Ok. I mean, sure.
I hate the military too.
But what’s your end goal here? Just to post memes and dunks? Because you’re not going to do anything more by posting like this.
If you actually want a revolution in the West, especially the US, you need to gain the support of a significant chunk of the military. There’s no other way. And the people in the military who are open to being radicalised are precisely the “poor boys” you’re criticising right now.
Make no mistake, there are plenty of chuds from chud families who go into the military literally so they can kill brown people. Nothing you or I will say can change their minds. They must be fought and defeated.
But you will not succeed in that without the support of the people in the military who are also oppressed by those same structures of power.
If you actually want a revolution in the West, especially the US, you need to gain the support of a significant chunk of the military. There’s no other way. And the people in the military who are open to being radicalised are precisely the “poor boys” you’re criticising right now.
In my experience, the vast majority of veterans are either broken people who need help more than they can provide, true believers who will go down with the settler-colonial ship, or completely unhinged who give off spree shooter vibes. The idea that veterans will impact us with their hardcore combat training is complete bogus. Most veterans have mundane jobs at the military with identical civilian counterparts. One veteran I know spend his service driving trucks in Germany. How is he any different from the millions of civilian truck drivers? Another had combat experience in Iraq, the stereotype of the vet who’ll give us loser civilians the combat experience we desperately need, except he basically slept right next to a burn pit throughout his time in Iraq, which means you know his lungs are absolutely fucked. Last time I check up on him, he was going to get a colonoscopy as a 35 year old man because someone from his platoon who also had to sleep next to those burn pits got colon cancer.
I wish people would mystify veterans less. They’re not that different from civilians at the end of the day.
No, we need to split the active military personnel. I’m not talking about old dudes here.
I’m not sure how you would directly reach people in active duty. Even people like Mike Prysner mostly target vets. It’s not like you could just walk to a military base and hand out pamphlets to random soldiers. Active soldiers also have their social media completely monitored. All those Tiktoks of soldiers dicking around or posting thirst traps should be understood as part of a massive PR/psyop campaign that aims to humanize soldiers in front of an increasingly skeptical and cynical public. Not every single psyop attempt is as cringey as the army trying to form an esports team. Those Tiktoks are completely inorganic.
But what’s your end goal here? Just to post memes and dunks?
yes, this is literally the dunk tank
If you actually want a revolution in the West, especially the US
lmao there will never be a leftist revolution in the US precisely because it’s the imperial core and material conditions won’t allow it. You can barely get enough people to protest the constant murders of black people there by the state.
Are there any other disagreeable groups we absolutely need to extend olive branches to in order to win their loyalty, in spite of any collective and individual crimes?
It surely wouldn’t hurt to have some cops on our side, and I mean I have heard enough jokes about cop school being the last resort for small town fuckup bullies to draw a conclusion that some can be turned around.
Talking seriously though, this is in no way an alternative to being mean to and alienating imperialist veterans, there must be a line drawn when it comes to how veterans actually have to atone and repay their victims before they can seriously be considered revolutionary allies. Just being sad about it and deciding to be a leftist at home isn’t enough, you’ve still benefited from participating in international crimes and those victims rarely get to come back to the states for those same benefits.
We cant seriously sit around and decide that “we have no choice but appeasement” is a serious strategy, if we must absolutely have a strategy.
Catholic sacrament of penance brain.
I mean this insultingly, you cannot be absolved of imperialist deeds by words and thoughts alone.
I don’t take issue with critiquing the military, but with dunking on the “poor boys” as OP did.
Cops are a good example of this. I’m sure ACAB alienates some folks. I don’t care about that. I think it’s a good slogan and cops are, in general, bad. But this post (specifically the comment I was replying to and the greater context of why this BS even started) is similar to dunking on black and brown cops rather the system or even on the white thumbs overwhelmingly in charge of it. It’s a very weird hill to die on.
Should black and brown cops be criticised? Absolutely. But you can’t deny it’s kinda sus to focus on them rather than any other or the system they’re a part of.
They didn’t mention it but this all started because a leftist veteran died recently and a certain empanada on Twitter meme’d about it.
And OP already claimed they don’t believe revolution is possible so I don’t see a need to argue the point further with them. If all you want to do is meme and doom post, then there’s clearly no reason to take you seriously.
Edit: Also, the main point I was making still stands. I don’t think it’s possible to have a revolution in the West, especially America, without having a chunk of the military on your side. And that chunk will have to be people like the ones OP is dunking on.
Hating the troops is literally mainstream now. Remember Trump going mask off and calling them losers and suckers? That’s not controversial anymore, you just can’t say it out loud in polite company, but no one “respects” the troops except the biggest liberals and rubes. It’s not some epic dunk on the right wing or the imperialists to hate soldiers, they don’t like them either.
Imo this attitude should be exploited by the left. The best way to help “the troops” is to put an end to imperialist ventures they get sent on.
The reason that “poor boys” get dunked on is the same reason that “good cops”, ethnic minority cops or even “queer cops” get dunked on and focused on.
Their existence is presented and focused upon as one line of defense in favor of these systems, so critiques will go after these groups since they have been made into a living argument.
