Opinion: With his ignorance, Tommy Tuberville just gave poets an incredible compliment

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

By Tess Taylor (CNN)

This week, US Sen. Tommy Tuberville gave poets a wonderful compliment. It is imperative to root out “wokeness,” he claimed in an interview on Fox News Wednesday, adding that the world (and the US military) is falling apart because “we’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers over the loudspeaker.”
. . .
Here’s what poets know and Tuberville fears: that poems can reroute us, dig deep in us, help us turn over some stones in our own soul. Poetry helps us declare our inner lives. Perhaps that is what Tuberville finds most dangerous about it. Personally, I find that danger charged and thrilling. Let us all risk this danger far more often.
. . .
As I wrote this article, I called Brian Turner, a published poet who served in the second infantry division in Iraq from 2003 to 2004 to ask him what he thought about Tuberville’s comments. Beyond being full of “ignorance” Turner told me, he thought Tuberville’s was a comment “borne of a fear of humanity or tenderness.” He’s “using it as a wedge, but he has no idea what it’s like to be a service member (emphasis added),” Turner said.
. . .
“Tuberville thinks that poetry is a weakness, but it’s actually a strength,” he said. “Knowing our feelings, knowing that we care for people, knowing that we care about the world is fundamental to knowing what we want to do with our lives, what we want to protect with them.”

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I don't know what he was like as a coach, but he makes one lousy senator. I'm glad he wasn't a senator when I served in the Air Force. Not surprisingly the same thing can be said about many of the Repug senators.

BTW, songs are just poems set to music, yet I doubt you'll hear him advocate banning Martina McBride's anthem, "Independence Day," from the military playlist.

[Captain Zero]

1. The side with the poets always wins

In the end.

[Takket]

2. i think Senators kneecapping the military's ability to maintain a chain of command

is a much bigger threat than poetry.

[mopinko]

3. r military bands woke now, too?

[pwb]

4. Journalist need to let the freaks like Tuberville walk on by the mic's.

Out of 100 Senators who wants to hear what this guy thinks about anything?

[DFW]

5. One possible poet's comment:

There once was a Senator Tommy
Who liked to eats grits and salami
But his motives were base
And it soon was the case
He was urged to go home to his Mommy.

[JHB]

6. Never lose sight that part of this is replaying the McConnell SCOTUS strategy:

Keeping the positions unfilled so that they can be filled by Republican-appointed people. Ones more inclined to let the military be an active tool for their fascist ends.

Sure, he's grandstanding about abortion and "woke"ness, but it's not just about those.

[Wounded Bear]

7. Indeed! nt

[Kid Berwyn]

8. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. loved poetry.

https://allpoetry.com/General-George-S-Patton-Jnr

Through a Glass Darkly,

Perhaps I stabbed our Savior
In His sacred helpless side.
Yet I've called His name in blessing
When in after times I died.

Through the travail of the ages
Midst the pomp and toil of war
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.

I have sinned and I have suffered
Played the hero and the knave
Fought for belly, shame or country
And for each have found a grave.

So as through a glass and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names — but always me.

So forever in the future
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter
But to die again once more.