Wouldn’t that be convenient? Everyone who does horrible things is a psychopath? No. They’re just people. People that bought the patriotism line, or who wanted out of poverty and were told this might be a way, or people who have some notion of honor or duty or what have you. They’re you, with different social pressures. That’s what the fight is against - not groups that find terrible people and cultivate them, but groups that can frame terrible things in ways that ordinary people find noble or worthy. Just as much as you yourself are not immune to propaganda, neither is anyone else.
But by that same coin psychopaths are also people, the soldiers killing innocents on the Caribbean they could have consciences. The soldiers who killed people in Iraq they were folks just like you and me, and normal every day peopled cheered on tv for the blood of innocents being spilled and every day normal people get indoctrinated by psycopathic systems to be the perfect psycho’s that do it’s bidding. Serial killers get caught and they seem perfectly normal and it turns out they had bodies under their house and so on. Nazis had families and friends and loved ones. Yes they are me. Except i haven’t killed anyone. And i will call killers and thugs what they are: Psychos. And i hope they retain that level of humanity so that their crimes haunt them every day of their life.
But for what i’ve seen most of them they are not even haunted, they only get mad they don’t get the praise they feel entitled to for being useful little psychos.
… You must not have spoken to many veterans then. Especially after the US withdrawals in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Suicide rates, poverty and trauma are quite high. You might enlist off the patriotism Kool-aid, but you sure don’t believe in it after a tour.
Additionally, the US Department Of Defense is the world’s largest employer. The percentage of soldiers in active combat roles is quite low all things considered, especially in the current day. Logistics, Intelligence, and Maintenance comprise the majority of roles.
I mean, the question here is: does feeling bad afterwards take away the blood in their hands? How about the almost national drive to dehumanize the enemy? If america sets out in wars to attack latin America or canada, am i supposed to think, “oh poor little babies they will feel bad afterwards” i am pretty sure a lot of nazis drank the cool aid and felt bad when they lost the war.
Added to that, the war machine is making it easy to kill comfortably, guided missiles, drones, intelligent weaponry. maybe some drone operators will feel some discomfort in their gaming chairs after drone striking fishermen or families, but does that make them innocent? Does that help them regain the humanity they lost?
That’s the thing - you circle back to the role of an individual person versus a collective organization.
The President is the commander in chief. Below them the support staff in the cabinet that were appointed by the President direct the individual branches of the military, the generals of each major division of each branch, and so on, and so on.
The soldiers depicted in the photo, even during the time it was taken, would have no bearing on any of the decisions during their enlistment, and that’s presuming they were assigned to a role relevant to the conflict.
If you are frustrated with the DoD’s extensive reach and the history of warfare by the US, that’s fine. If you’re angry and hate the current leadership and their bloody, shortsighted, unnecessarily cruel decisions, I understand and agree with you.
But I don’t think that justifies or validates hating the veterans that returned home, or for the enlisted members who are in their assigned roles in a position they cannot easily leave. And it certainly doesn’t validate demonizing this couple who you’ve likely never met or have any background on.
But americans use this logic all the time for everyone else! They dehumanized the people of iraq, the people in el salvador, in cuba, the press makes loopsided reasons to justify killing innocents. I’ve known this all my life. Why should i be tactful about rightfully calling killers what they are if americans cannot have an ounce of mercy? This is that good ol american privilege, “dont call us bloodthirsty in our social media! “ they will stomp on childrens heads and crybully about stubbing their toes in the process, and then recede back and say,” hate the government, not the people, like their warmachine makes that distinction.
If those veterans were invading my country i would not want them to return home.
Huh? The war in Iraq was protested, along with the Cuban blockade. The actions in El Salvador were and still are reviled by those who have that level of empathy here in the states. I myself have participated in local, state, and federal elections and have supported candidates that try to resolve the underlying problems that led to those events in the first place.
Something you have to keep in mind about the actions of the US public is how diluted our voices truly are at the federal and international level. I live in a state that only has 2 senators and 52 house representatives for our population of almost 40 million people for one state. That’s not counting things like unequal representation for the people of Puerto Rico, Guam, and Samoa, where they have no federal delegates. On top of that, you have special interest groups, lobbying, greed and incentive structures from players like the “Military-Industrial Complex”, and the whole thing spirals from there.
