By Mary Fanning and Alan Jones | The American Report | November 7, 2021
U.S. Army Brigadier General Christopher J. Petty (Ret.), Vice President of External Affairs at Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services (STARRS), joined host John B. Wells on Caravan to Midnight Live Naked Lines Friday, Release Date November 5, 2021, to discuss how neo-Marxism, critical race theory (CRT), and the Biden Defense Department’s policy of applying so-called ‘equity’ in order to achieve ‘equal outcomes’ are systematically destroying the U.S. military and present a “national security threat to American military readiness.”
“Socialism and communism always ends in mass killings, starvations, gulags…
…The problem for the military is, and it’s kind of a theoretical problem of neo-Marxism, the problem of the military is this does significant long-term damage to the effectiveness of our fighting force. It divides. It segregates.”
“When you start putting adjectives in front of justice, she’s no longer blind.”
— U.S. Army Brigadier General Christopher J. Petty (Ret.), Vice President of External Affairs, Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services (STARRS)
Stand Together Against Racism And Radicalism In The Services (STARRS)
A November 1, 2021 STARRS press release explains:
The genesis of STARRS, Inc. began when a small group of interested individuals viewed a three-minute United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) football team coaches’ video promoting Black Lives Matter (BLM). “The video was naïve and an unintended endorsement of a Marxist political organization, Black Lives Matter, and we discovered the invasion of this poisonous neo-Marxist ideology was occurring across the Services,” said Rod Bishop, Lt Gen, USAF (Ret), STARRS Board of Directors Chairman & President.
U.S. Army Brigadier General Christopher J. Petty (Ret.): Official Biography
STARRS Website: https://www.starrs.us
Christopher J. Petty graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1987. After flight school, he was assigned as a platoon leader in the aviation company (C 3/159th) supporting operations at the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin California.
General Petty served in key command and staff positions throughout his career, both on active duty and in the National Guard. He served as a commander for a combined eleven years at the company, battalion, brigade, and joint/multi-national levels—a highlight of which was his command of the 2-135th Aviation Battalion during the “Surge” in Iraq.
His unit distinguished itself by performing over 100 large-scale, nighttime, air-assault operations, in support of the Theater Special Operations Task Force. Despite numerous enemy engagements, resulting in 2 aircraft shot down and 1 destroyed by enemy mortar fire, he brought everyone home. For its exemplary combat service, the unit would earn the Meritorious Unit Citation, along with the national-level “Outstanding National Guard Aviation Unit of the Year Award” presented by the Chief of Staff of the Army.
His general-officer assignments included command of the NATO Headquarters in Bosnia, Special Assistant to the Director of the Army National Guard, and Deputy Director of Operations for Headquarters Department of the Army (DA G-3/5/7) in the Pentagon, where he personally briefed the Secretary of the Army and members of the House Armed Service Committee on various operational and readiness issues. In his final assignment, he served as the Deputy Director of Operations for United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) where he managed Ballistic Missile Defense, Information Operations, Intelligence and Reconnaissance Operations, and various contingency operations for the command.
General Petty holds Masters degrees from both the US Army War College and Colorado State University. He is a graduate of the National Defense University’s Joint and Combined Warfighting School and the Chairman’s Capstone and Advanced General Officer Education Programs. He has completed senior-executive training at both Harvard’s Kennedy School and Wharton and is a National Security Fellow at Syracuse University. General Petty has lectured at the Army War College’s Center for Strategic Leadership, the United States Coast Guard Academy, and various national-level forums and conferences.
General Petty is an airborne, ranger, instructor pilot, master aviator. His awards include 2 Defense Superior Service Medals, 2 Legions of Merit, 6 Meritorious Service Medals, the Bronze Star, and the Air Medal, among others. He has flown over 2600 hours in Army helicopters, 356 of which were in combat.
He and his wife, Beth, have four grown sons and four grandchildren and live in Parker, Colorado.
