Yeah I know. I have a tendency to ruminate myself. I still feel I have to say it because it is rumination and ruts of rumination make shit worse rather than better. It’s sort of like if you had a wound on your arm and every time it itches, you pick at it instead of letting it heal. Sometimes the wound might need some ointment applied and that’s where, with dark thoughts, getting support from others and changing the perspective of the thoughts can help. You don’t have to go it alone on these things, it’s not a bootstrap solution. It’s just that sometimes naming and identifying what’s going wrong in your head can help with challenging the cycle.

Edit: Also, the way you describe it kinda sounds like you’re afraid of your own thoughts and don’t feel like you have any power over a cycle that is out of your hands. If that’s at all accurate, well I’m here to remind you that you do have some power over them, it’s just not a 100% thing like flipping a light switch. I’m not a mental health professional by any means, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But in my experience with therapy and trying to deal with anxieties and problem thoughts and so on, the mind and thoughts are sorta like the ocean. Tide comes in and recedes, like thoughts do. You can push in one direction or another, but there’s inertia. And you can over time influence what the overall makeup of it is, but it’s not an instantaneous thing. So yeah, there will be times it might feel like you’re going backward, but that’s probably because negativity is a part of existence. The issue isn’t that it exists, it’s the belief in its dangerous extremes. So work on changing the belief, affirming something different, more loving. Understand that even if it works, the scary thoughts may return sometimes. But you’re working your way away from them. Sailing into better waters.

I’m a constant burden on both my family and society

I’m a bad communist, I don’t deserve anything

That’s the capitalist/imperialist culture talking. The sociopathic one that doesn’t value human life. That wages wars just to get more control over resources.

I get why it’s in there. You live in a capitalist world. Okay. Now recognize it for what it is and push back.

You are deserving of love. Your needs matter. Your boundaries matter. All of these things which many societies throughout history just do because they value human life inherently, capitalist says is wrong, colonialism says is wrong, imperialism says is wrong. Based on what? What is it that drives them to say it’s wrong? That people are undeserving? They say it because if people believe they are deserving, they will band together and take what has always been rightfully theirs in a communal manner, rather than existing under a grotesquely stratified, individualistic, and exploitative system.

You, like so many others, are living through the sharpening contradictions resulting from this unsustainable system. That can hurt. But know you’re not alone in it, you never have been, and you can still work with others for better.

I did bad things as a kid and now I get to suffer for the rest of my life

Then work toward a better life for yourself and for others, so that bad things will be less likely to happen to people in general. If you deliberately did something horrible, see if you can make amends and if the people you wronged can’t forgive you, accept the lack of forgiveness and work toward a better world anyway. If you accidentally did something horrible, understand that you were a child and only had so much control over things. It’s difficult to speak more on that without knowing what you actually did.

But I can say that self flagellation is not going to build a pro-social world. I know western Christianity loves that stuff, but it has its problems. Guilt and remorse and making amends do all matter, but wallowing in self loathing will not help you or anyone. You can’t go back in time, none of us can, but you can live in a way that helps others going forward.

Take a breath, break the rumination spiral, and remember what a loving world that values human life is about. And what that can mean for everyone, yourself included.

Empathy matters, but also: As long as there are people whose way of life depends on a system of exploitation, there will be people who defend the exploitative system’s existence.

This is not to say that everyone who benefits from exploitation will necessarily cling to an exploitative system, but we can be assured that some who benefit from exploitation will cling until the power is taken from them by force.

Garden variety liberals are a good example of the limitations of empathy in taking on exploitative systems. Though I can’t directly read their minds, based on how I was as a liberal and looking at similarities in others: Plenty are sincerely empathetic and generally believe in doing right by people and being a morally upstanding person. But they still, many of them, benefit from the system and so they have a vested interest in finding some mental gymnastics way to make excuses for it, or argue that the problems can be solved without actually dismantling it.

You didn’t show evidence of anything remotely resembling such a weighty claim as “veterans are a lost cause.” You made a sweeping generalization to start with. When I asked you about your sourcing, you said some of it’s talking to people, some of it’s content creators (such as streamers), and some of it’s a report on the ADF when the subject was USian veterans. I took the talking to people part as valid, in spite of it being anecdotal and me having to take you at your word. I questioned the validity of viewing content creators as representative of millions of people. I questioned the validity of the ADF report as being relevant to broad claims about USian veterans.

Here again, I give you nuance. And you give me more binary thinking: “veterans are a lost cause”.

