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."
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.
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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.
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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.
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That's bad, yes, but I don't see the troop discourse on here making excuses for that.
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."
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If the comment you're referring to is this:
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
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.
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.
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.
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