Another claim often made is that the military provides an easy path to financial stability that people, particularly those who are racialized, have a difficult time finding elsewhere. Putting specifics aside for now, it’s worth considering the thinly veiled implications of this argument: being part of an institution responsible for maintaining Western domination abroad, largely through terrorizing populations in the Global South, is justified or excusable if it provides some benefit for a resident of the Imperial Core. This is the logic of colonialism as marketed to the masses: sure, you’ll never reap the real rewards of the plunder and terror, but the activities abroad will bring some benefit to you. It’s not a sign of “privilege” to argue that personal benefit shouldn’t justify becoming part of the military or serve as an excuse from critique
It’s not a sign of “privilege” to argue that personal benefit shouldn’t justify becoming part of the military or serve as an excuse from critique
i love being called privileged by some jackboot who comes from a family considerably richer than mine lmao
That's basically been the societal contact in western countries and their vassal states post WW2. It's how the world economy operates. The sooner more people consciously catch on to this, the better.
yeah by this logic would you for example say that it is privileged to turn your nose up at Edward Colston and his charitable work to alleviate the poverty in Bristol
People defending volunteer soliders is just some of the craziest shit I've ever seen. Imagine if you applied any of this logic to cops, because that's what NATO troops are overseas. Going ACAB but defending volunteer soliders is straight up incoherent from an ideological perspective. They're not even conscripts. And the class character of the US volunteer army is wealthier than the average American. I'd imagine the same is true for most NATO volunteer armies.
https://hexbear.net/post/18720
"Um I NEEDED to kill that family for my college money, you stupid moral purist elitist. I'm the REAL victim here. "
The absolute state of western leftism.
Um I NEEDED to kill that family for my
college moneyCamaro, you stupid moral purist elitist. I'm the REAL victim here.The article actually adresses that quite well, as well as most of the other common talking points from leftists in NATO countries.
My original comment is basically a summary of the article in some ways
Why read the article when you can reflexively jump to the defense of the innocent innocent soldiers? How could they have known that the military was for killing people?
I am more convinced that the third wordists are right with each passing day. We have a word for people who just want their own slice of the imperialist pie, they’re called radlibs. Third world leftists sure as hell don’t lose any sleep about the suffering of the bastards that pillaged their country. I know I don’t.
Fuck the troops. Amazing that this is even remotely controversial in a “leftist” space.
This is an amerikan website. Shit takes from chauvinists are to be expected.
I just don't understand it. I'm pretty sure no one on here is going to go defend old apartheid South African troops or the modern apartheid Israeli troops (and that's good, no one should defend them), yet those groups actually have more of an excuse than volunteer soliders as they're conscripts and were/are forcefully drafted.
Plugging your ears and repeating "materialism materialism materialism" as if it absolves you of any and all responsibility. Literally just clean wehrmacht but it's leftist so it's ok. Just as I don't give a fuck if a concentration camp guard didn't actually hate Jews and just did it for the money, I also don't give a fuck about your motivations for participating in a genocidal war machine. Even if all you did was handle paperwork, you still greased the wheels.
You won't catch me clutching my pearls about the precious victim-soldiers.
Yeah if the military wants to, they can just bring the draft back and ignore all the silly rules. But then it becomes something completely different in terms of the class and income level, and stuff like fragings might happen again or rebellions against command.
It's actually really easy to not enlist in the military. I'm not in the military every single day. You don't even have to think about it, you can just wake up in the morning and poof, you're not in the military.
It’s not that easy for everyone buddy. Last week I accidentally drove to the recruiting office and accidentally signed my name on the dotted line and accidentally drone striked a wedding
The western left is such a complete and utter farce, can't even agree that serving an imperialist army is bad, actually. Any one of these defensive comments could be applied just as well to cops, but these are the international cops that don't affect me, so fuck their victims, I guess.
It's so fucking sad that even on this site we can't get people to actually view Iraqis and Afghans as human beings.
