• djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    or even just… what cops in the U.S. do to any minority.

    Had a co-worker today try to be like “extra-legal executions just aren’t American” and I was like “welllll we sure seem to love doing them, especially against anyone with a skin color other than white.” Topic changed pretty quickly after that.

    • h4x0r@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      Or detention centers, prison and jail conditions have been absolutely disgusting in the US since forever.

      I agree, the detention centers are abhorrent, but prison rape has been used as a fucking joke since I’ve been alive, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. None of the jerk off politicians calling out these camps has done a fucking thing about the same shitty conditions that persist in their own districts to this very day.

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksM
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        2 months ago

        detention centers, prison and jail

        Private ones are a gold mine with the government handing people over as slaves.

    • ToTheGraveMyLove@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      I’ve got a folder on my computer documenting countless extra-legal executions by American law enforcement I could find. Videos, articles, documentaries, the whole shebang. Anyone shocked by this and saying it can’t happen here is being wilfully ignorant at this point.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    If OP thinks those conversations haven’t been had, they are living in blissful ignorance.

    I think the target audience for that tweet are the Obama worshipping, white, upper middle class, suburban Democrats. This country has done a lot of fucked up shit under Reagan, Clinton, W, Obama, Trump, Biden, and again now Trump. I’m not sure about HW Bush, but he use to head the CIA so…

      • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Don’t confused patriotism with nationalism. Nationalists are rooting for ICE and Trump and all of those asshats. Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, and the many others out there still, are all Patriots.

        Edit: I misspelled Alex Pretti’s name. My sincerest apologies.

            • EldritchFemininity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              2 months ago

              “Have you tried just not being a mutant?”

              Go where? It’s not like it was when Ellis Island was running. Anybody who immigrated through there would be an illegal immigrant today. Any Americans today whose parents or grandparents went through there are anchor babies who should be deported alongside the rest of their family under the current regime’s stance on immigration.

              And it’s not any easier today to immigrate elsewhere. Unless you’re rich or have a degree that makes you a valuable commodity, most countries want nothing to do with you.

    • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      Worshipping Obama?

      I seen you’ve made the common logical error of assuming the democrats worship their leaders. That’s something left wing and right wing extremists do in equal parts but everyone in between, is absolutely not worshipping any poltical leaders.

      • Einskjaldi@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        He was popular and his excellent oratory skills induced people that liked him to like him more personally

        • BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 months ago

          There’s only so far one can claim ignorance as an excuse. I blame it on a mentality in the USA of people having such bad experience in public education that they “don’t want to learn no more.” The desire to question and expand one’s knowledge was ground away. As well it was easier to live in ignorance before the internet. Now it feels more of a choice.

          • drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            These days? Sure. But back then it was a much different country. And a lot of solders came back as liberals, but according to lemmy they deserve to die anyway

            • Gathorall@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              They we’re not that stupid when they left. They chose team murder willingly, that’s not something you can just shed like so.

              • drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                It’s the only way to have any kind of social mobility in the US. Do you realize how many lbgtq and minorities end up joining? This shit isn’t simple.

                And that on top of all the lies and brainwashing

                • Gathorall@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Ah, so murder is okay as long as you’re part of certain groups? Or is just being poor enough? Lower middle-class? Or is it a point system where you get enough and are excused so LGBT middle-class are still good people but a middle class straight man is a murderous monster?

    • drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      You described most of lemmy. Not a person here has met a solder or had to deal with not having health care or not having any options of social mobility.

      They want us to fight a revolution without anyone who can fight. And apparently Pretti deserved to die for helping fascists

    • uienia@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yes, the target audience is definitely not the actual fascists who are supporting the brownshirts and their actions.

    • GreenShimada@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It works the same way with demographics as well.

      Colonize a place and eventually you make allowances and permit some sort of “very strict” immigration from the colonized places. “The Goods Ones” and a few politicians that carrier water for you. But once you’ve broken the seal, it’s a slippery slope. Not too long after that you have “natives” who have squandered or never even had generational wealth that was the proceeds of colonialism seeing how they’ve been matched or out-classes by another group, and start to feel loss aversion.

