Welcome... to the real world, Neo.
7 months ago by fort_burp to c/whitepeopletwitter
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.
detention centers, prison and jail
Private ones are a gold mine with the government handing people over as slaves.
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.
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...
The audience is really anyone who continues to feel even a scintilla of patriotism for this shithole.
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.
As someone who knows the history of this country patriotism is barely distinguishable from nationalism.
Nationalism is the ideology that a certain people should have a state for themselfes.
Patriotism is the love for one’s state, but that state may have one or more people in it.
So leave.
Patriotism is defined as "love of country", yes, but also "devotion to the welfare of one's compatriots". I personally believe there is nothing more patriotic than doing everything possible to root out a corrupt and harmful government.
I actually think the USA is a beautiful place and I want to protect it from those who would destroy it. The word you're thinking of is jingoism, which is honestly a serious problem here
So patriotism is just mutual aid + nationalism.
Why not just skip the last step? After all, the things I like about America would exist even if the nation doesn’t.
Ok, so if someone is not American, you don't care about their welfare?
If no, thats internationalism, the opposite of patriotism, if yes, you see why we have trouble distinguishing yall from fascists, right?
I never said that? The difference is as an American citizen I actually have some say in the welfare of Americans but by no means mistake me for a nationalist. I think you may need to touch up on the difference between patriotism and nationalism
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.
He was popular and his excellent oratory skills induced people that liked him to like him more personally
https://www.commentary.org/... https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OdVHMUdwLQY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lMBfuOL3aE https://www.picturemosaics.com/... https://ottawacitizen.com/... https://www.reddit.com/...
I could go on
Just have to look at the country's history. This is business as usual, it's just now affecting the moderates.
You are talking about people who got lied to all their lives when they where kids.
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.
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
Sooo... the vast majority of Democrat voters? I know we're all pretty big lefties here, but I've never met a single Democrat voter out in the real world who didn't think Obama was the perfect president who did absolutely nothing wrong. My father in law - who has a degree in political science - keeps a photo of Obama in his wallet at all times along with pictures of his family members.
Sure, plenty of people have started to come to the realization that our soldiers are not heroically staving off evil abroad, but they're still a tiny fraction of the American population as a whole.
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
Thank you for the knowledge. I wasn’t aware this concept existed, but it explains a lot.
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).
My cousin was aNavy F16 pilot who got a medal for dropping the most bombs on Syria. I casually asked him what it felt like to be responsible for so much death and broken families and he looked at me like his brain was shorting out.
It's a very, very common mistake, especially with the "teen" fighters. The fact that movies and TV often get it wrong by inserting a model of one aircraft and claiming it's another doesn't help.
The phrase "you can tell that's not an F-18 because it's shaped exactly like an F-16" has been said more than once at my house.
Some people can separate pushing a button from pulling a trigger and feeling recoil.
we call them sociopaths
No, I yelled about what we did in Iraq too. A lot of us did. Listen to Ashes of the Wake by Lamb of God.
The 2008 election was most Americans and while it wasn't solely about Iraq war it was resoundingly unpopular
The many years these warcrimes happened everyone was waving their flag and supporting the troops.
A minority protested.
And no celebrity had the balls to even speak out either.
A few exceptions like the Dixie chicks. They got viciously attacked and had their career ruined and blacklisted even long after, the regime doesn't forgive.
After the dammage was done of course everyone else 'had always been against it'.
As the saying goes, a liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war.
All this is similar to the genocide in Gaza.
In 10 years you won't find anyone who wasn't actively fighting against it.
The US is an awful and violent cancer to the world, despite the delusions many might have about themselves.
Imperial boomerang.
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).
Soldiers have way more trigger discipline than the gravy seals.
The guy who shot Renee Good was a soldier...
It's the system that produces a restricted rules of engagement and a general fear of punishment if you do something wildly out of line and a strong Management that induces discipline and restraint. If you take one crazy guy out of that system and then hand him a gun and tell him that he can do whatever he wants with full immunity then you don't get restraint.
There are plenty of shit bags in the service. There are plenty of fantastic people too. The military is a great representation of all proletariats.