Very reminiscent of the "all lives matter" backlash every time a cop murders a minority
The comment I made applies just as much to former cops, skinheads, coyotes, jihadists, you name it. Moralism is an idealist trap.
Serving an imperialist army is bad, actually, and it remains bad no matter what you do afterwards. You are at the very least complicit in genocidal American policy.
You don’t get a free pass just because you’re “former” whatever. Former serial killers still get convicted, former rapists still get convicted, former concentration camp guards still get convicted. You’re not entitled to absolution just because you’re “former”. You’re even less entitled to make it about yourself and how you’re the real victim.
It’s never, ever anyone’s fault. They were always tricked, they didn’t know, the higher ups made them do it, or whatever the latest excuse is.
I'm not really interested in the poverty draft or propaganda arguments. I'm interested in getting more use out of people than executing them or leaving them in jail to rot, if such a thing is feasible (which will vary case by case)
Hey, I'm all for getting use out of people. Pretty sure the construction sector will be heavily burdened after any war. But being released from prison/comunnity service/whatever else is not equivalent to absolution or forgiveness. All it means is you've served your sentence. In any case, I'm not going to lose any sleep over US soldiers being subjected to the fury of their victims or waste resources shielding them from the consequences.
I was just clearing out my inbox after the site migration and came across this exact struggle session from a year ago, the one that led to seven deadly sins getting kicked out. Kind of surreal to see it play out again.
I think these circular arguments happening over and over is a reflection of our powerlessness. There's no organized revolutionary party, there's no party discipline, there's no political education. So we can just fight over hypotheticals that don't have any bearing on anything.
There's no substantial left in the Imperial Core in large part due to propaganda and cooperation between the media class and the state, but mostly because people in the Imperial Core generally get a good deal from Empire. These questions can become relevant when more than just the very bottom (usually racialized) strata of our societies experience revolutionary conditions. Fortunately, that's coming.
We had the exact same argument three years ago when I first joined hexbear lol. The needle has moved zero since then
https://hexbear.net/post/18720
Purge. Purge. Purge. Purge. Purge.
And where did that bring you? Back to me.
so glad to see people on this website aren't completely insane, I feel comfortable telling you guys that I'm a Jewish American who volunteered for the IDF after my birthright. it's okay guys, the IDF gave me money and benefits for joining, and before joining my parent's income was $1 less than the mean income where this sort of thing is ok.
100+ comments in a thread about an article title "Soldiers Aren't Victims, And They Deserve Contempt"
Burgerländer moment
Let's take a quick overview of the twists and turns of the troop apologia pretzel:
- Morality isn't real
- Going after the troops makes you the real troop
- What if the troops were trans, though?
- What about 1917 Russia, which is basically the same as 2023 USA?
- Did you know that troops can suffer too?
Did I miss anything?
Reminds me of when Stalin joked about killing all the Nazi troops and Churchill got incredibly, incredibly mad.
Blaming everyone and everything other than themselves and refusing to face any consequences for their actions. I didn't know I was in postwar Germany.
Did I miss anything?
You forgot the most classic ones
- just following orders
- they were conscripted
- they didn't know that [insert country's military] doesn't actually protect people
the 2nd one doesn't apply to amerikkka, which makes it worse since it means basically everyone volunteers for that shit.
It's 2023. Hexbear is having the soldier struggle session.
Although I guess I shouldn't complain, I used to have lib brainworms too and these struggle sessions are what bullied them out of me.
Yes, except it seems several of the troop-defenders in here have old accounts
What’s that thing Trotsky said about the ash heap of history? C’mon Trots, get that broom ready, we’ve got some sweeping to do. Cleanup in aisle 88.
Made more sense on a catch-all left subreddit. Makes less sense on a niche communist website where users should be sharp enough to know imperial militaries are evil.
I never understood the difference between a soldier killing someone and a murder
One has the backing of a shit ton of other murderers, and they get a bunch of expensive hardware to murder with.
The state has a monopoly on violence, so as long as you do violence in the service of the state it is acceptable.
The two acts are equivalent. You would agree that someone committing murder doesn't preclude them from ever in the future being able ally, right?
