a college degree, a mild improvement in the boot's conditions, escape from an abusive family, etc. are worth any amount of foreign lives to these people

The funny thing is Graham Platner isn’t even from a poor or abusive background, he comes from a multi-millionaire petite bourgeois family and went to private schools.

I know that even if he was poor, doing what he did in the US military is still wrong, but it’s just funny seeing American “leftists” trying to use this argument of “if you’re poor, being a jackboot soldier of the American Reich is fine!” for someone as privileged as Platner.

[–] CatoPosting@hexbear.net 20 points 4 months ago

I'll forgive someone who entered at 18 and then left as soon as they possibly could after seeing what is was like and have consistently avowed the military since. I've known a couple people like that. I'll not forgive people who in any way make that service a part of their identity, or who try and bring nuance to the situation. I've known many more people like this. This guy seems to be in the second camp.

The fact is 18 year-olds are dumb, fresh from a propaganda mill, and poor. The military preys on this, and I don't believe anyone is immune to manipulation.

America delenda est.

[–] CommunistCuddlefish@hexbear.net 3 points 4 months ago

Recently learned about this article and am going to spam it any time defense of the troops comes up: https://archive.ph/2x19K

There is a stubborn faction of the left which still seeks to redeem and organize members of the amerikkkan military, ascribing them with the qualities of a revolutionary class. They constantly seek to reclaim baby-killers as part of the masses which should be organized for the defeat of capitalism, and as such, ward off any defamation of their character. They insist that the volunteer forces that fall in line for imperialist warfare abroad and systematic looting of entire continents are somehow just as much the “victims” of capitalism in the u.$. as those they gun down abroad. One would not, in most cases at least, make these same arguments with regards to police in the united $tates. Why the disconnect?

This misconception generally comes from two baseless assertions: (1) the military disproportionately recruits the most impoverished and nationally oppressed masses, and (2) the experiences of those in the military tend to produce a proletarian class consciousness. These are hefty assumptions, which are entirely inconsistent with what we can see from the political tendencies of the military in the past decades. We question the validity of these claims, however it is insufficient to stop there; we must investigate the assumptions themselves, and how the context of recruitment constructs the consciousness of soldiers today.