      Also works with foreign wars, as they require collaboration with a side in that war. Suddenly you have translators and local staff and spies and politicians and sudden spouses of soldiers, all legitimately asking for a taste of what they and their family suffered for (often quite a bit more than the foreign fighters, who sat in a tent directing things).

    • resting_parrot@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, that’s what I was going to say. There are lots of problems with the military, and there are also clear use of force guidelines. I’m not saying those are never violated, but they at least have them and more training.

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Do you think its more likely that American soldiers have fantastic moral character and discipline or that American soldiers are not punished when they make mistakes?

        • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          I’m saying that an absence of records of punishing Americans for war crimes does not mean they don’t commit war crimes. I think its more likely that they aren’t punished at all, and if some are, its not reported.

    • BigPotato@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Some of the best people I’ve ever met were Servicemembers… All of the worst people too. I’ve met some losers but some of the most high key bad people I’ve met were Servicemenbers…

  • HalfSalesman@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I don’t have one of those. I have an ex-marine friend, who I chastised when he originally signed up I remember I joked “If you die in combat I’m going to kill you.” because he was basically my best friend at the time. He came from an extremely poor family.

    He ended up (unwillingly) being assigned to being a MP, and ended up never shooting or bombing a soul. He was just agonizingly bored for hours and hours (He hoped for bar fights to break out just to fill the time). Hes now a union rep for a private security company and he hates all of his co-workers because he tells me they’re almost all [redacted] racist assholes (hes half black).

  • BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    uhh im pretty sure everyday they just sat around base bored as fuck and jerking off. real life isnt a call of duty game people 😂

  • azuth@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    Easily proven true by endless apologia for US military members. When Russians do it, the are orc, when Americans do it, they were poor and needed healthcare.

    • Tilgare@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It hadn’t occurred to me before your comment - they don’t want us to have Medicare For All because then the biggest and best benefit of going into military service would be available to every citizen. Or that’s surely one of the MANY horrible reasons they continue to fuck us on healthcare.

      • PunnyName@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        The military pipeline shuts down when good pay, housing, healthcare, etc. are provided to the proletariat.

        • Taokan@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          It’s worse than that. Much like the corporate, “middle class” white collar structure depends on keeping people too indebted to ever really have power or freedom to negotiate for fairness, the military also depends on underpaying and overworking its people. They have to provide that same level of inadequacy, and then, make not getting it even more unbearable.

          When you start to look at the math, a lot of the previously incomprehensible decisions of the government start to make sense. Why is abortion illegal? Because given free choice, poor people stop reproducing at levels needed to maintain the slave wage labor when they can’t afford the basic necessities to raise a family. Or more specifically, women do… you can find a willing sperm donor, but the mom gets told by society don’t have a baby you can’t afford, and does exactly that. And then they trot out a whole “God doesn’t like this” moral argument, all while happily looking the other way when it’s clear a bunch of their leaders party fucked kids on an offshore island.

    • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      My friend went into the military and, as he puts it, ‘swept sand in a sandstorm’ for most of his time there. His experience seemed to be mostly boredom. He wore a beard to hid his nega-chin and ended up working on AC units for the most part.

      Let’s see, last time I checked Russia was releasing violent criminals to fight in Ukraine. You go ahead and find me a modern comparison from the U.S., I’ll wait.

      Edit: violent criminals who rape new recruits, by the way — in the interest of clarity.

      • azuth@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        Let’s see, last time I checked Russia was releasing violent criminals to fight in Ukraine. You go ahead and find me a modern comparison from the U.S., I’ll wait.

        I don’t have to play your stupid games. The vast majority of Russian soldiers are/were not convicts but either people who voluntarily joined their country’s army to make a living like your friend did or civilians who were drafted/conscripted. Most of them also did not kill or rape anyone like your friend. They probably would say they swept snow in a snowstorm instead.

        Yet they still enable Russia’s attack on Ukraine. So did your friend with regards to USA’s attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan etc. Your friend is not better than them because he is your friend nor because he is American.

        • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          You mean my friend who was only ever in stationed in Texas?

