You can condemn the military and keep an anti-imperialist stance while still reaching out to veterans who are willing to listen and become sympathetic with the left and communism.
Not every single person is. But the majority of them are. I don’t refer to special forces or seals or stuff when I talk about this. I mean your regular lower enlisted Joe
Look, part of the reason peolle have such a problem with this is that you're saying the majority of soldiers are abjectly poor, but you aren't actually presenting non-anecdotal evidence.
If that's your case, and you clearly regret doing it and are organizing against the government, then good. But projecting your own motivations along with the fact that recruiters are lying assholes into an assessment of all soldiers inevitably comes off as apologia, and people are going to take it that way, even if it's not what you mean.
I’m saying the majority is working class. I’m using my own experiences from the military to try and educate others on what I saw personally and what I went through.
Working class is a large group, and many working class people are not living in misery. I'd say it's a stretch to assume most of the military are abjectly poor and that it drives them to join up.
It’s not the ruling class or bourgeoisie that are joining though. Yes not all the working class is living in misery, but those who are or may have no other options will join if they become convinced to for whatever reason.
It’s not the ruling class or bourgeoisie that are joining though.
Of course not, they're all officers if they do join.
This still doesn't mean anything. Yeah, some people who join the military do it because they believe it's their only option for a more comfortable life. A lot of much poorer people also don't join the military.
You have to understand why this kind of thing bothers people. It can easily come off as justifying or relativizing.
I’m just trying to have people understand that it’s more complicated than “I want to kill people” and “they know what they signed up for.”
To also understand that there can be comrades who come from the military, and not just right them off because of their past. If I was able to self criticize and change to the point of joining an actual communist party, then others can too. And we need troops on the left. They have seen the machinery of imperialism and are some of the best tools to help dismantle the machine. And hopefully prevent as many as we can from moving to the hard right.
[W]e approximated the recruits' household incomes by assigning each recruit the median household income of the census tract in which they lived. This approximates their parents' economic status.
"We assumed recruits had the median income for their area, and guess what, we found there weren't a lot of poor recruits!"
The average enlisted recruit in 2007 had a household income of $54,768. This is modestly above the national average of $50,428.
Even using methodology that virtually guarantees the conclusion they're seeking, they find a pretty minor difference between the figure they come up with for recruits and the figure they come up with for the nation as a whole. A family of 3-5 living on $54K doesn't look a whole lot different from one living on $50K. Neither is wealthy enough to put their kids through college without debt or guarantee their kid a lucrative job in a family business. Then there's the slippage from median incomes to average incomes. At best, that's sloppy; at worst, using the average when they list the actual incomes is designed to make those incomes as high as possible. Don't want to inadvertently highlight how precarious most people's finances are!
All in all, another stellar effort from the Heritage Foundation.
The report may have flaws (honestly, it's the Heritage Foundation so hardly surprising), but the fact remains that writing the whole military off as desperate and hungry is not only reductive, but incorrect.
Not to mention that talking about "class incentive" to join ignores all the extremely poor people that did not sign up to go murder even poorer people in the middle-east.
Step one of the "troops are redeemable" discourse should be to have everyone agree that what they did was wrong, not look for excuses.
The report is beyond flawed -- it's basically useless. We really don't have to hand anything to the Heritage Foundation.
That said, sure, there are plenty of people who didn't join the military for financial reasons, and sure, being poor and joining for lack of options doesn't conpletely absolve anyone of responsibility. But there are a lot of troops who joined for economic reasons, and that at least mitigates how blameworthy they are (especially when you consider how propagandized the military is and the fact that recruiters prey on children).
Step one of the “troops are redeemable” discourse should be to have everyone agree that what they did was wrong
Cops can quit at any time with no penalty; troops can't. And simply by virtue of living in a country where cops operate, cop recruits have a much better idea of what they're getting into. Very few cops join up as minors, too.
and sure, being poor and joining for lack of options doesn’t conpletely absolve anyone of responsibility. But there are a lot of troops who joined for economic reasons, and that at least mitigates how blameworthy they are
On the first point, we are agreed. On the second, it doesn't matter unless they regret it and want to work to overthrow the system they helped enforce.
