Now make one of a chapo.chat user telling a sweatshop laborer "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism."
Given that everyone is brought up in a system and environment that teaches them this is ok, or heroic, or anything like that I think we should show understanding, if someone young buys into it, without realizing what actually is involved. The problem is not the individual who joins the army to improve their material condition, the problem is as usual the system ,that makes this choice viable, and that hides all the negatives
I understand and agree that there's a huge systemic part in play here, however, at the end of the day the argument that 'it's okay to join up if your poor or want a way out of your current life' tends to overlook the fact that this is a potentially problematic mindset to be embracing as socialists. If an individual understands the ghoulish behavior of the military, and at least admits they were willing to cause harm to others just to get ahead in life, I'm willing to engage in recruiting them, but not a moment sooner. A vet who hasn't reconciled their harmful, selfish, racist mentality that lead to them joining is not someone I can believe genuinely want to build something for the betterment of everyone and not just themselves
My argument at least is not that its ok, but that we should not judge people who have made this choice, because they made this choice.
We shouldn't also rush to paper over the reasons/motivations of this choice, that's all what my argument is
About 80% of people the military are non-combat arms. Meaning people who maybe fix up cargo planes, and work for the Timmies at Kandahar AFB.
Sure you can use the argument that these people are just as bad as those who gun down civilians in the streets, because their job directly enables said gunning down.
But POGS are far from the only people whose labour plays an auxiliary role in empire: what about people who work at manufacturing plants that produce optics for drones, or who work at steel plants whose whose labour is essential for the production of tanks, or who work for Universities with close participation in the MIC. Are all these people evil for what they do, should Communists disavow each and every one of them entirely? Doing so would be a pretty serious decision considering nearly every job available in the Global North could be said to contribute to Imperialism.
I don't really think it's wrong to say that when people enlist due to a desire to escape from depressed and deprived conditions, the lions share of the fault is on those who create said conditions. It's not due to personal failure/illness of character.
Looking at joining the military as purely being an act of an evil person is not productive. Racial minorities make up a greater share of the Armed Forces in comparison to their presence among the general population, and I don't think its because they're more inclined to do evil than white people, which is the conclusion you'd naturally arrive at if you totally ignore the material contexts which make people enlist, in favour of a narrative that bad people choose to do it because they're bad.
Oh I missed this part- "Racial minorities make up a greater share of the Armed Forces in comparison to their presence among the general population"
Actually, when looking at the armed forces as a whole, it's more or less in line with the demographics of the general population. Amongst the officer ranks it's more disproportionately white. Just fyi
I'd actually agree with you that officers as a whole are mostly irredeemable, they almost all already have University degrees and options. Though, they do directly engage in violence less than enlisted.
But Black Americans make up 19% of active duty enlisted personnel, a 40% overrepresentation in comparison to their share of the general population.
Similarly "Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander's" see a 120% overrepresentation. Multi-racial americans a 14% overrepresentation, with Hispanic and Asian Americans being the only racial minority groups who are underrepresented among enlisted in comparison to their share of the general population.
But again, I don't think the aforementioned overrepresentation of certain racial groups in the US military, which does exist, can be blamed on individual, rather than systemic faults.
The link doesn't seem to work, but I'm interested, as the one I provided lacks the crosstabs that I'd like to see.
But again, I don’t think the aforementioned overrepresentation of certain racial groups in the US military, which does exist, can be blamed on individual, rather than systemic faults.
I'll agree that we are discussing huge systemic issues, and I'm not trying to position this as an individualistic issue, rather I'm trying to point out that the mindset that leads these people to join up is something that is likely incompatible with the socialist ideal of benefitting everyone, not just yourself or people you like or people who look like you. Does this make sense? Like why is everyone willing to ignore the personal motivations that go into it, and refuses to imagine what a person like that would do in a hypothetical left movement/revolution?
Link should be fixed now.
I mostly agree with your last point and will need to spend some time thinking it through.
Thanks for fixing that, dang what a resource! I was not expecting a 200+ page document on this. And that's all I'm trying to push here, that people need to stop hand waving and seriously consider the people they are trying to fold into the left
Oh fuck my bad, race/ethnicity data is all on page 23-30. A pie chart for active duty enlisted is on p.24
dont officers engage in more violence than a troop cause they command lots of troops.
