Yupp. And also Ross; 5th from the left, third row.

Thanks for the write up :fidel-salute:

Do you know if there any English subtitled versions of the videos? What, in your opinion are the juiciest stuff that has been revealed?

I don’t think any modern western army is completely conscript or professional, but the US army had conscription in one form or another in all the major wars of the the twentieth century up to Vietnam and a system of conscription in peacetime to boot. Of course the Turkish state is able to wage war even though they keep a conscript system. My point is not that a conscript system is a guarantee against militarism and aggressive warfare but that it is a system that gives more openings for influence from a strong socialist movement, and makes waging unpopular wars, or military action against your own population, harder than if the military is made up of a fully professional army. The US had to deploy conscripted troops In Vietnam, and the dissatisfaction of these troops did help shorten the war. I’m sure the training conscript armies receives varies widely form nation to nation. But the people around me that completed their conscription learned quite a bit. So Let’s agree to disagree. I see your points and get what you’re trying to say. If you’re up for conscription in then I hope you’re able to dodge it.

Ok, let’s try this again cause we’re both just fucking screaming into the void right now, insulting each other and getting nowhere. And believe it or not, if you are here then your probably a comrade and I’m interested in hearing where you are coming from.

Here’s my argument for a conscript army

• it keeps a bond between the nations military and its people. If the army is made up of ordinary people the chance is less that you see the creation of a separate “soldier class” that sees itself as above and separate from the population at large. For an example of this see the soldier culture grown from the US professional army.

• If recruitment is something everyone has to endure then it works as a calming effect on War Hawks and warmongering. When everyone (or at least all soldier age males) got some skin in the game it makes it harder to sell a war, especially if it’s an offensive one and not one of defense. I think this is the reason why a lot of western imperialist states moved away from conscription in the late 1900s. I’m certain it’s a big reason of why the US did after Vietnam.

• conscription gives working class kids some military training which could certainly come in use of the world keeps going to shit.

If I understand you correctly you oppose conscription because its an extreme form of state control and a propaganda mill to turn out well behaved and ideologically conformist citizens. I see your point and understand the unwillingness to get forced to carry weapons I the name of a system and state that I hate. I also understand your argument that on a personal level you would rather do anything else than spending a year taking order from assholes in uniform , also a fair point and one I would have sympathized with when I was of recruitment age. But I would argue that the propaganda angle is even worse in a professional army that gets more time to work their fascist ideology and more willing recruits to turn into foot soldiers for capital. Though I would concide that a conscript system gives the state a wider net of young men to try to influence.

Have I missed something in what you are trying to argue? And if neither of us got anything else to add, then let’s just fucking agree to disagree.

What do you mean? conscript armies do pay their soldiers. It’s certainly the norm where I live. And if you think you will “break” from doing military service for a year or two and come out a fucking SS-goon or something on the other side, then I don’t know what to tell you, maybe your not really built for this world.

Please do. Just make sure to show your weak ass arguments about not wanting to mop floors and getting screamed at too. Oh and re-read those arguments after you spent a decade or so working for a living in this garbage system of ours, and you’ll see how fucking hollow ”someone forced me to do something against my will and yelled at me” rings.

I got lot of friend that made their military service and are committed socialist today. They don’t regret the few years the spent in the woods learning to shoot.

I’m engaging with you, giving you historical and personal examples and trying to argue this thing in somewhat good faith. Maybe try to do the same?

I am from a nation that have conscription. I don’t know what military service entails in your country, but here it’s not simply mopping floors and getting yelled at. I went to conscription as an 18 year old and was denied service due to my leftists and antifascist political activism. I was a bit of a shit then and was happy about it but i have comrades who tried hard to get in to more specialized arms of the service and was sussed out by the Security service. One close friend was denied training with the engineering corps on the day he was supposed to report for duty. The state knows the danger of socialists in the military, one would expect you as a socialist to do the same.

The US was forced to use conscription to fight the kind of war they wanted to fight in Vietnam, but that opened them up for the kind of influence that I’m talking about. I think you would be hard pressed to find an historian that would deny that the pressure and dissatisfaction from the draftees wasn’t an important part in ending the Vietnam war. As I tried to explain in my previous post; conscription is not a garantee against state control, but it is an opening to oppose and challenge it, and giving it up seems like a really poor move for a movement that someday aims to replace it with the rule of the people.

