Head of MN National Guard-BLM a Humanitarian Statement
KSTP, 5 Eyewitness News, interviews the Minnesota National Guard Commander. (KSTP)
The head of the Minnesota National Guard said that he felt connected to George Floyd. This is based on what the Minnesota National Guard was asked to do in relation to the protests and riots. He explains the bit about Soldiers taking a knee. They were not making a political statement. Instead, they were recognizing BLM as a humanitarian statement.
From 5 Eyewitness News:
The man in charge of leading the Minnesota National Guard says his troops will forever be connected to the Black Lives Matter movement and will now consider the ongoing peaceful protests a humanitarian issue, not a political one.
Maj. Gen. Jon Jensen made the remarks during his first sit-down interview since the guard was called on to help calm one of the most chaotic stretches in Minnesota’s history.
“I believe I’m connected to George Floyd because of what my organization was asked to do. And as a result, I’m now partially responsible for the changes that we are going to make in Minnesota and in the country,” Jensen said during a wide-ranging interview with 5 INVESTIGATES.
The activation of the Minnesota National Guard on May 28 started with just a few hundred troops to support local law enforcement. But it turned into a full mobilization as the violence and unrest escalated in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
The article by 5 Eyewitness News, also addresses other issues that the National Guard faced when they were first mobilized. Thanks to Mason for this link.
Category: National Guard
Next he will be washing BLM’s feet and shining their non-work boots.
America’s always been
A place that judge my skin
And racism is real as fuck
Ain’t no way to play that off
And in the eyes of the law
Black skin has always stood for poor
This is basic shit
They know who they fucking with
This shit is ugly to the core
When it comes to the poor
No lives matter
~ No Lives Matter by Body Count (2017)
A lamb leading soldiers.
Just how go you think it will turn out?
Lamb chops, perhaps?
“…a humanitarian statement….” “Hell, might as well have us turn around and bend over.” Jamie from surrender scene, The Outlaw Josey Wales.
Yeah, get on your knees and put your whole unit at risk.
Assclown.
Time and a place for everything, but on duty, in uniform, was very fucking not it.
If he felt connected to floyd, then what about Hitler. They both were criminals and POS.!!!!!!
Grandstanding Clown.
I wonder if he will authorize a George Floyd Ribbon.
Curious as to how many felons he has in the ranks…
Man, you guys get angry at everything… this sounds like a smart call. It’s in Minnesota, where Floyd was killed and some of the worst rioting happened, and “Black Lives Matter” is a humanitarian statement, regardless of what happens in protests, riots, etc.
They de-escalated the situation, and per the article, played a role to support peaceful protests. If making a statement about BLM being a humanitarian statement helps keep the peace and thus accomplish the mission, I don’t see the issue.
“Peaceful protests…”
You don’t even see the irony as the cities are looted and burned.
Per the article, emphasis mine:
They essentially joined the protest by taking a knee. They are not there to take sides or take part in the protest. And the good General is essentially making political statements in uniform. I understand his intentions and his heart is in the right place. But he’s a flag officer and should know better.
BLM is not a civil rights movement. It may have started that way. It is now a political organization.
I still think it comes down to the mission – plenty of police departments around the country have come to the realization that taking a knee and/or marching with those protesting has been far more effective than tear-gas and violence. If the mission is to protect the community, isn’t getting violent protests to give way to peaceful ones a successful tactic?
It seems to me he’s fulfilling his mission. If that bleeds over into politics, so be it – the mission comes first, and when you can’t separate the two, which is more important?
Yeah, first they take a knee with ’em, then they get to watch as their police station peaceably burns.
Who was it yesterday claiming no senior officers swung liberal?
The “good general” is free to make any political statements he wants on his own time and dime. However, DoD policy prohibits him – or anyone else in the military, for that matter – from making political statements or endorsements while in uniform.
He was probably working in a state capacity, so it would be up to the state of Minnesota to discipline him under the MN SCMJ for what is a pretty clear case of a violation of Article 92. Not holding my breath, but that’s what should happen.
But it would IMO be quite appropriate if DoD decided to withdraw Federal recognition of his commission due to the incident, citing his demonstrated inability to follow DoD policies.
Why is saying ‘black lives matter’ political? Does that sentiment explicitly support a single political party? Is saying ‘all lives matter’ also political? Or to take a different angle, if a general said he ‘wants American to be great’, is that political, given the similarity to POTUS’s slogan? Or is it just an understandable sentiment?
I’m inclined to give people some latitude here when it’s not overt political speech. Nothing was said about one party, or candidate, over another. And the commander’s actions helped accomplish his mission.
I don’t think we want to say that if one side can interpret something as political, that’s grounds for an Article 92.
blm and antifa have replaced the KKK as the new arm of the democratic party.
There’s not much room for “interpretation” when the MN AG (1) expresses solidarity with BLM and (2) has his troops perform an action identified with the movement. That’s a flat-out endorsement of a movement that is highly political, and whose leaders advocate political objectives that are hugely anti-democracy and anti-American (see FuzeVT’s comment below).
IMO, the general’s stated reasons are, to be blunt, suspect. They seem more like after-the-fact justification that someone suggested to him (or that he came up with himself) when he realized he’d stepped over the line.
He was also nominated May 26th (Floyd’s death was May 25th) by Trump to be the next three-star Director of the Army National Guard at the NGB.
