“The last of the 14 Lewis and Clark-class cargo ships that General Dynamics NASSCO is building in San Diego will be named after Cesar Chavez, the late civil rights and labor leader. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus will visit NASSCO on Tuesday afternoon to make the formal announcement. Some members of the Chavez family are expected to be in attendance, says NASSCO, which recently laid the keel of the ship.”http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/may/16/navy-ship-be-named-after-cesar-chavez/
My opposition to this is definitely not racial. Its not about not wanting to honor a person that some consider a civil rights leader and a union activist.
Its about not naming a naval vessel after a controversial figure. What if an extremely conservative President is elected and he wants to name a ship after David Duke?
Sounds extreme but we're opening up the door with nonsense like this. Time to set some kind of limit on this. Unless the person was killed in combat then he must be dead for at least 100 years before he can be honored this way.
Something has to give on this stupidity!
But whats worse is that this smacks of using the Navy in an overtly political way.
How can I say that you ask? Because the President's support among Hispanics is ebbing. He's delivered a speech to them and received no bounce in his support. Am I off the mark when I suspect that this is a bone tossed to a valued constituency?
Of all the services, it seems to me that over the last couple of years the Navy is the most "progressive", and I think Mabus is behind most or all of it. Heck, last week I read that Navy chaplains will be instructed on how to perform gay wedding ceremonies (only in those states where gay marriage is legal, and a chaplain does not HAVE to perform it if he/she does not want to). The abuse of using the US military as a social lab continues....
ReplyDeletei think the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has a place in the roll of shame too.
ReplyDeletethink about this. its embarrassing to say but the former CJCS General Peter Pace was Rummy whipping boy. it continues and the Dept of Defense in general and the Dept of the Navy in particular sits up and begs for more without defending core values that the individual services push so hard.
its a downright shame.
oh and you're absolutely right. they're using our Dept of the Navy as a social lab and not one conservative is calling them on it.
Eh seems like a non issue
ReplyDeleteit might seem that way but i was first pissed off about this when George jr named a ship after his daddy.
ReplyDeletethen we had Murtha...Jimmy Carter...now this. its all nonsense.
i'd rather we follow the German tradition and just go by numbers.
The class was supposed to be named for Explorers, not political activists!
ReplyDeleteI guess it was too hard to find a Navy or Marine Corps hero who paid the ultimate sacrifice over the last ten years! Much better to play politics.
ReplyDeleteGeorge H.W. Bush at least was named after a guy who was a naval aviator during WWII and Commander In Chief during the Gulf War. Hardly as bad as merely serving on a sub as Carter did. Murtha is a joke. I'd rather they stopped naming carriers after politicians though. I'd have preferred another Saratoga or Midway over George H.W.Bush.
ReplyDelete