Anyone talking about someone "deserving" opposition is necessarily arguing from a non-materialist standpoint. I don't give a shit what stipulated moral ledgers say about people I don't know, that information is useless to me. We should be concerned with whether someone is a useful (or detrimental) ally, not what they "deserve."
In my experience, most vets aren't any more useful relative to your civilian worker, which means they do not need to be specifically catered to. Relative to the general population, they are more physically fit for their age (not physically fit in general since most 40 year old vets are going to be flabby just less flabby than 40 year old civilians) but also suffer from a host of other physical disabilities like tinnitus and busted knees. Many of them also suffer from PTSD as well. And all for what? So they can brag about how they served in some base in Germany as a glorified truck driver and mechanic? Why should we cater to this specific group of truck drivers and not the millions of other truck drivers throughout the country?
Obviously if you need a construction worker, a vet is a middling pick, but if you need a guerilla, a vet is toward the top so long as they have retained their limbs and senses.
I don't see this point particularly substantiated as US military doctrine relies on air superiority and having a massive tech and logistic advantage over your opponents. How would this transfer to having the skills of waging asymmetric guerilla warfare? Vets also aren't able to slip seamlessly in crowds, partially because they have a long paper trail (deployment date, records of visits to the VA) and partially because they won't stfu about being a vet (vet licenses, Semper Fi tattoos, "is there a veteran discount"). If the guerilla can't swim among the people like fish swim among the sea like Mao said, then the guerilla is useless.
well clearly we need to start appealing to special forces war crime oper8ers from the left so they can teach us silly impractical lefties how to do guerilla warfare.
We need to radicalize CIA case officers so we know how to produce effective propaganda and coup governments.
Tacticool Communism could be an aesthetic though. Imagine it. We need to grab it before the dipshit Patsocks do.
ppl have definitely tried to make tacticool communism happen but there's a very reddit tendency to insist liking the military aesthetic of any socialist state is cringe so it ends up looking like american troop with a plate carrier and nvgs but heckin based and antiauthoritarian
Please point me to it, then. Where do they keep it? Or is it like a formula, a priori?
Anything that helps establish the dictatorship of the proletariat is moral. Anything that gets in the way is immoral.
Really...? You really can't think of any scenario where pushing the communism dial 0.00001 couldn't be outweighed by any other kind of immorality?
👏 More 👏 leftist 👏 (cw) r*pists! 👏 More 👏 leftist 👏 murderers!
(Apologies if your comment was sarcastic. I hope it was.)
This is based on a myopic view of utility. If it actually benefitted the world, the answer is obviously yes, but it nearly never could because an active serial rapist or murderer is a liability to any institution other than a trafficking ring.
From watching how "abandon morality" gets used here and elsewhere in the US left I don't know that it is terribly useful because it gets used for almost anything. Or if it is going to be useful people need to agree on what it actually means. Seems like playing with fire to me unless you are positive all the people reading it are going to understand what you mean. Just an observation.
I'm not saying abandon personal morality, I am saying abandon moralism, i.e. ideology based on moral tenets rather than consequences. The fact that others say bad shit and use similar words means no more to me than the fact that the US describes itself as "liberating" places while we all are (I assume) genuine liberationists.
Wasn't a shot at you and I'm not enough of a nerd to have an opinion about what is right or wrong regarding theory, just something I noticed. It seems to mean different things to everyone.
Sure, I just wanted to explain myself a little in case I wasn't clear.
Pretty much this. The ends justify the means, but that's useless without the caveat that the means should actually be something that helps you achieve your ends.
As to the topic of the OP, I agree with your point but I don't have enough knowledge on the topic to know how useful vets are. The few comments I've seen that deal with peoples' concrete organizing experience as opposed to moral handwringing make it seem that they're more often liabilities than they are assets.
