People got mad at this one streamer for saying American soldiers deserve PTSD. When you consider that most interventions by the US are not justified or just imperial power plays, and that many soldiers commit war crimes, you realize she has a point.
There are definitely some like that. The American system has a number of tricks to try to force people to do what they like as well though. Poverty, over policing of minorities, lack of social safety nets etc can cause people who grew up barely avoiding prison choosing military thinking the only choices they have are death or military, shoved at them when they’re too young to really know the world. Add education that specifically avoids or lies about what US actually does overseas, plus a bunch of jingoistic propaganda making being a soldier appear to be a respectable profession.
I grew up in a cult that avoided military so I never had those feelings myself, so I got to watch it from the outside, and even the pledge of allegiance every morning was weird jingoistic programming from early ages. It can be difficult to see past that at 17. I’m not saying they don’t deserve any punishment, but I do disagree with the idea that every single one wanted to kill people.
I mean. Jimmy just wanted to go to college. But was forced to go to Iraq. The soldiers don’t have much choice. Especially the boys in trailer parks. They have no opportunity and the military gives them that.
Ooh poow widdwe Jimmy … you know who didn’t have a choice? the kids whose heads he blew off. I don’t care if he had a choice in going there or not, Jimmy doesn’t deserve a blink of sleep for the rest of his miserable cunting life if he didn’t knowingly miss every single shot.
If the choice is “be an acomplice to the destruction of an entier country and it’s people” and “don’t get a discount code for college”, like, surely we can see that’s not really a good excuse.
Some folks really have no other choices. Like Flynt Michigan. Industry has collapsed. Gangs have taken over and life expectancy is shorter than any where else in the world. Those children are told by their parents. Their only choice to get out of this is to serve.
For some reason, people think it’s ok to pull others down to get ahead but only in the context of the military. There are other ways to escape poverty, like selling crack or scamming the elderly. I wonder if you condone those approaches as well because “they didn’t have another choice if they wanted to escape poverty.” I doubt it. But if the victims aren’t people in our own neighborhoods who you can actually see, if it’s dead children on another continent who the news doesn’t talk about, then somehow it’s perfectly fine.
Everyone in that position who chooses to work at McDonald’s or Walmart or Amazon instead of signing up to murder foreigners is a better person than every troop, they are braver, more ethical, more heroic, and more enlightened. The cowards who pull others down to get ahead deserve no respect and no sympathy.
Just so you are aware. Soldiers were forced. They were by the rule of their contracts forced to redeploy after they found out how terrible the situation in Iraq was. I know this because friends were forced to go back to Iraq because there were not enough replacements. They had little to no choice. The POTUS was able to force this upon them.
Now sure, they could just go awol or force their resignation and go to jail. But some of them have families that rely on base housing or medical coverage.
I can’t really agree with that. Social economic factors make it impossible for some people to get out of their communities. The military during peacetime. Is a great upward mobility tool for folks in gang lands. We don’t invest in their schools. The jobs left in these regions are pitiful. And the only choice they have to get out is to serve.
It’s how the rich make America such a shit hole to force people to fight in wars for their benefit. It’s so much deeper than just blaming the soldiers.
People got mad at this one streamer for saying American soldiers deserve PTSD. When you consider that most interventions by the US are not justified or just imperial power plays, and that many soldiers commit war crimes, you realize she has a point.
They deserve far worse than PTSD
Every US soldier signed up for killing, they deserve whatever they get.
Exactly. When I signed up for the military, it was because I wanted to kill people, and not because I had no other good choices
12 year US Army vet, deployed to Iraq 2007-2008.
Number of people I killed: 0
Why? I was a surgical tech. I helped save lives, including local nationals.
But sure. I deserve “whatever I get” for literally signing up to help people.
Cool, you can be a civil doctor too. Glad you fixed up the people who killed for a living.
There are definitely some like that. The American system has a number of tricks to try to force people to do what they like as well though. Poverty, over policing of minorities, lack of social safety nets etc can cause people who grew up barely avoiding prison choosing military thinking the only choices they have are death or military, shoved at them when they’re too young to really know the world. Add education that specifically avoids or lies about what US actually does overseas, plus a bunch of jingoistic propaganda making being a soldier appear to be a respectable profession.
I grew up in a cult that avoided military so I never had those feelings myself, so I got to watch it from the outside, and even the pledge of allegiance every morning was weird jingoistic programming from early ages. It can be difficult to see past that at 17. I’m not saying they don’t deserve any punishment, but I do disagree with the idea that every single one wanted to kill people.
I mean. Jimmy just wanted to go to college. But was forced to go to Iraq. The soldiers don’t have much choice. Especially the boys in trailer parks. They have no opportunity and the military gives them that.
“though your path may be set, you can gain as much speed down that path as you would like”
means, even if they had to go to war, they could have missed shots on purpose.
If I grew up poor and joined a gang because I didn’t have a lot of good options, how much slack should I get for killing someone?
The answer isn’t zero, but it’s also not “these innocent troops were forced to do horrible things and none of it is on them.”
Ooh poow widdwe Jimmy … you know who didn’t have a choice? the kids whose heads he blew off. I don’t care if he had a choice in going there or not, Jimmy doesn’t deserve a blink of sleep for the rest of his miserable cunting life if he didn’t knowingly miss every single shot.
If the choice is “be an acomplice to the destruction of an entier country and it’s people” and “don’t get a discount code for college”, like, surely we can see that’s not really a good excuse.
Some folks really have no other choices. Like Flynt Michigan. Industry has collapsed. Gangs have taken over and life expectancy is shorter than any where else in the world. Those children are told by their parents. Their only choice to get out of this is to serve.
Trading brown people overseas’ lives for your own comfort and livelihood is still- believe it or not- wrong.
Yeah, you are not getting it nor are you trying to. You are ignoring the poverty and indoctrination of children aspects of this in order to jerk off.
Nobody was “forced” to go to Iraq.
For some reason, people think it’s ok to pull others down to get ahead but only in the context of the military. There are other ways to escape poverty, like selling crack or scamming the elderly. I wonder if you condone those approaches as well because “they didn’t have another choice if they wanted to escape poverty.” I doubt it. But if the victims aren’t people in our own neighborhoods who you can actually see, if it’s dead children on another continent who the news doesn’t talk about, then somehow it’s perfectly fine.
Everyone in that position who chooses to work at McDonald’s or Walmart or Amazon instead of signing up to murder foreigners is a better person than every troop, they are braver, more ethical, more heroic, and more enlightened. The cowards who pull others down to get ahead deserve no respect and no sympathy.
Just so you are aware. Soldiers were forced. They were by the rule of their contracts forced to redeploy after they found out how terrible the situation in Iraq was. I know this because friends were forced to go back to Iraq because there were not enough replacements. They had little to no choice. The POTUS was able to force this upon them.
Now sure, they could just go awol or force their resignation and go to jail. But some of them have families that rely on base housing or medical coverage.
Nobody forced them to sign up.
I can’t really agree with that. Social economic factors make it impossible for some people to get out of their communities. The military during peacetime. Is a great upward mobility tool for folks in gang lands. We don’t invest in their schools. The jobs left in these regions are pitiful. And the only choice they have to get out is to serve.
It’s how the rich make America such a shit hole to force people to fight in wars for their benefit. It’s so much deeper than just blaming the soldiers.
The same is true of selling crack but I’ll criticize that too.
“I’m going to invade another country instead of going to jail” is not a sympathetic choice.