possibly the same person
The military is a social program.
They need the poors to fight their wars and work on their factory floors.
Imperial boomerang is smacking the US right in the head
100% It’s about time Americans read Discourses on Colonialism by Aime Cesaire, and suddenly, everything will tragically make sense
I don’t have one of those. I have an ex-marine friend, who I chastised when he originally signed up I remember I joked “If you die in combat I’m going to kill you.” because he was basically my best friend at the time. He came from an extremely poor family.
He ended up (unwillingly) being assigned to being a MP, and ended up never shooting or bombing a soul. He was just agonizingly bored for hours and hours (He hoped for bar fights to break out just to fill the time). Hes now a union rep for a private security company and he hates all of his co-workers because he tells me they’re almost all [redacted] racist assholes (hes half black).
One person’s hero is another person’s war criminal
I’d like to think that some of us vets are aware of that
Easily proven true by endless apologia for US military members. When Russians do it, the are orc, when Americans do it, they were poor and needed healthcare.
You double standards and cope, the American way
Orcmerica
My friend went into the military and, as he puts it, ‘swept sand in a sandstorm’ for most of his time there. His experience seemed to be mostly boredom. He wore a beard to hid his nega-chin and ended up working on AC units for the most part.
Let’s see, last time I checked Russia was releasing violent criminals to fight in Ukraine. You go ahead and find me a modern comparison from the U.S., I’ll wait.
Edit: violent criminals who rape new recruits, by the way — in the interest of clarity.
Let’s see, last time I checked Russia was releasing violent criminals to fight in Ukraine. You go ahead and find me a modern comparison from the U.S., I’ll wait.
I don’t have to play your stupid games. The vast majority of Russian soldiers are/were not convicts but either people who voluntarily joined their country’s army to make a living like your friend did or civilians who were drafted/conscripted. Most of them also did not kill or rape anyone like your friend. They probably would say they swept snow in a snowstorm instead.
Yet they still enable Russia’s attack on Ukraine. So did your friend with regards to USA’s attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan etc. Your friend is not better than them because he is your friend nor because he is American.
You mean my friend who was only ever in stationed in Texas?
Yeah you sure are good at determining my ‘stupid games’, you really got me there buddy. At least I know what to tag you.
You mean my friend who was only ever in stationed in Texas?
There certainly exists Russian military personnel that did not serve outside Russia. I bet you would not consider them as innocent as your friend.
Yeah you sure are good at determining my ‘stupid games’, you really got me there buddy. At least I know what to tag you.
Tag me a Russian shillbot if it makes you feel better.
I bet you would not consider them as innocent as your friend.
Why would you assume this?
Beyond which, to hate the U.S. military for their crimes one must hate the Russian military for theirs — lest they make themselves out to be a hypocrite. I don’t care if you want to call out the U.S. military, do not act like the Russians are guiltless or somehow deserving of compassion. I will feel no more compassion for them than I will U.S. soldiers in the event of an invasion of Canada or Greenland.
I never acted as if the Russians are guiltless for invading Ukraine, it’s you that’s acting as if Americans are guiltless for invading Iraq. That said both peoples are still human.
Care to explain why you disregard the invasion of Iraq that’s already happened and focus on a hypothetical invasion of Canada or Greenland?
Your friend is by your own logic then as innocent of the killing in that war is Putin is of the killing in Ukraine. He hasn’t shot anyone, just like your friend.
There is simply no fucking way you’re trying to say a grunt has as much responsibility as the dictator. I simply cannot entertain this lmao
Those are your words. If you think Putin is a murderer your friend is a murderer. Deal with it, friend of murderers.
Theres a lot of rape going on in the us military too. Youll find lots of testemony about these crimes being silenced and unpunished, with a bit of research.
https://www.protectourdefenders.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/MSA-Fact-Sheet-2021.pdf
You can say its different. Yes, i agree. But the us doesnt really have any moral high ground as your comment seems to suggest.
Oh rape isn’t the only problem I have with the Russia military, but I’m not about to provide an essay for you.
They surely have tons of horrible problems. But you seem to want to hold on to a feeling of moral superiority relative to the russians for some reason… which is just not real.
You can even try to claim some more weird ass non-existing morality points by pointing out that Hey, the US doesn’t even recruit soldiers all that much nowadays… they just hire private companies now… See? US military good, it’s mercenaries that are bad.
Ya know… like Wagner Group. Oh no… guess they’re more alike than you think.So your logic is that the U.S. is equally as bad as Russia because they hire mercenaries, so bums working on AC units back home share the same blame as hired guns and professional soldiers.
What a ridiculous group of people.
What a ridiculous group of people.
I know, right? I equally despise the military industrial complex at large, as well as those who are just following orders/helping out in the background and their online simps.
It hadn’t occurred to me before your comment - they don’t want us to have Medicare For All because then the biggest and best benefit of going into military service would be available to every citizen. Or that’s surely one of the MANY horrible reasons they continue to fuck us on healthcare.
The military pipeline shuts down when good pay, housing, healthcare, etc. are provided to the proletariat.
