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It's because these leftists don't take opposition to imperialism seriously. They largely don't ever have to deal with the brutality of an imperialist military. They have no idea what it's like.
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I literally said that...
I mean really people, it's not so fucking hard as you pretend it is to figure out what Fawkes is talking about. If he's talking about why people view soldiers as victims he's quite obviously not talking about the people that do not do so.
People become soldiers for varying reasons. I agree with the inconsistency in ideology bit as this is true for cops as well but it's not hard to see where the confusion comes from. Soldiers and cops as entities are anti-working class and as communists we are all aware of this. However, not everyone that is apart of those entities are anti-working class. Some do it for the money or other benefits to their life goals. While it is easy to write off all soldiers and cops as class traitors, it's unfair to the cops and soldiers who do it to put food on the table to feed their families or because they had nowhere else to go and saw it as an escape from their previous life. In the end it is an individual choice and is pretty irrelevant to the class struggle.
Slaves have often fought on behalf of their masters, but that doesn't mean they ideologically supported what they were forced to do.
What do you get if you put one communist in a room? A party.
What do you get if you put two communists in a room? Three splinter groups.
A lot of leftists have less of a negative reaction to soldiers than cops for the reasons that which doctor mentioned in this thread:
The defection of soldiers is seen as necessary for success, while the defection of police is not (for reasons which should be obvious).Originally Posted by which doctor
"Win, lose or draw...long as you squabble and you get down, that's gangsta."
Hi.
Most people I have known/met through out my life who were interested in being cops were racist, or wanted to beat people up, or were just bullies and wanted to bully people for a career. I know very few soldiers who joined "to defend their country", or who think that their job is to "defend the country". Those who do think that only adopted that position after undergoing some of the extensive mental conditioning the military puts one through.
False. Sometimes terrible things happen but they are not the norm, and there are very serious organizations set up for oversight.
And the vast majority of soldiers spend their minimum enlistment and can't wait to get out, most cops spend 25 years in their jobs.
Put capitalism in a bag of rice.
Hello there.
My personal experience has been pretty different. My dorm roommate last year wanted to be NYPD and he wasn't racist or a bully at all, he legitimately wanted to be a help to his community, and he had friends that were the same way. I've also met numerous people that were super nationalists and later went on to join the military. Of course I've also met racist pricks who wanna be cops and non-assholes who want to be in the military.
Military actions are predicated upon murder and destruction. All the dead civilians in Iraq are not the norm?
You're right, but I'm still having trouble with what appears to be an inconsistency in ideology.
You seem neat, but...
They divide us by our color, they divide us by our tongue,
They divide us men and women, they divide us old and young,
But they'll tremble at our voices when they hear these verses sung,
For the Union makes us strong!
It was meant to point out the inconsistency in your assertion that one cannot be a socialist and a soldier, I am. (but not for much longer, thankfully)
So this is what it really comes down to in situations like this, isn't it, individuals. BUT when your buddy got into the NYPD and realized he was not helping the community, he has the option for quitting, the super nationalists who have their eyes opened by the experience of the military or combat, do not have such an option. So the cop really does choose to oppress people, the soldier, often, does so reluctantly and under penalty of law.
And the job of the police is to protect private property and maintain the subjugation of the working class, is that not a problem? In the context of bourgeois society, when the cops break the law they get a slap on the wrist (if anything), if soldiers break the laws of war there are consequences. I think we can find more instances of soldiers recieving disciplinary action than cops.
Its mostly because soldiers are usually workers before enlisting, and are workers after their 4 or 6 year enlistment, cops are bourgeois tools for life.
Put capitalism in a bag of rice.