Learn to put aside the ego and maybe you’ll be able to see straight on this. If you don’t, you are just going to be all anger with no center.

So a USian is going to just hop over to Afghanistan and recruit former insurgents there, is that it? Yeah, it’s good timing for you to have an excuse to disengage. Your arguments are idealistic nonsense. You tell me to go outside, while ignoring logistical realities in favor of what sounds better to you on paper.

Conflicts are carried out with the tools that people and entities have available to them. That’s why Palestine is being genocided as we speak, instead of bombing israel with parity. It’s why Iran was able to bomb israel with parity when israel started attacking it. It’s one of the reasons we give critical support to anti-imperialist efforts, even when they aren’t explicitly socialist or communist.

I keep trying to introduce nuance into the conversation and you keep insisting on binary thinking. You are in desperate need of dialectics.

Most of these frontline infantry men have served in Iraq or Afghanistan any advice they give is going to be useless for whatever type of war you think you’ll be fighting 1) tactics and habits learned in counter insurgency doesn’t translate to running and operating an actual insurgency 2) the type of war they’re involved in is outdated 3) literally just train

This makes no sense. First, why would counter insurgency give you no understanding of insurgency. It’s two sides of the same coin. Second, some things about military training are just basic concepts, like how to manage a firearm, and don’t date fast at all. Third, “literally just train” line reminds me more of PvPers in a video game saying “git gud” than an understanding of RL logistics. Like… train in what? Based on whose experience? With what guidance? To what end? The whole point there was that some of them might have solid advice for training. Obviously they’re not the only people in the universe who understand related concepts, but my god, you’re really reaching on this narrative that there’s no circumstances under which they could possibly offer help.

First it was they’re too reactionary, now it’s “even if they aren’t too reactionary, their skills are still useless,” which is obviously nonsense.

Already talked about this

Do you really want to ally with someone who had a very good chance of having committed atrocities during their services regardless of if they felt bad about it? And even if they committed no war crimes why should we recruit them?

No you didn’t? I was responding to that part directly. As I said, “I would hope one is not basing their organization with others on probabilities of whether someone committed atrocities, rather than concrete information on whether they did and whether they have turned around as a person.” You literally said “a very good chance of”, not "people who are known to have done wrong. “A chance of” may be reason to be cautious, it is not investigation in itself. A person who committed war crimes is not the same as a person who committed no war crimes. You are uncritically assessing a situation, moving the goalposts to insist on a set narrative when it’s challenged, and generally misrepresenting logistics.

It’s not a hill worth dying on. I’m not going to insist someone trust imperial core veterans if they don’t want to and it’s up to peoples who have been harmed by them, as a collective, to decide in what capacity they want to be accepting of such veterans in general. You don’t need to trample over other reasonable points in order to have that stance.

I would hope one is not basing their organization with others on probabilities of whether someone committed atrocities, rather than concrete information on whether they did and whether they have turned around as a person.

That said, plenty of veterans won’t have been direct combatants but could still have logistical skills or advice, or knowledge from basic training that they can help others get on track with. The bulk of revolutionary efforts are not direct combat. I don’t know that I would personally trust imperial core combat veterans as combatants in a revolutionary context, but it’s possible they could still provide advice and training under the right kind of supervision.

But this feels a bit navel-gazing out of context of an actual revolutionary vanguard party. There does not appear to be that much of a “left” in the US for example and in the current climate, a civil war between constitutional loyalists and Trumpian fascists seems more likely than a “left” revolution.

1. Similar does not mean identical. Accounting for distinctions is an important part of contending with people, as individuals or as groups.

2. I more meant vague in the sense that it doesn’t say much about veterans as a whole. These days, if you have a smartphone and an internet connection, you can be a “content creator”. Doesn’t inherently mean you speak for anyone other than yourself. Unless you are talking specifically about people who speak for orgs and are elected by members of those orgs.

3. This is some “if you’re not with me, you’re against me” shit. My original question was just asking if you had sourcing for your sweeping claim about an entire classification of people. I did not even advocate for trying to recruit veterans. I do, however, take issue with being reductionist in dealing with millions of people. Even if you have -100 desire to ally with veterans, it’s still important to understand the distinctions of where they are actually at, politically. Minority veterans, for example, are probably going to be closer to something politically that could be an ally, or at least not getting in the way. And if it’s all but assured they’re going to end up as opposition and reaction, then you need to contend with in what way that’s going to manifest and how to deal with it; another time when distinctions matter.

