I believe it was the Army Times polling from 2012, a year after DADT was repealed. We spoke of it at work and I remember the discussion centering on DADT being repealed and the spotlight on sexual awareness training being at the top of the list of reasons. But the Army Times has also not been as careful as they should with the wording of this annual polls. But I can’t find the 2012 poll results on the Army Times’ site (though I haven’t look too hard, been too busy with weekend stuff). What’s really interesting is the approval plunging in just the last year or two. I suspect this is largely the result of the media; listening to it you’d think ISIS was on the verge of overthrowing American democracy itself. Obama’s foreign policy is a bit of a muddled mess that’s a far cry from the binary bellicosity of “you’re either with us or against us” from last decade, and the rank 'n file were sold the false meme that the surge worked and that the Iraq war had been won. This false narrative is heavily promoted by right-wing ‘media’ outlets, and is used to set up a very strong contrast against Obama’s draw down policy (which was honoring the SOFA signed by GWB) and the ensuing rebalancing of power we’re witnessing as a result of our withdrawal from the country. If regular Fox News viewers ever thought the sunni tribes were going to gladly accept a shia-dominated central govt in Baghdad. . . . The sad reality is Fox is the info source du jour for the AF. Every base, every building, every office that has a TV, even breakrooms, are in my anecdotal experienced turned to Fox. You do NOT dare turn the channel to another cable news outlet (I do it to my building’s break room TV every time I’m alone, flipping it to CNN).
But, doing a bit of Googling I did err in truncating the poll time-wise I was mentally referencing to one more current (mainly because of that work conversation making it clear in my mind compared to more recent ones). That said, even the latest polls list ‘social engineering’ as a grievance against Obama, specifically DADT and sexual awareness/violence spotlighting, so when a certain someone emphatically stated in this discussion that there was no connection they couldn’t be more wrong. Just because acceptance of gays openly serving is on the increase, a direct result of DADT being repealed and thus ending ‘legalized’ discrimination, doesn’t mean it wasn’t deeply resented and resisted. But just as with social conservatives fighting tooth 'n nail against interracial marriage 50 years ago, they now appear entirely atavistic if they continue such attitudes today. One of the guys I work with as a new hire thundered how he retired early as an AF enlisted service member because he knew DADT’s repeal was coming and refused to serve with “faggots”. All unknowingly in front of a gay civilian who sat right next to me, and who then IM’d me saying, “How is he going to react when he finds out about me?” To which I replied, “I hope he stakes you through your gay heart.” “Fuck you.” And we still laugh about that years later.
I can reiterate the streak of fundamentalism in the AF too. Some of it is incredibly unprofessional (replace toner for a colonel and get Jesus’ blessings, bump into him in the bathroom and get your bowel movements Jesus approved, have a unit meeting and he’d open it with a very Judeo-Christian prayer session). Same dude thought AQ was going to invade the US through Mexico, a full bird colonel who’d attended the AF’s war college. But, yeah, after 9/11 there was a big influx of Jesus warriors into the AF. The vast majority are professional and do their jobs, but you never want to get into a convo with some of them outside the scope of work. The motherf’n crazy comes pouring out with some. One told me last decade we needed concentration camps for gays (or better yet to murder them all). I asked if he thought the political will existed to repeat such draconian measures every 20 years and he looked confused, told me I was stupid because they’d all be gone. I then asked where he thought gays came from. Another told me that someone needed to shoot Obama, and this was spring of 09. I could go on and on. As a nation we truly are in a period I call the great dumbing down of America. But as I stated upstream, this all-volunteer force is recruited predominantly from the Sunbelt so no Democratic president in this era of partisan hysteria is going to poll particularly well. Especially a black one who forced social engineer down their throats and forsook our great and glorious victories in Iraq.
Yeah, the drop from 40% to 15% approval (and drop in morale from 91% positive to 56%), at the same time military approval of having gays openly serve in the military has improved to over 60% from 30%, is definitely not meaningful and solely due to homophobia.
Since hey, math is irrelevant when you have John Reynolds’ story of once running into a homophobic jesus lover in the loo.
My figures came from the Air Force times I read a few years back around 2012 or so. I don’t think anything over the past 3 years would massively change that. I might be wrong.
For enlisted folks it seemed Obama’s approval rating was similar to general pops, but officers skewed much more conservative, and my own experiences in the military lead me to believe it was funda-conservative instead of objectivism. (Military folks tend to dislike objectivism, as they see the benefits of government the same way liberals do)
In a less snarky form, if you want anyone to take your objections seriously, why don’t you provide some evidence other than wild speculation. John, and Aleck, have actually provided sources. If you read the Military Times story linked it does have actual polling data which directly supports the assertion that John is making.
You have nothing but your own objections.
EDIT: when digging in to that story more one of the biggest problems that had not been mentioned is lowered pay increases. Given that the pay increases have not ben good. You also know what? A lot of people in private industry don’t get any regular pay increases either.
That and the public talk of cutting retirement benefits. Which the GOP are wanting to do to civilian federal workers to help fund the highway bill. It’s a great way to demoralize a workforce.
The whole point of the discussion is that things have massively changed over the past few years dude.
All of this is in the January 2015 military times:
Yeah, the drop from 40% to 15% approval (and drop in morale from 91% positive to 56%), at the same time military approval of having gays openly serve in the military has improved to over 60% from 30%, is definitely not meaningful and solely due to homophobia.
Yep, unlike you, I’ll continue to take statistical evidence over a single hearsay anecdote of some dude in the toilet, told by someone who obviously has a massive chip on his shoulder.
I saw other folks complaining about this.
Maybe this is a silly question, but why exactly is this something to be upset about? It’s seemingly random bluster about how attaching Iran would end in death and destruction.
This doesn’t even make the top five in terms of crazy stuff from the ayatollah.
Not upsetting - predictable and expected. It’s better than Putin’s crew doing that racist laser show about Obama. Both examples just reflect on the character of the “artists” and the audience they are catering to, and in the Ayatollah"'s case, perhaps out of necessity. Still kinda creepy.
To me, Khamenei blathering on about how ‘the USA will die if they invade Iran’, is a signal that he’s realized the deal is a pretty significant diplomatic victory, for the US.
Because some people prefer that we only conduct weapons negotiations with countries that love us. You know, instead of Iran maybe we should be focusing on talks with Brazil, or reducing the nuclear threat posed by Australia.
Well, everything that walks, slithers, or crawls in Australia is deadly anyhow, so they probably don’t need nukes! One of their freakin’ dinner-plate sized spiders would deter me…
What?!!? That is ridiculous. It’s meant to be a warning that we shouldn’t think about backing out of the deal now, as they chant “Death to America”. That isn’t Iran realizing we won something; that is the victor threatening us so as to not lose their gains.
