the left and the armed forces?

[what's left?]

I'm in the US military and I'm also a leftist, (which in my defintion is someone who is opposed of capitalism and is in agreement to an alternative system), but I'm torn that I'm currently employed by the same structure that is strongly connected to the current capitalist apparatus

question being, are they any other military members who are radically in the left, have studied marxism and are trying to make sense of their current occupation and their struggle for a revolutionary life....

[whore]

face it, if you are a member of the military, or the police force, you are part of the problem. get out while you still can.
there are no benefits for the movement by you staying in. the only things you will learn will be detramental to your mental well being. respect for authority figure for no good reason. obeying orders without question or thought. etc. none of these things are good for you.

yes, in the past there ahve been members of the military who ahve been radical leftists and helped to bring others to the revolutionary side. however, with a voluntary system of service such as you have in the usa...

get out while you still can.

[Hexen]

Also how long have you been into the military? Are you a new recruit or are you have done numerous tours already?

Yes I agree that the military is bad news and I advise you to get out of there immediately as soon as possible especially if you happen to be a new recruit since any person with common sense would not even join the military in the first place.

Also here is the true thoughts how Captialists sees soldiers in a nutshell...


(Soldiers are) dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.
- Henry Kissinger

Just a fair warning...

[Invincible Summer]

I'm in the US military and I'm also a leftist, (which in my defintion is someone who is opposed of capitalism and is in agreement to an alternative system), but I'm torn that I'm currently employed by the same structure that is strongly connected to the current capitalist apparatus

question being, are they any other military members who are radically in the left, have studied marxism and are trying to make sense of their current occupation and their struggle for a revolutionary life....


Just wondering if any of your fellow military men/women know you're a lefty? What do they say about it?


Regardless, being a member of an imperialist army whilst having radical left views is almost a worm-hole inducing flux in the time-space continuum. Basically, it's a big contradiction that shouldn't happen :lol:.

I believe cmoney used to be/is currently in the military as well.

[JacobVardy]

Left wing activism in the US armed forces would be a heroic undertaking. Take care for your saftey but remember that the class composition of the AF is our target audience.

Some inspiration might be taken from Major General Smedley D. Butler (USMC Ret.) Check out his' "War is a Racket"

[NecroCommie]

You should follow the example of many US consentious objectors and prisoners of oppinion. They are my personal heroes. If you choose to quit army, even at the peril of jail you are my hero too. :thumbup1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_Iraq_War_resisters

Signed by: my jail-time begins in summer

[what's left?]

well, i been in the military for 5 years and I'm due to get out in a few months, (so thank god for that), but it hasnt been until recently that i started to show my leftist colors, and i've been pretty alone on most subjects.
howard zinn is about the only famous leftist i can think of that went through a leftist transformation due to his time in the miltiary but other than that there's seems to be no place for any one who remotely questions miltary doctrine which is vividly imbedded in reactionary thinking...

thanks for the replies...

[Jimmie Higgins]

What's Left,
I don't know what the hell some here are talking about in regards to hardly anyone being left or coming to anti-military/anti-war conclusions after serving. My dad was one, for example. A couple of comrades of mine were in the Marines (after 9/11) and their experience led them to get out and begin to question a lot of things and eventually they became Marxists. Not to mention that there's Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and numerous high-profile deserters from the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. It's not an easy position to be in, but it's been done and isolation is the biggest obstacle that makes it hard on people in the military. If no one is openly talking about politics or military conditions on your base, maybe you can start a blog about your experiences and that might help other people in other places who also feel like you and are also isolated.

I think you have to decide what to do based on what you feel - if you feel that life in the military is oppressive to you - by all means get out when you have the chance or look into applying for conscientious objector status. If you want to complete your time and you think you can organize other people on the basis of both the repression you may be getting from the system or individual officers, then there are lots of people who can help you do this.

There are a few things you can look into for some background on organizing or just resisting within the US military. First I'd rent the documentary "Sir, No Sir" (netflix has it) which is about the GI movement in Vietnam. You can also rent "FTA" to see a documentary from the time about GI resistance... also Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, and Paul Mooney. If these are helpful and you want more, there's the book "Soldiers in Revolt" by David Cortright which goes through how and why ENLISTED soldiers in Vietnam were the heart of the 60s-70s resistance moment - it also goes into a lot of detail about struggles for rights on base in the US and Germany, Okinawa and so on, underground GI newspapers, Solider anti-war coffee-houses, and many other things I've probably forgotten now.

