Good because this will probably weaken the military along with his purges. If it makes the military less competent, I'm for it.
I sincerely disagree. 15,000 members of the US Armed Forces do not move the needle on the US' imperial might (which ultimately is predicated on financial domination and vassals, not military prowess). 15,000 marginalized people within the armed forces, however, represented a prime tactical advantage for a revolutionary political movement. See: Aaron Bushnell.
Obviously we can talk back and forth all day long about how the US armed forces can never be truly radicalized because of their position as footsoldiers of capital, but the hard material reality is that the American left is deficient in firepower but the military is full of possible fellow travelers. Remember that the Chinese Red Army was mostly made up of Nationalist deserters. How do you expect to be successful without a significant fifth column?
Those 15,000 aren't just combat roles and grindable meat; a lot of them are in support and technical roles. There are a lot of roles in which removing 1 person creates a sizable inconvenience for many and can harm operations. You are correct that trans people are overrepresented as saboteurs in the military, but almost all of those people joined pre-transition and seeing the contradictions of US empire radicalized them. The trans people who have transitioned and then joined are more often than not dyed-in-the-wool believers in the US empire who don't have the same opportunity for radicalization.
Not only depriving the military of those skillsets and capacities, but absorbing them for ourselves
There is no outlet to absorb these people though. They just go back to capitalism rather than joining the bolsheviks
Not en masse no, and I think developing the capacity to do so is gonna be an increasingly good bet as things get more tense, fractious and doomy
Which is exactly why I think it's a bad thing that this is happening now. If this happened because they represented a threat in the order of the US military then it'd be a good thing, they'd join the communists. But the fact that it's just happening as a random action to pander to chuds is, in my estimation, an unforced W for American empire and the rare accidental strategic good move, denying the enemy (us!) a valuable advantage in the future.
Somehow I don't think those 15,000 trans people in the USAF are majorily frontline infantry
If they're technical support personnel they'd be even more valuable fifth columnists.
I'll admit that what others in the thread said is true, trans troops are troops first and marginalized second, but if we categorically dismiss the tactical utility of potential collaborators we can't succeed.
If they're technical support personnel they'd be even more valuable fifth columnists.
On reflection I see my point was confusing, that's what I was getting at
Didn't a big poster start a struggle session and eventually got banned for defending the "troops are workers" position?
15,000 marginalized people with military training that just got betrayed by their own government can, also, represent a tactical advantage.
True, but it's not like they're organized. If this was happening 10 years from now with an actual organized left that could quickly take the opportunity I'd more readily agree with you. Taking the opportunity away from us to turn these people into allies preemptively is surely a negative.
It does beg the question of where they'll go from here.
It hasn't happened yet.
Not a lot of time to get organized, but not impossible either... not that I expect anyone to even try.
I don't think it will do anything negative just like rainbow capitalism didn't do anything positive.
less labour-power in the military is good actually, and if it has a chance to cause internal conflict, even better.
but backwards
I was going to post something like “yay no :flag_trans: imperialism”; but this is going to mean 15000 more unhoused people isn’t it?
it’s also a bad sign for us generally when they don’t even want to try to convince us to do rainbow imperialism or buy things, which is where it seems to be going
people
They're soldiers in the US military, I wouldn't go as far as to call them that
Aaron Bushnell was a trans person in the US Air Force and she was 50 times the leftist I am.
She martyred herself out of guilt from being in that institution. That’s the difference between her and the rest of the troops. Until they prove otherwise, a troop is a troop.
okay, so just because of 1 good soldier that means the rest aren't bad? are you goig to cry next about "fallen troops" in the next U.S. imperialist war because they could've been a comrade?
No, the complete opposite. The world would be a better place if every single American servicemember was jailed or shot. I'm saying that categorically dismissing their tactical utility is a mistake, and that if you want the American left to have any political power at all you need to capture and make effective use of the group that actually has the guns. That doesn't change their moral character, they're still child murderers. But a child murderer who's willing to sabotage a weapons shipment is a child murderer who has the capacity to undo a fraction of the harm they've caused.
Exactly, this is just idealism
That is a 1 in 1,400,000 occurrence. The war criminals outnumber the self immolators 10,000,000 to 1, so I'm not concerned about the near-non-existent chance that someone decent gets cut. Also, keep in mind that Bushnell wasn't out and therefore wouldn't be cut by this decision. Both major trans saboteurs were pre transition when they joined as it is a different experience.
Bushnell was trans?
~~If I recall, there was some speculation but they never explicitly said it or came out before martyring themselves~~
EDIT: Okay, nevermind
50 times 0 is still 0 tho
"first they came for the trans soldiers and I did not speak out because I was not a trans soldier... Then they came for me (a soldier) and there was no one left to speak out for me."
first they came for the trans soldiers and I did not speak out because I was ~~not a trans soldier~~ an egg
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