Idk if this is a hot take or not but leftists expecting the military to develop class consciousness and fight the revolution for them feels an awful lot like liberals constantly waiting for a lifelong member of one of the three letter agencies to throw the book at Trump.
Noone is coming to save us, including a lot of the people who constantly reassure us they have our back. The only way progress will be accomplished is if we specifically work for it. And as somebody who’s neighbors would gladly crucify me if they knew my political beliefs it frustratingly feels increasingly like the only work to be done is trying to make sure the people I love have enough material support to weather the descent.
Devil’s advocate take: Don’t we need a bunch of ex-military to flip to our side if we hope to have a successful revolution? How do we convince these types to join us and find the 9nes that aren’t tattooing cringe shit on their chests?
DSA Electoral Committee be like: Take off your shirt
hint 2: they’ve ventilated couple of ceo or volunteered with un education program as non-violent atonement
yeah, in revolution-revolution military experience might be necessary, but more relevant would be leaked design docs of drones, jamming info and backdoors. like tacticool shit is irrelevant, if your enemy is willing to use airpower.
That’s true. I’m also thinking of the tactical advantage having military guys on our side gives us. Too many burgerbrains worship anything with troops and see one of them get gunned down by fascist drones could radicalize a lot of people.
i mean ice arrested some vets, to crickets, so (?) on that. the best advantage is advertising against joining military tbh, and draining the coffers of amerikkka through spurious va claims. it’s kinda whatever, i struggle to imagine revolution where combined arms experience is relevant, that would have to be some kind of geographical split. the left either controls the food or not in revolution of that scale and be willing to vietcong their way through bombing (again, seems unlikely).
the denial of profits is another way to starve the beast, to me seems likelier route
Logistical workers are FAR more important than vets. Ports, Railway, Bridges, Warehouses, Highways, IXP, Power Lines is where the system is most fragile.
difference between ‘flip to our side’ and ‘be propped up as an elected representative that we siphon our resources into their personal career project’ don’t you think?
Why can’t these repentant vet types ever shut the fuck up and get in line? If they are so eager to join the left, then do it and shut up. they don’t need to be front and center. They don’t need to be congratulated. They don’t need to be our representatives.
Tbf to DSA they haven’t actually endorsed him or supported him in any official capacity. From what I heard there is a heated debate in the chapter about supporting him and national won’t get involved without the chapter endorsing him.
Most troops lack real combat experience and are gears within the logistics of the imperialist machine known as the US military. They are no different from any other civilian worker, in which case, why roll out the red carpet for them? I know a vet whose entire service could be summed as being a warehouse worker in a base in Germany. We can find plenty of warehouse workers, some of them organized into unions, without having to specifically target vets.
The troops with actual combat experience are either serial killers who got off of committing warcrimes, drones who do as they’re fucking told which amounts to committing warcrimes, and normal people who are completely broken inside from PTSD because they were either forced to commit warcrimes or watch the first two groups commit warcrimes without doing anything to stop them.
The US soldier who simultaneously has substantial combat experience that they can pass down to civilians, doesn’t suffer from PTSD or any other ailments that would lead them to receiving help instead of giving help, and has been sufficiently radicalized to become a genuine anti-imperialist leftist, doesn’t exist in meaningful numbers, so none of our organizing should factor in what is essentially rounding error. If a unicorn vet who’s actually legit falls on our laps from the sky, great, but we shouldn’t structure our organizing to specifically target them.
And even for him, his military experience is being stuck in an aircraft carrier as a sailor. How much has his stuck-in-an-aircraft-carrier experience translate to on-the-ground organizing? It really doesn’t, certainly not enough that justifies the way many people make fools out of themselves by practically rolling out the red carpet for vets with almost no tacticalTM combat experience. Ball is cool for the other stuff he did. All his navy experience did was “introduced to an appreciation for reading and studying history,” presumably because serving in an aircraft carrier that never goes to port is mind-numbingly boring.
These are good points. Maybe this needs to be a separate thread at this point, but I’m wondering why in the past the only successful revolutionary movements required guys with guns and how the military differed in places like China to allow a revolution to happen? Is this a universal thing and we have to build forces from within, because honestly I see 99.9% of conrades will not, or should not, pick up a rifle anytime soon.
This is a US take so maybe things are different where you live.
Idk if this is a hot take or not but leftists expecting the military to develop class consciousness and fight the revolution for them feels an awful lot like liberals constantly waiting for a lifelong member of one of the three letter agencies to throw the book at Trump.
