Post #1376982

2026-04-07 17:05 UTC

@passenger @Fishercat But it's not really "being against war" that's effective. It's being against *the auspices and institutions that make war possible*. Around the time your country got rid of its nukes, the US relegated the draft and instituted a (constantly metastasizing) standing volunteer professional army. This allowed them to insulate the US public from their profit-motivated warmaking by turning the military into an economic and ideological destination for a certain kind of person.

Replies (2)

@johnzajac@dice.camp 2026-04-07 17:07

@passenger @Fishercat If Trump had been forced to do a draft just to try to engage in this foolishness, he would have been cut off at the knees before he even began. USians would have literally just not complied. Or if he had been forced to implement a special payroll tax to fund the war. Same effect. But our entire system is designed so that USians do not *feel* war, which is why, of course, nobody else was foolish enough to do this Iran shit.

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@passenger@kolektiva.social 2026-04-07 17:13

@johnzajac @Fishercat In retrospect, I think a lot of pacifists were right that disarming the US completely in 2020-2024, including conventional weapons, would have been a smart decision. That was a moment where it could have been done, it wasn't like it was in our grandparents' time, but the moment wasn't taken. I say "in retrospect" but I was saying it at the time too.

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