I’ve been seeing a bad line of thinking in leftist spaces and in myself and I feel the need to call it out.
The western left’s demonization of the class unconscious proletariat is a symptom of idealism that seems sadly acceptable in leftist social media spaces. Class consciousness is not an achievement to be proud of, you didn’t do it, it happened to you.
Labor aristocracy is not a “sin” of the western working class it is a weapon of the bourgeoisie. Unique material conditions are what lead each of us to class consciousness not some sort of moral/intellectual/educational supremacy. The limited class consciousness in the west’s working class is not an inherit flaw in the masses but a failure of the class conscious to conduct effective agitation. (the word “failure” is not a condemnation but recognition that we have been unable to succeed against the overwhelming power of the imperialist bourgeoisie.)
This extends to demonization of the troops. Yes members of the western armed forces actively benefit from imperialism and do horrific things supporting imperialism but they do this out of a response to their material conditions not because they are evil. That is not to say they are absolved of their crimes. It means many of them could be redeemable.
We have all had liberal and imperialist ideas that we now recognize are wrong. We must be willing to accept those who admit the faults of their past who are willing to fight for a better future. Anyone refusing to forgive comrades who admit to a flawed past is being dishonest about their own flaws. They are engaging in ideological moral supremacy. It is not a dialectical materialists position to refuse something changing into its opposite.
Again this is not a call to absolve the complicit but instead a call to remind us that we have all been complicit in some way and we are the proletariat not above them.
It’s not fanfiction, I am simply saying that we should judge that other group by the same standards that OP wishes to apply to troops in order to show how pointless and counterintuitive it is to do so for either troops or cops.
Because no one else is willing to talk about the harm these people do in nearly the same volume as the mainstream does about domestic problems like police brutality or ICE. The real victims in all this are forgotten about and everyone is expected to shed tears over guy having PTSD for killing people in the name of imperialism.
Personally, I think it’s incredibly inconsistent to say “ACAB” while not applying the same standards to troops, we too can make similar appeals to “material conditions” to justify or excuse the things cops do. In theory, everyone is a potential “comrade” but in practice there are also certain groups who will fight and die for capital. Troopers did so once, and likely will a million times before they have a sincere change of heart. I’m tired of having to explain this to people who would rather dive into stale Liberal talking points instead of just accepting pretty obvious objective truths.
It’d be like if I said “Next time there’s a big blowup about ICE or police brutality, I will concern troll about “alienating potential comrades” by being too critical about ICE.” With Communists like these, there is just no way I would ever want this movement to succeed. Lol. Seriously though, the rest of the world shows solidarity with the ineffectual American left, while that same left refuses to reciprocate and goes to bat for the troops that are currently doing something a million times worse than anything the cops have ever done domestically. Amazing how rhetoric like this doesn’t fall under the “No bigotry, anti-communism, pro-imperialism” rule.
I think you’re doing your perspective a disservice by railing against what is effectively a strawman in this case, at least per my reading. In general, it’s entirely valid to highlight discrepancies between opinions about troops and opinions about cops, but ascribing that discrepancy to OP for this thread seems disingenuous. One can make the point you want to make without misrepresenting what OP actually said and is saying.
I haven’t seen anyone dispute ACAB, nor by extension all troops. The question seems to be whether all bastards are beyond redemption.
I don’t believe all bastards are beyond redemption. No one is going to be anywhere close to perfect 100% of the time and will have done or said something reactionary in the past. I simply don’t see the point in giving the benefit of the doubt when it comes to something like this, neither to vets or people who are trying to finger wag us for being disinterested in playing along with the absurd notion that we should ignore their victims. I could get the demonisation point if it was about something like someone having worked in HR or whatever in the past, but we’re talking about guys who unjustly killed people.