Caravan to Midnight Live Naked Lines Friday, Release Date November 5, 2021 Featuring Special Guest U.S. Army Brigadier General (Ret.) Christopher J. Petty With Host John B. Wells (PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT)
The following is a partial transcript of Caravan to Midnight Live Naked Lines Friday, Release Date November 5, 2021 Featuring Special Guest U.S. Army Brigadier General (Ret.) Christopher J. Petty With Host John B. Wells:
JBW:
I understand there is a problem that a lot of the general officers seem to share, and that is the incursion of Marxism, not communism, but Marxism, into the military, and not just one or two branches, but all branches.
GENERAL PETTY:
John, we have a real problem, and people are starting to wake up to it but it’s been a little slow because the military is a tougher nut to crack. But as you said, racist and radical ideologies are really infiltrating the military in a big way.
Most people have been following the progression of these things in universities and the entertainment industry and media, and corporate America has recently kind of fallen, if you will, for an analogy there.
But now it’s rapidly infiltrating the military, especially in the last few years. And your listeners know well these neo-Marxist theories and propaganda, things like critical race theory, antiracism, white privilege, gender identity groups, social justice, all the social justice derivatives.
People are starting to recognize the problem, they are starting to wake up. I think you saw on the civilian side you saw some good news out of these recent elections. Parents are waking up and getting involved in local school boards and saying “enough is enough.” But, that’s the good news.
The bad news is the military is a tougher nut to crack. There’s lots of bureaucratic inertia, people are really burrowed in in some of these key assignments and staff positions and political appointees, and you also have an administration that really supports this stuff, so it’s a tougher nut to crack, but it is a real national security issue that people need to be aware of, they need to understand the scope of the problem, and why this problem is such a national security threat to military readiness.
JBW:
And this is actual Marxism. I didn’t know, I had to take a look at this, but the difference between communism and Marxism is Marxist socialism involves a dictatorship of the workers and state control of society. Once communism was implemented in the socialist country, everything would change. But communism was a utopian state where there was no class, money, private ownership, or even government. So Marxism is way worse, I’m thinking. What do you think?
GENERAL PETTY:
Right. Marxism kind of came first, in a sense, and really, to boil it down, Marxism is nothing more than “we must destroy the system in order to rebuild the utopian system,” and there was no construct, it was the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, and the proletariat would destroy the system and take control and redistribute and build their utopia.
Now, how this manifests itself in today’s neo-Marxist is, we can trace the evolution in America and on some of this I don’t want to get too esoteric, but the neo-Marxist today has essentially said, you know, I’m really generalizing here, but has essentially said “well, class warfare didn’t work so well in America so let’s find something else that is going to be effective — ahh — race — race is an achilles heel of America. There’s an unearned guilt that we can play on and we can use race and some of the other derivatives — gender identities and things — to divide people into groups, and tear apart the existing hierarchy — it’s all about the existing hierarchy — you have to tear that down and then we can rebuild society, we can rebuild society in the utopian image that we are striving for.”
I mean, that’s it in a nutshell. But now, it’s morphing into things like critical race theory. And critical race theory is really an offshoot of the critical theory, the original critical theory. It began in the seventies, and it was after this civil rights era, these proponents thought it didn’t quite translate into equal outcomes, the civil rights era and the legislation and the laws and all of the work we did in the sixties. And their conclusion was: color-blind laws are insufficient. We need laws that target racial groups to create equal outcomes. I mean that’s kind of the kernel of truth of the truth as they believe it in critical race theory. It rests on some really bad assumptions, like race is a social construct — it is not a biological reality — and racism is systemic, woven into all institutions. These are key assumptions, and “whites hold the privilege in the system.”
So, the assumptions are based on really anathema and opposed to everything America has been striving for and everything America stands for. But it is creeping in, and it is creeping in rapidly.
JBW:
This is actually quite something. So, the thing is, as far as the utopian problem goes, not everyone is going to go along or agree with somebody else’s vision of utopia, unless it’s just blind obedience to the most respected leaders. So, I’m thinking if not everyone is going to go along with utopia, sooner or later there will be blood. What do you think?
