chat

Boy howdy, 9/11 really broke people's brains

I remember when people used to think the military was something you could insult and disparage

Mindlessly following orders is your duty as a soldier, it has nothing to do with them being robotic psycopaths or not.

Maybe fewer of them are frothing at the mouth to harm civilians the way cops are, I have no idea, but assuming an army is just not going to follow orders because you think they're "normal people" is a risky and stupid position to take.

classic Jamelle Bouie unfortunately. 50% thoughtful and well-sourced takes, 50% completely not understanding the way capital and imperialism functions on the human psyche.

robotic psychopaths who will mindlessly listen to whoever is in charge

this is the core of the actual take he has. it is the argument "only robotic psychopaths would follow (to me) obviously fascist orders, and most national guardsmen are not robotic psychopaths, therefore they will not follow fascist orders." and he's just wrong about that first premise, that you have to basically be an insane person to follow directly and confrontationally violent orders. that's a nice thought, but there's basically infinite historical evidence to the contrary. he's essentially positing an opposite position to the "clean Wehrmacht" fascist myth that is a "psycopath Wehrmacht" liberal myth. every single german soldier that did psychopathic and inhuman things to targeted minority groups was ideologically unemotional about it. this is of course wrong, most atrocities are committed by people who largely are not diagnosible cases of antisocial personality disorders.

in fact, Jamelle is proven wrong by the current genocide of Palestinians that is occurring right now. the israeli genocide force consists of conscripts, and at this point also includes national guardsmen. arguably there were some israelis who for whatever selfish or noble reasons chose not to participate in the genocide: they're either in prison (very few) or they simply left the country. by his own definition, that genocide is being committed by "normal" people who are just following orders.

The military and the police are definitely distinct with their own peculiar mentalities. It’s just not a good/bad distinction as being promoted on BS. And it’s not going to cause military personnel to disobey orders.

There are many people in the military who, although they are indoctrinated during their entire employment, don’t necessarily join specifically in order to do evil. We could debate how much that absolves them morally. But I think one has to hold a special kind of ideology before applying to join the police. On the other hand, people usually join the military for nationalistic reasons which are less compatible with turning guns on Americans. Of course with all the necessary caveats that it doesn’t take much to change that.

Overall it’s a bad idea to ever doubt the military’s ability to turn against its own people, regardless of how favorably they compare with police.

I have multiple relatives who are/were in the military (most the regular branches, one in the NG) and they are pretty much all bloodthirsty shitheads who gush at the thought of being deployed to gun down anyone they deem woke in a hypothetical civil war

not for nothin, but the democrat governor-controlled ky national guard shot and killed a locally famous/friend of the city council type of guy at his own restaurant during the george floyd/breonna taylor moment in louisville.

though it seems like the police and the national guard were in a race to murder him... especially since there wasn't much protesting going on there, and the people at the restaurant being fired upon were customers. of course the killers all had their body cams off, which apparently pissed off the mayor enough to shitcan the police chief. but nobody was prosecuted by the state AG, because of course they weren't. it might send the wrong message to the rabid dogs and make them think twice about murdering citizens during the next civil unrest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_David_McAtee

anyway, 2020 should have taught everybody that this shit is a distinction without a difference.

there was some post about a hispanic-american national guard person with undocumented family members being like "i don't like it at all, but a lawful order is a lawful order"

it's like... bitch do you know what a work slowdown is? calling in sick? ffs

the national guard is 95% shockingly normal people. The other 5% are weird. This ratio may vary slightly by state

There's a little bit of truth to this. The Guard and Reserves aren't full-time robotic psychopaths; they're weekend warriors with day jobs that they have to go back to when they aren't activated or playing Heavily Armed Boy Scouts for two weekends a month. Granted, they spent more time activated than not during the initial years of GWOT.

So does he think they will disobey orders in large numbers? Should only take a day or two to determine who's right.

laughs in Kent State

the people who join the service are robotic psychopaths who will mindlessly listen to whoever is in charge

Bit idea-

In other news - I just finished looking at a Bluesky account where he called LA cops "racist thugs" but he had good things to say about the national guard. He went on to say he was in the NY national guard plus the army too.

Oh

I really wonder what Bouie's take is on the Bivens legal case. Why? TIL - It's essentially impossible to hold a federal agent responsible for their unconstitutional behavior. A Bluesky post by a lawyer...

the fact that it's essentially impossible to hold a federal agent responsible for their unconstitutional behavior should be a bigger deal while federal agents are assaulting a city

https://bsky.app/profile/joshuaerlich.bsky.social/post/3lr4lf7mbzs23

In the thread there's an article link that explains things. It's a very difficult read if you're not a lawyer. And I'm not. Plus the author's use of humor and sarcasm makes it even more of a slog. ‘Bivens Is Dead’ Says The 10th Circuit, Confirming You’re Only Wasting Your Time When Suing Federal Officers

If somebody has a better article on Bivens - please share it.

From what I've heard, the hope is that the members of the national guard will be less willing to enact Trump's eventual orders to shoot protestors. Not sure why they think that, but in the lib mind soldiers are nicer than cops? Idk, they are all the same to me man.

guys please think about the troops, who are notoriously doing tons ofremoveds on bases which are not being properly investigated or prosecuted and also have been going overseas to do crimes against humanity for decades they are actually "good" okay