Progressive Politics

The reverance of veterans needs to stop

Yes.

and people need to ridicule it.

I don't think this is gonna happen for a myriad of reasons. This society isn't anywhere remotely close to the permissibility of ridiculing vets. Doing so anyway just looks ridiculous and discredits the person doing it even though they may be coming from an otherwise informed position.

The real victims of American imperialism are not the veteran bastards who partook in it but the people who had their countries invaded and families murdered by them. These aren't WW2 veterans anymore, it's the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Again, you're making an ethical argument. I agree with it in the abstract. However the material conditions go against individuals in the system agreeing or doing anything about it. Placing the blame on them when all they did is what they were told and pressed to do by the system is doing exactly what works best for the system - misdirecting blame away from it. So I just think ridiculing vets today is just anti-materialist and counterproductive towards the goal of stopping imperialism. I think there are better ways and one of those is what Mamdani is doing. Show the harm to people that Americans actually care about and change the material conditions pushing people into the military machine - by reduce cost of living in his case.

Feel free to disagree. I'm not changing my opinion on this today so there's no point being spending more time on it. I don't think I'll change yours today either. 🤗