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 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!
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".
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.
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.
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
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?
Dont you want to lock arms with your disillusioned oppressors
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.
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.