Sure, I have not much of a stance on exactly what proportion of vets can be rehabilitated prior to revolution, my main argument is that their military training is a major plus in some cases as well as their relative fitness, but injuries (physical and mental) and personal chauvinism and myopia are minuses to how useful they are. I'm not saying we need every single one of them or to accept all who apply, just that they have uses that should be seriously considered (and weighed against the detriments!). Vets need vetting, we could say.
"Nearly never could." That's why you're arguing that it's a-ok to court countless actual murderers (imperial troops) for the cause. Because their utility to the imminent revolution that's about to happen any second in the west outweighs the fact that they've been content so far to kill brown farmers in the global south. Got it.
I never said anything about an imminent revolution, but there are other practices like community defense where the necessity is already upon us. If they tell you that it was cool to slaughter brown farmers, you probably don't want them around, but if they want to participate in a party aimed at the destruction of the state that they used to serve, they probably had a change of heart at some point.
I wasn't sarcastic, but for the record I find the people pearl clutching over people being mean to boots a lot more annoying than people pearl clutching about not squeezing boots for everything they're worth (usually nothing).
You can justify all sorts of shit with that logic, like silencing and attacking victims if the abuser is a more useful ally in the movement than them.
People use those arguments (I saw them do that with Biden) but the thing about it is that that's usually false. A predator is a liability, especially when you don't have history's most powerful media empire on your side, and people are usually much more replaceable than our stories about them might lead us to believe. There is no reason to not to put the predator in re-education unless what you have is a bureaucracy rather than a democratic vanguard.
Marxism is war strategy, and I support victims because, as is the cote of Marxism, solidarity is the best strategy for all involved.
We talk about what people deserve all the time, that's what the whole
thing is. If we take the accepted idea on here that the United States commits genocide in the global south and Nazi soldiers deserved the pit for their part in the genocide, what is the differentiating factor between a Nazi who signed up for the Wehrmacht and an American who signed up for the army?Believe it or not, I know what social context is. I don't really make the comments you allude to, but I shrug at them because the people making them are not asserting serious arguments for the direction of a socialist movement, they are expressing an emotional reaction. If they are viciously reactionary (particularly if they are anti-democratic) I do push back and encourage you to as well, but we should not mistake picking our battles for endorsing things that aren't worth attacking.
The point of the article is that these things are worth attacking because the only difference between cops and military is the physical location of where they commit oppression. Attacking these institutions is crucial to saving the lives of oppressed people at home and in the global south
I agree that troops are a type of cop (albeit the training is much different). My stance on cops is the same.
There's one other difference, which is that in some cases you can make them fight each other, and that's pretty neat.
I always just think about what it would mean to have a fuctioning national party that spent any significant part of its capabilities to enact and convey excommunication for huge swaths of the population (whichever set you like). It's just utterly without strategy or thought for the consequences.
To expand:
What is gained by resolving that soldiers are permanently stained as people?
What does that mean in practice?
What is the result if this practice is undertaken?
Is this result conducive or not to making a better world, (hopefully one where there aren't so many soldiers)?
What are the consequences of not resolving so, from not undertaking this practice, or from undertaking a different one?These are the kind of questions we need to discuss to have any kind of useful turning over of the subject, otherwise we're all just jerking off over whether soldiers are good or bad, how bad, and if they can ever be good.
What is gained by condemning soldiers is the same as what's gained by condemning cops, and everything you've said here could be said just as easily about cops. What's gained is that a clear and unequivocal condemnation helps establish a message that is absolutely vital to any leftist movement - that we will condemn and oppose injustice, and stick up for the poor and vulnerable, even when it is costly to do so. Even when the expected gain is less than the expected cost.
Lots of people under capitalism feel alienated and are skeptical of any organization that it will actually come to their aid when the chips are down. Minority groups understand that they will be thrown under the bus the moment it becomes politically convenient, because they are, well, a minority. The "rational self-interested" thing for a political party to do is to serve the people with the most money and power, while paying lip service to the poor and desperate, on the assumption that they will accept empty promises and pocket change because they have no better options.