Noone is coming to save us, including a lot of the people who constantly reassure us they have our back. The only way progress will be accomplished is if we specifically work for it. And as somebody who’s neighbors would gladly crucify me if they knew my political beliefs it frustratingly feels increasingly like the only work to be done is trying to make sure the people I love have enough material support to weather the descent.
Devil’s advocate take: Don’t we need a bunch of ex-military to flip to our side if we hope to have a successful revolution? How do we convince these types to join us and find the 9nes that aren’t tattooing cringe shit on their chests?
DSA Electoral Committee be like: Take off your shirt
hint 1: they don’t talk about being a troop.
hint 2: they’ve ventilated couple of ceo or volunteered with un education program as non-violent atonement
yeah, in revolution-revolution military experience might be necessary, but more relevant would be leaked design docs of drones, jamming info and backdoors. like tacticool shit is irrelevant, if your enemy is willing to use airpower.
That’s true. I’m also thinking of the tactical advantage having military guys on our side gives us. Too many burgerbrains worship anything with troops and see one of them get gunned down by fascist drones could radicalize a lot of people.
i mean ice arrested some vets, to crickets, so (?) on that. the best advantage is advertising against joining military tbh, and draining the coffers of amerikkka through spurious va claims. it’s kinda whatever, i struggle to imagine revolution where combined arms experience is relevant, that would have to be some kind of geographical split. the left either controls the food or not in revolution of that scale and be willing to vietcong their way through bombing (again, seems unlikely).
the denial of profits is another way to starve the beast, to me seems likelier route
Logistical workers are FAR more important than vets. Ports, Railway, Bridges, Warehouses, Highways, IXP, Power Lines is where the system is most fragile.
difference between ‘flip to our side’ and ‘be propped up as an elected representative that we siphon our resources into their personal career project’ don’t you think?
Why can’t these repentant vet types ever shut the fuck up and get in line? If they are so eager to join the left, then do it and shut up. they don’t need to be front and center. They don’t need to be congratulated. They don’t need to be our representatives.
That would be nice. Is he even in an org or just doing Dem party stuff?
Dem party stuff with Justice Democrats/Bernie’s Apparatus/DSA behind him
Tbf to DSA they haven’t actually endorsed him or supported him in any official capacity. From what I heard there is a heated debate in the chapter about supporting him and national won’t get involved without the chapter endorsing him.
But he’s not himself a member of any left org, even DSA. Yeah he’s cooked
Most troops lack real combat experience and are gears within the logistics of the imperialist machine known as the US military. They are no different from any other civilian worker, in which case, why roll out the red carpet for them? I know a vet whose entire service could be summed as being a warehouse worker in a base in Germany. We can find plenty of warehouse workers, some of them organized into unions, without having to specifically target vets.
The troops with actual combat experience are either serial killers who got off of committing warcrimes, drones who do as they’re fucking told which amounts to committing warcrimes, and normal people who are completely broken inside from PTSD because they were either forced to commit warcrimes or watch the first two groups commit warcrimes without doing anything to stop them.
The US soldier who simultaneously has substantial combat experience that they can pass down to civilians, doesn’t suffer from PTSD or any other ailments that would lead them to receiving help instead of giving help, and has been sufficiently radicalized to become a genuine anti-imperialist leftist, doesn’t exist in meaningful numbers, so none of our organizing should factor in what is essentially rounding error. If a unicorn vet who’s actually legit falls on our laps from the sky, great, but we shouldn’t structure our organizing to specifically target them.
You just made me think about how Dr Jared Ball is literally a 1 in a billion guy. They don’t make them like that very often, generally.
And even for him, his military experience is being stuck in an aircraft carrier as a sailor. How much has his stuck-in-an-aircraft-carrier experience translate to on-the-ground organizing? It really doesn’t, certainly not enough that justifies the way many people make fools out of themselves by practically rolling out the red carpet for vets with almost no tacticalTM combat experience. Ball is cool for the other stuff he did. All his navy experience did was “introduced to an appreciation for reading and studying history,” presumably because serving in an aircraft carrier that never goes to port is mind-numbingly boring.
These are good points. Maybe this needs to be a separate thread at this point, but I’m wondering why in the past the only successful revolutionary movements required guys with guns and how the military differed in places like China to allow a revolution to happen? Is this a universal thing and we have to build forces from within, because honestly I see 99.9% of conrades will not, or should not, pick up a rifle anytime soon.
This is a US take so maybe things are different where you live.
People with military experience will join a successful revolution anyways. They will come. But the successful revolution comes first.