Was I just stupid kid in the Midwest wrapped up in propaganda and a family history? How could I not fucking see what really was going on and what we do to the people of the countries we go to? Everything I wanted to be as a kid was based on fucking lies and the profits of the military industrial complex. What the fuck was the point of my deployments if not to oppress others? How can people fucking support these wars and invasions? In the name of protecting our freedoms while stripping away others? I fucking hate myself and wish I could take it away, but without it I wouldn’t be a communist and I wouldn’t have experience colonialism and imperialism first hand on the side of the oppressors. Fucking fuck.
Guns are cool. Teamwork is cool. doing manly shit is cool. The military knows this and knows teen boys are extremely insecure and the military offers a cure. That on top of 18 years of propaganda is not something any teenager should be expected to handle on their own.
Fuck the military and fuck the generals and fuck the military industrial complex and fuck America.
i am here by requesting a vets comm. you are not alone comrade.
A vets comm would be very interesting to recommend vets I come across to visit. I have been approached more than once by active USMC people on reddit chat and am working hard to improve my ability to convert them, places to recommend they visit would be good.
Well, we haven't had an embarrassing struggle session in a little while now, but I still don't know if Chapo is a place I'd ever recommend to people at this point.
I have never been embarrassed by the struggle sessions. I can't see any reason not to tell people about hexbear compared to reddit, twitter, facebook, discord or literally any other social media out there. Perfect? No. 100x better? Yes.
I feel they are going to need to be pretty far a long for it to not freak them out seeing pro AES posts and stuff like that, a lot of people need to work their way up to it via even more libby sites (yes even more libby)
We have pro AES posts on /r/socialism. The only one that doesn't get massive support is China, while DPRK is viewed as a meme.
I am unconvinced. I actually think the only thing missing is something lib enough to go alongside it. Chapo had all those things but what it also had going for it was Bernie and a significant interest in an american soft-left. This content was driven by a combination of interest but also just karma-points seeking behaviour, knowing it would be upvoted people that didn't necessarily have a direct interest in aoc or bernie still posted it for the pts.
Here, because nobody has a personal interest in them there's drastically less content about them, and if there is content about them it is suitably critical.
Everyone tolerated the things you're saying are too scary, so long as the other content they wanted was there. This is the reason reddit works. People tolerate occupying a site with literal nazis and people they hate because the content they want is there and not elsewhere.
Leftists should worry less about alienating with content that they think will scare baby-leftists and worry more about what content is needed that is actually attractive to them.
Yea I'd say that's a good observation, the old sub was more lib friendly because there was so much socdem stuff mixed in the with the further left stuff which helped slowly introduce people to better things.
I guess the question is do we really want to be that again for the sake of encouraging new members and helping people a long the pipe line? personally I'd say yes, I like hexbear as it is but i'd be willing to sacrifice my place to shit post with people of similar politics if it would have an actual meaningful impact in building a broader left community.
The problem is as much as it sucks :reddit-logo: actually worked much better for that as it was easy for people to see our content with links between sub reddits and stuff on new occasionally , out here we can do what we want but its a lot more difficult to grow.
Would be nice to have a place to post about US covert activities, either historical or current.
Oh it's very whack
They even tried to recruit at my fancy super smarties school
Only one kid fell for it and he was a Chud to begin with
Got exploded for his trouble though
Blood for the blood god I guess :s
Idk there's definitely all sorts of class & cultural signifiers that might influence someone's enlistment, but even then drawing upon child
soldierscadets seems real fucked up.Like, I know how desperate they are to get recruits
I just always found it funny that my supremely gay and
giftedrich high school still had those ghouls trying to convince us to get shot at after we found out there wasn't any real reason to be thereI feel really badly for the kids who didn't have many other opportunities and got suckered into dying for the Great Satan
Private Chudly was just an amusing anecdote in the rich tapestry that is my life and proof that sometimes, Chuds will put up and then get shut up
Uncritical support for Chuds following their ideology to an early death.
They were in my private high school when I was in my senior year and we lost the time of one of our classes to go hear their propaganda and take pamphlets home. Safe to say I skipped class that day, but one of my friends went to the little event and he told me he was considering signing up. I don't really remember if I told him it was a horrible idea, I wasn't really aware of the horrors of US imperialism then, but I definitely remember telling him to think twice about it. I have no clue if he ended up enlisting, his dad was a cop so I have a feeling he'd get some encouragement from his parents.
I was convinced I was gonna be a Navy SEAL or something until I realized I was a wimp and trans.
Oh but don’t worry, trans people are allowed in the military! That way everyone can help with imperialist adventurism.
getting your wedding drone striked by a femme enby is called progress sweetie 💅
Look how far we’ve come. A well organized militia to a well organize inclusive military.
:meow-hug: for what it’s worth, if you lacked information, you didn’t have freedom of choice, rather its like throwing some dices around :meow-tankie:
That’s cool Soviet though :cat-com: not 🔥🇷🇺. mutual empire hatred and all that.
You’re right. I just like the Crimson Flag better than burning others if that makes sense
That it does :sadness: building future is always more optimistic than destruction of the present
I’ve been trying to think of what a US hammer and sickle flag would look like lately. Something simple but still powerful
:cpusa: I think look pretty sweet tbh, sickle is not very relevant when peasants don’t exist. Steering wheels, cogs, buttons, keyboards are more likely to be associated with work :shrug-outta-hecks:
We have to remember where we came from. I like the idea of a star, hammer and sickle, with partly a cog and wheat around them.