          Yeah you sure are good at determining my ‘stupid games’, you really got me there buddy. At least I know what to tag you.

          • azuth@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            You mean my friend who was only ever in stationed in Texas?

            There certainly exists Russian military personnel that did not serve outside Russia. I bet you would not consider them as innocent as your friend.

            Yeah you sure are good at determining my ‘stupid games’, you really got me there buddy. At least I know what to tag you.

            Tag me a Russian shillbot if it makes you feel better.

            • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              I bet you would not consider them as innocent as your friend.

              Why would you assume this?

              Beyond which, to hate the U.S. military for their crimes one must hate the Russian military for theirs — lest they make themselves out to be a hypocrite. I don’t care if you want to call out the U.S. military, do not act like the Russians are guiltless or somehow deserving of compassion. I will feel no more compassion for them than I will U.S. soldiers in the event of an invasion of Canada or Greenland.

              • azuth@sh.itjust.works
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                2 months ago

                I never acted as if the Russians are guiltless for invading Ukraine, it’s you that’s acting as if Americans are guiltless for invading Iraq. That said both peoples are still human.

                Care to explain why you disregard the invasion of Iraq that’s already happened and focus on a hypothetical invasion of Canada or Greenland?

          • Gathorall@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Your friend is by your own logic then as innocent of the killing in that war is Putin is of the killing in Ukraine. He hasn’t shot anyone, just like your friend.

            • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              There is simply no fucking way you’re trying to say a grunt has as much responsibility as the dictator. I simply cannot entertain this lmao

            • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              I’m not the one trying to suggest bums working on AC units in the states shoulder the same responsibility as hired guns and professional soldiers.

        • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          Oh rape isn’t the only problem I have with the Russia military, but I’m not about to provide an essay for you.

          • zeca@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            They surely have tons of horrible problems. But you seem to want to hold on to a feeling of moral superiority relative to the russians for some reason… which is just not real.

  • baines@piefed.social
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    2 months ago

    some of us grew up the children of natives and/or minorities

    welcome to the party I guess

  • BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    Ask a black person that has grown up in the USA, ask how free they have felt before even all this. I had one break it down for me and it started the trek to changing my view of the USA as well as political positioning. We’ve always been like this from inception, just it’s hitting close to home now the moderate is feeling the pain.

  • GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Nice to finally see other Americans waking the fuck up and realizing that this is what we’ve been doing to the rest of the world since the fucking inception.

    • shithawk@lemmy.world
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      I’ve been shouting it from the rooftops since I was young but boomers and gen x always wagged their finger at me “Don’t talk about that…”

  • tamal3@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    “The Universal Soldier,” all about a soldier’s responsibility in the continuation of war, is one of my favorite protest songs from the 60s (though I am more familiar with Donovan’s version).

    Maybe we can add some verses to this one?

    … And he’s fighting for the fascists…

    The Universal Soldier

    Buffy Sainte-Marie

    He’s five feet two and he’s six feet four
    He fights with missiles and with spears
    He’s all of 31 and he’s only 17
    He’s been a soldier for a thousand years

    He’s a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
    a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
    and he knows he shouldn’t kill
    and he knows he always will
    kill you for me my friend and me for you

    And he’s fighting for Canada,
    he’s fighting for France,
    he’s fighting for the USA,
    and he’s fighting for the Russians
    and he’s fighting for Japan,
    and he thinks we’ll put an end to war this way

    And he’s fighting for Democracy
    and fighting for the Reds
    He says it’s for the peace of all
    He’s the one who must decide
    who’s to live and who’s to die
    and he never sees the writing on the walls

    But without him how would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau
    Without him Caesar would have stood alone
    He’s the one who gives his body
    as a weapon to a war
    and without him all this killing can’t go on

    He’s the universal soldier and he
    really is to blame
    His orders come from far away no more
    They come from him, and you, and me
    and brothers can’t you see
    this is not the way we put an end to war.

  • chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    Grew up in a cult that refuses to do any military (JW), so at least one benefit I guess in that I was never brought up to venerate the military, or even any living person.