[The Red Next Door]

Just wondering if any of your fellow military men/women know you're a lefty? What do they say about it?


Regardless, being a member of an imperialist army whilst having radical left views is almost a worm-hole inducing flux in the time-space continuum. Basically, it's a big contradiction that shouldn't happen :lol:.

I believe cmoney used to be/is currently in the military as well.
cmoney is still in the army and all of you know why he is in the army, so get off his back.

[Invincible Summer]

cmoney is still in the army and all of you know why he is in the army, so get off his back.

I doubt everyone knows why, and I'm not trying to insult him or anything. Why are you so abrasive? All I was saying is that being a radical leftist whilst in the military is almost a paradox. Of course, individuals have reasons for doing it, but I can imagine it being pretty difficult to reconcile being in an imperialist army and a radical leftist at the same time. I know I wouldn't be able to do it.

[whore]

cmoney is still in the army and all of you know why he is in the army, so get off his back.
why is cmoney in the army?

[Joe_Germinal]

We should not dwell too much on the "paradox" or "hypocrisy" of being a leftist in the military. Being in the army is a job, like many jobs in our society it lends objective support to reactionaries, capitalism, imperialism, etc. I, for example, work at a university where we lie to children in order to better shape them into the next generation of bourgeois exploiters. In purely moralistic terms, I probably do much more damage than most soldiers and marines (assuming the comrades in question aren't officers).

We would all do well to remember that while the US military is a brutal imperialist force at the current moment, it will not always be. Any revolution requires a significant portion of the military to switch sides (i.e. strike, mutiny, refuse to fire on demonstrators, etc.). Given that a revolution in the US will need to win over the military, it would be helpful to have a few leftists in its ranks, no?

[The Red Next Door]

why is cmoney in the army?
Economical reasons, why else would people join the military? beside for nationalistic reasons.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

well, i been in the military for 5 years and I'm due to get out in a few months, (so thank god for that), but it hasnt been until recently that i started to show my leftist colors, and i've been pretty alone on most subjects.
howard zinn is about the only famous leftist i can think of that went through a leftist transformation due to his time in the miltiary but other than that there's seems to be no place for any one who remotely questions miltary doctrine which is vividly imbedded in reactionary thinking...

thanks for the replies...
There have been other great minds that have served in the military. Off the top of my head I know Friedrich Engels, who we all know is very important in Marxist thinking, was part of the Prussian Army for a little while.

[Tablo]

I had actually entertained the idea of joining the marines. It is against everything I stand for, but it had a lot of benefits for me personally. Glad I have driven off those thoughts.

[Chambered Word]

I, for example, work at a university where we lie to children in order to better shape them into the next generation of bourgeois exploiters.

Forgive me for asking but why? Do you teach business studies?

[Joe_Germinal]

Forgive me for asking but why? Do you teach business studies?

I certainly don't teach business. I teach sociology. As a Marxist sociologist, I believe that the social sciences can be used to improve society; however, they don't pay me to teach at a university because of the liberatory potential of the social sciences. Indeed, they do so because the methodologies of social science and the data you can collect using them can also be used to better control the population, to better exploit workers, to fight more effective wars, etc.

With a few admirable exceptions, the history of sociology is one of fine tuning techniques of control used by the bourgeois state just as the history of anthropology is one of fine tuning the tools of control used by colonialists and imperialists.

The university itself is a more blunt instrument used to indoctrinate young bourgeois and petty bourgeois into bourgeois ideology. While I try my best to work against this process in my classes, as a whole the university almost always succeeds, at least 95% of my students graduate as convinced defenders of American capitalism and imperialism. Obviously, without teachers this system wouldn't work, just as the military wouldn't work with soldiers.

[RadioRaheem84]

The current state of the military functions like a mercenary for hire venture. It's distressing. The guys really think they're fighting for freedom, liberty and our rights! The indoctrination in that environment is mentally damaging. I would never suggest anyone to join the military even if they're desperate for money.

Still though, we shouldn't bash military men who've joined our cause. Is there any way you can transfer to being a medic, what's left? Or is the job you have what you're stuck with the entire time?

[The Douche]

Yeah, I'm in the army. If you have been enlisted for 5 years I assume you've done a combat tour? Are you involved with IVAW?

Glad to hear you get out in a few months, I just hit my four year mark and have two more to go.