I know a soldier who is very disillusioned with the US government and realizes their imperialist ambitions very vividly, but could only go to a university under an ROTC program. He is familiar with the military structure and has based a future career on it, but he has lost a lot of incentive to really involve himself with the structure beyond necessity and certainly doesn't agree with the wars in the east. I realize more than most on which side I must stand if battle lines are drawn clearly and violently, and that the enemy is not some big evil phantom but flesh and blood, but I can't help but think there are others like him who deserve consideration.
i do think soldiers are a victim, however i think they are still part of the problem. victims or not, they still join the military (unless drafted) and chose to fight the wars we must end. i view soldiers and police the same, but i do not believe police are victims. the only reason i think the soldiers are victims is because alot of them i think were taught or "brainwashed" into thinking it is glorious and it is the right thing to do, or grew up in overly patriotic homes with veteran relatives, and they probably believe the war is justified, so in that sense, they are victims but still no excuse in my opinion.
Last edited by Dimitri Molotov; 9th December 2010 at 07:20. Reason: left a part out
[FONT="Century Gothic"]"Democracy is the road to socialism" ~Karl Marx
“I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.” ~Che Guevara
"Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away." ~Fidel Castro
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I cannot imagine a situation where the military would defect in large enough numbers for a revolution to be possible. It was only possible in Russia because of it's previous defeats in Russo-Japanese war followed by the horrendous conditions of WW1. The soldiers were mostly conscripts or at least not professional armed forces like we have today. Today some individual soldiers might refuse to fire on their own citizens but they won't turn their guns on their own generals.
It depends on the soldier. If they're going to be overly patriotic and gun ho assholes I will bait them at every opportunity. Like this one kid from my class who was a giant sexist and racist who joined up, he also got a giant American flag tattoo. Let's just say our conversation wasn't civil.
On the other hand, I work with a guy whose been in the guard for over 20 years and while he's not the most enlightened guy I know, he hates the police and the bosses. Although combat didn't bother him, he described it as "awesome."
But, yes, leftists have never seemed to answer this question satisfactorily.
But now we must pick up every piece
Of the life we used to love
Just to keep ourselves
At least enough to carry on
This is basically the answer. Cops beat us up they're fascist pigs. Soldiers kill some brown people far away, they're just victims. There's definitely an element of racism, and many people have family in the military and the rules don't apply to yourself. After all, there's no way my brother in the military is an imperialist murderer, he's just doing it for the money. The other guys in the unit are the actual savages.
It seems to me that at least in the U.S., Vietnam was sort of the turning point in terms of the left's attitude towards American soldiers, from the "faceless conscripts" of WWI to the generally lionized soldiers of WWII to the disengaged attitude many people have today; partially because it is composed of so-called "volunteers," military people today are much more isolated in society than they were fifty years ago. Personally, I don't think we have to support what soldiers actually do in order to not treat them like shit.
Well thats why they have the acadamy, to weed out those sorts of people.
I don't have positive opinions of either the police or the military in general as state institutions, but when talking about the American military and imperialist militaries more broadly, my opinion reverses compared to other people: there are some good police, who are interested in helping the community and actually do so. Of course their shit is misguided and they are still pigs, but nonetheless, that's there. They do accomplish some good, often on a regular basis. Imperialist troops, on the other hand, murder and suppress the independence of entire nations. They are used to sustain imperialism and the scale that they operate on is just another level up from police.
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A soldier/mercinary is only a victim when they zip the zip on the body bag. Fuck them..
When it comes down to it, grunts actually have a class interest in the ruling class interest in the ruling class not increasing its power, because when the domestic ruling class increases its power through imperial victories, it makes them that much more difficult to challenge back at home when enlistees and conscripts come back and have to be workers. The British Empire always used Irish soldiers in Africa or India - did these soldiers have an interest in a more powerful empire? Do Pakistani soldiers doing the bidding of the US have a class interest in a more powerful dictatorship at home and a more powerful US in the region?
Police, on the other hand actually benefit when the US is able to increase repression - right now when most public sector workers are taking hits on their Pensions and being laid-off, many cities in California are increasing police forces and Meg Whitman, in her unsuccessful run for Gov, promised to cut all pensions but to protect police and prison guard pensions. So in their position as cops, they have class-interests which are not only not aligned with working class interests (i.e. cops rarely decline to cross picket lines) but are opposed to it.
soldiers need to be liquidated and drunk by the thirsty masses, but TBH, im not that wise