So what? The same could be said about ICE. The quality of individuals doesn't mean anything when the institution as a whole is so rotten and evil
The US military has murdered orders of magnitude more unarmed civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan than ICE ever conceivably will in the US
My point is, you can draw a direct through-line between Iraq/Afghanistan and what is happening now domestically. You can't really separate the two. Thus there's no point in drawing a distinction between a soldier and a "gravy seal". That's just cope; the military is not coming to save us
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.
Jonathan Ross was a soldier before he joined ICE.
Did you mean are punished?
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.
The military is a social program.
They need the poors to fight their wars and work on their factory floors.
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.
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.
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.
Theres a lot of rape going on in the us military too. Youll find lots of testemony about these crimes being silenced and unpunished, with a bit of research.
https://www.protectourdefenders.com/...
You can say its different. Yes, i agree. But the us doesnt really have any moral high ground as your comment seems to suggest.
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.
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.
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.
You can even try to claim some more weird ass non-existing morality points by pointing out that Hey, the US doesn't even recruit soldiers all that much nowadays... they just hire private companies now... See? US military good, it's mercenaries that are bad.
Ya know... like Wagner Group. Oh no... guess they're more alike than you think.
So your logic is that the U.S. is equally as bad as Russia because they hire mercenaries, so bums working on AC units back home share the same blame as hired guns and professional soldiers.
What a ridiculous group of people.
What a ridiculous group of people.
I know, right? I equally despise the military industrial complex at large, as well as those who are just following orders/helping out in the background and their online simps.
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.
Imperial boomerang is smacking the US right in the head
100% It’s about time Americans read Discourses on Colonialism by Aime Cesaire, and suddenly, everything will tragically make sense
Yes and no. American military personnel absolutely murdered innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Panama, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, Italy, Japan, ...
But not every one, not every day, not multiple times a day.
I know this sounds like "not all X are Y," and to some extent sure, but some mechanic or cook or logistics nerd who never touched a trigger after Basic isn't a murderer like the shit bag who killed Good or Pretti or the others is.
But they still supported the institution no? Hitler's cook can make the same claim
Sure but by this logic every person who has paid taxes to the US, or imported things from the US, is culpable to a degree in war crimes. Is it kind of true? Yes. Is it a useful point? Not really, beyond pointing out the boundless capability of capital to abstract and distance its effects.
Your argument is "everyone is a sinner", what i am saying is being a hilter's cook or a deployed us army cook both are both conscious decision. A large chunk of taxes goes to building roads + other services. What is largely the effect of being deployed US army cook?
Can't believe i have to explain all this, i thought most people would be able to understand this without explanation
Is it a conscious decision if it's the only employment you can secure? The system we live under is designed precisely to coerce people into work that they otherwise wouldn't do under threat of starvation. There's a reason army recruiters go to poor schools.
Any cog in a looking machine is a killer, even if it isn't a bullet.
i think the "countless civilians every day" was more meant to be a reference to the total deaths per day by the hands of the american forces, not every single soldier individually. poorly worded, but it is a tweet, so thats kind of expected.
I don't have time to find the correct link to the project. For some stupid reason it wasn't on their main page. Excellent reporting on one of undoubtedly many cases of USA soldiers murdering people in Iraq:
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.
For whatever their faults are, I have always liked that JWs refuse military service. I think they were some of the smaller groups that the Nazis persecuted in WW2, so they have a record of sacrificing themselves for a good principle.
Edits: correct some grammar
Yeah, they definitely make sure we know that being raised in it. Had a purple triangle mark to denote them and other pacifistic religions. They also were some of the earliest arrested due to their refusal to do the Hitler salute, which they also refuse nowadays to salute anyth*or say any allegiance pledges. While their reasons are religious based, I still refuse to do those too.
Huh, yeah that purple triangle. I remember that now. I went to the Holocaust museum in DC a long time ago and everyone in our group was given a passport-looking dossier of a victim. Most were Jews, some Roma, and mine was a JW woman.
"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.
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 😂
Shock and awe and civil unrest also took lives. The US gov't at whole deservesbthe blame, and everyone in the military sure. But the indiscriminate murdering of civilians in the street was not common. US troops actually had rules of engagemrnt
You don't have to murder civilians to humiliate, dehumanize and diminish them. You just have to disrespect them and show them they are powerless. Which both ICE and US military do.
