Suggestion: Get the USMC on our side

[Kyle Garrett]

Hello, everyone. I'm in a hurry and not actually sure what the protocol is for suggesting stuff, if anything, so I'll take up as little of your time as possible. Earlier today, I found this page on Facebook; in short, the United States Marine Corps is officially in support of the Occupy movement, and is offering their aid to people organising occupations. I think we could benefit from having them behind us, so I thought I'd see what people thought of getting in touch with them?

The official place to discuss support and such is this twitter account if we're interested. Taking advantage of this could only help us, but I'm obviously not in charge here so it's up to what people decide to do. Since I have a twitter myself I could represent the movement in talks with them, or someone else could do it, I'm fine with whatever we decide; I just think this would be a big help and improve our chances of really making an impact.

[flashmob]

I think this Coalition Building. Moving thread to their working group. Please feel free to join their working group if this is something that you are interested in.

[Kyle Garrett]

First off, I apologise for putting this in the wrong place. I was very rushed at the moment of typing. But I'll get right on that, thank you.

[Albanius]

One rank and file marine is not an offical spokesman for the USMC.

Two problems:
1) I and many others would be horrified and outraged if the US military took any
collective official position on domestic political issues, with one exception:

2) The one issue on which it is normal for the various armed forces to take public positions
is their own budgets, but I and many of us support radical cuts in the US military budget.
Congressmember Frank has proposed cutting at least a trillion dollars over a decade
and we in the peace movement would prefer much deeper cuts.
We do not support cuts in pay or benefits to military personnel, especially veterans,
but rather zeroing out procurement of many weapons systems, especially nukes,
reductions in force, and closing of many overseas US bases.

[Kyle Garrett]

I can see where that'd be a problem, and in some senses contrary to the goal. Perhaps I just got too enthusiastic; the possibility of the logistical aid and such, plus having them behind us seemed at least worth bringing up and seeing if it'd be something worth pursuing. I'm sorry if I wasted anyone's time.

[dylan]

Maybe instead of getting USMC on our side we can think about getting (ex) Marines on our side. The two logical places to start would be Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War.

[Ryan R.]

Since when have the institutions of imperialist hegemony been allies of the proletarian?

[djnk54]

I am very suspicious of this. The armed services in the United States never publically take political positions. Certainly this is not the official position of the USMC. Anyone can set up a Facebook page and claim to be someone they are not. To: THESADMAFIOSO, The rank and file of the military often take the side of revolutionary movements. They are members of the working class and are often our best allies--a fact of which Trotsky was well aware.

[Albanius]

In fairness to the intent of the original post, it was helpful in the Vietnam era for the antiwar movement
to set up coffeehouses for dialogue with rank and file GIs.

IMO the best practical step to take now on this path is to invite Veterans for Peace to join us,
and let them take the lead in outreach to veterans and rank and file active military and guard.

I believe Vets for Peace is/are actively involved in OWS in NYC.

[citizen]

Theres not supposed to be any ex-Marines. Once a Marine always a Marine. But none the less I think there are a lot of those still serving and those that are not any longer serving in the corp that support the right to protest even if they don't agree with what the protest is about.