Transgender in the Military; Removal of all Members of Board of Visitors for Service Academies; and Umberto Eco.

In the attached document dated 7 Feb 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth pauses accession of transgender recruits, pauses elements of medically necessary transgender related healthcare, and begins review process to dismiss transgender service members all done under the banner of Hegseth's sophomoric understanding of "honor and respect". UGH!!! Read the Hegseth memo here:

gov.uscourts.dcd.276845.33.1.pdf

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My Alma Mater, The US Naval Academy, was targeted by Pres Trump again. First, he went after minority affinity groups, now it's "wokeness" whatever the hell that is, and the Board of Visitors.

Today, President Trump removed all the members of Boards of Visitors for our nations military service academies. Former President Biden removed some of the Board of Visitors board members during his time in office saying they were unqualified for their positions. Trump's order removes all of them with no replacements posted. This story can be found:

1. Trump says he ordered firing of military academies' Board of Visitors

2. Trump mass-fires military academies’ ‘boards of visitors’ in purge of ‘woke leftist ideologues’

3. Trump dismisses Air Force Academy Board of Visitors members | Military | gazette.com

4. Trump orders ‘immediate dismissal’ of Naval Academy Board of Visitors – Baltimore Sun

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In 1995 Umberto Eco (b. 1932 - d. 2016), an Italian Medievalist, wrote an essay entitled, Ur-Fascism, which means eternal fascism. He would know about this topic too. He grew up under El Duce, Benito Mussolini. He even admired El Duce as did most young men in Italy at the time though Eco later joined the resistance. Eco's Ur-Fascism lists fourteen things that can be used to identify the path of an authoritarian leader toward a syncretistic form of authoritarianism - Ur-Fascism. I'll list Eco's 14 items below, but you should take a few minutes to read his essay from 1995 for yourself. It's eye-opening.

1. The cult of tradition - "characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement." ~ Here

2. The rejection of modernism and its foundation in modernity

3. The cult of action for action's sake

4. Disagreement is treason

5. Fear of difference - "The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders."

   1. Cassandra's commentary: This is more than simply anti-immigrant. It's also anti-minority and claims to take the high road with an emphasis on being color/minority blind. If you have eyes to see, and ears to hear, then to say that one is color/minority blind denies our unique differences and the impact those differences have on us and them. Thus, to acknowledge and proclaim our differences is a revolutionary statement. Such thinking is the antithesis of fascism and Ur-fascism, and of the Trumptocracy too.

6. Appeal to a frustrated middle class or the Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”

7. Obsession with a plot

   1. Cassandra's commentary: There's an enemy around every corner., it's the Jewish space lasers, It's the immigrant, the transgender people, etc.

8. The enemy is both strong and weak

9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy

10. Contempt for the weak - "which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism"

11. Everybody is educated to become a hero

12. Machismo and weaponry - "both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality" to transgender people in the modern world. Here

13. Selective populism

14. ""Newspeak" – fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning" ~ from this article.

    1. Cassandra's commentary: Speaks as if talking to 3rd graders. Uses unchallenging words, syntax, and grammar.

Over the years, fascism, authoritarianism, autocracies, have been studied extensively.

1. 2003, Lawrence Britt, The 14 Characteristics of Fascism

Cassandra