this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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Army is a bunch of parasites on the face of the Earth. Parasites that set the rules, as any ruler turning against them will be overthrown.
Army doesn't make any productive labor; instead, it siphons trillions of dollars making the machines intentionally designed to kill people - and puts them to use.
Society loses literally nothing without armies. They don't "protect" you from anything but other armies, and without armies and wars and threats we could move way further as a humanity.
Don't let anyone brainwash you into accepting this monstrosity. Army is bullying their own countries, bullying and extorting each and every one of us. They are the real enemy. And they will do everything in their power to distract you from that.
I apologize in advance of the things I am about to say to you but this has to be one of the most naive and sophomoric statements I have ever read, so I'm going to address you as a teenager because I hope nobody gets to adulthood believing such bullshit.
To start with I hate to be the bearer of bad news but a substantial percent of humans are violent by nature, which means there is no amount of logical debate that will convince someone to not take your things or your life. This transcends to the national level which is why every peaceful nation in history has an army, for self-defense.
Army doesn't make any productive labor? My brother in Christ you are on the internet. Which means you are using a software that implements TCP/IP protocols specifically designed to build the . . . Drumroll . . . ARPANET! For the US military? Did you type that comment with your phone? Did you use GPS today? Hell the entire space race was funded for military reasons!
I have to envy you though. Thinking that you can simply argue your way out of any confrontation without the threat of violence, must be nice. Ask Palestinians or Ukranians what they think of that.
Internet person: "Army does nothing!"
Army corps of engineers building half of all critical infrastructure in the US: "Am I a joke to you?"
Civilian engineers doing the same without military overhead: I'd like to have a word
Full agreement. My heart is with OP, but it's a sad fact of life on this planet that peace without violence or threat of massive violence just is not usually possible.
The truth is there are fucked up people out there, and worse there are the real parasites that seem to love licking the boots of horrible people (staring at Trump and his ass lickers).
Honestly one just has to look at nature - everything from the bacteria to the plants to the birds and mammals are in a constant fight to the death over their next meal or territory - us primates have not been able to escape it, and I don't think we will (staring at water scarcity, food scarcity, upcoming energy crisis, upcoming climate change crisis, etc etc). Sprinkle a little bit of population explosion into the mix, along with wealth disparity - It's just gonna get fucking worse going forward I fear
Not a critique of you personally, but people who look at the issue from that perspective tend to ignore that their own military can be the spark that ignites a massive conflict. Your own country's military command can be those "fucked up people".
Army is the solution to the problem that army itself creates, and arming up is not maintaining peace - it's exacerbating the problem.
As per inequality - yes, we should fix that, and not just to prevent wars, but because everyone deserves to have a decent life - and we as humanity absolutely can make that happen. UN repeatedly stated we have more than enough resources to provide high quality of life to every person on the planet.
Sure, military industrial complex is probably the phrase you are looking for. I have no solution other than we tried our best in the US with having a civilian leader of the military, just it was impossible to foresee how much money would corrupt the entire political spectrum. All I can tell you is it's established every society (no matter how big or small) is going to have to have some sort of defense - otherwise they will get pillaged sooner or later.
Problem is people with armies usually want to start conquests eventually.... No one has figured out how to stop this through history other than having a bigger and better army
...a bigger and better army which eventually goes into an all-out war.
We had good tries with military alliances that drastically reduce the amount of soldiers required to defend the country as other countries' soldiers are ready to join in.
The problem is, they were formed against certain forces and got stuck with that mentality. We need a democratic worldwide alliance, probably led by the United Nations officials.
Oh, sorry, but I am an adult. And, while I'm gonna skip your condescension, to which I see no place on Lemmy, I can't help but point this is where you get complicit with all of that monstrosity. My point is - for as long as we try to talk of armies as inevitable, even if bad, no change will be made. And we should push for their abolition - they won't be removed fully overnight, that would be the most naive thing to expect - but the problem remains that they are parasites and we should not just accept that. The more people understand a little about what army is and what it does (pitches people against eachother and spills blood and destruction, that is all) and stop excusing it, the more chances we have at actually pushing the policy towards demilitarization again, curbing the current war craze.
