the night (1992)

so many people will be theoretically anti-war and some may even pay lip service to the notion of imperialism being bad, they will perhaps go so far as to say they oppose the idea US occupation. and yet still they will genuinely be shocked when you straight up hate the military in a real way, in the kind of way where you do not make excuses for or lend sympathy to anyone who enlists. they won’t follow you there. they will invoke things like poverty and ptsd and when you remain stone faced and uncompromising they will think YOU’RE the monster. and not, you know, the people who literally knowingly signed up to be a part of the mass murder machine.

like people are always talking about poverty in defense of enlisting and I just wish y’all could recognize the very simple fact that the people in the countries that United States military members are voluntarily signing up to kill are often also living in poverty and then on top of that they are having to worry about being bombed and slaughtered by the imperial poor. Like it’s just not a good excuse to offer yourself up to the murder machine. It isn’t. Of course the United States government doesn’t treat veterans well. It doesn’t treat anyone well. What do you believe veterans to have done that should entitle them to decency not afforded to anyone else? I guess personally I’d rather focus on getting EVERYONE fed and housed, focus on opposing the systems that lead to these conditions, rather than finding sympathy for those who believe they are owed a meal ticket drenched in blood.