this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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its because every revolution in history has had a military component and envisioning one for the US based on historical materialism requires working in military participation as a prerequisite.
Yeah, the military will be either:
1 and 4 are real possibilities, but a lot of folks want to foreclose any avenue for anyone who's ever been associated with the military to take part.
If we're relying on the people who have willingly and enthusiastically murdered everybody the American government has told them too without hesitation with less than zero justification for decades that doesn't speak well for the plan.
I’ll set down how the baby killer rhetorical device is an ultra leftist boondoggle for the time being.
States need militaries. Without force, a state cannot defend its sovereignty. Will you only support an American revolution that brings its own parallel military structure along and includes no former members of the American military?
Even if I were to concede the point you just made, which I won’t, it requires foreclosing on any revolution in the imperial core. That may or may not be a foregone conclusion but it ain’t exactly the kind of thing you can build a polemic or propaganda machine around.
I think that excluding people that try to say they didn't do anything wrong when they were the literal armed guard for American inperialism is a good way to make sure you're movement isn't filled with fascists with no political knowledge.
You realize this is the exact argument liberals make when they explain why it's a good thing we're giving self avowed nazis unlimited unrestricted weapons in Ukraine right?
"If theyre helping us fight our enemies who cares what their beliefs are." - somebody 6 months from being shot in the back of the head
I’m not gonna pretend to know an exact number but I’d say 95%+ of modern troops never directly killed anyone and you know the sickos who did it enthusiastically sure aren’t left leaning, let alone communists.
Fuck off with the "didn't see direct combat" line
You know what the ones who didn't see direct combat were doing?
Signing the papers that said the unarmed 13 year old who got canoe'd was deffinitly an enemy combatant and figuring out the logistics of how to get bullets from the factory to an innocent persons head halfway around the world as efficiently as possible.
By this thinking anybody who works in any industry that contracts with the US military is a murderer. The workers who make bullets in a factory, the truck drivers who ship them, people who provide mental health services, cooks who serve them meals etc.
Yup fully agreed.
Well except trying to lump in people who provide counseling after the fact that's a pretty obvious bullshit false equivalency but I suspect you know you were reaching for that example.
It's why when I graduated I took a a job designing water and wastewater systems for small communities instead of a job that paid three times as much where I'd design bombs or do that exact kind of logistics. Because I have a functioning set of morals and not facilitating the MIC was a priority to me.
This is why it's frustrating as somebody whonwas faced with the choice and actively worked to make choices to not be complicit in the imperial war machine pretty fucking annoying to have people insist there's no way it can be avoided.
Apply this same logic to the pretty much universally agreed on fact that nobody should support Biden.
If you can make excuses for the people who do the shooting, make the bullets, facilitate the logistics, or even interact with people in the military what's your problem with Biden? Probablly that he's the one causing all this to happen right? Same applies to everybody literally working every day to make it possible.
Not really, there are psychiatrists, counselors, etc who are in the military doing the same job they would outside the military. Are they more complicit than the contracted workers?
Is their work facilitating the soldiers being able to murder people sooner?
If so than yes, they are more complicit than psychologists who don't get soldiers cleared to get back on the frontlines asap.
It is increasingly hilarious to watch you attempt to make this out to be a complicated moral issue.
Here's a handy flow chart.
Does their work enable current active duty service members to more quickly and easily kill innocent people?
Yes --> they are bad
No --> they are not bad
Hell, let's turn it around and go back to the current thread were in.
So does all this mean that actually you can't criticize the idf because everybody is equally culpable for what's going on in Gaza and the idf is going to be the vanguard of Palestinian liberation any day now?
Expecting the American MIC to be instramental to the socialist revolution in this country sure does feel an awful lot like when democrats keep convincing themselves lifelong republican removed like muller comey and garland are going to fight their battles for them and take down a sitting republican president.
Or like how they whitewashed Bush because he gave Michelle Obama a piece of candy one time.
Sweet fucking christ this really isn't fucking difficult. Yes
If so than yes, they are more complicit than doctors who don't get soldiers cleared to get back on the frontlines asap.
Was that supposed to be a gotcha? Like I said it's increasingly hilarious to watch people try to make this complicated.
The soldiers deserve the injuries they receive (and more) as a result of being a genocidal imperialist.
Please reference the flow chart I have already provided.
Again, yes I'm literally not sure why anybody is having a hard time with this.
For the third fucking consecutive time please refer to this handy flow chart I have already provided.
Let's do a little exercise since apparently you need more practice.
Answer the first question, and then try to follow this super complicated flow chart and tell me what answer you get instead of literally just asking me to walk you through it for various specific examples.
You really going to make me explain to you for a fourth time the difference between psychiatrists who dont facilitate troops returning to active duty and those that do?
And your going to follow that up with accusing me of not having reading comprehension?
Bold fucking move cotton.
This is just defeatist. It's not theoretically sound either, as some American living out of their car selling their labor to scrape by is by any sensible definition proletarian.
They have a proletariat, they just aren't white
Edit: (lmao saying they like I'm not part of it)
If you turn the screws on the death machine, you deserve death yourself. This isn't hard to understand, I cannot conceive of why you would defend people who are actively enabling the war machine. Do you fucking work for raytheon or something?
No I’m just wondering where you draw the line. I pay taxes that go towards building these bombs, is every American taxpayer therefore a genocide enabler? Obviously this is a straw man, but where do we draw the line of who is complicit or not?
Personally, my personal policy has always been don't directly tighten the bolts by working for a company that does. I understand that we can't go around holding a trial for the inventor of the screw because they're used in everything, not just weaponry. But I can pretty comfortably say, anyone who works directly for the US military and accompanying industrial complex deserves no forgiveness. The engineers and workers at raytheon and northrop grumman etc are scum. I have a friend who found out their seemingly normal company was making systems for weaponry and they immediately quite. I think they're cool for walking away the moment they found out.
Past that is very case by case basis.
Yeah that is really principled and cool of them. I understand if my playing devil’s advocate comes off as genocide-defending, that’s really not my intention.
I just don’t want people getting carried away in the same kind of rhetoric being used by the Israelis as an excuse to kill all Palestinians because some of them are Hamas.
Not that being a freedom fighter is the same as being genocidal, it’s just the rhetoric Israel uses to justify their crimes.
Edit: This mostly applies to the other commenter I was talking to