will they be brave enuff to leave them as a monument 
(#jacobin David Sirota, Branko Marcetic and Ben Burghis)
text collection of bylines
Graham Platner Could Be the Bellwether of a New US Populism
Graham Platner has traversed a long and unlikely road to become the Democratic nominee for the US Senate in Maine. Can he beat longtime GOP incumbent Susan Collins and live up to the promise of his firebrand populist campaign? #sirota 30.05.26
You’re Being Lied to About Graham Platner
We read Graham Platner’s whole Reddit archive. The vilification of the Maine candidate for Senate doesn’t square with what he actually wrote in his posts. #marcetic 27.10.25
Why the Smears Against Graham Platner Didn’t Work
Opponents went all in on smearing Graham Platner as a Nazi based on a bad tattoo choice. It didn’t work. Maine voters decided they’d rather have universal health care and an end to reckless wars than a polished politician with an unblemished past. #burgis 07.05.26
Democrats Cynically Wield “Wokeness” Against Graham Platner
Establishment Democrats spent a full year complaining the Left forced them to be “woke.” But then a left populist, Graham Platner, threatened to win in Maine, so they went right back to trying to cancel someone over old internet posts. #marcetic 24.10.25
Judge Platner’s Character by How He Fights the Oligarchs
The fact that Graham Platner still holds a general election lead amid scandalous personal revelations should give us hope. Voters may be shifting to judge politicians more on their willingness to take on economic inequality and war than their private lives. #sirota 02.06.26
Who in the military didn't? That's like 20% of the US. I don't condone being in the US military, I just don't see any reason to hold it against someone, especially the propaganda machine being what it is there. Unless you were raised on a commune or somewhere with a decent school system virtually no statesian knows any better fresh out of high school. And while Plattner didn't fit this bill the recruiters usually predate on the most young and vulnerable communities for their meat.
The problem was that he never repented for his military service, and he served time and time again. This isn't someone who bought into imperialist propaganda and served for a brief term, this is a war-lover who went back time and time again to keep killing. He loved killing people. It wasn't just the propaganda. And again, he also never decried the US Armed Forces and his illegal wars, like someone such as Michael Prysner.
He wasn't just in the military, he went on to be a mercenary.
the only way that can be true is if you do not believe people outside the U.S. are human beings
On the contrary, people everywhere are very capable of being monsters if indoctrinated from an early enough age. We can make jokes about Germans all day long but it's not like they for instance are genetically predisposed to genocide, the Nazis built up a propaganda machine over years that hit at many sectors of the society. And despite this some of them still found their way out of it, though at different times.
Yeah but an important part of ceasing to be a monster is acknowledging your crimes. Something that Platner never did(or I am unaware of him doing, in reference to his murders. He's actively denying the assault crimes)
I actually never bothered to look up his military record so I don't even know that he ever actually killed anyone. Outside of the dialectics he was always irrelevant to me. Another aspect of him was always that he always struck me as all bluster and bravado, compared to the former military I've spoken to who tend to be much more reserved, possibly ashamed, about their actions with the military. This gave me the impression that he never actually saw combat based on my own preconceptions.
That said for whatever reasons those were mostly ignored by the media but the evidence for the SA charge is much stronger and more public than anything I've seen.
This is what Platner posted on reddit when they asked him why he joined the Marines:
I've got bad news for you about the other 80% of Americans too
i'm being facetious, of course it's not the case that 100% of US adults are irredeemably fascistic. But the number who are is certainly higher than 20%, and in the volunteer military the ratio will be far more fucked still since it's self-selecting for chauvinists who care more about themselves and their college loans and Mustang payments than killing children or innocents.
I mean, a solid 5% have to have broken out of the propaganda at least, maybe even 10%.
https://archive.ph/2x19K
Thank you I was trying to fins this to post it
Upvoted for an interesting article, will have to finish reading that later.
He enlisted to become a crayon eater for a reason. If he's just someone who wanted to enlist for the GI Bill, why didn't he enlist in the navy or the army then? They have lower physical requirements, so someone who enlisted in the marines purposely did so. Propaganda has marines going on epic adventures ~~committing warcrimes~~ while sailors have gay jokes thrown at them for being stuck on a boat for too long.