It’s worse than that. Much like the corporate, “middle class” white collar structure depends on keeping people too indebted to ever really have power or freedom to negotiate for fairness, the military also depends on underpaying and overworking its people. They have to provide that same level of inadequacy, and then, make not getting it even more unbearable.
When you start to look at the math, a lot of the previously incomprehensible decisions of the government start to make sense. Why is abortion illegal? Because given free choice, poor people stop reproducing at levels needed to maintain the slave wage labor when they can’t afford the basic necessities to raise a family. Or more specifically, women do… you can find a willing sperm donor, but the mom gets told by society don’t have a baby you can’t afford, and does exactly that. And then they trot out a whole “God doesn’t like this” moral argument, all while happily looking the other way when it’s clear a bunch of their leaders party fucked kids on an offshore island.
Whenever I have to do military duty abroad, I just remember that this world is just a simulation and the other npcs will just respawn as other characters in the future using the so called reincarnation feature and it’s easier to cope that way.
/S?
Not the general run of soldiers, no.
If OP thinks those conversations haven’t been had, they are living in blissful ignorance.
I think the target audience for that tweet are the Obama worshipping, white, upper middle class, suburban Democrats. This country has done a lot of fucked up shit under Reagan, Clinton, W, Obama, Trump, Biden, and again now Trump. I’m not sure about HW Bush, but he use to head the CIA so…
You described most of lemmy. Not a person here has met a solder or had to deal with not having health care or not having any options of social mobility.
They want us to fight a revolution without anyone who can fight. And apparently Pretti deserved to die for helping fascists
The audience is really anyone who continues to feel even a scintilla of patriotism for this shithole.
Patriotism is defined as “love of country”, yes, but also “devotion to the welfare of one’s compatriots”. I personally believe there is nothing more patriotic than doing everything possible to root out a corrupt and harmful government.
I actually think the USA is a beautiful place and I want to protect it from those who would destroy it. The word you’re thinking of is jingoism, which is honestly a serious problem here
Ok, so if someone is not American, you don’t care about their welfare?
If no, thats internationalism, the opposite of patriotism, if yes, you see why we have trouble distinguishing yall from fascists, right?
I never said that? The difference is as an American citizen I actually have some say in the welfare of Americans but by no means mistake me for a nationalist. I think you may need to touch up on the difference between patriotism and nationalism
Patriotism is just nationalism for people who haven’t grappled with the reality of patriotism. The core is still juxtaposing human worth and real estate.
I see what you’re getting at, and perhaps my definition of patriotism is more wistful than the reality of it, but I’ve always thought of patriotism as similar to family. You’re more devoted to them because you are closer to them and there’s a certain want to preserve that alongside the places where it happened, y’know? And just like family, sometimes you have to override that devotion when the relationship becomes too toxic to maintain.
I feel like that’s where I’m at with the US. I’ve always been a naturalist at heart and I adore the landscapes of the country in particular, but it’s like a toxic parent. I try my best to pursue reform but I’m nearing a point where I’ll just have to leave and cut my losses. But it is hard because I legitimately do love this country, just…not the government or the people who run it.
The problem ain’t just the Trump administration, it’s systemic and I wish more people here understood that. I just think it would be better for the whole world if the US could get its shit together instead of every person with a moral compass abandoning it to its inevitable doom and the subsequent suffering of everyone too screwed by the system to leave.
I care about the welfare of every living breathing human, but tbh I think fixing the US (however that’s done) would benefit a hell of a lot of people in a whole lot of places. This country’s global military presence is so pervasive and damaging, it’d be nice to put a stop to it.
If the want to truly fix this place makes me not patriotic, so be it, but I’ve always seen that as the definition of patriotic. Maybe I’m just naive tho
So patriotism is just mutual aid + nationalism.
Why not just skip the last step?
I think they’re talking about national socialism.
Don’t confused patriotism with nationalism. Nationalists are rooting for ICE and Trump and all of those asshats. Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, and the many others out there still, are all Patriots.
Edit: I misspelled Alex Pretti’s name. My sincerest apologies.
As someone who knows the history of this country patriotism is barely distinguishable from nationalism.
So leave.
I would but there’s nowhere without a country to go to
You must become an astronaut. That’s all that left when you start thinkin’ I gotta get the hell out of here. Just need to create your own world with its own rules.
That’s the plan: become an astronaut, hollow out an asteroid with sunlight, and build an O’Neill cylinder inside.
Nationalism is the ideology that a certain people should have a state for themselfes.
Patriotism is the love for one’s state, but that state may have one or more people in it.
Which is why it doesn’t make sense to me, since I hate states in general and the United States specifically.
Fundamentally there are two kinds of nationalism: civic and romantic. Civic nationalism is about people adhering to a society’s set of laws and values. Romantic nationalism, also known as blood and soil nationalism, incorporates those concepts of birthright and bloodlines as important to one’s status in a nation.
The United States was a major pioneer and proponent of the civic kind, defying the traditional romantic nationalism that grew out of Europe. Despite our historical misgivings it’s an important difference.
