase it as the democrats today go along with the GOP fascism?

Do you not mean the democrats feint resistance to the fascism openly embraced by the GOP?

Do you cling to an idea of the democrats as some mighty yet thwarted force for the greater good? I really believe they showed themselves otherwise decades ago. Fascism has long been a bipartisan agenda, largely accomplished and very recently reaffirmed, indeed turbo-charged.

@PedonatorUSA: Unfortunately, the trains, what few there are, still don’t run on time.

Losers? If all liberals who can’t fire gun , open a knife , get job or take care of themselves want take on south where 85% of military is from and the most successful states texas and florida who don’t néed federal tax money like NY & broke California does then we welcome another chance. The south can stand on its on can’t say same for Ny & California who live month to month off federal govt and tax payers.

@jmilesfoster75@yahoo.com:
hahaha. Keep living the fantasy. Sure Texas and Florida put money in. But what about the rest? Welfare queens paid for by Cali and NY.

Let’s go to the tape

In 2013, New York, California and Texas sent more to the Feds than they received — although over ten years, Texas straddles the line.

Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina all suckle from the Federal teat.

But what America really wants to know is whose Facebook feed we suddenly showed up in.

And while we’re in the neighborhood…

Regional stats are harder to round up, but the Heritage Foundation — I think we can agree they’re no Commies — published this analysis in 2006:

the data for 2004 and 2005 confirm the strong military tradition in the South. In each year from 2003 through 2005, approximately 38 percent of the U.S. population resided in Southern states. In 2003, 43.82 percent of military recruits listed Southern hometowns. Southern representation among recruits remained consistent with 43.49 percent in 2004 and 43.8 percent in 2005.

The data’s ten years old, but that was the height of the Iraq war.

So, no, the military is not predominantly staffed by Confederate descendants, just slightly overrepresented.

And, to my knowledge, liberals don’t want to “take on” the South. You’ll recall that the War of Northern Aggression was to keep y’all from leaving.

@jmilesfoster75@yahoo.com: Where are the members of our military from (as opposed to where are they stationed and/or where do they claim to reside for tax purposes)? Well, since simply looking at the geography of active duty members is problematic for the reasons mentioned, let’s look at where reserve and guard members live (page 85 of the report, for those following along at home). The top ten states are California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York… wait, I’m sensing a pattern here. Nine of the top ten states for reserve and guard members are nine of the top ten states by population. And last time I checked, California and New York (not to mention Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois) weren’t in the South. But I’m originally from Kentucky, which (along with many other Southern states) usually ranks in the bottom quintile for education, so what do I know?

@nojo: @jmilesfoster75@yahoo.com: Liberals are kicking themselves for not letting the white trash “takers” secede when we had the chance. Really, leave anytime. We’ll be fine.

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