GENERAL PETTY:
It always seems to end that way, doesn’t it? I mean, socialism and communism always ends in mass killings, starvations, gulags, I mean, you name it. You can see what is happening in Venezuela, in our hemisphere. It always ends the same because one person’s idea of the utopia doesn’t match everyone else’s and it always creates that same system of haves and have nots.
But the problem for the military is, and it’s kind of a theoretical problem of neo-Marxism, the problem of the military is this does significant long-term damage to the effectiveness of our fighting force. It divides. It segregates. It makes people suspicious of other groups. It teaches them that one skin color is inherently oppressors, and another skin color is inherently oppressed.
This changes the entire dynamics in a military that is built on unity, trust, and cohesion which are vital for putting together a team that is going to go do dangerous things. So, I mean this is really a cancer and it’s growing and we at STARRS, and I really encourage your listeners to check out www.STARRS.us and see what we are tying to do here because it is a worthwhile mission, it needs to be done, and it needs to be done soon before we reach some kind of tipping point where we can’t even recruit idealist young Americans to go do good things.
JBW:
Inevitably, I have to step on this stone. So many people want to flee from the spiritual aspect of things. But, it seems to me, that absent God and spirituality directed toward a creator God, well it seems like all bets are off because our job here on Planet Earth is to do the best we can until we get actually where we are going. Well, these people seem to want it, this is where it stops, there is nothing beyond the earth, there is nothing to you beyond your body and therefore to get into all of that religious stuff, particularly Christianity, is just anathema to their idea of a utopia, which to me is the very first law.
Do you agree with that, and maybe the other part of it is, your interpretation of their definition of what social justice actually is.
GENERAL PETTY:
Social justice. I mean, who doesn’t want to be for social justice, right? But, if you look at the word justice, though, it stands by itself. Justice is blind. Lady Justice is blind, OK?
When you start putting adjectives in front of justice, she’s no longer blind. So, somebody’s idea of social justice will be very different than somebody else’s idea of social justice.
In the context of today and the neo-Marxists, social justice is purposely discriminating against the oppressors, which, in this context, are the white people, to create equal outcomes for other races, and in some cases, genders. That really is social justice in a nutshell. Sounds nice, though, doesn’t it, social justice, how can I be against that? That’s part of the trick. That’s part of the trick. They do it with everything.
Another great example is the word “equity.” We’ve been hearing a lot about that lately. When I was growing up, equity meant ownership. “I have equity in a house, equity in a business, sweat equity, those kinds of things. Now, equity means — again, a word that sounds wonderful — how can you not be for equity, and yet equity means, today, in this current construct, equity means equal outcomes, which is far different than when we grew up. Equity now means “we will discriminate against you based on skin color and gender or sex to create equal outcomes.” That’s what equity means today, which, by the way, has a military … are really, really scared of this influence, because of course, if you take equity to its logical conclusion, you have destroyed a meritocracy, and if you destroy a meritocracy in the military, now you have a force that is not confident in leaders, because leaders will now be seen as, well that leader, who happens to be black, now my commanders, “well, he was probably a, you know, a social justice equity hire.” We don’t need that. We have great black commanders. We have great black leaders. They need to stand on their own like they did twenty years ago, ten years ago, as I was growing up in the military. There wasn’t any question if they were a diversity hire. They were there because they were the best and we all knew that.
Listen To The Entire Program: Caravan to Midnight Live Naked Lines Friday, Release Date November 5, 2021
LISTEN HERE TO THE ENTIRE BROADCAST of Caravan to Midnight Live Naked Lines Friday, Release Date November 5, 2021, featuring special guest U.S. Army Brigadier General Christopher J. Petty (Ret.), Vice President of External Affairs at STARRS:
https://www.caravantomidnight.com/episode-detail/21853
COPYRIGHT 2021 MARY FANNING AND ALAN JONES
