• NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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    24 hours ago

    No no no. When push comes to shove the heroic military will fight against fascism. Ignore all the fucking evidence to the contrary and support the troops.

    • astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz
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      23 hours ago

      Not wrong. At “best,” we’ll see a fracturing of the military…which could be much more trouble than it’s worth. I’d expect a small wave of resignations/desertions (since resignation for an officer takes a long time). The remainder of good people will actively try to avoid and sea-lawyer their way out of doing any damage to civilians without violating orders. There will be a good chunk who will happily fire on US civilians, though.

      • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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        22 hours ago

        Resignations are only useful in the short term.

        In the long term, Resignations provide new opportunities for the loyal to gain power and recruit.

        • astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz
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          19 hours ago

          Yep, but those who resign for moral reasons will be more likely to take actual actions to protest/stop what’s happening. The military will have a hard time recruiting competent people in that environment, though, and the people taking the vacancies will likely have diminishing competence as time goes on.

          To put it in perspective, if more officers retire at 20, they’ll generally be O-5s (Lieutenant Colonels or Commanders), and so the next year’s promotion cycle will need to promote more O-4s to cover the vacancies. This will then trickle down, and suddenly, you have officers who have been O-3s for just a couple of years being promoted to O-4 rather than waiting longer and gaining experience.

          In that scenario, there will be less efficiency in planning and execution and far more incompetence, and if being used against civilians, more brutality. But incompetence is easier to defeat in the long run. Seeing the incompetence and brutality will deprive the military of the smartest recruits who staff the important IT, intelligence, cyber, etc. communities. So, while they may get true believers, a lower proportion will be competent.

          No matter how it shakes out, it will get very bad.

          • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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            18 hours ago

            Yep, but those who resign for moral reasons will be more likely to take actual actions to protest/stop what’s happening

            No. They won’t. Or, to be more blunt, the people who would actually be useful won’t. Because they are the ones who understand the world isn’t Call of Duty and a single guy with a pistol isn’t actually going to Jack Bauer his way through an entire armed escort.

            The military will have a hard time recruiting competent people

            They already do. That is why the military is dumb as a door knob and full of the kind of people who just want an excuse to shoot some folk whether they are brown or not.

            This will then trickle down, and suddenly, you have officers who have been O-3s for just a couple of years being promoted to O-4 rather than waiting longer and gaining experience.

            Oh, well then. That will solve everything.

            • Septimaeus@infosec.pub
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              7 hours ago

              Breathe. We will get through this, and how is question worth considering, as the commenter above did. If you need to share this burden of despair with someone, my DMs are open.

              • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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                3 hours ago

                We convince officers and other respected leaders to coup at the right time at the right signal.

                But we also accept that the Grunts and dumbasses are gonna dumbass. Maybe you can get like an E-8 or E-9 on our side but don’t give much effort to E-3 or E-5.

                But sitting around hoping that the military just magically appears on our side (that leans hard into Libertarianism at best and outright far right hooo rah at worst) is dumb.

                • Septimaeus@infosec.pub
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                  1 hour ago

                  I’m addressing an instance of doomerism. Participation of current or former military in the rebellion occupies my thoughts far less than that, currently.

                  • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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                    40 minutes ago

                    Doomerism on the correct contexts is correct.

                    We shouldn’t expect a military coup on this issue. The vast majority of soldiers will take the side of Police and ICE on this issue and proudly stand by them.

                    Doomerism here allows us to focus our efforts elsewhere, where it’d be more fruitful to strike back vs Trump.

            • Maeve@kbin.earth
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              16 hours ago

              The ASVAB was pretty basic when I took it. Fortunately, a health condition at the time kept me from basic.

      • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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        20 hours ago

        MAYBE that would have worked on the “I just want to go to college” Desert Storm kids.

        We spent the better part of 20 years at continual war training an army to commit atrocities in the name of “peace keeping”. Anybody joining under those circumstances either started out brainwashed (“My daddy and his daddy and his daddy were all marines!”) or are basically cops who just want an excuse to wave a gun around.

        At best? We are looking at the equivalent of trotting out liz cheney at the DNC. Sure there are “moderates” who might be won over. But the moment they hear that somebody doesn’t like whatever “moderate” belief they have they’ll go straight maga and then insist it is your fault for not winning their vote by slaughtering a few trans kids.

        • arrow74@lemm.ee
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          18 hours ago

          I’d say the vast majority of people in the military these days are poor kids looking for an escape to cyclical poverty.

          • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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            17 hours ago

            Even that is fading because the tendency to fuck over the VA is so known.

            That said: the people whose entire existence depends on pulling the trigger ain’t walking away because it might hurt the people who they kind of rightfully feel already abandoned them.

          • Maeve@kbin.earth
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            16 hours ago

            Yes, if they live through it, talking about everything from food, to housing, “vaccines”, and God knows what else. I’m not antivax either.