It behooves any leftist organization or party, therefore, to establish that they are not careerists and that they serve an actual ideological agenda that will benefit everyone - yes, even you. And to do that, it is vital to consider the concerns of people who are regarded as subhuman, to give voice to the voiceless. And the voiceless, in this case, are the victims of imperialist wars of aggression in the Middle East and elsewhere.
If we're not going to do that, then what the fuck are we doing here? Just become a self-serving political careerist, call up an oil company and promise to do whatever they say if they fund your campaign, tell the poor "we see you, we hear you, we offer you our thoughts and prayers" and call it a day. If you're going to pursue a politically self-interested strategy, you can't half-ass it or the sociopaths who are willing to play the game will play it better and beat you. The only way a leftist project succeeds is by leaving the rich and powerful to the careerists and building solidarity and trust with a mass movement of the poor and vulnerable. And that means calling the people who murder the poor and vulnerable for money what they are.
gained is by condemning soldiers is the same as what's gained by condemning cops,
By my ledger, the observed gain is merely in internet points.
Da Troops that don't regret what they did will be the ones shoving you and your family in a van.
You know, you really have to wonder when anyone can ever face any consequences for anything. After all, consequences are moralism and the victims are just uppity.
Where was the person yesterday that said Hexbear has shit takes and it makes them feel like shit? You don't have to go find me one I found it, it's right here.
I have a number of comrades in my area who used to be soldiers. They were sold a lie and didn't feel like they had another choice. All of them, and I do mean all of them, were victims of the US military industrial complex. All of my ex soldier comrades are on a road to healing from that and it's a difficult one.
This is like saying that people who work at WalMart deserve contempt because WalMart destroys towns, and by working for WalMart, they also destroyed those towns. It's ridiculous. It makes no distinction between career soldiers and people who join the military to be killers, and people who fall for the propganda and fall into the military because they feel like they don't have any other option. It completely and utterly ignores the material conditions that cause people to join the military in the first place, and that's why it's a garbage take. Just like people who work at WalMart as greeters and stockers and cashiers because they don't have any choice are different than people who live and breathe WalMart and make careers out of it.
Anyway I'll go tell the trans ex soldier comrade sleeping in my guest room right now since they're between homes at the moment that some idiot online thinks they deserve contempt, even though they've spent well over a decade doing mutual aid in queer and trans communities in an attempt to heal themselves and others from the trauma they experienced at the hands of the US military industrial complex. I'm sure they'll take that well. Jk, I'll protect them with my life from idiots who want to hurt them. They've suffered more than enough.
Hexbears learn the words restorative justice challenge: IMPOSSIBLE
I regret making this post for one reason only: It reminds me why I left Hexbear in the first place. Just chock full of ultras who have never left their cozy lil burb, have never done any organizing whatsoever, have never confronted a single real world contradiction. How can you possibly hope to overcome capitalism, a system built from the ground up on contradictions that must be resolved, if you can't even see that working class exploitation exists outside of factory floors? The world is nuanced. Confront that nuance, tackle that nuance, work through that nuance. Real organizers are, it's what separates us from the terminally online.
I've got a number of "comrades" in my area that used to be soldiers too! They've been almost universally been domineering, used their past as a badge of expertise and victimhood, and unknowingly reproduce reactionary tendencies while being very hostile to any criticism. And since being a soldier can be a path to financial stability, esp if you're not queer like most military members, a few have had a charming tendency to overestimate everyone else's financial means, while always making organizing suggestions that would require capital that only they have access to. (leftist gun organizing, not even once)
It sounds like your friends have been very hurt by the military industrial complex, and I do believe in rehabilitation for former soldiers just like I believe it's fully possible for someone who was a cop to become a comrade. But, I also think there's a real problem with how low our standards have become on this. Soldiers get victimized sure, but like cops they are also inextricably victimizers.
From what I've heard, part of why cops are so violent is because they're essentially traumatized by their training into being afraid anyone might shoot them at any moment. Apparently the hypervigilance and paranoia can really stick with someone after they leave, but we don't start acting like that excuses what they were complicit in, or like being hurt by their time in policing grants them an automatic right to solidarity.