Eh, it should associate with work for current workers, it’s always about the future, not the past. red flag is universal historical symbol of labor (well, ahem, usa), that’s the through line to history, symbols are for recognition of what you represent: workers tools show working class unity as it exists. :juche-WPK: adapted sickle for their peasants for example :GDR-emblem: as well
I love the GDR symbol. And you’re correct. It should be for the current times and future, I’m just a sucker for nostalgia. There’s plenty of room for creativity
I’m directionless and have no discipline - I basically need someone to tell me what to do and give me immediate feedback to have a purpose in life lol.
mood
There should unironically be a labour movement providing that to young people; an identity, a direction, a community, teaching discipline and responsibility and offering an ability to fight the good fight and do something for your community. Once they did that but today the remains of the labour movement has turned into feckless bureaucrats more interested in larping as an insurance company than in waging class struggle.
Same boat here. Naively joined after 9/11 and regretted it when the Bush admin started to reveal itself with the Iraq invasion. I never did any kind of action that I seriously regret while in, thankfully, though obviously I regret ever joining in the first place. I did at least manage to eventually get myself kicked out, so there's that. Also, like you, it shifted my views considerably (initially towards anti-war radlib), and so I'm not sure I'd be where I'm at now had that not happened.
I think it's more you weren't thinking, because you were a fucking child being brainwashed and manipulated
Honestly video games now have such a huge propaganda role. That’s why I play Red Orchestra 2 as exclusively the Soviets
fucked up how playing CoD for 5 hours a day as a 14 year old really does prime you to think how fun and cool it would be to die for western imperialism. but hey, the devs said the games aren't political :)
that's how they get you innit, tell you you'll be the big man, the hero who saves the day and saves the world. not you're going to be the generic grunt bad guy who spends most his time doing monotonous tasks over and over just to prove they can follow orders
I was a tanker so all I did was train for combat and did the same monotonous tasks everyday. Whether in post, in Africa, or Kuwait. Sure I didn’t get into combat but I was an active part of the cog of imperialism and I still am reconciling with that fact.
and now you aren't, and that's what matters far more. lot of people done a lot of things they're not proud of, but letting go, growing past, and making up for that where needs be is more than possible and far healthier than holding onto that guilt
I'm relieved that you didn't commit any war crimes, because just serving and being ashamed of it means you can wash yourself of it.
Kind of sad since the finale of the first CoD had you waving the Soviet flag over the Reichstag.
Rising Storm 2: Vietnam feels really good as the Vietnamese.
When you get "drafted" to the US side, you feel like you're being forced to invade homes and murder the people defending them. And when you get on the VC side, you feel like David killing Goliath.
I will leave the server if US/Aussie is the only side open. Same with the Fascists vs Soviets in RO2
mad respek
I still play it but always try to switch, and then when I'm playing US or Kangaroos it's kind of elucidating in a way. Very uncomfortable
Now I want to play Rising Storm and roleplay as a disillusioned soldier, calling out war crimes before fragging my officer
Do people still play that, for the most part? I really wanted to buy it a little while ago—I played the demo or whatever of the first one and I enjoyed how there were plenty of opportunities to stab Nazis with a bayonet, shoot them, etc.
Also, I get why people join the military—propaganda, material benefit, etc... the best penitence would be to speak out against and effectively resist U.S. imperialism at every opportunity.
There is still a dedicated player base. I started a few years ago. You can also get rising storm 2 and play as the Vietnamese. RO2 is a lot of fun and can be intense as fuck
It came out on EOS for free a while back and experienced a boost in pop, myself included
It's very important to make sure IL2 multi is entirely Soviet Dominated.
You were misled, bud. Living in the most advanced propaganda machine around will do that. Forgive yourself and try your best to help build a better world in what way you can :heart-sickle:
I wake up every day thinking the same thoughts. I've been out for going on 20 years and it still pains me.
A lot of people just straight up hate where they live, or how they live and just want to get the fuck out. Financial insecurity plays a massive role in your direction at that age. There is also a soceital expectation there to move on to something. Military is just the easiest answer for so many people. And I'd say general political knowledge, or lack of is incredibly common all throughout the country. People just don't know how truly evil this country is, and quite often believe the opposite of that. Been fed propaganda from the time of understanding words.
Military is a way out of great uncertainty in a lot of ways, the job force now is demoralizing as fuck. A ton of people have either no interest or no means to go to school. And the military just exploits the fuck out of folks who do want school.
I get why people do it, and really what matters is how you grew from it. If you didn't realize by 4 years how sick this system and country is then you're a lost cause. But there is at least a decent portion who resent it and see how bad shit is fucked up.
I certainly don't blame you, if you're here now you get it. I'd also imagine you let others you know how it really is when opportune. That shit changes other people's minds a lot. Being a cog in the machine gives you a bit more credibility when trying to make Americans minds, the military worship here is extreme.
:rat-salute:
It's not really your fault, same or similar happened to me. If I knew then what I know now I never would have joined, but I didn't know what I didn't know.
I never joined, but military ads seemed badass when I was 16. Lots and lots of money are spent to trick young men into joining.
I was thinking recently about how pop culture almost tricked my dumb ass into enlisting as a teenager. Looking at you, Mass Effect, HALO, etc. Mass Effect in particular, as much as I still like the first ME, the game (assuming paragon) basically nails the weird and idealized "warrior diplomat" archetype that I personally associate with the affectations of liberal militarism, and as a highschool liberal who thought that was basically as good as it could get, that had strong aspirational appeal.
