• Amerikan Pharaoh@lemmygrad.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            45
            ·
            7 months ago

            Having served myself? It is. A solid 95 percent of veterans are solidly unreachable, and solidly entrenched in their ‘hoo-ah’ murderboners. I don’t even bother trying to make comrades of the vast majority anymore.

            • DickFuckarelli [he/him]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              15
              ·
              7 months ago

              As a vet, couldn’t agree more. Out of the hundreds of murderers, psychopaths, and general shitheads I served with - I’d say about three of us have seen the light so to speak. Personally, it took me about seven to ten years to deprogram.

          • Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            22
            ·
            7 months ago

            Hm, fair point. I’d just rather maaaybe if vets are showing an interest in our discussions we not immediately name call and wait a bit to see. It’s a past tense description – can’t undo it, can only move forward.

            Plus, name calling is so much more fun when you’re certain it’s deserved sickubus

              • LesbianLiberty [she/her]@hexbear.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                25
                ·
                edit-2
                7 months ago

                Yeah, socialist hopes for getting the military on your side have only been successful when the material conditions were overwhelmingly terrible. If a troop or a vet tries to use their status as a troop or vet to make a point beyond possible tactics, if they try to excuse in any way being a stooge for the US Empire, they’re not helpful or useful.

                I know this maybe isn’t “tactical”, but if you were a troop you are irredeemable for your direct role in US Empire and will be going to hell unless you make an effort to genuinely try and help tear it back down. We won’t be winning any troops on our side, might as well venerate the ones who care enough to help anyway.

                Edit: This is however what I’ve gathered personally over time, I’ve not found any convincing literature that supports that troops or vets may help as a force for socialist revolution in the imperial core, and I’ll happily be convinced with evidence or a properly backed piece of theory.

                • Kuori [she/her]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  7
                  ·
                  7 months ago

                  I know this maybe isn’t “tactical”, but if you were a troop you are irredeemable for your direct role in US Empire and will be going to hell

                  no “unless” about it. no amount of good deeds can erase the crimes of the past. you cannot “make up” for killing innocent people.

                  not to say someone in that position can’t be useful in some way but they will never reach a point where they’ve fed enough homeless people to somehow overwrite their atrocities or whatever

                  • LesbianLiberty [she/her]@hexbear.net
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    15
                    ·
                    7 months ago

                    Yeah but we as socialists aren’t here for the best morals; if a troop wants to jump on a grenade and save ten people that’s fantastic and should be celebrated: but my experience tells me that people like that may as well be science fiction.

                  • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]@hexbear.net
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    ·
                    7 months ago

                    I get your point, but how does someone make up for past actions in your moral system? Sure you can’t kill someone but you also can’t unsay something mean. I guess you may see it as a scale, and smaller offenses can be wiped clean, but I still wonder what you think is supposed to happen once someone crosses that line but also sees their evil and regrets it. Obviously this is not relevant to the revolutionary efforts, someone is either useful or not.