You make it sound like 80% of the military is bureeaucrats. They are still given a gun, trained how to use it, and in a situation we're it is them vs "the enemy" they'd be expected to kill. Full stop. There's a reason why every MOS goes through the same basic training that the "combat roles" get, and that basic training includes enforcing the idea of killing anyone your chain of command asks you to. The military also classifies some roles, like radio operator, as non combat roles but are we gonna pretend the guy calling in an airstrike is non combat?
As for your other point, idk where to draw the line for condemning people for participating with imperialism, but I'm gonna start with all troops and go from there
This is "no ethical consumption under capitalism" with pro-troop characteristics.
Sure you can use the argument that these people are just as bad as those who gun down civilians in the streets, because their job directly enables said gunning down
yes
what about people who work at manufacturing plants that produce optics for drones, or who work at steel plants whose whose labour is essential for the production of tanks, or who work for Universities with close participation in the MIC. Are all these people evil for what they do
not evil per se, but it's not ok either and they should stop
should Communists disavow each and every one of them entirely?
no they should educate them and support direct action against imperialism.
Noone says they should all be gulag'd, but they definitely shouldn't be accepted and praised. They should be bullied.
Would it be correct to conclude that certain racial minorities are particularly predisposed to evil (in comparison to white people) because they make up a greater share of the Armed Forces than they do the civilian labour force?
wtf no
I reworded my last point because it was ill thought out the way I wrote it.
not evil per se, but it’s not ok either and they should stop
This seems like the sort of individualistic narrative that is so common to Liberal rhetoric around issues like Climate change. "Climate Change occurs because people are selfish and unwilling to lower their personal carbon footprint". "Empire is perpetuated because people are selfish and unwilling to quit their job when it contributes to Imperialism".
In both cases using moralistic rhetoric to try and bully people into making personal sacrifices is rarely successful, both in its goal and in creating a political movement. And more importantly, it sidesteps the fact that these are systemic issues, with systemic solutions alone.
So because there's systematic forces at play, individuals are completely absolved from any wrongdoing? Because climate change is a global issue I should just roll coal and anyone disagreeing with me is a moralising asshole?
No but I won't call you evil if you drive a car, which is the equivalent of blaming a Steel worker for Imperialism and telling them they should just stop working.
Rolling coal is an act of deliberate harm done for no material benefit, it is not be the same as the unavoidable pollution which one contributes to in the course of their day.
Working=owning a car
Knowingly working for the military=rolling coal
Actually yes because companies try to distance themselves from the issue by propagating the idea that efforts against climate change should focus on individual actions that gives you a free pass for throwing your trash in the ocean and burning down a couple trees.
Additionally all pollution caused by companies is 100% unnecessary and none of it is due to individuals actively and repeatedly demanding stupid shit that causes pollution. Once we switch the communism button, we can keep producing the exact same things except with no pollution. Individuals will never have to change anything and they certainly shouldn't start now.
did you also read the "trans people joining the military is good actually" take
I did, that thread inspired me to make this post but it took me a while to hunt down this image lol
Joining the military is bad. Excluding trans people for bigoted reasons is also bad.
Getting rid of the ban on trans people from the military is fine. I'm glad there will be less institutionalized transphobia. I do not think trans super-soldiers are some trump card for the US military.
the take wasnt about that tho, it was that joining the military is good for trans people and also it was ignoring the implications of being in the miitary
Yes it's about how libs can only accept certain things as long as they come with the military, ie implicitly supporting imperialism. Someone posted a thread yesterday, I think, of libs fawning over Sikhs and Indians because they joined the military. Rather than just accepting them because they're human beings who deserve dignity and not to be harassed. It's "How dare you be racist towards a Sikh, they serve in the military don't you know!" They can't just refute racism on the grounds of it being racist. They can't refute transphobia the same way. It's gotta be attached to some support of the existing power structures, the particularly oppressive ones at that.
not to mention, for every trans chud who got blocked from enlisting, there's about four trans chicks sighing that they're not getting draft cards. myself included lmao
That wasn't the take either though I appreciate that this is a more good faith comment. The take I actually had was that most trans people join because they have literally no other choice and not joining it means they will die, either in the streets as a homeless trans person like so many do or via suicide caused by their condition and economically trapped circumstances surrounded by dangerous people that prevent them from dealing with their condition safely.
i understood the point you were trying to make, that Trans people were let to join the military because of the shitty material conditions and i get that , but i just cant excuse imperialism, to me joining the US military is one of the worst thing someone can do, because it futhers their oppression against the global south, the place were i was born and raised, and i know that the US military Lies and uses the terrible conditions of their own people to get more cannon meat with promises of a better life, but i just cant justify joining them, they are the reason my country had a dirty war for decades and they have destroy entire nations just for profit, they are just evil, i just cant justify anyone joining them
Ok but.. How old were you when you gained all of this knowledge and how did you gain it?
