not postin anymore
this site needs to develop a better nose for throwaway accounts that post singlemindedly about the same themes that are just designed to make fun of users here/make fun of common genres of post/that are just struggle bait.
site management demodded the person who got this kind of clearly fake shit pinned earlier this year, that was a good move! showing some real nice signs of improvement there :)
i get it too. i’ve got some measure of compassion for just about everybody! but no one is coming to save us except us, nominal socialists need to leave this shit ass party that hates their fucking guts behind them and to stop begging for crumbs from fascists.
ur not wrong, my days of being that active/invested in the site are behind me tho
yeah most people who end up here with a military history are at least mostly repentant, but some of the Democrats on this site are still sticking with “well…what are our other options, though?? maybe we’ll get a better 
primary challenger from his left, but until then let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good!!” for an unapologetic career war criminal.
goddamn, i hate getting this heated and wish this site had more benefit of the doubt in general and hate how hostile it gets around most things, but at this point the chauvinism from the Western entryist subset on this site needs to be called out in harsher terms. we need to have a red line around “maybe don’t ever critically support or give benefit of the doubt to unapologetic mercs for empire, especially if they have fucking nazi tattoos”
If Mainer comrades wont run a candidate to challenge his “left lane” here, we just have to hope he was somewhat genuine in his change of heart and isnt a total Fetterman Act II
we can also just not invest our hopes & dreams & organizing muscle in the (obviously increasingly, considering Platner) cryptofash democrats or consider whether to give critical support to an unrepentant career war criminal at all
no way he didn’t find out in the ten years since he got it and also the tattoo is burying the lede which is that the dude did four tours of duty at the warcrime factory as an adult in his early middle age and is completely unrepentant about it, this should have disqualified him from even the most critical of support from the get go.
two things are simultaneously true: there is a much larger subset of American troops who radicalize to the left vs ex cops and IDF, and the American left are conditioned to go easy on (or even lionize) their country’s military without the requisite expression of regret, process of vetting, and earning of trust through action that allows former imperialist troops to take roles in socialist movements. Israel is brainwashed and sick to the core through generations of an active process of settler genocide and the subsequent propaganda apparatus around it, and cops are largely pampered, suburban reactionaries.
whereas there is an actual significant subset of ex-military who fit the “impoverished barely adult tricked into service, then chewed up and spat out by the system” talking point that’s often thrown around, even if they aren’t the majority of the US military’s demographic. I think this largely explains the disparity. I also want to say that the radicalized socialist former US troop is still very much a niche, and former American soldiers are much more likely to be reactionary or just plain depoliticized.
that’s all I really care to say on the matter on hexbear dot net. while the banned user’s timing was bad and their word choices were harsh (and I think this site skews more elder gen Z and millennial than literal kids lol), their point was ultimately right that this is an atomized, antisocial place that puts a higher value on taking a posture of maximum righteousness (even on the most inane, niche issues) than on movement building, comradely political education & growth, or on genuine communal care. the above (ultimately pretty mild) degree of contradiction is too much for a space like this - hexbear isn’t uniquely bad or anything, the internet is just tainted enemy territory at its very core that discourages movement building IMO. (i’d also add/clarify, that this issue in particular is not inane or niche)
EDIT: also if I wasn’t clear, none of the middle paragraph applies to Platner, I’m just commenting on a broader recurring struggle session. should’ve been a firm line of “fuck that guy” even before he was outed as a nazi. 4 tours (one with a comically evil private mercenary group) in your late 30s/early 40s is deep commitment to the evils of imperialism.
site’s about a year away from unironically thinking american military service = praxis as long as the imperial spoils can give us healthcare with the way things have been lately
for those who only post, making based posts is the highest form of praxis 
i want the working class to win by seizing actual power and i think that’s done by building & bolstering its own institutions - like labor unions, tenants unions, and a strong workers party that can direct them. viable left parties are built through organizing and struggle, they don’t just spring up from the earth - and as an active member of a very active communist party, i’m trying to do my part in that struggle (my investment in this goes far beyond just being correct from the sidelines).
so yeah, winning parliamentary seats in the immediate is a nice to have at best. and to add, “Democratic party” is far more than a label, it’s an institution & organ of power built for and maintained by the bourgeoisie, with well developed tools for flattening and absorbing any internal opposition (assuming that the ostensible opposition wasn’t comprised of careerists from the get-go). even the most degraded, reactionary trade union is still comprised of the workers, and would therefore be a better investment of organizing energy.
Seriously, what will it take for DSA candidates to get good takes on foreign policy?
they’d have to not be democrats tbh
definitely one of those two, the pathetic and unfunny meanspiritedness of the bit will lead you to the truth of which one