Is space force a real thing with real people working there? I just assumed it was a tax fraud thing.
It has always been, but it was just part of the Air Force. Trump insisted on splitting it because it sounds cooler. But the only real reason to do it is to ensure the budget doesn’t prioritize air projects over space projects.
Separating space operations from the air force has been a talking point since Reagan.
Basically, every job in the space force was a job in the air force. The space force leases offices on air force bases. They could probably easily be reintegrated into the air force at any time
They deal a lot with satellites. There’s 10k+ US satellites in orbit, and a ton of non-US ones as well. It’s legit, and it makes sense to branch off a bit.
Anything to avoid funding NASA I guess
Yeah, I’m sure that’s an unfortunate truth, but I also don’t know that NASA should be getting into what will undoubtedly be more militaristic operations in space, because the world sucks, so why not make space suck too. And NASA doesn’t suck.
That’s so.
We should officially declare space off limits for militaristic operations.
didnt we do that already?
Yeah, that’s NASA’s role, and they’ve done it great for decades. The only reason to create a Space Force over NASA is if you want to militarize space, which we should avoid at all costs.
THAT’S why we don’t need a Space Force.
Oh my Gods it isn’t a parody. I thought for sure this was a joke.
Hopefully a realization coming to a MAGA near you.
They could all be herded into conscript trucks and still not put 2 and 2 together.
They could be taken to one of those ice detention centers, and in the lobby they watch a presentation on exactly what went down at places like Auschwitz, then continue the tour with comparison signs along the way, and they’d still buy a hat or T-shirt in the gift shop on the way out.
My family was already herded into train cars barely over 100 years ago and most of them died. Changes how you view all authoritarians. I trust the left slightly less than I trust the right but these days we’re fucked no matter who is in power.
That would require them to be capable of self-reflection. They will only realize when they or someone they know gets hurt.
They’re doing full Space Nazi, huh? I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise.
The graphic says the design is “inspired by the discipline and functionality of the Starship Trooper uniform. Modernized for the guardians of the space domain.”
Right wingers are really the undefeated champs at not understanding satire.
Service Guarantees Citizenship!*
*Whites Only
If they’re going Starship Troopers, they need to drop gendered changing rooms and bathrooms first.
They don’t even do anything, they just manage satellite orbits, not even all of the satellites, not even all of the US satellites, they manage a small subset of satellites. The uniform and the actual job are completely at odds with each other.
In actuality this uniform is going to get covered in cheese puff dust.
the movie was satire. the book…not so much.
Hegseth didn’t read a book, come on now.
I really should make this a copypasta, with how often it seems to come up:
No Heinlein was not pro-fascist. That much becomes very obvious if you read, like, literally any of his other books. His politics shifted over his lifetime, but he was broadly an outspoken libertarian, and remarkably progressive for his era.
He explored concepts in his books through the process of writing them. Starship Troopers was one such book. Stranger in a Strange Land was another, started before and finished after Starship Troopers, and presenting basically the polar opposite political ideology.
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so he explored concepts of fascism, he didn’t satirize them.
yeah…that’s better.
There is a wide realm of literary subtext between “obvious satire” and “full-throated support”.
I don’t want to be rude, but it really seems like you heard someone on the internet say Starship Troopers was fascist and Heinlein was pro-fascist for writing it, without really evaluating either of those claims for yourself.
The concepts explored were not fascism. The main political concept explored was tying voting rights to civil service, and the vast majority of that service was non-military. What about the book made you think it was exploring fascism?
Yeah, ever since reading it, I’ve been confused by seemingly everyone’s complete certainty that Heinlein was portraying the militarism of the troopers as a good thing. I thought it was abundantly clear that we were being specifically shown that the “bugs” these yokels were firebombing were just people, in their homes watching TV, as the alien invaders rocket jumped from rooftop to rooftop, indiscriminately killing anything that moved. IIRC, everyone in the book seemed to have a gut feeling that the original attack on earth was actually retaliatory at least, or a false flag at worst.
I thought it was about as pro-military as fucking Full Metal Jacket. Yeah, it makes it a big point that there’s a deep camaraderie borne out of being forced to do awful things together, but it also looks as deeply into those awful things as it can, while it’s being told from the perspectives of indoctrinated “children ardent for some desperate glory”
Maybe I need to reread it and look for more of the authorial pro-fascism stuff. I don’t think that Heinlein put a lot of effort into trying to convince anyone that the troopers were bad, but all the signs were there by authorial intent, IIRC.
For me it was the part of the book where people didn’t get to vote until their term of service was over, but the people who could vote could vote to increase the terms of service indefinitely, and this was all shown as a good thing. I read it as a perfect satirical demonstration of how limiting the franchise will always lead to fascism, but apparently mine wasn’t the intended interpretation, because it wasn’t satire.
I never finished Stranger in a Strange Land because I found it shockingly sexist
the part of the book where people didn’t get to vote until their term of service was over, but the people who could vote could vote to increase the terms of service indefinitely
What does that have to do with fascism?
I never finished Stranger in a Strange Land because I found it shockingly sexist
Uh, there are sexist characters, but they’re supposed to seem backwards and regressive. It’s supposed to reflect the sexism of the time in a way that makes it obvious why it needs to be abandoned.