Don’t think there’s been any confirmation hearings. Trump can easily withdraw the nomination if he feels the general crossed that line.
My take is that while he’s turned this into a “hey, look at me and how awesome I am” that he’s trying to be politic about his role. Once he gets in front of the Senate the Democrats will grill him about every little thing they see wrong in deploying the NG to assist local authorities with their violent insurrections.
The NG and the Reserves always seem to get a pass when bringing up their opinions (political and otherwise) in uniform.
Bullshit.
Deescalation? By putting your people at risk. This isn’t Kent State, nobody was going to use any force, let alone deadly force, unless absolutely necessary.
The PROTESTORS were the ones who needed to deescalate themselves. The NG was there to protect lives and property, nothing more.
And certainly not to make a political statement or show how fucking “woke” they are.
When people are mad, they want someone to listen. Show solidarity. Nobody said deadly force was on the table, but it seems that the rioting and looting has greatly diminished… in part because of actions like this. That seems like a win, with the only cost being the feelings of some ‘snowflakes’ on the right, in my opinion.
To be clear, even if he didn’t mean a single word of it, it helped accomplish the mission. When you can speak a few words that should be largely uncontroversial (black lives do matter, right?) and diffuse a lot of anger and riots, that seems like a win.
To be clear, you are becoming an apologist for BLM, a racist hate America subversive organization. What’s next your defense of Antifa? All you progs just keep moving farther left.
Oh god, there’s always so much to unpack in your comments. I must’ve missed where BLM (the movement) listed ‘hate America’ and ‘be a subversive organization’ on their list of demands. And second, come on now, I think even you can say this: black lives matter. See? No capitalization. No endorsing of the movement. Just a simple statement. I can also say ‘blue lives matter’. Or even ‘the lives of whiny conspiracy theorists on TAH matter’. It ain’t that hard.
And if you’re trying to reduce tensions, sometimes admitting there is a point of understanding is better than thumping your chest and rolling out the ol’ tear gas. Mission accomplished, so to speak.
Some of their stated goals are, to be kind, anti-American.
When their leadership embraces Marxist principles, hey, if the shoe fits, lace that bitch up and wear it!
I was wondering if this would come up in the comments. YES, the leadership of BLM have had Marxist training. That, by itself, totally eliminates ANY credibility with me.
Their founders describe themselves as “trained Marxists”. https://youtu.be/HgEUbSzOTZ8?t=53
Here she is specifically making the BLM organization political and targeted at Trump. https://twitter.com/TheLeadCNN/status/1274076999192018945
Saying “Black lives matter” is a self-evident truth. Saying “all lives matter” is equally obvious, but if you say that you’re shouted down as a racist.
BLM is very clearly a violent insurrectionist movement. They are a terrorist organization masquerading as a civil rights organization.
Here are some BLM folks showing how peaceful they are. https://streamable.com/clktum
Notice how none of the males (I can’t call them men) don’t help the shot woman? Instead they take out their phones to record it.
Notice also how many BLM t-shirts are standing around?
Now, when the cops show up, what do these civil rights fighters do?
https://streamable.com/lrm1km
Naturally they harass the white cops into leaving, because they are racists and bigots.
Black lives matter, except for HER black life.
It is -vital- to the Republic that the Armed forces, most especially the Officers, STFU on politics.
And BLM is vey, very political, being about political change. Right/left/weird/so-what.
We can address -violent- politics. That is well in “mission”. But spoken word? STFU.
Does. Not. Matter. What. Kind.
-prohibited-
Vote and STFU is the whole of it. Leave politics to civilians.
No, they don’t get to decide the “good” exceptions.
STFU and vote. That is -it-
Else it ends badly, because you ain’t seen intimidation like a Mech Infantry Battalion in full gear parked outside an “approved” speech.
Or a “disapproved” one.
No
No
No
All of these people who want to associate with BLM are unlikely to know anything about the organization.
Does he know he thrown in with disrupting the nuclear family?
“We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”
Does he know that, for some reason, saying black lives matter means throwing off is accursed cis-normative privilege?
“We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.”
Does he know they use words typically associated with communist movements?
“We practice empathy. We engage *comrades* with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.”
I don’t even know what this means. . .
“We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.”
So they don’t want mothers to have to work AS WELL as protest all day? Personally, I believe the best place for mothers is raising children, but I understand there are a lot of single mothers out there that have to work. That being said, protesting is a choice. If that mother isn’t at the protest because she is working to provide for her children, the protest will go on fine without her. Of course, in most lib-run cities and states that single mother probably can’t work because of shut downs anyway.
Ok, I’m done.
You left out the part where they avow allegiance to Marxism aka communism.
Troops in uniform participating in political endorsement, speech or activities. I’m fairly certain there is an instruction or 2 that covers this.
Commanders endorsing political activity by members in uniform, while he is also in uniform, is colossally stupid and demonstrates a lack of foresight that is staggering. Did he get his stars out of a cracker jack box?
It’s like everyone is losing their minds all at once. What the hell is wrong with people?
Almost. Adjutant Generals are political appointees of the Governor. I briefly worked for a California ARNG O-6 in AFG who was later appointed the AG by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Colonel went from wearing Eagles to Two Stars immediately upon executing his oath of office. As Tip O’Neill said “all politics is local.”
I wonder what his PT score is?
Totally on profile.
kneeling is surrender.