My own experience was that we took our boots off and helmets off when entering homes to meet with village elders. We did not talk to nor break customs around interactions with their women. I built wells to give communities water, ensured they had cooking and fuel oil, repaired infrastructure, and I placed my body over a family to shield them when the house I was in was getting shot at.
There were 237 casualties on my battalion, but by the end of our tour the place that was mired in firefights every day became peaceful enough that the press could walk about with officers and not even wear body armor.
We played soccer with kids, gave out food, ran electricity to homes, and made the best of what we could.
I have done humanitarian aid for NGOs in the years since and worked on mission trips. Neither experience has come close to the magnitude of elevating community needs as my time in the military did for those we were trying to help.
Just my own personal experience, but felt it was worth sharing.
That's not really accurate, the experience of an infantry soldier doing foot patrols in Afghanistan is completely different than someone who lived in a giant base in Iraq that had hiphop night and taco bell and never left it.
regular civilians have done that too, am i gonna suggest you do that stuff? you are a regular civilian right?
im not saying the military hasnt done that stuff im saying the vast majority of members have probably never seen combat and more probably never even left base
"Everyone else is doing it too" is not a justification for rape...
Also do you have sources for that "regular civilians too" part? Because even if Shariah is a problematic system, it's pretty fucking strick about rape/zina.
talking about any citizen in any country
well if that's what you think that's what you think
Can confirm, was a fobbit.
Most ICE officers start at the office, are their paycheck justified to you?
whataboutism
Poor reading comprehension.
why are u making fun of my wage
possibly the same person
My nephew just signed up for the Marines cause he's not doing well financially and his gf is also in there. Dude skipped out on going to his grandmother's funeral so he could take the test to get in.
Something a lot of people ignore or claim is irrelevant is the individual's situation before joining and it bugs me. I could be talking out of my ass here, because I don't know your nephew, but this kid sounds as if he could be pretty desperate for a way out of his situation. Could just be a jackass, but even jackasses usually show up for gran's funeral and they give those tests every week.
It's not that he's utterly blameless, but why would we heap all the blame on him and not acknowledge the system that made/keeps him desperate? Influence from his girlfriend probably contributed, but he's in a bad financial situation and joining offers an escape, a chance to be with his girl, and a shortcut to getting established on his own. But sure, the only thing he thought about was getting to kill in the next war for oil and he obviously has no misgivings about anything the government will ask him to do. It's not like anyone is ever forced to choose between two bad options in life. /s
How many kids like your nephew get an education in geopolitical issues and colonialism before they make a similar decision? How many chose the military over seeking work in a failing economy, remaining in an abusive home, or getting trapped with a mountain of debt and a useless degree? How many grew up in a home with Fox news playing 24/7 and just never had a chance to learn the truth?
Having raised two kids and been one myself, I can tell you with certainty that critical thinking isn't an 18 year old's greatest skill. Everything the recruiter says will sound great, or at least reasonable. He's a real friendly guy, not like those hard-asses you see in the movies about boot camp...
And once you're in, you stay in until your contract is up or risk severe consequences. You can't just quit. There's massive cultural and peer pressure involved. 6 year enlistments are standard for the "free college". Someone who enlisted under Biden's admin, mistakenly thinking things would be okay, and now wants to leave might be in until 2028 or face some nasty legal and financial consequences, not to mention losing most of their current social circle. Do people think hanging the sins of the nation around their necks is going to entice them to leave? Have we learned nothing of the backlash effect while dealing with MAGA cultists? How many times have people won converts solely by preaching about the evils of the other side?
This isn't a clean and tidy philosophical thought experiment, it's a goddamn moral labyrinth built in an active landfill. They can't undo their decision, some folks love them, some people hate them, and who's going to help them out if they do the right thing and go CO? So, what are they most likely to do until their enlistment is up? Just wait and hope they can avoid being directly involved.
Are there utter shitbags and rascists in the military who joined to hurt PoC and own the libs? Yes. But it's not the monolithic block people make it out to be during these discussions and I'm so very tired of the lack of nuance.