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You can condemn the military and keep an anti-imperialist stance while still reaching out to veterans who are willing to listen and become sympathetic with the left and communism.
And that's an approach I agree with. However, let's not incorrectly paint the whole military as being made up of poor and desperate people.
Not every single person is. But the majority of them are. I don’t refer to special forces or seals or stuff when I talk about this. I mean your regular lower enlisted Joe
Look, part of the reason peolle have such a problem with this is that you're saying the majority of soldiers are abjectly poor, but you aren't actually presenting non-anecdotal evidence.
If that's your case, and you clearly regret doing it and are organizing against the government, then good. But projecting your own motivations along with the fact that recruiters are lying assholes into an assessment of all soldiers inevitably comes off as apologia, and people are going to take it that way, even if it's not what you mean.
I’m saying the majority is working class. I’m using my own experiences from the military to try and educate others on what I saw personally and what I went through.
Working class is a large group, and many working class people are not living in misery. I'd say it's a stretch to assume most of the military are abjectly poor and that it drives them to join up.
It’s not the ruling class or bourgeoisie that are joining though. Yes not all the working class is living in misery, but those who are or may have no other options will join if they become convinced to for whatever reason.
Of course not, they're all officers if they do join.
This still doesn't mean anything. Yeah, some people who join the military do it because they believe it's their only option for a more comfortable life. A lot of much poorer people also don't join the military.
You have to understand why this kind of thing bothers people. It can easily come off as justifying or relativizing.
I’m just trying to have people understand that it’s more complicated than “I want to kill people” and “they know what they signed up for.”
To also understand that there can be comrades who come from the military, and not just right them off because of their past. If I was able to self criticize and change to the point of joining an actual communist party, then others can too. And we need troops on the left. They have seen the machinery of imperialism and are some of the best tools to help dismantle the machine. And hopefully prevent as many as we can from moving to the hard right.
"We assumed recruits had the median income for their area, and guess what, we found there weren't a lot of poor recruits!"
Even using methodology that virtually guarantees the conclusion they're seeking, they find a pretty minor difference between the figure they come up with for recruits and the figure they come up with for the nation as a whole. A family of 3-5 living on $54K doesn't look a whole lot different from one living on $50K. Neither is wealthy enough to put their kids through college without debt or guarantee their kid a lucrative job in a family business. Then there's the slippage from median incomes to average incomes. At best, that's sloppy; at worst, using the average when they list the actual incomes is designed to make those incomes as high as possible. Don't want to inadvertently highlight how precarious most people's finances are!
All in all, another stellar effort from the Heritage Foundation.
The report may have flaws (honestly, it's the Heritage Foundation so hardly surprising), but the fact remains that writing the whole military off as desperate and hungry is not only reductive, but incorrect.
Not to mention that talking about "class incentive" to join ignores all the extremely poor people that did not sign up to go murder even poorer people in the middle-east.
Step one of the "troops are redeemable" discourse should be to have everyone agree that what they did was wrong, not look for excuses.
The report is beyond flawed -- it's basically useless. We really don't have to hand anything to the Heritage Foundation.
That said, sure, there are plenty of people who didn't join the military for financial reasons, and sure, being poor and joining for lack of options doesn't conpletely absolve anyone of responsibility. But there are a lot of troops who joined for economic reasons, and that at least mitigates how blameworthy they are (especially when you consider how propagandized the military is and the fact that recruiters prey on children).
I think everyone here is well past that step.
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Cops can quit at any time with no penalty; troops can't. And simply by virtue of living in a country where cops operate, cop recruits have a much better idea of what they're getting into. Very few cops join up as minors, too.
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On the first point, we are agreed. On the second, it doesn't matter unless they regret it and want to work to overthrow the system they helped enforce.
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