Goethestein posted:

as a reminder, the whole "they are poor and had no choices" argument is addressed in the OP

d4ky posted:

this is a bit more complicated than it seems, at least for me. on one hand, i completely sympathize with the troop haters. the stories that were posted in iFederico's thread are fucking gross, and i can only hope those milgoons get called back for another tour of duty, and get their heads blown clean off their shoulders for the crimes they've committed. fuck em.

on the other hand, it kinda pisses me off that all service members are automatically considered to be irredeemable before they even step foot into boot camp. what frustrates me about this is that a few of you are being really glib about your understanding of the circumstances that cause some of these people to consider joining such a dehumanizing thing. i grew up (and still am) a prole, and because of my background, i viscerally understand the concept of sometimes having to contemplate morally questionable decisions in order to keep a roof over your head and food in the fridge. sometimes, the options that are made available to you are shit, and you're powerless to change that. the few vets (who are good guys btw) that i personally know joined the military, because they wanted to escape some really dire situations. one got his arm ripped off, and the other suffers from crippling ptsd, and both carry a deep sense of regret. for someone who's poor and politically apathetic with very few opportunities, becoming a soldier is seen as a more stable and respectable route than slinging g for a living. or something illegal like that.

i'm not trying to ignore the concept of personal responsibility. it still really matters, i get it. i just find it more constructive to focus my hatred on the whole organization, the scum who rape and murder with impunity (and the people who protect them), and the socio-economic system that forces us to make these horrible choices in order to survive.

good

People all over the world are now discussing whether a third world war will break out. On this question, too, we must be mentally prepared and do some analysis. We stand firmly for peace and against war. However, if the imperialists insist on unleashing another war, we should not be afraid of it. Our attitude on this question is the same as our attitude towards any disturbance: first, we are against it; second, we are not afraid of it. The First World War was followed by the birth of the Soviet Union with a population of 200 million. The Second World War was followed by the emergence of the socialist camp with a combined population of 900 million. If the imperialists insist on launching a third world war, it is certain that several hundred million more will turn to socialism, and then there will not be much room left on earth for the imperialists; it is also likely that the whole structure of imperialism will utterly collapse.

Like that quote

deadken posted:

tpaine posted:

*rapes a female Soldier, promises to kill her if she says anything about it* gosh if only those leftists at home spent more time just trying to talk to me on my own level and not with their starbucks hipster friends *comically shrugs shoulders* it's a funny world isn't it

yea you did all this last time, its dumb + meaningless. you might as well go "*shoots a bunch of people in the head* oh it's because i'm so oppressed by the legacy of slavery *sells crack to children* the whole system is against me *makes dreadful hip-hop 'music* i never got taken to classical concerts because of racism." that's a moronic line of argument, so's yours, you can recognise that people do things which are utterly horrific without feeling the need to culture a pathological hatred or play some ridiculous game of Absolute Moral Responsibility

discipline posted:

-Hey lady! Hey lady!
-What?
-Did I ever tell you I studied in Japan?
-No.
-Aren't you going to ask me where?
-Where?
-Watsamada U!

blinkandwheeze posted:

deadken posted:

Crow posted:

Wow damn i guess everything really is impersonal and there's no responsibility for anything. I think troops are great, why yes i am a pieace of fuckin shit.... God damn do i own, as a peace of shit ...I go fuck my self on the daily, JEsus fuck

yeah basically

ken this is really weak, you can't take an antihumanist stance denying the autonomy of the individual after identifying the profoundly humanist category of class consciousness as the site for a solution of these problems, something that is completely rooted in the idea of the autonomy of the subject

deadken posted:

if people have false consciousness it's because leftists aren't broadcasting their ideas loudly and comprehensively enough. soldiers have been an essential class element in every revolution.

this idea is entirely predicated on the argument that you dismissed out of hand, the idea that individuals make decisions based on their considered moral calculus, yet somehow you think the clarity and spread of radical propaganda is enough to change their minds en masse? ff you deny that troops make a reasoned judgment about the horrific implications of enrolling in the u.s. military as opposed to acting nakedly in their class interests as is determined by the reproduction of inhuman forces, why do you think they will be susceptible to making a reasoned judgement, based on the singularly humanist tactic of raising consciousness, to fight for a socially progressive cause? If a troop has the individual autonomy required to change the path of their life based on an exposure to the ideas of a leftist message, they also have the autonomy to consciously and intentionally take part in the slaughter of innocents. it's ridiculous that you can deny a factor exists only to use it as the entire basis of your idea of a solution. individual do not have autonomy, but the spread of our propaganda will grant it to them? is it possible to take a stance more idealist than that?

where i stand is that i buy the antihumanist view of social relations. structures that determine violence and inequality in society are engaged in the roughly autonomous reproduction of themselves and produce the subjectivity of individuals in society. the mechanisms of class division instill in social groups a subjectivity based on class interests. the bourgeois act in the interest of the bourgeois, the proletariat act in the interest of the proletariat. but these structures do not reproduce themselves simply through the efficacy of their ideas, they reproduce themselves through affecting material reality by the forceful mobilization of social forces that, through a process of subjectification, reinforce the social order that gave birth to them. having taken this into account, the only clear path i see to actually weaken the reproduction of the structures of violence and inequality is to eradicate the social forces through which the reproduction of these forces is made possible. i don't think ending the lives of every last u.s. troop is going to put a final end to the reproduction of imperialism anymore than i think executing every last rapist is going to end rape, but it sure isn't going to hurt. how can you expect to target the structures of imperialism without taking a violent opposition to the forces that allow these structures to enforce themselves on a material plane? troop hate is effective agitprop because it identifies who the enemy is, not play dishonest rhetorical games to endear ourselves to people who do not have our interests at heart in the first place

the people in the u.s. military are not the proletariat. they do not possess any synchronicity with the interests of the proletariat. why does the labour aristocracy suddenly embody an opportunity for progressive social mobilization? why should we suddenly throw any critique of the average u.s. citizen as complicit in the exploitation of the global proletariat to the wind? these people slaughter innocent children because it is in their class interest to do so. there is an evident psychopathy at work, the forces of imperialist agression are schizophrenic, we live in a society where the murder of pakistani children is understood as the vehicle of the benevolent global expansion of peace and freedom across the globe, an empire in decline near declaring itself the most powerful military force the world has ever seen, aren't you lucky it has your interests at heart ... just because this sociopathy is produced so widely and so inhumanly by the structures of social inequality doesn't mean it doesn't exist

what ken seems to want is the labour aristocracy of the imperialist nations, enthralled by the mystique of a radical leftism degenerated to the practice of myth, the abstract significations of rank & file, the cartoonish propaganda that "our enemy is your enemy too!" (which far from simply being profoundly untrue also reeks of the anticapitalist propaganda of the nazis, one which places responsibility solely on the small group of financial elite, the big bad jewish parasites who run our world, making an innocent victim out of the labour aristocracy we should be condemning)... this isn't marxism, this isn't leftism, this is the corporatist allegiance of the military and labour aristocracy

deadken posted:

he blames those under the influence of false consciousness for having false consciousness because his analysis is not built on any solid theoretical base.

as if fascism masquerading as leftism is any more stable?

Crow posted:

there's no such thing as false consciousness: everything is damned in the scope of infinity.