Oh, you’re talking about Australian veterans? (That’s what I can find that ADF refers to.) I assumed USian based on the subject of the OP.

Edit: Also, “content creators” is very vague and doesn’t tell much. It’s not as if such people are elected representatives of a given classification of people.

The talking to vets part is the most concrete here.

Edit2: Good thing posting history is a thing. Apparently you’re someone who has lots of anger and bitterness at the status quo (which is understandable), but forgets the “caring about other people” part of why we believe in what we do (which could lead you to reactionary behavior). Communism is a lot more than being angry at what colonialism and imperialism have done to the world and you sure as hell aren’t going to build an alternative world through spite alone.

Are you basing this on talking to many veterans (beyond internet interactions)? Or just vibes?

Capitalists when flaws at home: “It’s loopholes capitalism, humans are flawed beings, guvwerning is suwper hawd uwu pwease gib more bailouts fow our investow class. :3.”

Capitalists when flaws in an AES state: “This demonstrates how communists eat babies, want everyone to suffer as much as possible, and can’t ever do anything competent. They are physically incapable of being good people and must be stopped even if we have to do supreme acts of evil to make it happen. I mean, wait. Acts of good. Because we’re the good ones. 100%. No flaws here. I mean, wait. We’re flawed. Just, uh… when we’re governing. Not when we’re bombing them for governing evilly with pure evil. Then we’re perfect angels.”

Meanwhile AES states are like: “In the year X, month Y, day Z, we found that we overdid things by 13% and under-performed in our goals by 24%. Our analysis shows that we can improve conditions for our people by doing A, B, and C adjustments.” later “We did the adjustments and they worked, people are getting their needs met more effectively and are living more empowered lives. We will continue to make improvements in sector N and sector M. Here is a scientific dissertation on the methodology we used.”

Then capitalists are like: “How dare you try to show us up on science! Here is an unclassified dissertation on how we used a mixture of bombs, terrorism, sanctions, and NGOs to make yet another country submit to our exploitation.”

When has the CIA not been authorized for that?

I don’t think they are falling for anything. They are in a desperate position and have been for a long time. Any breathing room is better than no breathing room and it’s not like they’ve disarmed.

Are there people watching it play out who are falling for it as a ceasefire? Probably. It is important for people to understand the nature of the colonial project, from that standpoint. Its existence is in contradiction with peace. I think people here are likely to understand already though. That said, I’m sure many of us would like to believe a ceasefire will hold, in spite of the colonizer’s fundamental motive toward violence. The Palestinian people need it badly.

I recommend the Blowback podcast season on Korea. It may be sobering on the state Korea is in. Some things to keep in mind: Korea was colonized/occupied/brutalized by Japan. At some point, the US sort of took over on doing the same thing, through a combination of direct military force and the puppet leader Syngman-Rhee; who lead an extremely repressive government. I don’t remember the exact timeline of things, of when the DPRK was officially formed, but somewhere in there, Kim Il-Sung was organizing for liberation and creating what would become the DPRK. Liberation forces tried to liberate “South Korea”, but got pushed back by US forces (who did lots of civilian killing and destroying infrastructure, not unlike what israel has done in Gaza). The US forces were going to continue on and try to wipe out the liberation forces and probably go on to attack China from there if they could get away with it. However, China stepped in and helped them beat back US occupation forces.

The end result was the split that exists to this day. Note that the designation of “North Korea” and “South Korea” was literally drawn up by US generals on a map. “South Korea” (Occupied Korea) is basically a puppet state of the US, still now, after all of that. That doesn’t mean it has no autonomy at all, but you can bet that if there was wind of political will toward liberation, the US occupier would quickly try to return to the days of Syngman-Rhee and stamp it out violently, if necessary. As it is, though I’m not up to date on the degree of political repression it currently has, it surely has some already. The brutality inflicted on Korea is not that far back in history and there are undoubtedly Koreans who wish for reunification and to be free of occupation. But wanting it and being able to create it are two different things when you have a violent occupying force entrenched there.

If it were as simple as radicalizing some people, Korea would have been liberated decades ago, when the US was taking over on occupying it.

The conception of “white” as a race literally would not exist without the institutional power that made it so. It has everything to do with power.

White as a concept of race derives from the institution of white supremacy. An institution of power which designates certain people as “white” and others as “non-white”, and then it designates white as superior and everyone else as inferior. This is why you can’t be racist against “white” people. Because there is no institution of power based on designating people as white and then treating them as inferior; it’s just the opposite.