Again - the armed forces of the United States are held under the command structure I mentioned earlier. Held by a president that never won my state, who my community and I did not vote for, and who does not represent my views. That is the problem with our form of government - we have no representative (or I guess universally supported) decision making regarding war. Especially since presidents decided to bypass Congress in taking military action without a declaration of war.
If the voices of the good people are as diluted among the bad, isn’t time to leave for a better place?
If nazi germany is about to explode in fascism isn’t it better to leave the fascist project?
And if someone knows the American army causes atrocities, why stay there? Why be their instrument?
It works both ways i can anknowledge the big evil system as an individual, but americans can do this as well. If you don’t want to be a killer, why commune with them?
(and yes i am using the arguments the american press and warmongers od the drug war use to justify killing the innocent families of the people presumed to be associated with the cartels.)
Well for starters, I can’t afford to leave, and I don’t have sufficient connections/legal status in another nation to stay there (and that’s assuming my existing skills carry over).
There are actions taken by my state (California) to try and defy the absolute clusterfuck that is the federal government. We are trying to set up our own assistance and aid programs, and to use our economic power to leverage what is best and desired by those who live here rather than what those diluted national representatives say.
However, that’s all local. The Governor of California doesn’t have jurisdiction over the actions of deployed soldiers overseas. They don’t even have control over the state guard - the President can nationalize them.
I can’t withhold my federal taxes and only pay state ones, they are partially withheld from my paycheck and going to federal prison for tax evasion is not exactly on my bucket list.
The greatest influence my community and I have is at the local level - city, county, and state. Federally, we’re fucked, and we all know it. Statistically, most of us can’t leave either.
Edit: Also, soldiers are allowed to defy illegal orders - something that is coming to prominence after recent events. Whether something happens IDK.
Wouldn’t that be convenient? Everyone who does horrible things is a psychopath? No. They’re just people. People that bought the patriotism line, or who wanted out of poverty and were told this might be a way, or people who have some notion of honor or duty or what have you. They’re you, with different social pressures. That’s what the fight is against - not groups that find terrible people and cultivate them, but groups that can frame terrible things in ways that ordinary people find noble or worthy. Just as much as you yourself are not immune to propaganda, neither is anyone else.
But by that same coin psychopaths are also people, the soldiers killing innocents on the Caribbean they could have consciences. The soldiers who killed people in Iraq they were folks just like you and me, and normal every day peopled cheered on tv for the blood of innocents being spilled and every day normal people get indoctrinated by psycopathic systems to be the perfect psycho’s that do it’s bidding. Serial killers get caught and they seem perfectly normal and it turns out they had bodies under their house and so on. Nazis had families and friends and loved ones. Yes they are me. Except i haven’t killed anyone. And i will call killers and thugs what they are: Psychos. And i hope they retain that level of humanity so that their crimes haunt them every day of their life.
But for what i’ve seen most of them they are not even haunted, they only get mad they don’t get the praise they feel entitled to for being useful little psychos.
… You must not have spoken to many veterans then. Especially after the US withdrawals in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Suicide rates, poverty and trauma are quite high. You might enlist off the patriotism Kool-aid, but you sure don’t believe in it after a tour.
Additionally, the US Department Of Defense is the world’s largest employer. The percentage of soldiers in active combat roles is quite low all things considered, especially in the current day. Logistics, Intelligence, and Maintenance comprise the majority of roles.
I mean, the question here is: does feeling bad afterwards take away the blood in their hands? How about the almost national drive to dehumanize the enemy? If america sets out in wars to attack latin America or canada, am i supposed to think, “oh poor little babies they will feel bad afterwards” i am pretty sure a lot of nazis drank the cool aid and felt bad when they lost the war.
Added to that, the war machine is making it easy to kill comfortably, guided missiles, drones, intelligent weaponry. maybe some drone operators will feel some discomfort in their gaming chairs after drone striking fishermen or families, but does that make them innocent? Does that help them regain the humanity they lost?
