By Sandy | AuxBeacon News Contributor

[Editor’s Note: We received this in our inbox. Thank you for your contribution. To protect the Federal funding and their relationship with Congressional leaders, the CAP spends much of its time by covering up scandals and slandering anyone who stands against them. It is similar to communist rule in Russia or China. Free speech is prohibited and strictly enforced in the Civil Air Patrol.]

Here’s a message we received today, along with our reply to the writer:

Are you subscribed to the CAP-Talk list? If not, are you aware that they are talking about you? The discussion is about you posting letters to the editor that are unsigned. Let me know and if need be, I can forward their emails to you.

Thanks again,
(name withheld)

REPLY:

As to CAP-Talk, no, I haven’t seen any of it.

I did see a post by Brett Sasse, which was forwarded to me by someone else. It was lengthy, and almost funny.

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Like all CAP, CAP-Talk will not let us subscribe. The last time we tried, it read our e-mail address. The message we got back was that “News of the Force” was a “prohibited name.” But that’s typical of the censorship of that and of the CAP. If the readers and/or the owners of that medium don’t like what you write, they just ban you. And, they can do that. The e-mail host is privately-owned and operated — it’s not official CAP — and they have every right to do that.

It amazes me that the people in the CAP are always so worried about people who write to us and do not identify themselves. Given the history of the CAP, who, in their right mind, would do that? These people say things like, “Well, if this were true, those people should have no reason to keep their identities a secret.” What that translates to is: “We really wish we knew who was telling you this stuff so we can crucify them, ruin their reputations, and drum them out of the corps.”

The simple fact is, these people have a right to their opinions, but the people in the CAP don’t think so (see above reference to CAP-Talk as the case in point). In 99% of these cases, we don’t even know who these people are, but we are not going to censor anybody, like the CAP does. The letters to the editor are simply someone’s opinion — they are not written by us, we only provide the medium for their views to be expressed.

Numerous times, these letters and the information they have provided have caused the CAP to take action that has helped right a wrong, and several times have probably even saved the lives of some cadets.

And, NOT ONCE has anything that we have printed been proven to be false. In some cases, the information may have been slightly exaggerated, but the basic premise has always been true. Not one CAP member has ever offered any information on any of these cases to prove that the information we printed was false — instead we get things like, “Just how big is a Missouri-sized pot hole?”

The CAP leadership just continues to ignore the fact that CAP members do not give up their constitutional rights to free speech, freedom of expression, etc., when they join that organization. But in all of these cases, they have proven their desire and ability to squash any dissent.

Senator Tom Harkin once referred to the CAP whistleblowers as “disgruntled former members.” However, those same “disgruntled former members” (1) Once strongly supported the CAP themselves, until they were drummed out of the corps without any good reason — other than that somebody in power just didn’t like them, and (2) In all cases, those “disgruntled former members” were not “former members” until they tried to stand up for what was right.

By the way, Senator Tom Harkin reads News of the Force. So does each member of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the President and Vice President, the Secretary of State, numerous generals in the Pentagon, numerous service and Veterans’ groups and every international wire service you could think of, along with numerous major newspapers, including the Boston Globe. Our issues are read all over the world, including by the leaders of several foreign countries. Even several leaders at the CAP’s national headquarters read NOTF, every day.

You know, it’s really not our fault that certain CAP organizations, most notably the Missouri Wing, just keep stepping into the cow pies. If they were doing the right things, we’d be the least of their worries. We print many more good stories about the CAP than we do the bad ones. The bad ones are the only ones that get responses, though. Nobody ever writes and says, “Hey, great story about the CAP,” or even, “Thanks for the CAP story.”

But we do hear from the whiners — and those that whine the loudest are most often the ones we’ve caught (you should excuse the expression) with their pants down. History has shown, though, that when one of those very same whiners gets themselves thrown out of the CAP, the song changes. Once they’ve had their reputations ruined, and lost all of their so-called friends in the CAP, the attitude takes an abrupt U-turn.

We’ve never seen anyone get thrown out of the CAP for actually doing something wrong. They’ve been thrown out for standing up for what is right.

Unlike the members of the CAP, the CAP leaders cannot control us. That’s extremely frustrating for them, as so they take to the e-mail hosts and cry long and hard. But, that’s all they can do.

Will we keep doing the CAP stories? Yes. The good ones — and the bad ones. Because that’s how the news works. In most cases, the CAP wouldn’t get any national or international press at all, were it not for us.

And, you can forward this to CAP-Talk, if you wish.

The Staff at News of the Force