You can be rude to a person who is considered white. You can exclude them from things. You can even carry prejudices around about them (and if you do, it’s probably because you are dealing with them being the oppressor on a regular basis). None of those are the same thing as the oppressive experience of systemically enforced, institutional racism that “non-white” people experience on a daily basis.

Do you see the difference? One is having a bad day. The other is being gunned down by a cop because your skin was the wrong color and you get no justice for it. One is some people may not like you because of what they’ve learned to expect from dealing with you. The other is being enslaved by you and treated as subhuman. One is occasionally you may not get special treatment because of reform attempts to even the playing field for people who are treated as subhuman. The other is having to work extra hard in everything just to get seen, much less seen as anything resembling an equal.

There is no comparison. Some people who are considered white get confused somewhere in this and go “well my life was hard too!” Which is beside the point. The institution of white supremacy does not ensure that every “white” person has an ideal life. But it does ensure that a lot of non-white people live very short and traumatized lives as an exploited group of people, treated as subhuman. You can be white and still have a shit life. You can be non-white and somehow, despite everything, manage to have a relatively good life. But if you’re non-white, you are a special target for exploitation, specifically, if not a target of being murdered just for having the wrong skin color.

I could go on. It’s night and day difference.

He’s got a point there. I’m going to try looking at media that way too. Let’s see, the story of Adam and Eve is a metaphor for me taking a shit. I start out with the temptation to take a shit. When I actually take one, I am cast out of the land of needing to take a shit for taking one and left to walk the Earth, having taken one. Snakes squeeze things, so the snake represents the squeezing of muscles to evacuate my bowels of fecal matter.

I’m not qualified to say whether you have BPD or much on what that would mean for you. I would just like to comment on this part:

I like to think i make decisions logically. But I don’t.

In my experience, some of the people who are most insistent about being logical have some of the worst reasoning I ever hear. The point being that a lot of people are kind of full of it on the extent of their rationality (I mean among so-called neurotypical people). I don’t really have the time right now to get into to the extent that I’d like, but I think there’s a lot of confusion over what logical thinking and decision-making even means vs. emotional. Like math proof logic is certainly not what most people are doing most of the time, that’s for sure. Some kind of informal reasoning mixed with emotional motives and layered with a system of beliefs is probably closer to what most people are operating on most of the time, no matter how they want to frame it to themselves or others. The reality is more messy than it’s sometimes made out to be. People who have “disorders” are delineated by certain kinds of extremes, but that doesn’t mean everybody “normal” is on one side of the fence and the people with “disorders” are on the other side. It’s more a spectrum thing, as I understand it, and it takes a certain degree of extreme to be diagnosed with a disorder. And then at least in USian ways, to some extent it’s simply bureaucracy like: “I will diagnose this person with X disorder because then I can justify to the insurance company treating them for something.” That’s not to say the person doing the diagnosing is trying to make it up, but they may be trying to justify the need for treatment and disorder designations are a way to justify.

This also isn’t to say disorders aren’t identifying real clusters of traits and behavior, but that the realities are more complicated than simple poles of have or don’t have, and the motives surrounding what qualifies as a disorder are complicated in their own way too. Getting a diagnosis can be more about getting treatment than anything else. To what extent it matters practically speaking, can be more about whether the condition you have is debilitating and whether it is preventing you from making progress toward goals you have (which are presumed by the system to be pro-social ones for them to be valid, or at least what the status quo’s idea of pro-social is).

Yeah. In my experience, people are more often plain ignorant on international issues than they are attentively wrong about them. Reddit is largely imperialist brain poison. It serves up imperialist distortions as casual fact and then cements it through a system of popular vote (which can easily be brigaded/botted, but that’s not obvious to the casual user on the surface), to make it seem like a popular (and therefore more valid) view. Someone who is entering into these topics in total ignorance will get the completely wrong idea about them and come away with imperialist talking points in their head.

From my experience with reddit, it largely made my understanding of things worse at the time. And when I did know better later (no thanks to reddit) and tried to share that knowing better via reddit, it was usually downvoted to oblivion, if not getting me banned from a sub depending on the topic.

I understand there are the rare niche left subs (before they got “quarantined” or banned) that had some value. But the broader reddit experience is imperialist slop.

It’s also a narrative that was lied about and warped heavily by israel since day one. Pretty sure it’s been confirmed that they fired on their own people Hannibal Doctrine style, but it’s made out as if all of the damage was caused by Palestinian resistance fighters.