The violent percentage of humans are held well by the police, and on the national level the policy should be dictated by the masses, i.e. we should have and uphold democracy, which is a base struggle we already have.
I'm well aware Army made ARPANET, but the Internet as we know it was a public civilian endeavor, so it is not fair to attribute it to army to begin with. GPS - sure, but after that we, again, have seen the rise of navigation systems built with civilian focus, and currently the civilian purpose is more than reason enough to sustain it. You might argue that army was still the first, to which I'll say - yeah, they were the first to funnel money that could go to public research which would make it civilian from day 1, while making proper use of money currently wasted developing more technological ways of killing each other.
The space race was a vanity project first and foremost, aimed at showcasing national prestige. It started without military purpose (just a beeping satellite) and it always kept that way, with just some exceptions like certain Space Shuttle programs (that would happen anyway). Currently, almost everything in space is civilian-purpose.
As per Ukraine and Palestine...you might have skipped the part when Russian and Israeli Ministries of Defence (ironic, huh? they're all talking defence to sugarcoat their true purpose) caused it all. Armies are only good at fighting back other armies, and my proposition is not to have either to begin with, or at least drastically reduce them to decrease the potential for suffering - i.e. leveling of Ukraine and Palestine.
You lift the mask off the Military, and it's Imperialism. Lift the mask again and it's Capitalism.
"And I'm getting away with it too, despite you meddling kids!"
An unfortunate reality - one that I have to admit as a communist myself - is that imperialism doesn't have to come from capitalist powers, even though capitalism has a distinct way of causing it and pretty much constantly leads to imperialist outcomes.
Aside from dismantling capitalism, we have to dismantle authoritarianism and we have to distribute power as evenly as possible. One man's unhealthy ambitions or political games can cause a lot of harm if this man is given full power.
Army is capitalism. Wat?
Read about General Smedey Butler. Vet of multiple wars, the most highly decorated man in Marines history, two medals of honour, he had the opportunity to be the US's first dictator, but was ultimately an anti-war, anti-facist, anti-capitalist pacifist. He perfectly encapsulates how the army andvtge wars they have are just an extension of capitalist interests and act to further the capitalists desires.
If you said, "Army is beneficial for elites." I'd be banging the same drum. It's not unique to capitalism in any way. Communists are just as bad.
l don't think there has been a year without war, in the last 6000 years.
Thanks for posting this, we seem to be going through a kind of renaissance of militarism. Or pacifism or "world peace" seems like an outdated concept. Like we've just accepted that it will always be like this and that conflicts are just normal part of civilization. A kind of capitulation.
Basically the army has become a kind of welfare program that dumps money into the hands of the military industrial complex and employs people that otherwise would be out of a job.
We need to get back to the plot of demilitarization and only having a UN peacekeeping force that can be deployed without every imperialist having a veto. And eliminating all nuclear weapons.
But we are very far away from that, especially with the rise of fascism and nationalism everywhere (which is the end result of capitalism) and climate change turning the world into a powder keg. It's almost assured that we will have nuclear war in the next century if nothing changes.
Which is exactly why we should fight back and never ever capitulate. This matter is existential, and it drives me insane seeing people just accepting their doom.
Nope, not gonna happen.
Hammers in search of nails.
Yes, but other armies do exist. And that will always be the case. There's no way to convince everyone to not have an army, especially because someone would have to be first and no one would want to do that because then they are defenseless.
We don't have to remove all army overnight, and we have a body to discuss demilitarization efforts - the United Nations. Moreover, military alliances should be reformed to include everyone who signed up for demilitarization in order to have enough collective power to defend from others and enforce compliance.
With enough political will - will that should come from the bottom up, from us - we can push governments to discuss that. But instead a lot of people just get into that "inevitability" trope and do nothing to stop the meat grinder - especially in countries like the US or Russia or Israel or other corrupt forces.