Sorry if I hijacked your comment but damn, check in on the kid from time to time, make sure he's alright. Even if he's a jackass.
They don't count for them.
ICE murdered 35 people in 2025 BTW.
None of them drove a car or had a gun (not that that justified killing) they were in custody.
Who knows their names? Nobody.
They were Mexicans, Colombians, Vietnamese... whatever.
For the US Dems/libs and pseudo-progressives it's only a problem when the white line is crossed.
Bunch of hypocrites.
The people who've been aware of the government's activities have been pretty vocal throughout.
The new influx of people aren't chronically online or chronically doom scrolling, and they're just finding out because of media saturation. You might not like their ignorance in prior times, but maybe meet people where they are and accept that they are speaking out.
shaq asleep meme American tax dollars funding the slaughter and maiming of hundrends of thousands of civilians in gaza and 3rd world countries
shaq awake meme American tax dollars killing 1 american
Whenever I have to do military duty abroad, I just remember that this world is just a simulation and the other npcs will just respawn as other characters in the future using the so called reincarnation feature and it's easier to cope that way.
/S?
See? There are good ways soldiers can use so they can go through their job without getting traumatized and even enjoy it thoroughly.
Fucking psychologists are so useless with their usual methods
there was this funny (dark haha) video of some marines handing grenades out when kids asked for candy. forget what it's called and cant find it anymore, pretty sure the DoD's propaganda wing tried to scrub it from the internet. was made by some of their combat-camera people
Hey, great comment except for using the r-word, it's a slur. That's why I'm removing it.
I was vaguely quoting someone. I'll repost it censored if you'd prefer but I don't remember it word for word so you'd need to send me a copy of it.
It should be in the modlog for you. Let me know if it isn't. Make sure you're in this community's modlog.
Ah, learn something everyday. Thanks for the education, I appreciate it.
I think a discussion about the R word would be interesting, but I know this isn't the time and place for it. I'll repost my comment with it removed.
It's wasn't until old Smosh made that song saying regared mean slow and its offencive and it went viral, then a few months later then suddenly everyone found it 'offencive', took the song down then made a song about saying regarded was fine and it got no traction.
Yes I will die on this hill and I do arbitrarally blame Smosh for my fav word being socially banned.
I grew up in a time where everyone called each other gay as a slur, not understanding how bad that was. We all adapted and don't say it as a slur anymore.
Maybe, I think people these days are way to soft, then again I'm also sick of the way things are structured socially nowadays, it just seems so superficial and to get bent out of shape over some of these things are silly in my mind, but I always had thick skin I guess.
Edit: Fuck the other guys right, this is Turing into old man shouts at cloud.
Language changes. Change with it or doom yourself to being the old man yelling at clouds. The choice is yours.
I've literally never heard if what you're talking about, and I've known the word of a slur since I was a teenager. Maybe its time to grow up a little?
In any context you always have a general 2:1 ratio of non combat support to active combat arms troops
Don't worry sucide got my cousin. I mean, yeah I knew him as a kind liberal person who would jave been an asset against ice. But yeah, i am sure the world is better off without him because I am sure every soldier had the exact same job.
Thank you kind person from a country with free healthcare and education.
This presidency has made a lot of people go mask off. Sad and disgusting to see frankly.
More then anything it's stupid..there was a thread a few weeks ago about how many Gen z men are turning against Trump and the resounding response was 'fuck them' I am starting to think this place is a phyop to make sure the left continues to shoot itself in the foot.
military occupation and civilian policing. Bit of a difference. And even then, in an ideal world I would expect soldiers to not kill people who are already subdued - that probably counts as a war crime, if the "war" part applies.
Like hold up, we've lost sight of that for a long while, but that really should be an important distinction and nobody should be expecting soldiers and police to act the same.
Yes, cops and soldiers are meant to have different roles, but when we're focusing on their shared propensity for killing innocent unarmed people, there's not much of a distinction.
The difference is the military can very quickly kill thousands of people per minute, without even going to the big stuff. Hand held guns are irrelevant.
@sh.itjust.works
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
go to feed...
@sh.itjust.works
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
go to feed...
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.
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