A Red Sails post (or something like that- unfortunately can’t recall which) talks a bit about the military/statecraft as being similar to gangs - and that’s made a lot of sense to me. Similar recruitment tactics and preying on the vulnerable, and a similar level of disregard for life for those in it when they stop being useful. And the generational trauma and indoctrination that keeps topping up the ranks with new rubes.
My family have a long line of hillbillies who enlisted at various points or were drafted. And let me tell you - they’re all pretty mentally broken! Either took lives, or saw lots of other people die. Fortunately, my grandpa taught me how ashamed he was to be involved in the Korean invasion and why he opposed violence. And if I didn’t learn from that - my other relatives enlistments resulted in: everyone in their unit dying from an IED but them, family strife resulting in a suicide, spouse leaving them for their CO (that one kinda makes me laugh unfortunately), permanent spine injury, severe asthma from exhaust, and a boatload of anger issues!
Don’t enjoy being the one to break the generational trauma cycle (in terms of therapy efforts) but worth it so no other relatives ever I can tell everyone to never join the military.
Most depressing thing was when I did a mentorship program with an “inner-city” school during trump 1, and they were all joking about how they’d probably get sent to war with china in their lives. Nothing like economic precarity to provide grist for the mill!
Fucking beast that preys on the poor, I tell ya. It’s all bad folks!
Edited to state that no one should join the military- not just my relatives
Edit 2: not 100% sure this was the article but matches somewhat with the Tupac interview portion of it: masses elites and rebels- red sails)
This happens to be essentially what rap legend Tupac Shakur did in a 1995 interview:
(Knowing what you know, what do you think about youth and gang violence in America? Especially in the Black communities and Hispanic communities using gang violence…)
I think… um, I think I’m gonna get a lot of flak for it. I think gangs can be positive. It just has to be organized and has to steer away from being self-destructive to being self-productive. I think this country was built on gangs and, you know, I think this country still is run on gangs. Republicans, Democrats, the police department, the FBI, the CIA… those are gangs, you know what I mean? The correctional officers. I had a correctional officer tell me straight-up “We’re the biggest gang in New York State.” Straight-up, you know what I mean? This whole country is built on gangs, we just have to not be so self-destructive about it. Organized, you know?
(But the violence…)
The violence? But it’s violence in America. What did the USA just do, flying to Bosnia? We ain’t got no business over there, you know what I mean? It’s the same thing. How can they tell us not to have gangs. You know what gang violence is, mostly? And the people don’t want you to hear this. Somebody shoots your family member, so of course you retaliate. You know what I mean? Same thing the U.S. does, except nobody even shot their family members, you know? They see somebody bomb a school and all these people get killed, so the United States is like “Oh, that’s messed up, we’ve got to go show them who’s the real killers.” The same mentality these gangsters get, you know what I mean? So until they stop that mentality we won’t stop. Or they won’t stop, because they watch this country to see what they do. America is the biggest gang in the world, you know what I mean? Look at how they didn’t agree with Cuba, so what did they do? Cut ‘em off. That’s what we’re doing the street: we block things off.
I want to say stop the violence. I want to say the violence ain’t good…
(Why can’t you say that?)
Because that’s not realistic! I know it’s not good. If anybody will speak up against violence, it’ll be the brother that got shot five times. I got shot twice all up in my… trust me, violence ain’t cool. And they know violence ain’t cool! Ain’t nobody out there with a gun saying it’s “cool” to be shooting people. It’s just, you know, in certain situations where there is no way out… But there are situations where we can find the way out. But until we find that way out we can’t say not to live this lifestyle. [33]
Thank you for sharing this personal perspective, I have been trying to delve how the Boomer generation of my extended family have been more impacted than they let on or even realize by being raised by people who fought in WWII had an uncle in Korea or a cousin in Vietnam. I don’t have anything to add but I wanted to give you a shout out because you’ve added to my toolkit for developing these thoughts.
Yeah I’ve done therapy where they explore generational trauma to reflect on things like anger, suppressing emotion, and being unable to connect in relationships; and it’s really shone a light on how fucked up the past was (in terms of family members dying of polio, and generally having kids for the purpose of labor) and why the fight for a better world is so important
I am thinking of fewer directly participating individuals and no one laterally in my generation, compared to what you’re describing, but nonetheless I immediately copped what you were talking about. Shout out to your pop-pop, that’s pretty brave for him to say and it sounds like it helped you avoid making the same enlistment decisions as other kin. I really ought to look in to therapy options, or at least theory around generational trauma.