The argument that you can’t have a conscript army because fascist states have used it is a bit of a shit argument. Fascist regimes also often adopts a public school system and uses that as a instrument for propaganda and control, does this mean that we should oppose public schooling too? A fascist state at the height of its power got a near haegemonic control of culture where the military is used as a instrument of thought control. But the same is true for all state institutions under fascism; the media, schools, fascist workers unions etc etc.

The fact is that If you have a strong working class socialist movement you have a much better chance of influencing a conscripted army and acting as a bulwark against a fascist military subculture than you have in the case of a proffesional army. This is not som”weird argument”, it is an old and quite uncontroversial socialist stance with plenty of historical examples. Two specific examples that I know quite well comes from swedish working class history; the events of the Seskarö upprising of 1917 and the “shoots in Ådalen” in 1931. In both these events military was called on to quell workers revolts and in both these cases the State realizes that they can’t send conscripts because those units of troops can’t be trusted to fire on their class brethren. Instead the military has to gather a smaller number of lower officers (professional soldiers) to act the part of foot soldiers. The result in the Seskarö exemple is that the workers disarm the military, fights a gun battle that ends with the military having to retreat. The revolt ends in a victory for the workers and concessions and food from the local politicians when the matter can’t be solved with military might. In the case of Ådalen the military opens fire on workers and kills several people. But the outrage and rage that results from the incident leads to such pressure that military have never been able to be deployed against citizens again, signaling a severe change in the power dynamics in Swedish politics from that day on. But I mean there are plenty of bigger examples where a conscript army has been able to put pressure and act as a political power against the wishes of the ruling classes. The desertion and threats of desertion in the army’s of WW1 amongst all the fighting powers definitely helped to shorten the war and in the case of Tsarist Russia set the stage for the Russian revolution. The same can be argued for the Vietnam war where desertion and discontent in the ranks (see “fragging”) arguably helped shorten the war.

The military is just another arena in the struggle for political power. And in the same way that it is important for socialists to be present in workplaces, schools and the streets. It’s is important to have a presence in the military. This is much easier in a conscript army. There are of course reasonable arguments one could levy against a conscript system, but if you live in a country that’s not currently at, or is at the risk of going to war and your primary argument against conscription is that you are “at the prime of your life”and don’t want to do it because you don’t like the thought of the state forcing you to, instead of viewing army training as a opportunity to pick up some skills and experiences that might just be useful if push really comes to shove one day, then I would say that you are missing some of the bigger picture of what we as socialist are trying to do, and dare I say it... being a bit of a :LIB:

The pros of conscription is that it keeps the army from becoming a separate power divorced from the people. Conscripted soldiers are much less likely to shot at worker than professional soldiers steeped in their own martial nationalistic subculture. A conscripted army also ideally serves as a reminder to the ruling class that the people is the ones that carries the guns if push comes to shove and that the military power of a nation rests with the masses. As a socialist I believe that a conscripted army is highly preferable to a professional one. Especially in a capitalist state.

Because children don’t trust sauce or liquid foods.

Petition to make Action Boyz our new official Podcast now that we have cast down Chapo Trap House

You had me for a ride, was sure it was gonna be Kamala. Quality post :fidel-salute:

Between this, Viscera cleanup and Hardspace: Shipbreaker one could make the case that We’re seeing a new gene emerging; one with gameplay focused on preforming labour in interesting settings and locales.

I’m always up for new verbs in games. There’s only so much interesting stuff you can do with “jump”, “run” and “shoot”. It’s the same reason Return of the Obra Dinn and Outerwilds is such fantastic video game experiences and two of the most gripping games to be released during the two thousand and tens.

Can we have a Anez as Solid Snake in a box emoji? #sneakingmission

Lol, I did an actual spit take. Classic Dutch-burn. :che-laugh:

Can someone quote or tl;dr the juicy part?

:chefs-kiss:

:fidel-salute: