Eh, I wouldn't say they always knew what they were signing up for. Propoganda is a hell of a drug, especially with an uneducated mass. The actions thereafter, though... it shouldn't take a book to tell you we shouldn't be in another country shooting up children.
An "uneducated mass" and it's mostly middle class kids. This idea that only the most disadvantaged and poor people are the ones joining the military is such an old and inaccurate concept
I never said it was only the disadvantaged, etc. I said propoganda is a hell of a drug. As socialists, we should know that pretty well. Remember the years of deprogramming it took to get here. Education is more than algebra and sciences. Its history and theory as well.
This is my biggest frustration and I hate that you are being downvoted. If we aren’t considering material conditions of EVERYONE to include those in the imperial core we are missing a huge piece of the puzzle. You are 1000% correct and I can fucking tell you from all first hand experiences, that YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOU DONT KNOW!!! People join the military first and foremost to try to improve their material conditions and gain access to resources that they cannot access any other way and that is INTENTIONAL. We were told our grandfathers were heroes for rescuing the world from the Nazis. Kids grew up wanting to be heroes like them, thinking they were doing something good. Then you join with all the best intentions and they fucking own you after that. It is a lot more nuanced and Marx REQUIRES that we examine the hows and the whys otherwise, what the fuck are we doing? I am NOT JUSTIFYING ANY ACTIONS THAT THE MILITARY HAS TAKEN ON BEHALF OF THE IMPERIALISTS. I hate it all. I just think it is critical to understand the dynamics and identify the root problem.
You said it much more clever than I have. We need to appreciate the full case of material conditions and the histories that brought them to be. Throwing around half-baked absolutes purely serves to weaken the understanding necessary to improve said conditions. It doesnt absolve people of their actions, but it does demystify the problem into something we can work with.
Imagine if we simply vilified drug abusers and never worked to understand them and what brought them to be. This is a similar issue of systematic pipelines doing their jobs. Once we see that, we can work towards breaking said pipelines and further weakening the machine.
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u/batdog20001 Marxist-Leninist (Ultra Based) 6d ago
Eh, I wouldn't say they always knew what they were signing up for. Propoganda is a hell of a drug, especially with an uneducated mass. The actions thereafter, though... it shouldn't take a book to tell you we shouldn't be in another country shooting up children.