astronaut_sloth

joined 2 years ago
[–] astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 16 points 3 days ago

My decade of experience working with the military says otherwise.

There is a small minority who joins to kill people, probably like 5%. It's way too high, but it's still in the vast minority. Most officers and NCOs, in fact, prefer thinking personnel so that war crimes aren't committed and laws are followed while still accomplishing a commander's intent. While I'll admit that there is a cavalier attitude toward collateral damage (which is a separate issue), war crimes, a la Eddie Gallagher, are generally not tolerated.

Of course, with a vet bro SecDef, war criminals will become more numerous and have a sense of impunity. It's why the vast majority of service members I work with have a disdain (some rather openly) for Hegseth.

[–] astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 28 points 4 days ago (2 children)

“I learned all these skills in the army—smash and grabs, site exploitation—and never got to use them,” he said. “So I’m here to kind of do what I learned to do over there, but this time here, defending my country.”

Never getting to use those skills in real life is the ideal. Any sane person in the military learns a ton of skills that they hope only to use in training. Wanting to use these skills for real, and especially domestically should be grounds for psychologically screening these people out of not just the military but any sort of service position.

Using those skills can be fun in training or drills, actually. So, I get wanting to shoot, run, and do simulated combat. But why would anyone actually want to inflict that harm on someone else for real? They would have to be deeply disturbed.

[–] astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 6 points 1 week ago (11 children)

Yep, but those who resign for moral reasons will be more likely to take actual actions to protest/stop what's happening. The military will have a hard time recruiting competent people in that environment, though, and the people taking the vacancies will likely have diminishing competence as time goes on.

To put it in perspective, if more officers retire at 20, they'll generally be O-5s (Lieutenant Colonels or Commanders), and so the next year's promotion cycle will need to promote more O-4s to cover the vacancies. This will then trickle down, and suddenly, you have officers who have been O-3s for just a couple of years being promoted to O-4 rather than waiting longer and gaining experience.

In that scenario, there will be less efficiency in planning and execution and far more incompetence, and if being used against civilians, more brutality. But incompetence is easier to defeat in the long run. Seeing the incompetence and brutality will deprive the military of the smartest recruits who staff the important IT, intelligence, cyber, etc. communities. So, while they may get true believers, a lower proportion will be competent.

No matter how it shakes out, it will get very bad.

[–] astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 15 points 1 week ago (13 children)

Not wrong. At "best," we'll see a fracturing of the military...which could be much more trouble than it's worth. I'd expect a small wave of resignations/desertions (since resignation for an officer takes a long time). The remainder of good people will actively try to avoid and sea-lawyer their way out of doing any damage to civilians without violating orders. There will be a good chunk who will happily fire on US civilians, though.

[–] astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It’s important to spread the message far and wide that they are not alone

This right here. Disobeying orders is hard, and upholding one's oath when being told from all sides is hard, especially when friends and colleagues are going along with it. You don't want to be the squeaky wheel who makes trouble for everyone. It can become easy to think that you're alone if surrounded by people "just following orders." It's made harder still when considering that a single morally courageous action can throw away a career and potentially land you in the brig.

[–] astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 5 points 1 week ago

Plus, actual veterans and service members think it's stupid. "Thank you for your service" is a punch line.

[–] astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 45 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Sounds like it's going to be a violent summer. As soon as the first protestor gets injured or killed, this will start to spin out of control.

[–] astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm not a lawyer, but I really don't see how this is legal, unless executed in a very particular way. I really only think this is legal if a state's governor allows their NG troops to work with ICE under Title 32 within that state alone. Once a state's Guard gets federalized, they are working under Title 10. The important difference is that Title 32 grants governors the ability to use their NG for law enforcement, but Title 10 means that they fall under DoD policy, and therefore subject to Posse Comitatus and unable to engage in law enforcement unless legislation is passed.

With that said, the only way I could see this being used is within states with friendly governors (so red states) who mobilize their NG and offer DHS their personnel as aid. But then those personnel could only be used in their state. So, if Indiana mobilized their Guard on Title 32 orders and aided ICE, then they could only operate within Indiana unless invited into another state. If ICE wants to do a raid with Guard personnel in Chicago, then they are SOL because then that would be an interstate invasion.

What this could do is allow ICE personnel to focus on Democratic states while Republicans use their NG to do the majority of ICE's dirty work. In other words, a bunch of ICE people will come to blue states to do the rounding up, while NG will do the rounding up in red states.

[–] astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 6 points 1 week ago

My take, too. They can comply with the court order and save face. The charges are not very solid, though. This can play into Trump's hands in that if he's acquitted, just silently brushing it under the rug with another outrage (the admin is seriously just an outrage/scandal ponzi scheme). If he's convicted, then they can parade him around like they were right the entire time.