16-21 year olds are not a group well known for their deep understanding of socialist theory, a clear understanding of imperialism and why it is the primary contradiction in modern revolutionary theory, nor why the US are even "the bad guys".
Not only are we asking waaaaay too much of a kid that regularly gets text messages telling them to join, but that kid is surrounded by people that prevent them from addressing their need to transition and there are literally no other avenues for these kids to escape the economic entrapment that keeps them in bumfuck nowhere town of 5000 population full of racists and transphobes.
It's asking way too much. And that was my point -- that saying "fuck the troops" without nuance is fundamentally unfair to the people that end up in it, end up unhappy about being in it, and end up with guilt for having been in it. I don't see them as guilty, I see them as abused victims of a system intentionally designed to take advantage of people in exactly this way.
Fuck the military, fuck what it stands for and its goals as a tool of the bourgeoisie, but a lot of the troops, especially the trans ones, are victims of a horrific system and the entrapped circumstance of their lives.
Ok but… How old were you when you gained all of this knowledge and how did you gain it?
13/14, mexican history books, they dont shy away from the shit the US has done
16-21 year olds are not a group well known for their deep understanding of socialist theory, a clear understanding of imperialism and why it is the primary contradiction in modern revolutionary theory, nor why the US are even “the bad guys”.
i wasnt a socialist back then, and not even a leftist
Not only are we asking waaaaay too much of a kid that regularly gets text messages telling them to join, but that kid is surrounded by people that prevent them from addressing their need to transition and there are literally no other avenues for these kids to escape the economic entrapment that keeps them in bumfuck nowhere town of 5000 population full of racists and transphobes.
i understood that from your comment in the other post, but as i said i just cant justify it, as for the one that feel guity about it they are victims too but they also further imperialism while they were in the military, and i dont think they should be excluded from the left because they joined, but joining the US military is a mistake just like being a alt-right in the past and that should be acknowledge or else you are just gonna exclude any person from the countries victim of US imperialism.
13/14, mexican history books, they dont shy away from the shit the US has done
Fucking hell most people were still learning about masturbation and starting to share porn with each other at my school at that age.
i still think i was i little to young to know that the massacre of tlatelolco was a thing that happen
I mean its wrong technically but like I do not want to be drafted lol.
That wasn't the take at all and misrepresenting people who are earnestly presenting a more nuanced position in good faith is a really shitty way to treat others in the community.
what kind of comrade thinks that the needs of the first world and the in group matter more than the needs of everyone else?
The argument isn't that we should prioritize the needs of the first world over everyone else. The argument is that if you want to dismantle the first world imperial machine, that will be a lot easier if you have comrades with military experience.
Most people don't understand how the imperial machine works when they're 17 or 18, but that's when most people join the military. If they learn more about how that machine works in their 20s -- perhaps because of their direct experience with it -- it's entirely understandable that they would then want to dismantle it.
We’re talking about someone who thinks all of that was justified because of their material standard of living.
That's bad, yes, but I don't see the troop discourse on here making excuses for that.
I don’t, and I don’t think most people here, want to create this impossible standard where if you were ever in the military you’re gone.
I think this is exactly the point people are trying to bring out when they express concern over this sort of comic alienating potential comrades. No one here is arguing that killing people for the U.S. is cool and good if you do it to pay for college. I see the argument as purely "don't write off all troops en masse, because some can be really helpful."
If the comment you're referring to is this:
Doesn’t this heavily depend on what you did in the military?
edit: I’m not saying it’s good to work for or with the US military in any capacity, but surely there’s some difference between different roles
That's not making excuses, that's pointing out how culpability works in virtually any context. Your distance from a crime is part of what determines how guilty you are, just like your distance from a botched project is part of what determines how much blame you should get. At some point someone working high up at a civilian military contractor is more responsible for the imperial machine than an enlisted person sweeping floors at a base in Alaska.
