I’d say it would be quite difficult to foment anti-war sentiment in the same way as the Vietnam War era. The West capitalised on 9/11 and was able to very effectively sell the Iraq War (and subsequent wars) to the public because of this. I don’t think there was anything quite like that even in red scare terms for Vietnam.

Plus, another crucial difference is that Vietnam War-era America had conscription with roughly one-third of America’s military personnel being conscripts who were drafted, it’s generally a lot easier to get people to be against something when it obviously infringes on an individual’s ability to choose to not participate without consequence. Nowadays though, it’s an all-volunteer force that is very unlikely to be receptive to the same messaging.

I personally don’t believe that conceding on basic principles to gain ground with people who are fundamentally opposed to anti-imperialism will have a positive effect. At that point, you’re essentially just preaching labour zionism.

I’d say it’s uncontroversial and true. The armed forces of the US largely exists to maintain America’s imperial dominance abroad, there is nothing valorous about going to the global south to murder the world’s poorest for your own personal gain. Vets themselves have often admitted to signing up of their own volition to either have an “adventure” or to make money in some way murdering foreigners. Mike Prysner attempted to shift responsibility by laying blame on Bush, but the reality of it is that he and his friends ended up there of their own volition. Nobody sent them but themselves, there was no draft nor conscription. Plus, even if there was conscription, conscientious objectors are a thing. If people in apartheid South Africa and America during the Vietnam War could do it, there is zero reason for why it wouldn’t be viable now.

Here’s something that’ll come off as “moralistic” and “unscientific” to the stormtrooper apologists here, but it is not in fact okay to murder foreigners in a totally unjust imperialist “operation” and you should expect no sympathy when you’re injured or killed by the very people you enthusiastically signed up to murder. The only way you could disagree with this is if you view non-white/non-American lives as less valuable.

Maybe, its fair to say that some people who should know better aren’t immune to holding beliefs purely because they happen to be popular opinion among their peers. Could also be that some never deprogrammed on certain things and simply took whatever reactionary view for granted.

Truth is that some people aren’t reachable. Save your energy for organising and those who are actually reachable.

Most people do not have a coherent worldview but generally dislike big corporations. There is nothing inherently left about being non-corporate, even ancaps rail against what they call “corporatism”. So I’d guess some are in it because they (rightly) hate microsoft and google.

But also I’d say most people who have the time to endlessly talk about linux tend to be well-off and have the luxury of time to be able to research and talk about this stuff (not to mention having the time to troubleshoot Arch all day). They would naturally be more likely to hold rightist views by virtue of often being what might colloqually be called “middle class” coupled with being white cis men living in the imperial core.

Personally, I doubt this. Putting aside the fact that this is coming from Lunduke, it’s not uncommon for governments or companies to sponsor open source projects. The STF currently also invests in various projects like Python and ActivityPub, I don’t see this as necessarily nefarious and seriously doubt this is some evil scheme to backdoor arch.

If you have a problem with this but not people making the same arguments to defend the IDF or US armed forces, it can only be because you don’t see non-American lives as equal in value.

Not that BE is good of course, he’s a radlib who happens to uphold the correct political line occasionally.