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[–] 116 points 9 months ago* (3 children)

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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  • [–] 45 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 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.

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  • [–] 30 points 9 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).

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

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  • [–] 47 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Not to take away from your story, but the USN flies F18s and F35s, the F16s are all USAF.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 22 points 9 months ago

    I'd like to think that some of us vets are aware of that

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  • [–] 44 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    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.

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

    Unfortunately, you alone are not "most Americans".

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  • 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.

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  • [–] 21 points 9 months ago

    The military is a social program.

    They need the poors to fight their wars and work on their factory floors.

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  • [–] 40 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Fascism is colonialism turned inward

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  • [–] 16 points 9 months ago

    One person’s hero is another person’s war criminal

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago

    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:

    https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/podcast-dark-examines-crime-went-unpunished

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

    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

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 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.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 18 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Imperial boomerang is smacking the US right in the head

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago

    possibly the same person

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  • [–] 17 points 9 months ago

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

    welcome to the party I guess

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  • [–] 74 points 9 months ago (42 children)

    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...

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (11 children)

    Just have to look at the country's history. This is business as usual, it's just now affecting the moderates.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (10 children)

    You are talking about people who got lied to all their lives when they where kids.

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

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago* (8 children)

    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

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  • [–] -2 points 9 months ago (5 children)

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

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    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

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

    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?

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

    I didn't say that. I just pointed out how this shit works.

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  • [–] 29 points 9 months ago (24 children)

    The audience is really anyone who continues to feel even a scintilla of patriotism for this shithole.

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  • [–] 34 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (16 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 22 points 9 months ago (14 children)

    As someone who knows the history of this country patriotism is barely distinguishable from nationalism.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (8 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    Which is why it doesn’t make sense to me, since I hate states in general and the United States specifically.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Fundamentally there are two kinds of nationalism: civic and romantic. Civic nationalism is about people adhering to a society's set of laws and values. Romantic nationalism, also known as blood and soil nationalism, incorporates those concepts of birthright and bloodlines as important to one's status in a nation.

    The United States was a major pioneer and proponent of the civic kind, defying the traditional romantic nationalism that grew out of Europe. Despite our historical misgivings it's an important difference.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

    I don’t even like society’s laws and values, though.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    I'm sure there's some basal level of them that make sense or seem natural. I do find it preferable to going off ethnicity or religion. Or the monarchist Divine Rights stuff with noble bloodlines and such.

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  • [+] -10 points 9 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    I would but there’s nowhere without a country to go to

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  • "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.

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    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

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    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?

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

    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

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    Patriotism is just nationalism for people who haven't grappled with the reality of patriotism. The core is still juxtaposing human worth and real estate.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    I see what you're getting at, and perhaps my definition of patriotism is more wistful than the reality of it, but I've always thought of patriotism as similar to family. You're more devoted to them because you are closer to them and there's a certain want to preserve that alongside the places where it happened, y'know? And just like family, sometimes you have to override that devotion when the relationship becomes too toxic to maintain.

    I feel like that's where I'm at with the US. I've always been a naturalist at heart and I adore the landscapes of the country in particular, but it's like a toxic parent. I try my best to pursue reform but I'm nearing a point where I'll just have to leave and cut my losses. But it is hard because I legitimately do love this country, just...not the government or the people who run it.

    The problem ain't just the Trump administration, it's systemic and I wish more people here understood that. I just think it would be better for the whole world if the US could get its shit together instead of every person with a moral compass abandoning it to its inevitable doom and the subsequent suffering of everyone too screwed by the system to leave.

    I care about the welfare of every living breathing human, but tbh I think fixing the US (however that's done) would benefit a hell of a lot of people in a whole lot of places. This country's global military presence is so pervasive and damaging, it'd be nice to put a stop to it.

    If the want to truly fix this place makes me not patriotic, so be it, but I've always seen that as the definition of patriotic. Maybe I'm just naive tho

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 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

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  • [–] 32 points 9 months ago (11 children)

    Soldiers have way more trigger discipline than the gravy seals.

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  • [+] 19 points 9 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    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.

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

    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?

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

    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?

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    There as a documentary on the US invasion of Iraq where they interviewed a tank solder that gleefully said shooting the thing was like playing video games.

    Also, drones.

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