The only difference is that the military's victims aren't our neighbors. I assume we all know someone who's been victimized by police, but we're much less likely to know someone targeted by the military personally, which makes it really easy lose sight of who the MIC hurt the most. If a veteran's entire criticism centers them, how much they were hurt, treated unfairly, tricked, whatever, they're no comrade of mine.
Also soldiers are like walmart workers? seriously?
Also soldiers are like walmart workers? seriously?
Soldiers are like Walmart workers except we have to suck up to them more than Walmart workers apparently.
The fact that you don't see the difference between most soldiers who sign up for a 4 year contract so that they can escape a hole that society purposely put them in so that they sign up for that 4 year contract, and cops who choose to do that knowing it's a full career commitment speaks volumes about how you look at the world. That is to say, you apparently don't.
Here comes the narrative that soldiers are just poor people trying to escape poverty.
"Sorry for crossing the picket line, but I got mouths to feed."
Your post betrays you here. You've genuinely never met a poor teenager before. Because that's who you're talking about here. You're talking about children and young adults in poverty who are being preyed on by the military industrial complex. Hope that makes you feel real proud of yourself.
Go back to your tech bro job in the burbs.
I've met plenty of poor teenagers as I was one. Your friends comfort is not worth the lives they helped destroy
lmao. most of those "poor teenagers" join the military because they are reactionary dogs. the only people I have known to be interested in enlisting at a young age do so because they see it as a place to buddy up with other racists, queer bashers, and misogynists. there is an ideology behind enlisting whether those who leave the military admit it or not, they joined because they believe in continuing imperialist oppression, not in spite of it.
it's weird but i know tons of people who grew up in poverty, my partner included, and none of them ever turned to murder for hire to make ends meet
I know people who will vociferously defend their own innocence in relation to the crimes of the country we live in, using precisely those terms. I've had local organizers insist to me that someones active membership in the military isn't a big deal because they needed the money and they're out as soon as the contract is up.
I've heard the excuses for joining straight out the mouth of someone right after talking about the third expensive rifle they bought with their national guard paycheck, and before dismissing queer comrade's concern over holding an event where the local fascists will find out their names.
I've known people born in a hole who used the military to get out, and I've known people born in a hole who manage to keep on living despite it. I trust one of those groups way more to be a good comrade.
I get wanting to defend your friends, and it's great you know some good people who made it out, but that's not universal, and the poverty draft is absolutely used as an excuse by vets in left organizing to avoid confronting certain things.
It's pretty disgusting that a comment comparing walmart greeters to people who have murdered poor people for the empire, and then has the gall to talk about restorative justice, has so many upvotes here.
What an absolute joke. Wehrmacht apologia with a new coat of paint. Many, many Wehrmacht soldiers came home broken and traumatized. I don’t give a fuck.
Whining about imperialist footsoldiers not being given enough of a second chance is the apex of first world entitlement. Tell that to the orphans in Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Yemen. Or Laos. Or Syria. Or or or
It's so telling that your first reaction to imperialist footsoldiers being criticized is to rush to their defense. Highly emblematic of western leftist priorities. You wouldn't pull out all the stops to defend wehrmacht soldiers and nazi camp guards, would you? Or maybe you would, considering you're only one step away from Nazi apologia.
I have the feeling that if the victims of your precious, innocent soldiers ever get to put them on trial, they won't give a flying fuck about "restorative justice".
There are Wehrmacht soldiers who defected to the Red Army. I think it would have been a mistake to turn them all away (though they obviously must be investigated). If someone recognizes that they were on the wrong side and want to join the right side, they generally should be able to.
I have the feeling that if the victims of your precious, innocent soldiers ever get to put them on trial, they won't give a flying fuck about "restorative justice".
I cannot blame them for feeling that way, but it by no means makes them correct.
You are making literally the same argument from anger and outrage that Republicans do to defend the death penalty.
There are Wehrmacht soldiers who defected to the Red Army. I think it would have been a mistake to turn them all away (though they obviously must be investigated). If someone recognizes that they were on the wrong side and want to join the right side, they generally should be able to.