That’s the thing - you circle back to the role of an individual person versus a collective organization.
The President is the commander in chief. Below them the support staff in the cabinet that were appointed by the President direct the individual branches of the military, the generals of each major division of each branch, and so on, and so on.
The soldiers depicted in the photo, even during the time it was taken, would have no bearing on any of the decisions during their enlistment, and that’s presuming they were assigned to a role relevant to the conflict.
If you are frustrated with the DoD’s extensive reach and the history of warfare by the US, that’s fine. If you’re angry and hate the current leadership and their bloody, shortsighted, unnecessarily cruel decisions, I understand and agree with you.
But I don’t think that justifies or validates hating the veterans that returned home, or for the enlisted members who are in their assigned roles in a position they cannot easily leave. And it certainly doesn’t validate demonizing this couple who you’ve likely never met or have any background on.
joining the military is not mandatory in the us. everyone who joins deserves whatever bad luck they encounter.
sounds harsh. but the us military has been a war crime machine since at least the cold war.
But americans use this logic all the time for everyone else! They dehumanized the people of iraq, the people in el salvador, in cuba, the press makes loopsided reasons to justify killing innocents. I’ve known this all my life. Why should i be tactful about rightfully calling killers what they are if americans cannot have an ounce of mercy? This is that good ol american privilege, “dont call us bloodthirsty in our social media! “ they will stomp on childrens heads and crybully about stubbing their toes in the process, and then recede back and say,” hate the government, not the people, like their warmachine makes that distinction.
If those veterans were invading my country i would not want them to return home.
Huh? The war in Iraq was protested, along with the Cuban blockade. The actions in El Salvador were and still are reviled by those who have that level of empathy here in the states. I myself have participated in local, state, and federal elections and have supported candidates that try to resolve the underlying problems that led to those events in the first place.
Something you have to keep in mind about the actions of the US public is how diluted our voices truly are at the federal and international level. I live in a state that only has 2 senators and 52 house representatives for our population of almost 40 million people for one state. That’s not counting things like unequal representation for the people of Puerto Rico, Guam, and Samoa, where they have no federal delegates. On top of that, you have special interest groups, lobbying, greed and incentive structures from players like the “Military-Industrial Complex”, and the whole thing spirals from there.
Again - the armed forces of the United States are held under the command structure I mentioned earlier. Held by a president that never won my state, who my community and I did not vote for, and who does not represent my views. That is the problem with our form of government - we have no representative (or I guess universally supported) decision making regarding war. Especially since presidents decided to bypass Congress in taking military action without a declaration of war.
If the voices of the good people are as diluted among the bad, isn’t time to leave for a better place?
If nazi germany is about to explode in fascism isn’t it better to leave the fascist project?
And if someone knows the American army causes atrocities, why stay there? Why be their instrument?
It works both ways i can anknowledge the big evil system as an individual, but americans can do this as well. If you don’t want to be a killer, why commune with them?
(and yes i am using the arguments the american press and warmongers od the drug war use to justify killing the innocent families of the people presumed to be associated with the cartels.)
Well for starters, I can’t afford to leave, and I don’t have sufficient connections/legal status in another nation to stay there (and that’s assuming my existing skills carry over).
There are actions taken by my state (California) to try and defy the absolute clusterfuck that is the federal government. We are trying to set up our own assistance and aid programs, and to use our economic power to leverage what is best and desired by those who live here rather than what those diluted national representatives say.
However, that’s all local. The Governor of California doesn’t have jurisdiction over the actions of deployed soldiers overseas. They don’t even have control over the state guard - the President can nationalize them.
I can’t withhold my federal taxes and only pay state ones, they are partially withheld from my paycheck and going to federal prison for tax evasion is not exactly on my bucket list.
The greatest influence my community and I have is at the local level - city, county, and state. Federally, we’re fucked, and we all know it. Statistically, most of us can’t leave either.
Edit: Also, soldiers are allowed to defy illegal orders - something that is coming to prominence after recent events. Whether something happens IDK.
Good to hear. Let’s hope those ICE officers follow suit.