I don’t see a reason to criticize an accurate description of how responsibility varies based on one's proximity to an act.
And really all my point is that in an attempt to "not write off troops en masse", so many people here overcorrect and overlook why people joined and how someone who thinks their material conditions justify imperialism is probably not someone we should be eager to recruit without correcting their mindset
someone who thinks their material conditions justify imperialism
What 17- to 18-year-old kid thinks in these terms, though? I'm sure you have some hardcore chuds who are all about American empire, but for the rest there's a well-oiled propaganda machine designed specifically to make the military seem like service to your country, defending freedom, only going after the bad guys, etc. There's a Navy commercial that calls it "a global force for good!"
A lot of kids who join the military see all that, see the money attached to enlistment, see their older siblings stuck in a low-wage job somewhere, and decide to join based on that. Ascribing to these kids not only an awareness of imperialism, but a willingness to commit imperialist atrocities for college tuition, doesn't remotely reflect how most people who join up view the world.
Does this make soldiers free of blame? Of course not. But someone who kills people after getting swindled by a billion-dollar propaganda machine is less culpable than someone who gleefully kills knowing full well what they're getting into. We can't acknowledge that propaganda works and then ignore the logical effects of that. We can't acknowledge in a criminal justice context that human brains aren't fully developed until ~25 and then set that aside when talking about kids deciding to enlist. It's murder vs. manslaughter.
Something that always comes up during these conversations is an accusation that those who agree with the photo are “alienating potential military comrades”
That's because it is true. They are alienating potential veterans. Some of you seem to think you can lead a revolution with a bunch of armchair leftist edgelords posting on sites like this.
There are a lot of angry veterans who have been screwed over by the system and government and a number of them come out anti-war from their experiences and they're looking for something that can help them understand what they just went through. By telling these people to fuck off, yeah, you're alienating potential comrades who would be a lot more useful than just posting on Chapo. The ENTIRE Anti-war protest movement in the 2000s was composed of veterans. I guess those people don't matter?
If you observe the far right militia groups, you'll notice quickly that they target veterans. They do it cause A) They're useful with their knowledge of combat, weapons and machinery, and B) they are looking for answers to why the world is so fucked up.
And I’d like to flip this on its head for a second: what kind of comrade thinks that the needs of the first world and the in group matter more than the needs of everyone else? Do you genuinely believe someone who wouldn’t be a leftist if they had to confront their role in helping imperialism is going to support decisions that benefit groups that aren’t their own? I have no faith in that and I dont see how you could.
The problem with this thinking and many other in this same thread, is that you should be more angry at the system and the people at the top of the food chain that create these bad conditions that drive young people to join the military, rather than ranting about them with Third Worldism revisionism.
I come from the rural south. Most of the small towns here have been de-industrialized and there is absolutely no future for anyone here, unless you are content with working at a dollar store or McDonalds getting paid crap wages. They go into the military to ESCAPE. It's an ESCAPE to them, and they are flat out told it's an escape from their dead end of a future in their crappy hometown.
You could literally make this exact same argument in regards of someone joining a gang and telling them that they're exploiting vulnerable poor people by being part of that gang's criminal operation. People end up taking the opportunities they can to escape something and get out.
As a vet, I think if you don’t self-crit and realize that the propaganda you have been told you entire life is imperialist lies, veterans are always going to be defending themselves/the military. The most I will say now is I miss my friends from the army and that I wouldn’t have a nuanced understanding of the US colonialism/imperialism system. A lot of them are encouraged by a system that offers basic human needs/rights by training and doing this job, etc.
Of course the military is bad, evil, imperialist, colonizing, war-criminalizing, etc. but I still don’t think we should write off every single troop if there is the chance they will be a comrade.
There is a huge difference in that a cop can just quit and it really isn't that much they are losing. You can't quit in the military, once you sign up you are stuck. If you try to escape you are fucked.
Troops that are actively in the military are even more inside the imperial core than a civilian. The training we have is specifically towards Arabic, Muslim, and middle eastern stereotypes and I guess “experiences” for lack of a better term, of veterans. Some are eventually institutionalized by it, and after 10 or 12 years, you have to stay in by contract until your 20 years. At that point you have invested so much of your life you do not know what else to do besides be a troop. That’s why suicide rates are so high, or at least a part of it, for vets.
