No, I still won’t watch streams, this guy is a great poster though
https://twitter.com/badempanada/status/1657263485397483524?s=46&t=DBqOmL5V_w7cid09gQz_FQ
No, I still won’t watch streams, this guy is a great poster though
https://twitter.com/badempanada/status/1657263485397483524?s=46&t=DBqOmL5V_w7cid09gQz_FQ
Disclaimer: I dont think unrepetant military hogs are worth saving.
Yeah I personally cant hang around here when military comes up. My close friend was in Afghanistan and literally never saw a thing, they just walked around and stayed at forts. He now is a single father with two kids with autism. He's also throughly and unmovably a socialist. We grew up poor, his father was murdered due to gang activity and his mom was selling drugs up until very recently, she's very mentally unstable.
But he should be on the street because some lefty who grew up in the whitest, most safest, lacrosse-team havingest area read a book once.
I get such a major disconnect because it seems like some people don't understand what growing up in some places is like. Selling drugs is not a better alternative to joining the military, being in gangs and that life is scary but also fucking pathetic and miserable. You're a detriment to your family and only incur more trauma to everyone you know.
Like think about it too, somehow we can propagandize a good portion of the nation to believe in capitalist class dynamics, the duopoly and a lot of the other idiotic hog shit but tricking people to fight bad guy is something you have to somehow be above. But I mean why not? I, rich white kid with options knew better, why can't the rest of society?
For a bunch of people who try to explain things materially the veteran criticism always stinks of the inability to put oneself in anothers shoes.
I grew up poor too and just cause you're poor doesn't mean you're not a wannabe cop.
Not everyone is going to come the same conclusions as you, ive also met a lot of people who say theyre poor but grew up in a rich area so they still got the benefits of a good public school and a healthy community, none of this is black and white
I dont get how you can grow up with other poor people, know them and judge their decisions all the while being knowledgable of capitalist critique. It makes me suspicious.
But you certainly made it so. Selling drugs, being in a gang, etc. I certainly knew some time drug dealers. Props to them for not murdering people...and like on that logic, if that's your logic, killing people for the state or killing people for yourself. And realistically, the way they sell it, killing people for the state is killing people for yourself. I don't see how one is superior to the other except that not everyone dealing drugs is trying to kill someone but everyone signing up for the military is trying to help kill people.
Your suspicion makes me entirely skeptical. Poor people signing up to kill poor people should bring major shame. And while certainly there should be forgiveness since being a Marxist is undoubtedly a death wish, if you genuinely wish to bring about the revolution. I don't think you get there being all woe is me about what the choice that is made by fellow poor people. It was ultimately a choice to enlist.
The military doesnt sell it as killing people. Its defending your country and vague romanticized notions. This is the disconnect I get, can you really not take off the lefty lens for just a second? Most people don't have that kind of analysis even as adults.
I smell bs please stop talking to me
People are really constantly going, "I'm built different, I would simply never get caught up in a big lie, because I'm a good person. Anyone who does anything bad does it because they're inferior ethical beings, an intrinsic and inextricable quality."
Love to simply helplessly get "caught up" in a "big lie" that coincidentally also promises economic benefits to me if I follow along with it without challenging it.
There's no connection between my apparent lack of agency and insight and the fact that it personally benefits me.
(This is not to suggest that propaganda or indoctrination plays 0 part in this, but that theres a direct incentive to buy into this, and that both the big lie itself and the concept of the big lie provides an excuse and license to do so.)
Simply get a second job and you wont be poor, you have agency. Learn to code.
They literally did that though. At least the buddy joined the military and not a gang. What's a gang supposed to be doing again?
Im actually built different from all other poor people, theres no path, set of circumstances or situation possible for me where I joined the military. Also being poor is actually a choice, if you stay poor it's 100% your fault
Yeah seriously
I don't think you like my reply because it implies that there were poor people out there who made the opposite choice and did not need leftism to make that decision. You used poverty as a shield and now you use leftism as a shield to discredit my background and choices. And the way you told the story, it makes sense. You frames it as a being better morally than some other acts.
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Noticing a distinct lack of non-american shoes present in this comment.
Just because its not present doesnt mean I dont have thoughts about it as well. How could I possibly make such a comment and also not have sympathetic views towards the people affected by US imperialism?
It's still a choice to leave them unmentioned except for referencing their status as official "bad guys" and describing military deployment there like guarding pillow forts and taking a dog on walks.
Sympathy isn't a on/off switch, plus "sympathetic views" is very vague, I'm pretty sure only outright genocidal fash would lack any sympathy for victims of US imperialism.
🙄 Not at all what I was saying, jesus christ. This is over. The disclaimer should set the context for everything I wrote below it.
The most virulently "fuck the troops" people in this community are non-USians and you know this. This is demonstrated in this very post with OP who's not from the US.
I've rubbed shoulders with vets before, and when you did deep into why they've enlisted, it's never just "I joined the military because I'm dirt poor." If you dig deep enough, there's always "I want a sense of adventure," "I want to prove myself as a man," "I found school too boring and wanted something more exciting," and other bullshit. I also knew people who enlisted to get US citizenship, which I think is at least more sympathetic than just repeatedly harping about people joining for purely economic reasons.
One thing people seem to always ignore is that you have a choice of what branch you want to enlist in. Even if we buy them being completely brainwashed and don't understand the military's direct role in furthering US imperialism, then my question is "why did you enlist in the Marines or the Air Force instead of the Navy or the Coast Guard?" Even by the standards of being brainwashed by US propaganda, surely they would understand that you shoot people in the Army and Marines and bomb people in the Air Force. Meanwhile, you're just stuck on a boat in the Navy and don't even leave the country in the Coast Guard (not true, but we're going off by US propaganda). It's common US pop culture knowledge that the Marines are the toughest branch, so someone's who doing the bare minimum in order to get their GI Bill wouldn't even think of enlisting in the Marines. People join the Marines because they want to "be a man" and "fuck shit up" (ie commit war crimes). Otherwise, they would simply join the Navy or the Coast Guard or the Army or even the Air Force.
People specifically join the military to spread neoliberal imperialism across the world and die in wars made by corporate overlords. They join completely knowing that thats what they want. They all join to murder babies.
There's still plenty of reasons why you would choose the Marines over other branches. Maybe the Marines offered you a job that the Air Force couldnt, maybe the recruiter was available and you needed to leave now, wanting to be challenged isnt a bad thing but again if you're framing everything as protecc fridum youre not really thinking about murdering innocent people. You could even be joining to be COD larp because youre a fucking idiot but contract and realize what that really means. The whole thing with Pat Tillman was basically that.
I feel like your post cant detach the lefty lense, people dont think like you and are not weighing and considering the same things as you. Like even OP, if they were born in the US in the shoes of someone else they'd make similar if not the same decisions.
I mean if thats not the case than being poor is a choice right?