I've been seeing a bad line of thinking in leftist spaces and in myself and I feel the need to call it out.
The western left's demonization of the class unconscious proletariat is a symptom of idealism that seems sadly acceptable in leftist social media spaces. Class consciousness is not an achievement to be proud of, you didn't do it, it happened to you.
Labor aristocracy is not a "sin" of the western working class it is a weapon of the bourgeoisie. Unique material conditions are what lead each of us to class consciousness not some sort of moral/intellectual/educational supremacy. The limited class consciousness in the west's working class is not an inherit flaw in the masses but a failure of the class conscious to conduct effective agitation. (the word "failure" is not a condemnation but recognition that we have been unable to succeed against the overwhelming power of the imperialist bourgeoisie.)
This extends to demonization of the troops. Yes members of the western armed forces actively benefit from imperialism and do horrific things supporting imperialism but they do this out of a response to their material conditions not because they are evil. That is not to say they are absolved of their crimes. It means many of them could be redeemable.
We have all had liberal and imperialist ideas that we now recognize are wrong. We must be willing to accept those who admit the faults of their past who are willing to fight for a better future. Anyone refusing to forgive comrades who admit to a flawed past is being dishonest about their own flaws. They are engaging in ideological moral supremacy. It is not a dialectical materialists position to refuse something changing into its opposite.
Again this is not a call to absolve the complicit but instead a call to remind us that we have all been complicit in some way and we are the proletariat not above them.
Huh? At what point does OP say we need to thank and glorify them?
Here are some important snippets from the post:
I can imagine it can come off a bit tone deaf to be focused on a thing like that while we're in the midst of another aggressive US military operation, but then... when are we not? The western empire doesn't really take a break in its aggression, it's just not always super overt about it. When is it supposed to be brought up that those of us in the west have to contend with the realities of living in the same country as millions of troops and the like?
To make another type of comparison: could you imagine if the USSR during the Cold War has a chance to gain something from a would-be defector (as is sometimes the case during those kind of conflicts) and they are like, "Nah, they are part of the US apparatus which is evil, so just ignore it." That would be strategically backwards. Typically, you still need to keep a person like that at arm's length and take care that they aren't faking interest in helping your cause or trying to sabotage from within (which is a documented strategy in those situations), but someone who was working for the enemy who is now using their knowledge and skillset on your behalf is a double loss for the enemy. Rejecting it outright has the potential to not only lose the opportunity to gain help but to drive them back into continuing to work for the enemy.
Furthermore, criticism of these institutions is just that - it's about the institutions primarily. That's why someone could go, "Well I know X cop and they don't seem so bad" and it's like, well yeah, it's possible they aren't. The system is the primary issue and it transforms individuals into monsters, but it doesn't transform them all equally and enforce it identically in every case. Some people who were cops during the 2020 protests in the US started quitting in response to it. I've heard of people in ICE quitting as well. This doesn't absolve them of any wrongdoing they may have been involved in while they were in the role. It's a point about change and the ability to transform. It's either that or mass imprisonment or murder of everyone who was at some point a problem and the actual successful communist organizations in history have explicitly shown that you don't always need to do this, even when dealing with people who took part in egregious wrongdoing. So why are some people in the west so stuck on refusing to learn from them and only willing to listen to the dimension of war and combat that the empire promotes?
Meanwhile, I don't even see a militant left in the west to back up this attitude. I don't see citizen tribunals. I don't see consequences being brought down on documented offenders. Just a lot of posturing about what would hypothetically be done if we were the ones holding the guns.
The crux of it is: Is the goal to gain political power or to appear righteous? You can do both, but if you only do the 2nd one, you're setting up to be a martyr, not a revolutionary.