NEED A PART-TIME JOB? TRY THE SPACE FORCE
Regular readers here know my blogging routine. Everyweek I look through all my emails as I receive them. Those I think are "bloggable" I immediately save into a folder for that purpose, and then on Sunday afternoons and evenings (usually) I sort through them all and pick out the ones that I think are the most intriguing or deserving of a blog. I have no doubt whatsoever that my choices are probably more often than not "wrong" and that others would pick other articles to blog about. I try to get around this conundrum by having a weekly gathering of all the "near misses" or "honourable mentions" stories so that people can get an idea of the vast breadth of topics all of you share. This is all a "long way around Harvey's Barn" to say that this website is very much a community-driven website.
But every now and then I get a "weird" story that I dither back and forth, unable to make up my mind. That's the case with this article that was shared by T.S. (with our thanks). when the article came I scanned through it immediately, and even dithered over whether or not it was even blog worthy enough to put into the sorting folder. Something compelled me to save it, which I did. And I thought about it all week, finally making up my mind that not only was it bloggable, but was important enough to put into the finals folder, and even decided, just today in fact, that it was important enough to be this week's leading "high octane speculation". We'll get back to why I think so in a moment. First, here's the story: if you're thinking of a part-time job, you might want to consider the Space Force:
Now all of this may not seem like very much of a big deal. The commander of the space force is considering opening the service branch up not only to reservists but to actual "part time employees", even while there is talk of creating a Space Force equivalent of the National Guard:
For now, the initiative allowing such reservists to transfer to the Space Force is accepting only those who are willing to serve full time as Guardians on active duty. The service is hoping to eventually allow part-time Space Force service as an option to those in the Air Force Reserve.
But many of the basic details of a part-time model -- most notably, making sure newly transferred Guardians would get paid -- still need to be worked out, Saltzman said during an Air and Space Forces Association conference in the Washington, D.C., area. The effort also comes amid a national debate over a potential alternative, the creation of a Space National Guard manned by part-time troops.
...
Former President Donald Trump said last month during a National Guard Association of the United States, or NGAUS, conference in Michigan that he promised to create a Space National Guard if reelected to the White House in November. The suggestion was met with applause from the crowd.
Retired Maj. Gen. Francis McGinn, the NGAUS president, said in a statement following Trump's comments that he was "grateful" for the former president's pledge.
"NGAUS has maintained for several years that a Space National Guard is the ideal supplement for the U.S. Space Force," McGinn said. "We look forward to working with policymakers from both sides of the political aisle to accomplish this goal."
The Department of the Air Force and the White House have opposed the creation of a Space National Guard, claiming it would be too costly a measure,
(...aww, c'mon guys! What's a few more missing trillions of dollars?)
and instead pushed for the part-time Space Force model instead.
And there you have it. The more I thought about this article, the more disturbing it became, not the least because it features a big picture of General Saltzman in what is apparently some sort of new style uniform for the service, a uniform that looks oddly enough a bit 18th century, as if it was a component of Bonaparte's Imperial Guard. I worry when new service branches get nice new stylish uniforms. (Think the Wehrmacht's Panzerwaffe here.)
But the more I thought about the "Space National Guard," the more disturbed I became. Consider only the context in which this story appears: we've seen a rash of government-sponsored and carefully stage-managed "disclosure" over the past few years, and even some Congressional hearings, regarding these "disclosures" of UFOs, some interesting video footage, a few grainy pictures, and a "new" willingness on the part of the government to "come clean" about the topic via its "free" press organs like the New York Times and the Washington (Com)Post (to give it the nickname bestowed by the late talk show host Rush Limbaugh).
This is the context in which I think this news about the Space Force considering not only part-time employment, but also a national guard component. Typically, as we know, the National Guard constitutes a reserve of troops that can be called upon in an emergency, be that emergency a natural disaster (like an asteroid strike), or a national military emergency when (pardon me for being blunt) lots of cannon fodder are needed to fill out the ranks of troops in the line. Additionally, and this is quite a crucial point, the National Guard is typically organized on a state-by-state basis, and under the control of the state's governor as its commander in chief, unless commandeered by the federal government for some national emergency.
Consider an even wider context: as I've pointed out many times, the former Russian president and premier, Dmitri Medvedev - current deputy chairman of Russia's equivalent to the National Security Council - went on Russian television a few weeks prior to the Chelyabinsk meteor incident, and urged the world to create an international asteroid defense, adding that if Russia did not receive such international cooperation, it would just have to do it on its own. When pressed for how Russia would defend itself against asteroids, Medvedev coolly responded that it could use its thermonuclear missiles to destroy or deflect an asteroid, and if that did not work,, there were "other means". When queried about those "other means", Mr. Medvedev just smiled and offered no further details.
Now I have no doubt that a similar line of thinking is involved in these proposals for the US Space Force, in order to create a means of coordinating emergency responses to a space-based disaster.
But I have to wonder if we might not also be looking at the first steps in the implementation of the bizarre vision of science fiction author Robert Heinlein and his Starship Troopers novel: cannon fodder needed; sign up for the space force today, do your tour, receive new citizenship perks upon conclusion of your service (if you survive). It makes me wonder, in short, just what is "out there" that they might know and are not telling, but that they have concluded that they need a force pool to address. (Ringmakers of Saturn, anyone?)
And as for the part-time job aspects of it, that too has me wondering. Is the work load on the small service branch's mission remit already so overwhelming that more personnel has to be added to clean the restrooms, and empty the waste buckets? Or worse, are those "part-time" jobs more on the order of expert consultancies and contract work (which would be my guess). If so, then it implies some sort of "spike" in activity and data.
So I do not know about you, but this seemingly innocent little article has me thinking all sorts of speculative scenarios that may not be so innocent. And if you're lucky enough to be recruited into the Space Force, you can were a nice new stylish uniform like General Saltzman.
See you on the flip side...
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