Ok? I don't care what they did afterwards. Unless they find some way to retroactively undo their actions this is irrelevant, they can face the same tribunal as everyone else. Maybe mitigating factors can be considered.
I cannot blame them for feeling that way, but it by no means makes them correct.
There it is, the patronizing western leftist attitude. Try not committing war crimes next time, ok? Maybe you can head on over and lecture their victims directly when the time comes.
You are making literally the same argument from anger and outrage that Republicans do to defend the death penalty.
I believe in the death penalty for Nazis, yes. But if you insist I'll compromise for life imprisonment. And besides, I doubt paper-pushers would be sentenced to death. There are punishments between literally nothing and being executed; you know this, right? You also know that punishments should generally be accorded in proportion to the severity of the offense, right? I don't need to advocate for the execution of US soldiers to recognize that being one is bad and that they aren't blameless.
Ok? I don't care what they did afterwards. Unless they find some way to retroactively undo their actions this is irrelevant, they can face the same tribunal as everyone else. Maybe mitigating factors can be considered.
If you further agree that that tribunal can typically wait until the war is over and they have finished serving in the Red Army, then we agree on everything but sentencing.
There it is, the patronizing western leftist attitude. Try not committing war crimes next time, ok? Maybe you can head on over and lecture their victims directly when the time comes
I would (and do) say the same things of the families of murder victims here in America. Their sense of retributive justice is a problem in them,* not a problem out in the world being corrected by their sense of satisfaction. They don't need to forgive anyone, but they should come to understand that punitive justice is reactionary, sadistic, and bad for society.
*I expect this turn of phrase will upset you, but I mean it and I mean it very specifically. Consider the families of murder victims who are not interested in punitive justice. Imagining they are the only people who survived the victim, would it still be correct to kill the convict anyway? I don't think so, and yet this is a difference not in the world at large, nor in the convict, but in the surviving family. It is effectively an illness, one that we should not blame them for, if they feel anger and pursue vengeance, but that does not make it correct.
Regarding your last point, here's a new one for you: what is done to convicts should be bound to the severity of the crime, it should accord with what is useful to society. There will certainly be a great deal of correlation between the two -- someone who commits a greater crime probably needs a greater intervention -- but we must understand that it's not the basic causal mechanism at play.
There is no account to balance.
When the Nazis lost, the Germans didn't get to decide for themselves what punishment they should face. Well, in the East, anyway. It was right when the victims then pursued vengeance against their oppressors and it was also right if they didn't. How this vengeance manifests in a courtroom setting is heavily dependent on context, and until we have war crimes tribunals for the US, it's useless to speculate on how that might happen.
And you can't have it both ways. You can't just ignore what the victims want when what they want is severe punishment and then be all about listening to their wishes when they express forgiveness. If they do, ok then, but what about everyone else they harmed? If you're dealing with a paper-pusher you can't possibly track down every single person who might have been affected by their actions and tally the score. In the rare instance that there is like one victim and they forgive the soldier, then fine. But I don't think it's possible to have such heavily localized effects. If you serve in the military the likelihood that you've only ever impacted those you've directly met is near-zero.
Imperialism is just wrong. Re-education should be the very, very least of postwar justice.
And anyway, I believe that when you kill somebody the only person with the right to forgive you is the person you just killed.
What restoration is there? They do not help the people outside the imperial core.
If they help the project to destroy the imperial core, then they certainly do.
The discussion is about them joining a vanguard party, i.e. hopefully helping to destroy the imperial core, is it not?
Vanguard party? In the imperial core?
Are you high or just disconnected from reality?
If that's aimed at me, then sure, I believe in restorative justice even for the people who murdered the families of friends of mine. They can start by re-enlisting and fragging their commanding officers. But whining about how they feel bad about all the poor farmers they put in the ground (though they had to pay for college somehow) isn't going to cut it.
I think the overlap in vocabulary is incidental. If I want to accuse you, I'll tag you.
