Greed and selfishness for what? I don’t understand how hard it is for people on this site to be slightly empathetic with someone who thinks that their only choice is to enlist because it will improve their lives. You all take the humanity out of the troop individually by generalizing them under a blanket category of baby killers.
My platoon we had 4 guys getting citizenships, another joined from Oakland to avoid gangs, farmers from the Midwest who can’t go to college, and normal people who all hated being there but it was a job and it paid bills and got some people off their feet.
Yes military bad. Imperialism terrible. But there’s no reason in throwing the idea of getting troops or former troops sympathetic with leftist movements. Otherwise they are going to go to the reactionaries and fascist. As if the left doesn’t need people trained in and for combat for whenever an actual class war or revolution happens.
I was told it’s very unlikely I would ever deploy and that I would stay stateside. 3 months after basic I was on a plane to the Horn of Africa and 9 months after that deployment I got sent to kuwait.
I had no idea what I was going to do or get involved in, because if recruiters did tell you what it was actually like then no one would join. The big joke when you are in the military is that “my recruiter lied to me”
Not every job is literally a boots on the ground carrying a gun and patrolling the streets. There are plenty of medical, administrative, mechanical, computer, etc jobs that people join to do to get experience outside of normally going to college. Yeah paying the bills is exactly what it does for some people and it’s why they stay in. And I’ll argue my two soldiers from the Philippines and the other from Haiti were potentially in danger.
I’m an anti imperialist. Former troop. I understand my entire life is only as easy as it is to the extent that it is built off the backs of the global south. And that argument doesn’t just involve troops but Americans especially at large. They don’t see what happens in these countries where colonialism still holds and imperialism reigns. They just see coffee beans on a shelf or gas at the pump without thinking as to how it got there.
You don’t need to waste your breath on veterans or troops that could possibly be comrades. Just let them go on straight to the arms of reactionaries if there is no hope in educating them. That only makes the job of revolutionaries harder in the long run. I’ve personally talked to veterans in the VA who are interested in communism after I explain my views, even Vietnam veterans.
You didn’t become the perfect cut out of Lenin after reading a book or doing an emotionally driven critique of a veterans point of view on a social site. What should we realistically do with veterans then? Alienate them increasingly by refusing to do anything with them? P
that argument doesn’t just involve troops but Americans especially at large.
I think that’s part of the moralizing and grandstanding you’re running into here. Multiple people jumping onto soapboxes to try and absolve some of the guilt they feel.
We’re not on reddit and I think folks forget that sometimes. Of all the people here, I feel a former troop who has since seen the light probably has some of the clearest understanding for just how fucking evil American imperialism truly is at its core.
You would think so comrade. I’ve been around the world and I just try to use my experiences to help educate others. I try to bring veterans towards communism. I explain it’s because of my military experience that I became a communist. It’s not impossible.
It truly is not impossible. If anything, I’m surprised there aren’t more leftist veterans. Likely why there’s so much chud propaganda pointed at them, to be honest. You’ve seen how the sausage gets made.
You’re fighting a good fight. I think the shock for other leftist folks who deprogram themselves from American Jingoism can be harsh enough that anything which introduces further complexity can be met with strong resistance. Us leftists also love to soapbox, which doesn’t always help things.
I was almost snagged by a recruiter right out of high school. Those fuckers are relentless and they are predatory. I had some medical issues that disqualified me and at the time I was devastated. Now I realize I dodged a bullet.
You’re not viewing things from a materialist perspective if you are letting your emotions of a certain even cloud your judgement in the conditions that lead to someone to join.
What responsibility do they bear then if they did not know better at the time of enlisting?
And I’m not defending murdering foreigners for money so gtfo. No where have I been defending the slaughter of innocents.
I don’t think anyone is arguing with you on that, friend.
It’s late so my reading comprehension might be off, but it seems like you’re making a lot of arguments to opinions different than what Redarmor has written.
I was talking in general, you weren’t the only person harping on him. To be fair, that is effectively my takeaway from a lot of what you’ve written in this specific conversation. You’ve had other good takes outside of this thread, so we clearly just diverge on this.
Don’t remember if the up their own ass comment was about something you posted. I remember what I was responding to being pointlessly combative for no reason. I get grumpy when I see folks talking past each other.
My interpretation of RedArmor’s posts is that leftists should not blame troops for joining up because they get some material benefit for their “work”
Huh. That’s a completely different takeaway than I got. You might want to consider specifically asking them next time if that’s what they’re communicating. Again, I might have missed that in there.
Why else stress the incentives, unfortunate backgrounds and lack of access to jobs or collage? Why would that matter?
All of those incentives are the bait that gets dangled in front of a kid who has already been steeped in imperialist propaganda since birth. Propaganda that downplays and lies about what the military actually does. Background matters because most rich kids go straight to college. Enlisting is presented as another option if your parents can’t or won’t pay for it.
It explains why a stupid fucking kid might make a deal with the devil. It does not absolve them for anything they might do after that. Not everyone enlists and it’s good most don’t. Most Americans don’t even understand what imperialism is, including those who enlist.
If we want to dismantle the imperialist machine, it helps to understand how it pulls in more bodies.
I admit that my articulation can be strung out a bit because there are a lot of points to bring up regarding this topic. Plus I’ve been getting Harped on for the last day about this and it gets exhausting at a point.
Regardless, in hindsight, I think it was a stupid thing for me to try and argue. It is obviously true that veterans should be welcome on the left and that we should understand the material conditions that effect people’s decisions to enlist without making personal responsibility arguments in the same way we don’t treat criminality or drug abuse as an issue of personal responsibility.