I’m not making excuses for the military, I’m saying that everyone should be given a chance to analyze themselves, their material conditions, what has led them to this point. If they still refuse or at worse, fight back, we have no choice but to defend the communist project we have started.
You can also thank capitalism and the American education system for setting these kids up to be duped into murdering brown people. Nobody with a general awareness of their role as a cog in this nightmare engine is going to join up, unless they are a goddamn psychopath.
Don't have a strong opinion either direction.
But it's just a simple statement of fact that if the left is more concerned with moral judgment than strategic paths to victory, then this situation will never change, and it doesn't matter what you think. Because it will keep happening.
Are you trying to be a "good person," or are you trying to win? And end this nightmare?
Because it isn't like you can't just replace the text in this image with "I just wanted to end capitalism, I'm not a bad guy." You don't think a civil war or balkanization or a revolution isn't going to kill the parents of people who basically don't deserve it? Hell, won't kill children themselves?
Getting into moral arguments is the domain of people who think their souls are going to be judged when this is all over. As if the goal of any left wing movement is to be "good" in the way liberals understand the meaning of the word.
If you understand the stakes of what's in front of us, you'll understand that almost any price is worth paying to avoid the trajectory we're currently on.
Is your goal is to change that trajectory, or to fill your lifeboat with the people who participated in it the least?
And if you answer moralistically, then you've missed the entire point of this mental exercise.
Very, very bold of you too assume that I'm just sitting here jerking myself off to the thought of being morally superior or something.
You ever play a game were it's like "would you do ___ for ___" such as "would you slap your mom for a million dollars"- the same thing pops in my head with regards to the military. These are people that got asked "would you kill someone to go to college?" "would you support your country in overthrowing another for better healthcare?" "would you look the other way when bad things happen just to learn some discipline?" and they all answered yes, in my eyes at least.
This needs to be discussed and reconciled on the left. Any person who goes down this mental path and refuses to acknowledge it or goes through mental gymnastics to justify the military and their actions is not someone I consider to be a comrade. Are you willing to put members of the "Will Destroy Life Boats for My Own Lifejacket" committee into your lifeboat? Cause I'm not. I'm not finger wagging to be smug, I'm annoyed that people ignore the incredibly reactionary and selfish reasons as to why the military appeals to people
Are you willing to put members of the “Will Destroy Life Boats for My Own Lifejacket” committee into your lifeboat?
If I'm in the fucking lifeboat, the ship has sunk, idiot. If I'm in that situation, I've failed so badly, that I no longer care.
This is the answer I was expecting though.
Matt is right about Leftist online discourse. It really is a place for the self consciously left to congratulate themselves for thinking the correct things and to purge imaginary enemies rather than live their actual politics.
John Brown was an abolitionist. Almost everyone else was a poseur.
The same is true of us.
The thing that's supposed to be fucking clarifying about material politics is to not get lost in the weeds of idealist horseshit.
You must fix systemic problems. You must do this by acquiring power, and empowering the working class to reorganize society for its material benefit. Nothing can change until we do this. Every other question is secondary to the practical question of how we can accomplish this.
Asking what is or isn't "moral," or who is or isn't your comrade, assumes some kind of inevitable victory that you've already achieved, but don't want to be sullied.
It's like the people designing communist American flags, you're describing a place that will never fucking exist.
Until we have some movement that has leverage to move this fucking world, psyching ourselves out about problematic aspects of something that is currently fucking fictional is beyond self defeating.
How about this, when there's 500,000 of us, angry, armed, agitated, and organized, we can revisit this question.
Otherwise, it is, quite literally, inventing something to be mad about so you have something to talk about.
If you want to overlook the fact that some people are literally willing to kill innocent people that they wouldn't otherwise interact with just to improve their own lives, go ahead. I'm not posturing on moral lines. It's seriously dangerous to uncritically accept anyone into the "left" while ignoring their personal motivations and world view.
Am I smug, shitty online leftist if I'm also wary of landlords wanting to join our movement? CEOs? Cops? Bankers? At what point are you willing to overlook someone's motivations just to say they are on your side?
I don't, and apparently that makes me some moralist that is impeding the left, somehow
I recall that r/moretankiechapo had a discussion about why r/chapotraphouse was so quick to defend US soldiers/military members and they concluded (with a few anecdotal comment links) that it was because some of the posters actually were in the military, have friends or a spouse/significant other in the military, or have family there. And because those people were affable and didn't personally gun down children or something like that, they must be redeemable and ultimately good.