Obviously myopic pricks should be tossed out just like someone who committed (conventionally recognized) murder and says "but he kind of deserved it though for calling me stupid". I'm not saying they get a blank check, I am saying that they do not have the Mark of Cain.
I think the overlap in vocabulary is incidental. If I want to accuse you, I'll tag you.
You didn't have to tag me, you were directly responding to a comment I made, in which you made a single statement that you put in quotes, something I didn't say. I'd have had the same question even if you had redundantly tagged me. Wtf.
Again, speaking in terms of "absolution" is useless. Penance is the failure to process guilt or communal rejection in a healthy way. There is no sin and we aren't Saint Peter, there is only what is and isn't useful.
Why do you feel the need to come to the defense of the enforcers of empire?
Mainly I just hate bad analysis. I have no sentimental attachment to these people. In fact, on a personal level, they repulse me.
If they are still in the service and not vets, I think they probably should not be recruited. I was with everyone else shouting at the Gravel teen who wanted to join the Airforce before getting back to doing anti-imperialism.
But committing crimes in the past isn't a Mark of Cain and should not be treated as one.
It is not "bad analysis" to not accept imperial enforcers who have not in any way worked to right the wrongs they have committed.
This "Mark of Cain" shit is just appropriating leftist language to absolve reactionary murderers.It's a Biblical metaphor, not "appropriating leftist language".
There is no cosmic ledger. What matters is that they help solve problems, not their relation to the problem to begin with. Now it just so happens that perpetrators are in some respects often thr best positioned to alleviate problems they caused, but a vet who had been deployed overseas is typically the demographic that this is literally the least true for in the entire world. Should you keep a closer eye on them? Absolutely, but don't demand that they fly to Kabul for the privilege of getting beaten to death before they can actually do something productive.
don't demand that they fly to Kabul for the privilege of getting beaten to death before they can actually do something productive.
why not? why shouldn't soldiers of imperialist oppression dedicate themselves to rectifying their harms? I am only sympathetic to the soldiers who flied the military to join those they where oppressing, such as the many defectors in Korea and Vietnam. If they are willing to sacrifice their life to be the imperialist boot then they should at least have the will to wage war against it.
most vets expect sympathy and care for being "betrayed" by the military. left not with honor but with ptsd and poor healthcare. if they didn't want sleepless nights then maybe they shouldn't have volunteered to kill innocent people for the bourgeoisie. they're no better than any colonialist oppressor, past or present, and they should only be trusted with on a very short lead.
Maybe this is stupid but I think soldiers can be victims, "deserve" contempt (in the sense that people who contempt them are valid and logical in doing so), and now be good people
If somebody used to be an Iraq war veteran but is currently a positive force for the working class, that's great
But I'm not gonna lie and say I don't hate them for what they've done in the past. Though I obviously would hide this irl for social unity
But I'm not gonna lie and say I don't hate them for what they've done in the past. Though I obviously would hide this irl for social unity
That's fine.
But would you write an article about it like this guy?
I would rather write an article like this for a living than my current job yea
I know a leftie who was in the army who brags all the time how they did absolutely nothing and was an active detriment to their unit. I don't listen to people on the internet when it comes to case-by-case stuff, especially if they're brushing broadly. I agree the military is bad and a lot of the people are in the military are bad but the broad-strokes don't work for me since the best leftist I know were former military. Also, if we're gonna be like this, I can hate all rich and upper middle class people regardless of their politics which applies to many people here.
I don't think saying people deserve things is a practical or compassionate means of deciding what should happen after all the only people who need forgiveness don't deserve it by definition
that said a stigma against soldiers isn't unwarrented. I think soldiers are victims of circumstance in many ways but also I consider someone who grew up in the Albanian civil war and is now a murderer for money a victim of circumstance
Stigma as a heuristic for personal safety is okay if it is directed correctly and not pushed too far, but as you note that is different from "deserving".
Umm actually if we dont incraase military budget PUTLER will literally invade and take over the world!!!
Purge. Now.