Pure fantasy.
I don’t even like society’s laws and values, though.
Right I see. In case you happen to be interested, Hannah Arendt suggested a system of federated councils which I find interesting. I’m not an expert on it, but there are some essays about it like this.
Thanks!
It is a meaningless distinction.
Just have to look at the country’s history. This is business as usual, it’s just now affecting the moderates.
You are talking about people who got lied to all their lives when they where kids.
There’s only so far one can claim ignorance as an excuse. I blame it on a mentality in the USA of people having such bad experience in public education that they “don’t want to learn no more.” The desire to question and expand one’s knowledge was ground away. As well it was easier to live in ignorance before the internet. Now it feels more of a choice.
These days? Sure. But back then it was a much different country. And a lot of solders came back as liberals, but according to lemmy they deserve to die anyway
Not all of lemmy does, but there’s some out spoken people I’ve seen I disagree with.
Most the people posting here sure seem to be.
Yes, the target audience is definitely not the actual fascists who are supporting the brownshirts and their actions.
Sooo… the vast majority of Democrat voters? I know we’re all pretty big lefties here, but I’ve never met a single Democrat voter out in the real world who didn’t think Obama was the perfect president who did absolutely nothing wrong. My father in law - who has a degree in political science - keeps a photo of Obama in his wallet at all times along with pictures of his family members.
Sure, plenty of people have started to come to the realization that our soldiers are not heroically staving off evil abroad, but they’re still a tiny fraction of the American population as a whole.
Some people understand that the world is imperfect.
All the way back to Washington.
Worshipping Obama?
I seen you’ve made the common logical error of assuming the democrats worship their leaders. That’s something left wing and right wing extremists do in equal parts but everyone in between, is absolutely not worshipping any poltical leaders.
Fascism is colonialism turned inward
Imperial boomerang.
My nephew just signed up for the Marines cause he’s not doing well financially and his gf is also in there. Dude skipped out on going to his grandmother’s funeral so he could take the test to get in.
Soldiers have way more trigger discipline than the gravy seals.
Some of the best people I’ve ever met were Servicemembers… All of the worst people too. I’ve met some losers but some of the most high key bad people I’ve met were Servicemenbers…
Do you think its more likely that American soldiers have fantastic moral character and discipline or that American soldiers are not punished when they make mistakes?
The guy who shot Renee Good was a soldier…
So what?
My point is, you can draw a direct through-line between Iraq/Afghanistan and what is happening now domestically. You can’t really separate the two. Thus there’s no point in drawing a distinction between a soldier and a “gravy seal”. That’s just cope; the military is not coming to save us
There are plenty of shit bags in the service. There are plenty of fantastic people too. The military is a great representation of all proletariats.
So what? The same could be said about ICE. The quality of individuals doesn’t mean anything when the institution as a whole is so rotten and evil
The US military has murdered orders of magnitude more unarmed civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan than ICE ever conceivably will in the US
Yeah, that’s what I was going to say. There are lots of problems with the military, and there are also clear use of force guidelines. I’m not saying those are never violated, but they at least have them and more training.
Jonathan Ross was a soldier before he joined ICE.
Removed by mod
Hey, great comment except for using the r-word, it’s a slur. That’s why I’m removing it.
I was vaguely quoting someone. I’ll repost it censored if you’d prefer but I don’t remember it word for word so you’d need to send me a copy of it.
It should be in the modlog for you. Let me know if it isn’t. Make sure you’re in this community’s modlog.
Ah, learn something everyday. Thanks for the education, I appreciate it.
I think a discussion about the R word would be interesting, but I know this isn’t the time and place for it. I’ll repost my comment with it removed.
Just replace the ‘rard’ word with regarded individual and most everyone will get it.
It’s wasn’t until old Smosh made that song saying regared mean slow and its offencive and it went viral, then a few months later then suddenly everyone found it ‘offencive’, took the song down then made a song about saying regarded was fine and it got no traction.
Yes I will die on this hill and I do arbitrarally blame Smosh for my fav word being socially banned.
I’ve literally never heard if what you’re talking about, and I’ve known the word of a slur since I was a teenager. Maybe its time to grow up a little?
Maybe mind your own manners a bit, there is more to growing up then just the words we use.
I grew up in a time where everyone called each other gay as a slur, not understanding how bad that was. We all adapted and don’t say it as a slur anymore.
Maybe, I think people these days are way to soft, then again I’m also sick of the way things are structured socially nowadays, it just seems so superficial to get bent out of shape over some of these things in my mind, but I always had thick skin I guess.
Edit: Fuck this is Turing into old man shouts at cloud.
On your edit, yeah a little bit. But at least you recognized it yourself?
Language changes. Change with it or doom yourself to being the old man yelling at clouds. The choice is yours.
I don’t have time to find the correct link to the project. For some stupid reason it wasn’t on their main page. Excellent reporting on one of undoubtedly many cases of USA soldiers murdering people in Iraq:
https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/podcast-dark-examines-crime-went-unpunished