Despite this, you'd imagine posters on chapo.chat or r/cth would, in the same breath , condemn Israeli soldiers, despite being drafted oreven if they were in logistics.
Furthermore, if you recall the Floyd protests during the summer: The military wasn't really keen on clashing with protesters as much as Trump or Senator Cotton were. The police had less self-control and were actively trying to provoke and make confrontation possible as much as agent provocateurs were. That is because the military views its own civilian population as its protected charges/wards rather than potential adversarial hostile belligerents ready to kill as a moments notice.
There's no need to sanitize or whitewash the military, nor are we clergy who will absolve them of their sins if they join "the cause. " There will come a time to provoke their consciences to act if they ever confront the domestic public again, and no part of being mean on reddit or chapo.chat will come into the thought equation of deciding whether to refuse orders, defect, or mow people down.
Either they defect and help dismantle the war machine and our empire or they will cling to fascism and white supremacy abroad while feeling ambivalent about exporting it back home.
You can't build a future with political agents,bureaucrats, and mercenaries whose expertise and ideology is based around exploitation, colonialism, dominance and hegemony, and white supremacy without reconciliation and refutation of those ideas with better ideas of justice, solidarity, cooperation, and equality.
Which is to remind readers that the Soviets purged/subjugated fascists from East Germany, whereas the West incorporated them into NATO and state agencies.
I led you right to the fucking point and you're still staring up your own asshole.
No one cares about you, or who you are, or what you believe. This conversation is not a moral judgment on anyone or anything. It is an attempt to reckon with a kind of reasoning that is a dead fucking end in the current moment.
If you believe in material politics, you will attempt to do anything and everything necessary to organize your class and overthrow your oppressors.
That's literally all there is to it.
Imagining scenarios where others are morally compromised, and thus unworthy to participate, is the delusion of someone who thinks they have the power to enact their moral judgment on the world.
Do you think our descendants, living in neo Feudalism in the post industrial world with less than a hundred thousand people in it, would give a fuck about the moral character of people who could have stopped this, but chose not to?
This is my last response because jfc you've demonstrated no ability to think critically or actually listen to what I'm saying.
jfc you’ve demonstrated no ability to think critically or actually listen to what I’m saying
Incredible self awareness chefs kiss we clearly don't agree, and you're obviously incredibly eager to pick up reactionary, selfish people in your movement so long as you get what you want. Have fun with that!
"I'm such a good person," I say, as I am marched to the gas chambers by my undivided enemies.
Corporal Dawson, under his breath, "If only you were nice to me on Chapo.Chat and forgave me for killing Willy because he snitched about our "wAr cRiMeS".
The image is anti-imperialist propaganda.
If I'm reading your comment right you're saying you don't like it because ... it's not PRAGMATIC enough because it doesn't recognise that war crimes sometimes occur in revolutions?
It doesn't need to do that. It's an entry level anti-imperialist 2 panel propaganda cartoon that's effective because it shocks/shames people into rethinking their idea of what US soldiers do. It would be less effective if it overcomplicated its messaging.
If you're saying it's a sign of the Western Left's lack of resolve because it doesn't also talk about fucked up shit that sometimes happens in revolutions then you probably need to rethink what it means to be pragmatic.
"Oh no, it's not the politicians or the military industry who are to blame, it's the soldiers" is probably not the best propaganda.
Calling this "anti-imperialist propaganda" is like calling a Reuse, Reduce, Recycle sign "climate action propaganda."
It is reactionary to frame systemic issues as the product individual decisions, where everyone just needs to make the morally correct choice.
If the soldier chose not to enlist, this exact scene would still happen.
The message is "US soldier bad, kill civilians, make kid sad" and the framing of the soldier's justifications is immunisation and immediately juxtaposing their reasons for doing it with the massive harm they're causing, which anthropomorphises and is completely in line with the broader anti-imperialism message that US citizens need to prioritise stopping US imperialism over minor domestic shit because of the massively disproportionate harm its causing.
If you can't give it at least as much critical support as you would revolutionaries who yeeted someone's parents for no real reason then you need to rethink your definition of pragmatism.
