Is the West Experiencing a Right-Wing Drift?

I'm disturbed by the reflexively martial tone of RW people expecting to be thanked for their military service or that of their relatives ALL THE DAMNED TIME. Is this a post-9/11 thing? Previous generations of military people did not shill for gratitude in this way. It's gross, especially when someone barges into a social media thread about BLM/guns/politics in the expectation that we'll all stop whatever we're doing to kiss some camo ass. Most of my friends are polite and do acknowledge them, but I'm suspicious of rightward drift in ordinary discourse and the role these people are happy to play to enable it.

only time i've ever thanked someone from their service was a Disney employee dressed as a green plastic army man from toy story when i was at disneyworld last year

i was informed by a passing floridian that i was 'disrespectful'

loooooooooooool

stephen colbert frequently thanks people for their service with non-military people presumably in order to mock the claustrophobic platitudinous imperative to do so with military people and also with military people because of that imperative or because he sincerely means it or both

xxp a+ would lol again

This seems a very American thing to do.

Only in its specifics - see the UK tabloids' tic of referring to servicemen and women as HEROES whenever mentioned.

Yes, that's just tabloidspeak, nobody really falls for that. In the UK, if somebody was to say "But I was in military" people would just shrug their shoulders and say, "So"?

I assume this is to do with the difference in patriotism between the USA and the UK and possibly numbers going into the services, which has always been fairly low in the UK. Also, in the UK, in the services, you are serving Queen and Country, the monarch comes first, so fuck that for, er, a game of soldiers.

the main thing that bothers me about 'thank you for your service' is the implication that active involvement in the military is inherently of value, which I've got a pretty fundamental problem with

UK people do this too, Help for Heroes isn't just a tabloid thing, but I agree it seems more memeified in the US. Always like to point out that if they're unhappy with the terms and conditions of their employment they should maybe consider getting unionized.

Well it is signing up to be potentially be killed on behalf of others (a bit like firefighting or being a police officer) - it's not fascist to recognize that

xpost

I haven't asked anybody to sign up and potentially kill others on my behalf tbh

http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/i-wonder-what-kind-of-message-im-sending-to-the-tr-11209

it's a career choice, get over yourselves.

Especially given well documented reports of rape and other abuse of power from some military personnel.

nobody really falls for that

not sure why you'd deny there's not a significant number of the 'back our brave boys' persuasion in the UK! Wootoon Bassett and all that - but maybe they're all cardboard cutouts.

I read in the paper that a lot of the troops are complaining about the war, and want to come home. They're putting their lives on the line. It's my duty to support them, but I get confused. What message am I sending the troops if I read articles like that? For that matter, what kind of a message are those troops sending themselves? They are the troops, but it almost sounds like they're not supporting the troops!

I'm sorry. I didn't mean that last statement to sound anti-troops.

occasionally if I tell somebody what I do for a living I get this "oh that's wonderful" spiel and I have to point out that I get paid to do it

Well it is signing up to be potentially be killed on behalf of others (a bit like firefighting or being a police officer) - it's not fascist to recognize that

like nv says, it is signing up with the expectation that you may well have to kill others, and in some cases the hope that you will kill others, eg many who signed up in response to 9/11

xp thanks for your service noodle

it's ok, I get paid for it

I know people who I went to school with who would openly admit they took the queen's shilling for mayhem/violence/adventure and a higher earning potential, none of this bollocks about making it safer for us civilians.

http://ibdp.huluim.com/show_art/4266?size=900x350

cheers for this lads

the only episode of ultimate force i've seen included a shower scene where some of the male cast openly hung dong, which i thought was either a) weirdly progressive for the most otherwise knuckleheaded action show i've ever seen or b) a surprisingly total capitulation to its bulgingly homoerotic subtext

it feels increasingly incongruous but I'm not sure there's ever been an ebb in very earnest and zealous pro-military sentiment from certain sections since the days of empire. still strong enough, at least when combined with islamophobia, to trump freedom of speech in the luton case

It's not even remotely comparable to the US.

god bless our jingoism-free nation

The British Army, in particular, has never really been that popular in Britain. Strangely enough.

I don't feel that's true - based on my experience of the media in this country in recent years.

That's the media, a bunch of public schoolboys trying to second guess the proles.

There probably a London / not-London split.

I live in a big military area and there's a combination of underlying respect (fundraising for the troops, military participation in local community events, etc) and an awareness that they cause half the drunken, late-night trouble in the wider area.

That's the media, a bunch of public schoolboys trying to second guess the proles.

You think decades of cheerleading from the papers has no effect on a significant number of their readers?

you guys should get out of your metropolitan bubble of fruit juice-sipping quakers and meet some real patriots

The British Army, in particular, has never really been that popular in Britain. Strangely enough.

i'd maybe agree they're the least-popular of the military trinity compared to the raf and the navy, but i've never felt they were anything other than a vital part of the 'our brave boys' continuum in public opinion. they're usually the ones talking with clear-eyed composure about their leg-shearing encounters with ieds and the like in those help for heroes ads / iraq documentaries etc which the great british public love so much

My son has autism and doesn't care much for observing minute's silences at football matches. I love the way it winds up some people if he is stimming and making a racket, some outraged patriot from a few rows back shouted Shut Up during the last one and this teenager who also refused to stand turned around and was grinning at Alex with approval for also not giving a fuck. Sadly though, most people where I sit are very much badge/t-shirt wearing Help For Heroes stans.

yelling 'SHUT UP' during a minute's silence in response to a misperceived slight is a perfect example of a partcular strain of britishness, i think

OUTRAGED Britain

My impatience comes from interacting with narrow minded people from home who are less than tolerant of others, but want a free pass for signing up to kill people.

for a while the whole wootton bassett rolling news thing seemed to be quite a big deal, maybe there needs to be a lot of not-quite children anymore dying meaningless deaths for people to get really excited about the army.

outraged despairing spiteful online-venting britain is the yin to stoic plucky wry superior britain's yang

When I was growing up, the British Army were only occasionally killing Irishmen, that never excited the media too much. Then along cane Galtieri.

hey, that's royal wootton bassett to you son - the name was changed in 2011 in recognition of its role as a military cadaver sorting office xps

Wiltshire is the land of jingoism and forelock-grabbing - I spend Xmas there with a close friend whose Polish ex-POW dad was one of the few socialists in his town.

i apologise if my comments have disrespected royal wooton bassett, the military, the corpses which have travelled through the town, or the loyal subjects who gathered to watch the corpses

When I was at school you joined the Army and, if you were unlucky, got sent to Belfast. How much of a hoohah could you make about that?

aye, it's a much more exciting career now tom - if you're lucky you might get to go to the middle east on a modern-day crusade, and if you are horribly injured there's a decent chance your cutting-edge body armour will keep you alive so you can come home and appear in a help for heroes ad showing off your prosthetics

That's how the Sun editorial team sees it.

When I lived in San Diego I took the bus to UCSD each day, and almost every time there was also veterans taking the bus to the UCSD hospital, many of them on crutches, in wheelchairs. And the respect that they got was wonderful, with many many thank yous and people saying how grateful they was, and nobody ever complaining that the bus was almost always late because it took so long to get their wheelchairs on board, but I kinda kept thinking that perhaps there could be done something more helpful so wounded/disabled veterans wouldn't have to take the bus for an hour on their own to get healthcare?

that sounds suspiciously like socialism *narrows eyes*

fervent troop-supporters tend to support everything to help veterans apart from anything which might negatively impact on their own lives or finances