• riverSpirit@thelemmy.club
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    3 days ago

    Awww did the big bad vet kill some Iraqi kids while defending American geopolitical interests? No respect for veterans.

    • Rachelhazideas@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Most veterans started out as exploitable highschool kids and end up exploitated, handicapped, homeless, and without physical or mental healthcare.

      Don’t let political interests redirect your anger towards veterans. It’s a distraction that absolves the US government of responsibility for foreign policies rooted in American exceptionalism.

      • kautau@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        War is when the young and stupid are tricked by the old and bitter into killing each other.

        – Niko Bellic

      • JennyLaFae@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 days ago

        I had a friend in highschool who loved Germany, took the language, did an exchange program, recruiters told him he could get stationed in Germany for being bilingual. He did everything he was supposed to do, and trusted what authority figures told him.

        He got one month in Germany before he got redeployed to the Middle East.

          • xiwi@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            Mostly that she seemingly is throwing out of there that she is a veteran who was deployed in Iraq, it’s not like a badge of honor, it’s deeply shameful. (So mostly vibes and I might well be wrong.)

            tangent

            but any veteran who feels the need to throw out how he/she is a veteran irks me out. It mostly seems like there still is this persistent thought that veterans are somehow special and not people who were (consciously or not) used as an unimaginable brutal weapon that enforces hegemony of an empire through death and misery :::.

            I tried to look for the account for more info and can’t find it.

            • astropenguin5@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Ig thats fair, I see where you’re coming from and that definitely is a thing that happens a lot.

              Personally I interpreted this more as being used to further kinda insult Trump, because he and associates claim to respect and venerate veterans so much (though ofc he doesn’t actually that much) and she is using that status to say ‘hey, I’m a part of this group you like and also trans and a group you hate, fuck you’

              • xiwi@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                9 hours ago

                Yeah, I’m speculating too much anyway. I don’t know this person and should assume the better. At least we can get together on hating trump lmao

      • riverSpirit@thelemmy.club
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        3 days ago

        No.

        Being young does not excuse joining a gang and murdering innocent people.

        American military fetishisation and it’s acceptance is revolting.

        • EldritchFemininity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 days ago

          I’d love to hear your opinion on people who commit violent crimes after becoming addicted to pain killers pushed by the pharmaceutical industry next.

          You’re talking about one of the most propagandized populations in the world. Every single Hollywood action movie with a tank, plane, or helicopter is funded by military money and every engineering college owes its computers and other tech to donations by Raytheon and other defense contractors. Every time you see an American action movie, you’re directly funding the military industrial complex.

          Army recruiters stalk the halls of highschools and even get kids’ addresses and phone numbers from the schools to harass them outside of school. Every single American kid is pledging their undying loyalty by the age of 10 to the flag in every classroom like the kids in the Hitler’s Youth program. The Red Scare is a linchpin in American society.

          Hate the system, not its victims.

        • Rachelhazideas@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          That’s not an excuse. That’s a reason to help you understand that systemic change isn’t instituted from yelling at a wall of dumb kids.

          Systemic change is instituted from policies that incentivize people to do the right thing, not by lazily dismissing problems as a product moral failure.

          Think about a country with subsidized access to higher education, healthcare, and social safety nets to prevent destitution and homelessness. High school kids wouldn’t be as desperate to join the military in large droves.

          You can be angry at people who are the product of a system working as intended, or you can step back and hold people in power accountable.

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      I have huge respect for some veterans, like the UN troops in the Kosovo war, or Rwanda. The problem is that you don’t get to pick and choose where you go as a soldier.

        • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 days ago

          Sometimes people don’t know any better and have been brainwashed. Sometimes they aren’t murderous imperial trash.

          But, goons make the agenda go 'round, and goons are the worst.

          It’s complicated. I see both perspectives here. And it really is a case of we are all victims of our own evil culture. I used to defend the soldier whilst condemn the capitalist imperialism. But, as I grow wiser, that doesn’t quite resolve the reality of it all. We need to fix public education. And, getting rid of DEI is an actual disaster.

          • riverSpirit@thelemmy.club
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            3 days ago

            If you arm people you’ve forced against their will. They will eventually turn their guns back on their masters.

            This isn’t forced and it wouldn’t be if people had a spine.

            • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
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              3 days ago

              Easy to say sitting in your comfy arm chair. The russian revolution was hell that you could never imagine.