Abolish the Military On Veterans Day-honor those killed & injured in past by stopping future ones.

[kpete]

Abolish the Military
On Veterans Day, we should honor those killed and injured in past US wars by stopping future ones.

Lisa Simpson had the right idea. In a 2002 episode of The Simpsons, the elementary school student tries to impress two college kids by putting a sticker on her bike that says “US Out of Everywhere.”

It is a slogan that should be ubiquitous on the Left. With the string of disastrous military interventions across the world in recent years, it’s even more apparent that US crimes aren’t isolated — there’s an underlying structure that produces them.

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Immobilizing the US war machine would be immensely beneficial to virtually every cause with which leftists are concerned. A reinvigorated anti-imperialist, antiwar movement is thus an ideal site for leftists with disparate priorities to converge in ways that can strengthen us all. We overlook this opportunity at our own peril.

Tackling that underlying structure, though daunting, also fosters opportunities for unity. Because of the sheer destructiveness of US militarism, and its vital role in maintaining global capitalism, a reinvigorated antiwar movement could bring together leftists with a broad range of concerns.


THE REST:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/veterans-day-american-military-iraq-war-libya-vietnam/




as for you skeptics:

[HassleCat]

1. Guns and Butter Democrats

That's what they used to call Democrats who supported the military, and supported generous spending on social welfare, infrastructure, education, etc. I think we need to return to the citizen-soldier concept by drafting people when we are conducting a war. Of course, the draft is unpopular, and I would be extremely unpopular now, since it would have to include women. But it has an upside. It makes us reluctant to pull stupid stunts like the Iraq invasion, because it means sending many young people half way across the world to kill and be killed, not just ruining the lives of relatively fewer national guard and reserve members.

[merrily]

2. Fewer new veterans; better care for the ones we've already created.

When will we come up with something better than barbarism?

If people all over the world had their collective head on straight, the lion's share of the world's money, time and energy for the next however many years would go to figuring how to end wars once and for all,* delaying global warming, medical research and research into ways to alleviate other suffering.

*Sadly, I fear this requires finding a way to make peace as profitable as war.

[Fred Sanders]

3. Should be called Peace Day and a celebration of peace with the military a smaller part.

Remembrance should be of peace and what evil broke the peace, so as not to be repeated.