This is the takeaway I am trying to get people to understand. That’s it’s a complicated issue that is larger than “I want to kill people” for many who enlist.
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That is not at all what I am saying.
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Greed and selfishness for what? I don’t understand how hard it is for people on this site to be slightly empathetic with someone who thinks that their only choice is to enlist because it will improve their lives. You all take the humanity out of the troop individually by generalizing them under a blanket category of baby killers.
My platoon we had 4 guys getting citizenships, another joined from Oakland to avoid gangs, farmers from the Midwest who can’t go to college, and normal people who all hated being there but it was a job and it paid bills and got some people off their feet.
Yes military bad. Imperialism terrible. But there’s no reason in throwing the idea of getting troops or former troops sympathetic with leftist movements. Otherwise they are going to go to the reactionaries and fascist. As if the left doesn’t need people trained in and for combat for whenever an actual class war or revolution happens.
I don’t get the knee-jerk response either. Recruiters are not fucking honest about what they’re signing you up for when they drag kids in.
If someone knew what the beast was when they went in, that’s one thing, but almost everyone who enlists does so as a kid.
I was told it’s very unlikely I would ever deploy and that I would stay stateside. 3 months after basic I was on a plane to the Horn of Africa and 9 months after that deployment I got sent to kuwait.
I had no idea what I was going to do or get involved in, because if recruiters did tell you what it was actually like then no one would join. The big joke when you are in the military is that “my recruiter lied to me”
:10000-com:%
Also goddamn, that is horrible. I’m sorry you went through that.
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Not every job is literally a boots on the ground carrying a gun and patrolling the streets. There are plenty of medical, administrative, mechanical, computer, etc jobs that people join to do to get experience outside of normally going to college. Yeah paying the bills is exactly what it does for some people and it’s why they stay in. And I’ll argue my two soldiers from the Philippines and the other from Haiti were potentially in danger.
I’m an anti imperialist. Former troop. I understand my entire life is only as easy as it is to the extent that it is built off the backs of the global south. And that argument doesn’t just involve troops but Americans especially at large. They don’t see what happens in these countries where colonialism still holds and imperialism reigns. They just see coffee beans on a shelf or gas at the pump without thinking as to how it got there.
You don’t need to waste your breath on veterans or troops that could possibly be comrades. Just let them go on straight to the arms of reactionaries if there is no hope in educating them. That only makes the job of revolutionaries harder in the long run. I’ve personally talked to veterans in the VA who are interested in communism after I explain my views, even Vietnam veterans.
You didn’t become the perfect cut out of Lenin after reading a book or doing an emotionally driven critique of a veterans point of view on a social site. What should we realistically do with veterans then? Alienate them increasingly by refusing to do anything with them? P
I think that’s part of the moralizing and grandstanding you’re running into here. Multiple people jumping onto soapboxes to try and absolve some of the guilt they feel.
We’re not on reddit and I think folks forget that sometimes. Of all the people here, I feel a former troop who has since seen the light probably has some of the clearest understanding for just how fucking evil American imperialism truly is at its core.
You would think so comrade. I’ve been around the world and I just try to use my experiences to help educate others. I try to bring veterans towards communism. I explain it’s because of my military experience that I became a communist. It’s not impossible.
It truly is not impossible. If anything, I’m surprised there aren’t more leftist veterans. Likely why there’s so much chud propaganda pointed at them, to be honest. You’ve seen how the sausage gets made.
You’re fighting a good fight. I think the shock for other leftist folks who deprogram themselves from American Jingoism can be harsh enough that anything which introduces further complexity can be met with strong resistance. Us leftists also love to soapbox, which doesn’t always help things.
I was almost snagged by a recruiter right out of high school. Those fuckers are relentless and they are predatory. I had some medical issues that disqualified me and at the time I was devastated. Now I realize I dodged a bullet.
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You’re not viewing things from a materialist perspective if you are letting your emotions of a certain even cloud your judgement in the conditions that lead to someone to join.
What responsibility do they bear then if they did not know better at the time of enlisting?
And I’m not defending murdering foreigners for money so gtfo. No where have I been defending the slaughter of innocents.
I don’t think anyone is arguing with you on that, friend.
It’s late so my reading comprehension might be off, but it seems like you’re making a lot of arguments to opinions different than what Redarmor has written.
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I was talking in general, you weren’t the only person harping on him. To be fair, that is effectively my takeaway from a lot of what you’ve written in this specific conversation. You’ve had other good takes outside of this thread, so we clearly just diverge on this.
Don’t remember if the up their own ass comment was about something you posted. I remember what I was responding to being pointlessly combative for no reason. I get grumpy when I see folks talking past each other.
Huh. That’s a completely different takeaway than I got. You might want to consider specifically asking them next time if that’s what they’re communicating. Again, I might have missed that in there.
All of those incentives are the bait that gets dangled in front of a kid who has already been steeped in imperialist propaganda since birth. Propaganda that downplays and lies about what the military actually does. Background matters because most rich kids go straight to college. Enlisting is presented as another option if your parents can’t or won’t pay for it.
It explains why a stupid fucking kid might make a deal with the devil. It does not absolve them for anything they might do after that. Not everyone enlists and it’s good most don’t. Most Americans don’t even understand what imperialism is, including those who enlist.
If we want to dismantle the imperialist machine, it helps to understand how it pulls in more bodies.
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I admit that my articulation can be strung out a bit because there are a lot of points to bring up regarding this topic. Plus I’ve been getting Harped on for the last day about this and it gets exhausting at a point.
This is the takeaway I am trying to get people to understand. That’s it’s a complicated issue that is larger than “I want to kill people” for many who enlist.