I bet you can imagine Russian soldiers in that position. Why not Americans?

There are plenty of places in the US where abject poverty reigns supreme, same as Russia. Factor in the ever present propaganda, and their fate was never their own, sadly.

I would say none, but the closest to desperation I’ve personally been was scrounging for coal that fell off the train to the docks when we as a family couldn’t afford to buy it. (No coal, no heat, no hot water, etc.)

I can imagine though, that watching my own children cry from the cold and hunger. Watching my own flesh and blood get thinner and weaker and being otherwise powerless to help them might make me consider rather strongly the paycheck offered by anyone at all.

That you apparently can’t imagine any scenario that would give you personally (and therefore by extension anyone else), cause to consider doing heinous things for money is bizarre.

Would that choice have been as easy if you had your own children to consider? Would it have been so easy to make your own children and spouse homeless too?

The point is everyone is susceptible given the right circumstances. The system is literally designed to create desperation, and to keep ratcheting that up until people relent.

By all means try and convince people not to give in. Support them and help them, try to ensure they don’t reach their breaking point. But don’t try and pretend that desperation to escape their given shitshow isn’t what drives a lot of recruitment.

Edit: I do deeply respect your strength of conviction in your own choices though, and I want to make that clear. You are an exceptional example, and one to be lauded. 💛

No, I’m pointing out the hypocrisy in you pretending to know what it is to be desperate, that you can judge others in such a position.

I ain’t justifying diddly squat.

Edit: For clarification, watching the fall of the American empire in real time is both amusing and enlightening. Hopefully, it happens fast enough that I get to see the end result.

Spoken like someone who’s never truly known desperation or genuine hunger. ie. One of the bourgeoisie who’d be first against the wall.

Well, at least the river won’t get so muddy as the future becomes the present, and there isn’t any snowpack to melt.

Silver linings I guess?

Yeah. Fuck all that shit.

I’m living in the “how it happened” stages of Idiocracy. What the fuck is this timeline?!

Your Dad apparently did some parenting, unlike the sperm/egg donor responsible for this.

I am totally fucking here for this comment.

Right on the fucking button.

Either step up and be the fucking parent you’ve failed to be thus far, or back the fuck up, wind your neck in, and shut the fuck up.