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US Navy destroyer adrift in South China Sea for four days after losing power (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml
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[–] 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

I'm starting to suspect that large scale revolutionary action within the imperial core is actually nowhere near as insta-suicidal as the Vote! crowd would have us believe

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  • [–] [S] 15 points 2 months ago

    Historically, military flips is when serious revolutions start. Incidentally, this almost happened with Vietnam as well.

    By the end of the war, around 30% of US officer casualties were fratricide. Think of the level of solidarity there was among the rank and file that nobody in the platoon snitched when somebody put a bullet in the lieutenant's back.

    The wheels were really coming off the US military around 1970 and that's likely why they left Vietnam. Another year and they'd have an all out mutiny on their hands, led by the same class of people who comprised the vanguard stateside.

    At best count, there appear to be some 144 underground newspapers published on or aimed at U.S. military bases in this country and overseas. Since 1970 the number of such sheets has increased 40% (up from 103 last fall). These journals are not mere gripe-sheets that poke soldier fun in the "Beetle Bailey" tradition, at the brass and the sergeants. "In Vietnam," writes the Ft Lewis-McChord Free Press, "the Lifers, the Brass, are the true Enemy, not the enemy." Another West Coast sheet advises readers: "Don’t desert. Go to Vietnam and kill your commanding officer."

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    • [–] 9 points 2 months ago

    Donald killing the empire is an unexpected win.

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    [–] 24 points 2 months ago (16 children)

    The US Navy is now powerless ships and starving sailors. MAGA really is the worst.

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  • [–] [S] 19 points 2 months ago (12 children)

    I fail to see anything negative happening here myself.

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  • [+] -6 points 2 months ago (11 children)

    A bunch of guys trying to do their contracted job and their employer won’t feed them while they’re on a literal floating island? Guys who probably joined as a way to escape living below the poverty line, at 18.

    Sure, nothing wrong.

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  • [–] [S] 15 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    A bunch of guys who signed up for the imperial army to brutalize people around the world can get fucked.

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  • [+] -9 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    We really gonna assign blame to the end products of the system instead of interrogating the material conditions that led to them? Who is the Marxist here?

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    What kind of apologist bullshit is this? Just following orders is not an excuse.

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  • [–] [S] 17 points 2 months ago

    People can still make choices even within a particular system. Plenty of other people chose not to become nazi storm troopers living in the same material conditions.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    who probably joined as a way to escape living below the poverty line, at 18.

    boohoo, they could have done literally anything else but to become boots for the Amerikan empire to kill and suppress people of the global south.

    No sympathies for that.

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  • [–] -4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Education is unattainable now for kids who grow up in poverty. You go from the prospect of living at home while working at Walmart and having no future, to a promise of getting job training, health care (such as it is), room and board, and a pension. Where the fuck else are you getting a pension as a kid who grew up in poverty? Maybe as a cop. The military is a way out for many.

    You should listen to the kids who enlisted pre-911 talk about it. They literally say they did it to go to college, not war. Things are not quite as innocent now, but I seriously doubt the current enlistees thought Asshat Hegseth was in their future.

    National guard, until this admin, did cool things like sandbagging to help with domestic flooding, search/rescue, evac. FEMA used to do cool things. During Covid, they deployed national guard nurses and nurse practitioners to help staff overwhelmed hospitals (to states whose governors acknowledged the reality of the problem).

    And let’s be real, home defense against whatever, including any pot shots by any successes on the N Korean front is nice.

    To say it’s 100% bad is ignorant. There are few 100%s with people.

    What is largely bad and a significant piece of the gross overspending are the contractors. They rake it in while military families can find themselves on food stamps. Bernie breaks it down if you’re at all interested in details.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago* (2 children)

    Education is unattainable now for kids who grow up in poverty. You go from the prospect of living at home while working at Walmart and having no future, to a promise of getting job training, health care (such as it is), room and board, and a pension. Where the fuck else are you getting a pension as a kid who grew up in poverty? Maybe as a cop. The military is a way out for many.

    Wow a way out of poverty is to kill other people you consider less worthy and force them into further poverty. People join ICE in order to escape poverty too. Or is it too much when you get to experience the smallest amount of pain your empire does to others?

    You should listen to the kids who enlisted pre-911 talk about it. They literally say they did it to go to college, not war. Things are not quite as innocent now, but I seriously doubt the current enlistees thought Asshat Hegseth was in their future.

    I don't care. 9-11 was a drop in the bucket compared to the millions yours have killed and still have the entitlement to have the entire world cry for them.

    And let’s be real, home defense against whatever, including any pot shots by any successes on the N Korean front is nice.

    DPRK has not once attacked anyone but your country has attacked every region ever in the past 100 years. What the FUCK do you mean defence against DPRK?

    To say it’s 100% bad is ignorant. There are few 100%s with people.

    It is 100% bad. What is the point of the military otherwise, if not to kill others? Amerika has not been attacked once and has always been the rabid dog attacking others.

    What is largely bad and a significant piece of the gross overspending are the contractors. They rake it in while military families can find themselves on food stamps. Bernie breaks it down if you’re at all interested in details.

    Contractors scamming the government is the only good thing coming out of it. I don't care about military families, they can fucking die. You think the world needs to get on their knees, salute and scream "thank you for your service!!" ??

    And Bernie is a zionist who has no issue with killing people in the global south.

    This is what it means to be an Amerikan; fully self-absorbed, entitled and considers themselves more important than anyone else. Why else is 1 dead Amerikan more horrible than a thousand in the "some desert"?

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  • [–] -5 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    This feels like hating on Amazon warehouse workers because you hate the business and Bezos, however you paint it.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago

    You are unable to analyze or understand anything from the looks of it.