[–] astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 1 points 1 week ago

It's important to note that these facilities are public; you can find them easily. Let's not let this just be isolated to Chicago.

[–] astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 8 points 2 weeks ago

I think that's a bit simplistic. I think Biden's position on Gaza hurt turnout, but at the very most, that would mean Trump would win the electoral vote only rather than both the electoral and popular votes. There were several other reasons, e.g. the economy, Biden not bowing out earlier, Harris not putting some separation between them, etc. that ultimately doomed them.

[–] astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 13 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I'm right there with you. I actually preferred the time constraint of an in-class essay over a take-home essay. I think it also helped me think on my feet better and form a cogent argument off the cuff. When I took essays home, I would agonize over every word and re-write sentences a hundred times.

My unpopular opinion is that I have always preferred essay tests to multiple choice or true-false (especially true-false).

 

Hey fellow federal workers, I noticed a DOGE "suggestion box" near the entrance to my building today, and I'm assuming other offices have them, too. Start putting your best suggestions in there and flood them with good ideas. Some examples: "Stop costly deportation flights" or "Disband DOGE" or "Stop targeting trans people"

Will it make a difference? Probably not, but at least some DOGE kid will have to read how much their policies suck while wasting their time combing through the mountain of paper. Or at the very least it'll bury any ideas from sympathizers that could be actually damaging.

 

cross-posted from: https://50501.chat/post/184725

Idea for a poster - WE DO NOT SERVE KINGS IN AMERICA 🇺🇸


Originally Posted By u/GhostieThatHauntsMe At 2025-05-04 11:31:20 AM | Source


 

A whistleblower at the NLRB is pushing for a Congressional investigation and letting the public know about an ongoing data breach involving Russia. He's already been threatened.

PDF with the full text of the disclosure Reddit post discussing it on /r/fednews

 

"Republicans cannot know a moment of peace." This is the energy I've been looking for! I hope he keeps it up and protects Illinoisans who do have to take off work or get into good trouble with the feds.

 

After seeing Cory Booker's speech, I got an idea for another poster. Feel free to use it as you see fit. Distribute it and put it up where ever you want.

It's formatted for 8.5x11, so you should be able to just print it off and go.

 
 

Bezos' Washington Post refuses to run this ad and get paid over $100,000 for it. Let's run it ourselves! There are two pages. We can print them and post them up around our towns and cities. It would be great to post it on federal buildings, and if you are or know a federal worker, have them print it, too and distribute them.

With enough, it can have at least a small psychological effect on Musk and his followers.

Here's a link to the actual PDF

 

For those serious about organizing and sharing important sensitive information, e.g. you're a government whistleblower, you're sharing information with free press outlets, etc., it's important to communicate securely. The best (and probably easiest) way is to use a live bootable OS that leaves no trace. TailsOS can be written to a USB flash drive and run on any computer after rebooting. I linked to a get started guide.

I hope this helps! Every little bit helps!

 

Long text post incoming!

Any popular resistance movement dies in the cradle if people feel isolated. Isolation breeds inaction. Therefore, to make people feel less isolated, word needs to go out to the general public to build solidarity and make them feel part of a greater whole. Resistors are not alone! It also has the psychological benefit of making oppressors feel surrounded (and rightfully so).

Therefore, to get those who want to resist motivated, we must advertise our cause. Thankfully, we live in a modern age where designing good looking graphics and printing them has never been easier.

The best information campaign will rely on guerilla tactics. Put posters up in heavy traffic areas outside, at work, in your neighborhood, on public bulletin boards, wherever needed to get the message out. One priority place would be inside government offices. There are plenty of federal workers who are resisting. If they put up even a few, we can psychologically terrorize the fascists, and this will force them to focus inward and divert from the rest of society.

Of course, these will be damaged or destroyed, whether intentionally or not, so we must be ready to replace posters as that happens, especially if it's ripped down.

Design: This, I think, is paramount. To attract those who may not like the current actions but are hesitant to really resist, it is important to use American symbology. Don't let the fascists take our flag, our symbols, our iconography. These things bind us together as Americans, and it can have an inspiring effect. We are all part of the greater whole.

Also highly important, make sure the designs are good. Marketers, graphic designers: that's your cue. If your an amateur, get the opinion of a trusted friend on a design.

If you don't have the time or ability to design, just take one off the internet. Therefore, I propose that we make repository of resistance posters on the web. Domains are cheap. VPSes are, too. It can also serve as a virtual poster.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you have some designs, post 'em, print 'em, and distribute 'em!

 
 

Way to go Chicago! This was really great to see! I'm glad we are taking care of our neighbors.

 
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