There is no number of foreigners that is unacceptable to sacrifice for a middle class livelihood. Anti-cop because they can imagine a scenario where a cop inconveniences them. These principles don't apply to the Waffen SS because they can't imagine a soldier personally inconveniencing them and, of course, foreigners aren't really humans.
This whole myth that the military takes advantage of the poor through some kind of "poverty draft" is just absolute bullshit that contributes to the whitewashing of the military.
The fact is that the military is still largely comprised of "middle class" people, largely white, with POC still being a minority. White people still make up a majority of combat jobs, i.e. the infantry.
This image that poor people are joining as a means of social mobility is bullshit. The military struggles like hell to recruit people from poorer areas and it's getting to the point where the military largely recruits from those who have family that were in the military, or from those whose families weren't struggling to get by.
When I was a recruiter for this college's ROTC program in Southern California, the army was pouring money into trying to market becoming an army officer for Hispanic people. The army was literally willing to give a full ride upfront to college to Hispanic people and damn near nobody was going for it. That was decades ago and they're still doing the same marketing campaign with the same amount of results.
So, this myth that we can't hate on the troops because they had no other choice due to being poor is just absolute bullshit.
Good post, and here's some data to back up what you're saying.
Rich Man’s War, Poor Man’s Fight?: Socioeconomic representativeness in the modern military
79% of Army recruits reported having a family member that served. For 30%, it was a parent.
In terms of social class, Kane (2006) found that people who serve in the military come from more well-off neighborhoods than those who have not joined the military although the economic elite are underrepresented in armed service (Heritage foundation of all places did this study)
Importantly, it was historically the poor who fought in America's wars. But now it's the children of the once poor but now middle-class who largely fight in wars. They're treating the military like college or a trade.
Good post! Thanks for compiling this
Military recruitment standards are pretty much written with middle class white kids in mind. The crimes that will disqualify you are predominantly done by the poor, the tattoos that will DQ you are predominantly associated with black people, the drug policy is straight out of the Nixon campaign playbook, etc. Of course, there's a waiver for all of these if you need to get one, but then that hides discrimination behind the recruiters themselves who will push harder to get kids that look like themselves over the line due to implicit biases.
Military recruitment does still lie to white kids though, and that can't be fully discounted. If you grow up in a culture that tells you from cradle to grave in every waking moment that joining the military is an unqualified good, and then you are looking at the capitalist workforce and see only soul crushing jobs that don't do any good for anybody, then it's very easy to see why joining the imperialist violence doers is such an attractive option for anyone that hasn't been radicalized against imperialism (which is like 95% of America including half of all self-described leftists).
I would say save your sympathy for people who not only regret what they did but who are doing some kind of working or organizing to make up for it, and also that agitating for the left among the military is a waste of time compared to doing it among the currently politically disengaged.
Which makes sense. People join the military because they think they’re “Serving their country” and doing something good. Really poor people have no desire to do that since this country has only ever fucked them over.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. A lot of people really do join for selfish reasons and ‘survival,’ but it seems like a lot of people do not even think the benefits are worth it these days because of all the warmongering and you know, seeing homeless vets on the streets.
I dont believe that no matter how bad things are in america there are "a lot" of people that go to the military because the choice is "enlist or not survive(or struggle greaty for it)". Especially true the further back you go. The choice almost never is between army and starving. Its between army and a sucky to very sucky job (that will still allow you better living conditions than the people you will opress and help kill and emiserate while in the army.
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I think this is one of the pitfalls that the American Left has created for itself (eg "the right wants to ban abortion to get more desperate poors to die for them"). Also, the misreading of the situation of Vietnam that the reason there was such a powerful anti-war movement was because the petit-bourgeoisie's kids were dying along with the poor.
That's not to say middle income families don't have economic pressures, just that they aren't the archetypical "veteran" in our minds.
Haha my friend got his engineering degree paid for by the military before enlisting and now he gets to draft dodge because of an injury. Didn't know this was why he got his up front, hahahaha.