    Amazon warehouse workers are not going into a job which its primary function is to enact and maintain violence on others.

    The military's purpose is literally to kill people and maintain the country's hegemony. How are you unable to understand?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Well, the guy who's in charge of the whole fucking US military is an alcoholic tv show host who fired every general or admiral that made him feel stupid sooooo...

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    • [–] 8 points 2 months ago

    It's what you get when you don't build in redundancy. On my frigate there were 4 generators plus an emergency generator. With 4 broken we could still do the bare minimum. The chance of that happening is little to none, as they were spread throughout the ship.

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    [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    Trump will be requiring steam engine boats again soon at this rate.

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    [–] 7 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    This would never happen on a steam boat

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    • 51 comments in c/world view that post
    [–] 70 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    How many stupid fucking asshole veterans gleefully voted for this fascist cocksucker in 2024, let alone 2016 and 2020?

    2016 you may be able to claim ignorance, but countless veterans, mostly old fucks, came out in droves for Trump in 2020 and 2024, AND STILL FUCKING SUPPORT HIM AFTER AFGHANISTAN AND IRAN.

    Even now as active duty US soldiers are suffering and dying in for Israel and Epstein, these assholes are STILL supporting Trump.

    Any veteran who supported Trump after 2016 deserves to have their military honors and privledges permanently revoked. You don't get to boast that you fought for our freedoms when you're actively taking them away. You cannot claim to be a proud veteran or member of the armed forces while supporting the most hostile president to the armed forces in US history.

    All non-MAGA vets need to call out these asshole MAGA vets and stomp them. They are traitors in every sense of the word.

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    • [–] 57 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    It’s gotta be HOT as a mf in there. I can remember the AC going out from time to time and being hot, but the whole ship? Damn…

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  • [–] 43 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    Easily 90° in the berthing spaces, guaranteed. All that body heat in a metal box with the sun beating on it? No fucking thanks. It got up to 80° in the boat when I was in the Gulf, and I was in a submarine.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    I'm glad you two chimed in, with actual experience. This was my first thought - imagine being adrift cooking inside a giant Dutch oven, with like 300 other people and zero space. FML

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    • [–] 33 points 2 months ago (9 children)

    4 fucking days?

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  • [–] 36 points 2 months ago (8 children)

    Maybe, but I think they were just regular days.

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    • [–] 37 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    In the end, the overall budget requested by the US military department was $961.6 billion, which included $197.4 billion for the Department of the Army, $292.2 billion for the Department of the Navy, $301.1 billion for the Department of the Air Force and $170.9 billion for defence wide expenditure.

    Lol. Lmao. Absolute state of 'the most powerful military on the planet'.

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    • [–] 18 points 2 months ago (13 children)

    its not like petey and trump would notice, these "poor suckers and losers"-trump

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago (12 children)

    it's mindboggling how much they've squandered our military. fucking incompetence writ large

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  • [–] 13 points 2 months ago

    Not JUST your military. They've also destroyed every ounce of soft power the US had built up over the last century.... Including the entire post WW2 international order that the US itself established to the immense benefit of the US.

    If Trump was a Manchurian candidate he couldn't be doing a better job. The only reason I know this is self inflicted and not a foreign coup is because trump would be incapable of a) taking orders or b) remembering a plan

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (10 children)

    Honestly one of the few good things they’ve done. Seeing American military might so defeated is a good sign for the wellbeing of all countries.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    I'm as happy as the next guy to see them eat shit with everything that's happening, but let's not pretend a weakened and exposed USA is going to be beneficial to global peace and order. The US shitting themselves has become Christmas for bad actors

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (8 children)

    Taiwan and a few others aren't as happy about it. EU isn't ready to fill the hole and few others can be trusted to try. Fast downturns are always worse than slow ones you can prepare for.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (6 children)

    Iran is happy about it and they’re someone actively being invaded by the most imperialist country of the last century. Fast downturns are vital for them.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    And then they immediately turned imperialistic and claimed Hormuz

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    You mean after they were unilaterally bombed without warning and had their civil and religious figurehead assassinated?

    Can't believe the Iranians would resort to something as depraved as mild economic coercion in their own territorial waters after something like that

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago* (3 children)

    Yes I agree Trump and Kegsbreath does warcrimes, hell, the entire Republican party should be executed

    THIS DOES NOT CREATE PERMISSION FOR THE VICTIM TO ATTACK INNOCENT EXTERNAL PARTIES.

    Was that so hard to understand?

    Countries who are not aligned with the dipshit shouldn't be targeted

    Sinking ships isn't mild to the sailors

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

    Yeah it's a fucking war bud, when you have a war for your country you can take the high road and play by the rules if you want.

    Iran de-escalates the war and probably saved thousands of lives, Americans among them, by pulling an economic lever that largely ended the "war" and brought stability to the region and safety to themselves.

    I'm not going to ever blame a country for simply using the cards they were dealt to protect themselves from unilateral imperialism.

    When the US finally decide to cross the border into Canada I suppose you'll want us to put away Geneva's checklist as well?

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    • [–] 17 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Interesting to note that the only sailors actually quoted in the article are senior officers. Don't need more meaningless chatter about grit and perseverance, I wanna hear what a bosun's mate seaman thinks of the situation

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    • [–] 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Iran could do something hilarious right now

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    • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    What I want to know is where the ships counterparts are?

    Where are the Benfold's 5?????

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    • [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    Oh the symbolism.

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    [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    DUI hire Pete Kegsbreath blows another TACO.

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    [–] 5 points 2 months ago

    Engineering casualty could cover a lot of different things.

    /tinfoil

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    [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    Soon, all "US military vessels will be like the Lincoln.

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    [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    Destroyer… more like… sitting duck

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    [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    Fuckers messing up the one place where they're doing something useful.

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