We are witnessing the divisive effects of the DEI agenda that is creating havoc at universities and colleges as well as in the military, says Matt Lohmeier.
“Securing America” show hosted by Frank Gaffney on Real America’s Voice network interviewed STARRS Chairman Lt. General Rod Bishop (USAF ret), who then introduced Lt Col Matt Lohmeier, formerly with the US Space Force, US Air Force and 2006 Air Force Academy graduate. He is a member of the STARRS Board of Advisors.
Watch:
Transcript
Frank Gaffney
Welcome to Securing America with me, Frank Gaffney. The program is a owners manual for protecting the country we love against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to the glory of God and His Kingdom. We have a very special show. I think if Ed Sullivan were still with us, he would call it a “Really Big Shew”, and it is going to be all of that because we have five extraordinarily impressive people who are going to be contributing to each of our segments.
We have a co-host who is a Lieutenant General, United States Air Force, retired. All of them have served in uniform. All of them are still in the fight, I’m very proud to say, in particular, trying to speak on behalf of men and women they served with and who are still in uniform, whose voices are generally not heard on matters of public policy, even those that are making a horrifically serious, indeed dangerous impact on the readiness the morale, the fighting trim, and the deterrent capability of our military. We actually have a still- serving member of the armed forces. We’ll be introducing her in a moment, but the rest are retired. We’re going to start with my co-host for this program, Lieutenant General Rod Bishop, United States Air Force, retired.
He is a man who, in his day, commanded the Third US Air Force, as well as was the Air Commander for Europe. Got a very formidable pedigree, and I want to thank him, especially for the work that he’s done post his time in uniform. Launching STARRS, which stands for Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services. It has helped spawn a new coalition, which he’s going to tell us about. I’m proud to be part of it and delighted to showcase it here on Securing America. General, we’re delighted to have you with us, sir. Over to you.
LTG Rod Bishop
Hey, Frank. Thanks so much for having us on and for hosting this and helping us organize it. I think one of the things I’m most proud of today, you mentioned this coalition. That coalition in less than a week is at 19 organizations from around our country who understand exactly what you just said, the harmful effects that this poisonous ideology that is infecting our military is happening.
I’m happy to have five In fact, all six of us, including you, are members of that coalition. All six, oh, by the way, are either members of our Board of Advisors at STARRS or a Board of Directors, except for Bibi, and I’m on her board. Our first guest, to cut to the chase….
Frank Gaffney
It’s close enough for government work, as they say. Before you do, sir, I do want you to mention the name of the new coalition.
LTG Rod Bishop
The new coalition is the Military Readiness and Merit Coalition. Again, 19 organizations, 10 of us had hoped to be at a meeting today at the DACODAI, the Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion. But the door was shut on us on Monday for attending in person. That meeting is going on right now. We filled up the room electronically. Nobody else can get in. So hopefully, the message is getting through.
So to our first guest, Frank, I’d like to introduce someone most of the audience probably already knows. That’s Matt Lohmeier. His biography–he’s too humble in it–he was the number one of 700 plus majors in US Space Force. That’s the talent that we are losing because Matt was fired from his command when he wrote a book called “Irresistible Revolution: A Marxist Goal of Conquest and the Unmaking of the American Military”. There’s nobody that knows more about this. He studied it for two years back to back at Air and War College and the School of Advanced Air and Space Sciences. Matt, yours is the only book I’ve ever read twice, I think, in my life. So over to you, sir.
LTC Matt Lohmeier
General Bishop, thanks for the introduction. Because it cut out just briefly when I was listening to you, I’m going to restate the title of book, “Irresistible Revolution”.
I want to change gears from my own past career to something I’ve experienced just this week that’s of interest and relevant to the things that we’re talking about today with the destruction, deliberate destruction I think, of merit, meritocracy and its impact on readiness.
Just this week, literally this week, for two different events, I’ve have been either uninvited or the event has been canceled as a consequence of viewpoint discrimination, in my view. One was the before mentioned DACODAI meeting that the Pentagon had invited folks out to attend, and the other was an event at a college campus.
I was invited as a guest speaker at University of San Diego this week. Incidentally, I was supposed to be speaking there right now, and funding was approved to bring me out. A group of College Republicans had invited me out. There’s a very small group of bullies on the campus who get to decide whether or not to trump decisions about what guest speakers come out. I was found in violation of their transgender and queer hate speech policies, which is totally bogus. And of course, they’re not obligated to provide any specific example as to why I’ve been uninvited.
But we’ve seen now as Americans, and the reason I bring it up, we’ve seen now as Americans the failure, collapse that comes as a consequence of ideology permeating the university campuses.
It’s been in the headlines for a week, and now we’re facing and have been, and some of us have been shouting about it for a couple of years now, the same indoctrination and ideology that for decades has infiltrated and subverted the university campuses.
It’s wreaking havoc in the military, whether or not people yet aware of the destructive influence that it is.
What I want to say up front is that this censorship, a deliberate silencing of a large majority of people in this country who love their country, is a harbinger of societal failure. It’s a harbinger of military failure and weakness.
I think that the problem with censorship as a whole in a free society is that it impoverishes the intellect of society and stifles a material substantive view of a large portion of the population so that decision makers, and I’ll speak specifically of the Defense Department now.
Decision-makers are left making foolish errors and foolish decisions based on foolish opinions of a relatively small group, foolish ideas of a relatively small group of people. We see it time and time again. This group is well aware of that, and that’s what we’re trying to wake up Americans to.
Frank Gaffney
Matt, could I just ask you, the question of ideology, you’ve literally written the book on Marxism inside our military. Is there any doubt in your mind that the diversity, equity, inclusion, the critical race theory, the identity, the pronouns, all of this stuff, is in fact part of a cultural Marxist attack on our armed forces?
You mentioned it’s wreaking havoc in the military. Is it diminishing its readiness? Is it endangering its deterrent capabilities as well as warfighting? Should it come to that?
LTC Matt Lohmeier
There is no doubt in my mind that, first off, critical race theory is rooted in Marxism, and therefore, the entirety of the diversity, equity, and inclusion industry and complex has an ideological bent that favors Marxism, that attacks America and its founding, and those with, at the moment, conservative values, regardless of the race, by the way.
I want to share a story with you just briefly. It’s that while I was in command, and this is several years ago, when I had begun to suspect the divisive impact and then began to witness it firsthand of the diversity and inclusion trainings that were being offered to our military service members, I had a married couple in my unit who were black, and the wife was believing the trainings, buying into them, and beginning to have resentment not only for her unit, her fellow unit members, and for the United States, and for the uniform that she wore, but for her own husband, who was skeptical of the trainings, who thought that they ran contrary to everything he had been trained to think and believe in the United States military.
So I saw division within a single home, to say nothing of the impacts on a unit or a broader society.
Frank Gaffney
General Bishop, we got to wrap with Matt Lohmier. Thank you for this incredibly important set of insights about both what you’re seeing in the larger society as well as, of course, inside the military and for identifying the toxic brew that is Marxism. We’ll be right back with more. Stay tuned, folks.
