#i'm not saying i support mandatory conscription but i AM saying

[here2bbtstrash]

@ my fellow white americans i suggest picking up a history book and educating yourself on our country's involvement in korea's history and the korean war before you start running your mouth about SK's military practices or saying fuck SK as a whole.... cause it's not a good look 😳

[xjoonchildx]

just a friendly reminder:

please don’t glorify mandatory military conscription and frame it as something positive and something the tannies ‘willingly chose’ as your way to cope with the fact that the tannies are leaving. ive seen some people say that being drafted is their time to get some ‘rest’ or ‘break’ from their idol life… no. no. you could not be more wrong. free will in any matter is taken away from sleep to eating to shower time, and on top of that the tannies are still celebs so now they have to look over their shoulders in those public showers and bedrooms because idols over the years have been getting the worst treatment in these barracks simply because they’re idols. google it, it’s all there.

Yoongi talked about the inhumanity of mandatory conscription. here’s what he said:

“Among the things every man in their 20s receives,

That extremely scary military draft note,

The things that once felt so far away become reality.

When I was young they told me ‘Korea will be unified by the time you grow up’

That’s what mom said and I completely believed her.

But the reality is that [I’m] an able-bodied first-rate soldier material

My friend who’s perfectly healthy is a fourth-rate so why am I

So uselessly healthy

Civil duties? It’s a juvenile death sentence

I envy and envy the nation’s lowest 10%

It takes away this precious time, so you evade and evade military service

The 20s, a time when whatever you do is grand

They try to set fire to flower-blossomed youth

The moment you graduate after the hellish exams

You enter another school named Society, then are forced to take time off

Applause of courage to the suffering males in their 20s

And a handshake of gratitude to the nation’s 60,000 officers and men of the armed forces”

all you can do is wish them well and that’s it. let’s… let’s not frame it as something the tannies WILLINGLY CHOSE. it wasn’t. they had no CHOICE but to serve. and let’s not treat it as something more favorable to their lives as idols. let’s not. please, let’s not.

anon, i'm going to keep it 💯 with you and say that i read and re-read this ask a few times trying to decipher the tone.

i think you make several good points. it's highly unlikely any of the members is particularly thrilled about leaving their lives behind at the height of their worldwide success to serve. i personally haven't seen anyone framing this as something they just up and wanted to do, but i do see this as the way of life in korea and something they have accepted (just as all other idols).

i guess my hesitance lies with the mandatory military conscription issue. i hate it that any country would feel the need to enact this kind of service, and i can't imagine what a disruption this is for people's lives -- but at the end of the day, i'd ask you not to condemn korea for how it chooses to defend itself and has for decades now.

the korean "conflict" is technically not over, 71 years later. and very few people on this site know what it's like to live under the real specter of war, within throwing distance of an actual madman -- with the exception of the people of ukraine (!). north korea has test launched dozens of missiles over the last few months and that has to be terrifying prospect for the people of south korea.

what i mean to say is that i understand how you feel about mandatory military conscriptions. all of us are going to have our personal feelings about this kind of very emotional issue. min yoongi has every right to feel the way he does and as a man who is personally impacted by these laws, he's entitled to speak on the policies in his country. but at the end of the day, i think it's really important that we as fans step back and recognize this is for the korean people to support and/or condemn, not us.

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Why is it donating to the military dumb? Could you explain please? (cause if you just insult people they will donate anyway, but if you explain why it’s bad they may stop).

Part of me thinks that if you're even asking this question then maybe my blog isn't for you. Like, I don't really believe in nation states, let alone armies.

I want you to imagine that the entire Russian army had just refused to walk into Ukraine. Refused to start shelling Ukrainian targets. Refused to drive in their tanks... you get the idea, I think. Now imagine that even if "Russia" existed as a concept, it didn't have an army...

I'm not saying the Ukrainian people shouldn't defend themselves, but standing armies are something I find morally wrong. There are reports the Ukrainian army is already firing into Russia, yes, at military targets. At some point, your donation could contribute to the killing of a Russian civilian.

And Ukraine is barring male citizens from the ages of 18-60 from leaving the country, and is probably going to introduce mandatory military service (source: https://junkee.com/ukraine-conscription-russia/322676). I'm not actually against arming people who want to be armed (for the most part) but I am obviously against conscription and forcing people to stay in a war zone when they don't want to. This guy has accounts of seeing Ukrainian men trying to leave the country being taken away from their families to fight (https://twitter.com/UkraineLive2022)- Obviously I can't verify, but he seems legit.

Like I say, I think this is deeply, morally, wrong and if you are donating to the Ukrainian army, you're endorsing that.

But beyond that, I think asking ordinary people to donate to an army with a budget of $4.9 billion dollars last year, is pretty fucked (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_of_Ukraine). The Ukrainian Army is receiving hundreds of millions of dollars of support from international governments, who would be quite happy to tie Russia up in Ukraine for years, if they could (and never mind the cost to human lives). So what's the purpose of soliciting donations from ordinary people? It's a propaganda move. It's a way of getting you invested in the Ukrainian cause. A way of making you see them as "the little guy"- look, we're so poor we need to crowd fund our army...

We are also talking about a country here with a history of violence against Roma people. (sources: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/11/23/attacked-and-abandoned-ukraines-forgotten-roma, http://www.errc.org/news/anti-roma-pogroms-in-ukraine-on-c14-and-tolerating-terror). This isn't as simple as "good guy vs bad guy". There are neo nazi paramilitary groups in Ukraine. I've heard rumours on twitter that Klitschko (yes, that Klitschko, he's now mayor of Kyiv) is giving arms to C14 to "patrol Kyiv"- to be clear, these are just twitter rumours, and he may not know who he is arming BUTTTT the point is your donation could be going to arm literal Neo Nazis. And if that doesn't make you deeply uncomfortable, I don't know what will.

FWIW, most Roma people can't leave the country, because they don't have passports (I know some countries, Slovakia/Poland are possibly taking undocumented migrants, but I don't know if they'd accept Roma refugees and arguably they aren't safe countries for Roma either). But they could still be conscripted into the army.

I know this post will get people accusing me of "both sidesing" the conflict, or whatever, so standard caveat- Putin should not have invaded Ukraine, and I'm not anti the Ukrainian people defending themselves.

As always, if you feel the need to donate, I suggest donating to groups that support the most marginalised, and/or refugees. Definitely don't donate to any organisations you don't know and trust, and be aware that there are people on Tumblr reblogging donation links for actual Neo Nazi groups, such as Azov Battalion.

And honestly, if you'd spent 5 minutes scrolling through my blog, you could have probably figured this out for yourself. I do genuinely think that if you can't work out why people might be uncomfortable donating to a standing army of an extant state with a functional economy, this may not be the blog for you.