Yeah the biggest factor was, no doubt, that I’m in the first generation that just went to college instead. But yeah i kinda assumed that side of the family were Quakers or something with how anti war they are - which is very cool and good considering the alternative
A Red Sails post (or something like that- unfortunately can’t recall which) talks a bit about the military/statecraft as being similar to gangs - and that’s made a lot of sense to me. Similar recruitment tactics and preying on the vulnerable, and a similar level of disregard for life for those in it when they stop being useful. And the generational trauma and indoctrination that keeps topping up the ranks with new rubes.
My family have a long line of hillbillies who enlisted at various points or were drafted. And let me tell you - they’re all pretty mentally broken! Either took lives, or saw lots of other people die. Fortunately, my grandpa taught me how ashamed he was to be involved in the Korean invasion and why he opposed violence. And if I didn’t learn from that - my other relatives enlistments resulted in: everyone in their unit dying from an IED but them, family strife resulting in a suicide, spouse leaving them for their CO (that one kinda makes me laugh unfortunately), permanent spine injury, severe asthma from exhaust, and a boatload of anger issues!
Don’t enjoy being the one to break the generational trauma cycle (in terms of therapy efforts) but worth it so
no other relatives everI can tell everyone to never join the military.Most depressing thing was when I did a mentorship program with an “inner-city” school during trump 1, and they were all joking about how they’d probably get sent to war with china in their lives. Nothing like economic precarity to provide grist for the mill!
Fucking beast that preys on the poor, I tell ya. It’s all bad folks!
Edited to state that no one should join the military- not just my relatives
Edit 2: not 100% sure this was the article but matches somewhat with the Tupac interview portion of it: masses elites and rebels- red sails)
This happens to be essentially what rap legend Tupac Shakur did in a 1995 interview:
(Knowing what you know, what do you think about youth and gang violence in America? Especially in the Black communities and Hispanic communities using gang violence…)
I think… um, I think I’m gonna get a lot of flak for it. I think gangs can be positive. It just has to be organized and has to steer away from being self-destructive to being self-productive. I think this country was built on gangs and, you know, I think this country still is run on gangs. Republicans, Democrats, the police department, the FBI, the CIA… those are gangs, you know what I mean? The correctional officers. I had a correctional officer tell me straight-up “We’re the biggest gang in New York State.” Straight-up, you know what I mean? This whole country is built on gangs, we just have to not be so self-destructive about it. Organized, you know?
(But the violence…)
The violence? But it’s violence in America. What did the USA just do, flying to Bosnia? We ain’t got no business over there, you know what I mean? It’s the same thing. How can they tell us not to have gangs. You know what gang violence is, mostly? And the people don’t want you to hear this. Somebody shoots your family member, so of course you retaliate. You know what I mean? Same thing the U.S. does, except nobody even shot their family members, you know? They see somebody bomb a school and all these people get killed, so the United States is like “Oh, that’s messed up, we’ve got to go show them who’s the real killers.” The same mentality these gangsters get, you know what I mean? So until they stop that mentality we won’t stop. Or they won’t stop, because they watch this country to see what they do. America is the biggest gang in the world, you know what I mean? Look at how they didn’t agree with Cuba, so what did they do? Cut ‘em off. That’s what we’re doing the street: we block things off.
I want to say stop the violence. I want to say the violence ain’t good…
(Why can’t you say that?)
Because that’s not realistic! I know it’s not good. If anybody will speak up against violence, it’ll be the brother that got shot five times. I got shot twice all up in my… trust me, violence ain’t cool. And they know violence ain’t cool! Ain’t nobody out there with a gun saying it’s “cool” to be shooting people. It’s just, you know, in certain situations where there is no way out… But there are situations where we can find the way out. But until we find that way out we can’t say not to live this lifestyle. [33]
Thank you for sharing this personal perspective, I have been trying to delve how the Boomer generation of my extended family have been more impacted than they let on or even realize by being raised by people who fought in WWII had an uncle in Korea or a cousin in Vietnam. I don’t have anything to add but I wanted to give you a shout out because you’ve added to my toolkit for developing these thoughts.
Yeah I’ve done therapy where they explore generational trauma to reflect on things like anger, suppressing emotion, and being unable to connect in relationships; and it’s really shone a light on how fucked up the past was (in terms of family members dying of polio, and generally having kids for the purpose of labor) and why the fight for a better world is so important
Yeah the biggest factor was, no doubt, that I’m in the first generation that just went to college instead. But yeah i kinda assumed that side of the family were Quakers or something with how anti war they are - which is very cool and good considering the alternative