The cartoon literally criticizes the correct analysis of imperialist war: politicians and the military industry conspiring to loot natural resources. I do not understand why people are supportive of that.
You can try to convince every soldier not to enlist, that won't change anything.
You are also the only person who has mentioned "pragmatism" in this thread.
Every time this issue is brought up bad takes are inbound from pretty much everyone. Fuck the troops and death to Amerikkka :amerikkka:
And everytime I'm bewildered by these "ACAB" posters doing cartwheels to defend the troops. :amerikkka:
defend the troops
This is an overstatement of the sentiment.
Yeah sure but being exploited directly by the military industrial complex can radicalize people too.
Social-fascism in one picture(i was recently subject to a vicious Trotskyite attack, slander and creative cropping of pictures of my comment).
But this gets the essence of it. Its capitulation by Social-democrats to war and fascism "over there" and using the gains of imperialist plunder to offer crumbs to the working class
It is why Bernie can call himself a socialist and talk about healthcare whilst voting to destroy Yugoslavia and make Serbia the cancer capital of europe
This picture shows how humanity is denied in the global south and accurately depicts fascism by social democrats
The class struggle is muted in the first world because Iraqis/Afghanis/Yugoslavans/Yemenis/Nigerians/Pakistanis are getting their doors kicked in by trigger happy racists from the first world
I think this is one my favourite propaganda posters though. It exposes social-fascists that sympathise with the first worlders pulling the trigger on innocent people over those in the countries that are invaded by them. You will see others twist and claim "non combat roles" forgetting that an army is literally useless without logistics and logistics tend to be the defining feature of winning a war (ensuring troops get food supplied/tanks and trucks get refueled et.c etc. Armies that are best logistically organised are usually the ones that win)
Yeah the troop defence can get really annoying on here, especially when the US has been involved in the arrest of your counties leaders in the past and training of fascist militias and all that. All in all 10/10 picture/meme.
Joey, people round these parts don't read theory and it scares them when you say stuff like "social fascism". When will you learn, smh
Seriously though, it's neat how something as simple as this image showcases the split between genuinely wanting to liberate the masses for the good of everyone vs only wanting your own life to improved, consequences be damned.
i was recently subject to a vicious Trotskyite attack, slander
Holding grudges against other leftists over internet slap fights is peak :LIB:
(i was recently subject to a vicious Trotskyite attack, slander and creative cropping of pictures of my comment).
Lol, you absolute dork. How do you want me to crop the words you wrote? I’ll go back and edit.
Should I leave out the part where you called the Black Lives Matter protests “representative of social fascism”?
Should I include the explanation? That the protests sparked by a horrific racist murder by American police, are “representative of social fascism” because they didn’t organically come to focus on the war in Yemen or slave markets in Libya?
Chapo normally: cyberbullying works Chapo when you bully the troops: NoooOOoo not the heckin trooperinos we'll need their help in the revolution
I think there can be a middle ground on this debate. I mean, you can acknowledge that the cops and the army are all pigs that probably would not hesitate to torture and murder you if given the order - we have to prepare to fight them . But, at the same time, I think that we should appeal at them, you know , like the fascists do when they convince them to join up their militias. After all, a revolution with soldiers backing it up would be a hell of a lot easier, don't you think.
We could appeal to them without ignoring the fact that signing up for the military just to benefit yourself materially is antethical to the very premise of socialism. That's my take, apparently it's a hot one
most sign up when they're dumb, brain-poisoned kids. chances are that someone who has been in the military for a few years hates it more than those who haven't. it's the officers who are lost causes.
I agree with you, but you're not gonna appeal any pig at the army by saying them that. What you say it's absolutely true and my god I wish every U.S soldier were burnt alive painfully, but when the revolution comes I don't think it would be the best strategy to shit on every vet with PTSD; it's a sweet revenge and it fells really good, but is not good strategy.
This is true. Maybe I talked about the issue from my perspective as a latin american; if troops are fashy here I could not think how US troops would look like. But in any case I was really pointing out that, given the chance of seeing an internal crisis within the military -or even the cops- we should at least try to persuade the guys with the more military knowledge if you're planning a violent revolution (and the subsequent civil war). The CEO example would fit better on officers, and yeah fuck officers lol
I just think it's really peanut-brained to blame individuals for the structural, entirely intentional workings of our system.
You can only like this post if you are a vegan, no I will not elaborate
