RE: Revolutionary Discipline Re: Liu...

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

Here is again my original post:

Our opposition is to the political structure of US imperialism. Although
the military is part and parcel of the political structure, most of the
time the military is merely following orders and performing the task of
making war.  I have healthy respect for professional soldiers on all
sides and the military code of honor is among the finest human
institutions. In-group disloyalty is a basic betrayal of trust and is
not something to support only because it happened to the other side.

Furthermore, bon moun is right, we do not have the facts.

Henry C.K. Liu

Really, I have more important things to do than to continue this
distraction.



Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
 At 3:35 PM +0200 3/24/03, Michael Keaney wrote:

 a general point about revolutionary discipline


 It's not possible to make a general point about revolutionary
 discipline
 out of the story of one soldier who fragged officers in the US
 military.  After all, the US military is not a revolutionary military of
 citizen-soldiers but a standing army of volunteers, collectively at
 service of the US empire, with a small exception of individual refusers
 at present.


Response (Jim C): In my own case, although I came from a family with some
radical views, and who were heartbroken when I went into the U.S. Army in
1963 at 17 years old (I had been thrown out of the whole Seattle high school
district as an "incorrigible delinquent" for a rather physical encounter
with a vice-principal and just wanted to see the world, and to my shame,
used the Army to do it) my time in the military was instrumental in my total
radicalization. When I came home in 1966, I immediately joined the
Anti-Vietnam-War resistance.

The U.S. military operates primarily through peer-pressure rather than
outright ideological commitment and knowing the reasons for that commitment;
this is in stark contrast to "revolutionary discipline" in which warriors
submit to discipline in service to a higher cause that they can articulate
and that they understand cannot be advanced if petit-bourgeois
individualism, anarchy, etc are allowed to operate in the ranks. When I was
in the military, most of those who volunteered to go to Vietnam (over 80% of
those who served volunteered to go there) were primarily glory boys (nothing
like a war to turn a nobody into a somebody--the Audie Murphy syndrome),
those looking for "combat credentials" for advancement, those with some low
self-esteem problems ("I'll show that girl who dumped me for the high school
quarterback when I come home with a chest full of medals"), those who wanted
to see what was going on, and others who were outright criminals,
sociopaths, psychopaths looking to kill someone and score some primo dope
and cheap women. Most, in all cartegories couldn't locate Vietnam on a map
and knew nothing about the history, issues or whatever. Among the draftees,
there was more cynicism and outright resistance than among the enlistees,
but the experience can be--and was for many--a very radicalizing experience.

In the case of fragging, yes dope was involved in many cases, but also, it
was a matter of pure survival. When you get some glory-seeking asshole in
the bush, seeking to put your life way out on a limb for his ribbons and
promotions, and he lives and officer's lifestyle while you live like shit, a
form of class resentment can develop and that was behind some of the
fraggings. Because of the resistance and "untrustworthiness" of some of the
draftees, the push for all volunteer military developed; it was not until
Gulf I that reservists became a significant component of total operational
military forces and in the present case, the percentage of active deployed
reservists is at an all-time high.

I have many students who are also military reservists and some of them are
crypto-radicals believe it or not. Some of them have already come to the
realization that this is no way to finance one's education--being a tool of
U.S. imperialism. Others are starting to question and some are posing
questions, and know about the world, in ways that my generation never did. I
have one student, with the highest-level security clearance that can be
held, doing some very sensitive work, who poses questions, very radical
ones, that few would dare to pose.

But the bottom line for me, and I say this as someone who has not always
been in the "armchair", we are all responsible for our choices. I cannot
just say "I was only 17 years old, needed a job and didn't know any better."
In my own case, coming from a Blackfoot mother, my going in was particularly
egregious. I never participated in racist banter, never, but sometimes I
just stayed quiet. There is a whole culture of racism, sexism, homophobia,
national chaunvinism, jingoism, brutality, class-prejudice that is integral
to the nature and functioning of the military under imperialism. I was in
Georgia in 1963 at Fort gordon, and my friends that I traveled with, one was
a Lakota from South Dakota and one was African-American from Harlem; as we
traveled in segregated Georgia, it was obvious that America was all about
racism and that that, along with wealth for a few was what I was really
protecting. Before shipping out to Europe, I was in Harlem, and saw Malcolm
X speak on a street corner; I bought a copy of "Mohammad Speaks" and read
it. I had all sorts of information available to me about what I was really
involved with but didn't or wouldn't let it all connect.

So yes we can all grow, and many in the military will; reality has a way of
forcing consciousness change whether one wants to change or not--but not
always in progressive directions.

The forms of discipline, or "honor" in imperialist military forces are not
like that found in revolutionary discipline and revolutionary "honor". They
are very different. And when the soldiers of the Red Army in China were
marching, and learning to read by learning the "3 Main Rules of Discipline
and Eight Points for Attention" on the long march, they were learning about
principles of discipline and honor very different and the cause and reasons
for discipline and honor are also very different--with some similarities as
well in terms of unit cohesion and effectiveness.

Jim C

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