I found the themes of the book putting a light on a fascist society and the individuals in it.
Did you read the book as pro-fascist or glorifying fascism?
pro-fascist.
my father was a big fan. he was always proud of his “German heritage”, if that says anything. growing up he attempted to instill in me the principles in the books. of course I was too smart for that and always questioned authority.
the benefit being I was inoculated against fascism at a young age.
Dude, Jordan Lund called you fascist. You weren’t as inoculated as you think.
I read them as absurd depictions, similar to Lolita where the purpose is to show the reader a perspective far away from healthy, normal or sane.
I read up on Heinlein on wikipedia after my previous comment, and he seemed sincere which is scary. Im looking at it from a scandinavian perspective which is quite far from militarism, and thats probably why I read sarcasm in the text rather than honest philosophy
There’s a really interesting multi-part series called Brows Held High: Starship Troopers about the fundamental differences between Heinlein and Verhooven and what each was trying to say, between Heinlein’s original and Verhooven’s interpretation.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Heinlein was fascist or even fascist-sympathetic. If you read more of his fiction and, my personal favorite, his non-fiction book Take Back Your Government, which is about how and why to get involved in democratic politics, you get a much more complete view of a really interesting guy. Some of his views were fair or even highly-progressive for their time. Some were weird and gross. But he’s not one could simply stick a “Fuck That Fascist” pin in and walk away.
Thanks for the reading suggestion!
wait wait wait. send them to a base on the dark side of the moon
I’ve seen how this one ends. It isn’t good.
hitler much?
Since day 1
For people who just want to see the fucking picture:
I mean the AI is heavily trained on star wars and 40k imperial imagery which is unabashedly space nazis so it tracks
edit: Oh it says its inspired by the space nazis from starship troopers my bad
Starship troopers was a parody of fascism, the whole movie is about how fascism always needs an enemy, and how they can never actually be allowed to win the war because if they did the entire society would collapse.
Turns out that the actual fascists have such pathetic media literacy skills, and in the case of Trump general literacy issues, that they’re actually using it as a basis of inspiration
Starship Troopers novel would seem not to be a parody. Until, of course, you’re old enough to recognize real irony and not Verhoeven’s kindergarten monkey shit throwing.
Even Nazis and other fascists today are more often than not grotesque deliberately, using that as a protest or as some postmodernist distortion of symbolic language.
Heinlein there is not being grotesque, he describes an ideology and society built from all the right things, somehow devolved into military rule despite military people not being allowed to vote and take state posts until retired (meaning survival till retirement during perpetual galactic war), despite that society being libertarian and libertine and democratic and cosmopolitic to the extremes and despite the system having been instituted first and foremost to avoid war and fascism and civil violence. He literally shows fascism built on common anti-fascist tropes. Some usually directed at future (say, fear of another world war thrashing most of our world), but in his book already in the past.
While reading it you don’t even understand that it was effectually fascism, that seems too simple and also the very thing it’s not supposed to be. Militarism, society built on duty and all that - yes, fascism - not.
It’s a very good book, more similar to Vacuum Flowers than it seems.
I was thinking of Starship Troopers when I saw it. But I just looked at some images from SS Troopers, and somehow those uniforms looked less fascist that the space force uniforms to me.
So the Space Force uniforms are too fascist even compared to a Paul Verhoeven satire of a future fascist society.
We live in a time where the starship troopers movie was fucking subtle… wow.
It looks more Star Wars imperial officer than Starship Troopers, IMO. It’s even got the single seam on the left side of the tunic like Star Wars.
I guess Trump thought he would seem less Nazi if he claimed his inspiration was the more obscure reference.
they even are using the star trek badge insignia.
Little too on the nose, even for them.
Zero self awareness
What if the Nazis had won? - type shit
Ya what if… lmao
Seems like they merely lost a big battle, and are in process to win the war in the end.
Fascism survived the war and is taking over Gaza
Yeah, “what if the Nazis actually all got squirreled away and put into the US space program” type shit.
lmao i didn’t even think about that connection
Germany lost, fascism won
hate to break it to you, but they indirectly did win. took a few decades but their ideals are here and have won. Hell they won so hard even the people they wanted to exterminate said “you know, their ideas weren’t so bad”
If fascists started saying all of the anti-zionist rhetoric you believe in, would you join them?
how’s North York?
It is giving Man in the High Castle vibes
looks like starship trooper uniforms.
Don’t forget the prominence of confederate gray in this :)
It is uncanny
Not pictured: the fuzzy pink slippers he was wearing on set
Please tell me you’re serious 🙏
I’m half joking. They were regular brown slippers. https://www.deviantart.com/leselwyn/art/Tarkin-s-Boots-535364232
yeah he had very wide feet and found the costume boots painful so they just never shot his feet and let him go around in slippers.
A lot of good men died on the Death Star. Thank you for your service, Grand Moff (salutes, single tear)
Will at least the empire made sure you have enough pens.
They both have armpit pens.
He can’t just even do nazi things, he needs to cosplay the part.
Very . . . Hugo Boss.
Mummy is very right wing now after all:
Hugo Boss: https://youtu.be/rmg7HZJNRx0
Right wing: https://youtu.be/8bE2-ggRxsg
I think that’s the joke, that hugo boss made uniforms for the nazis
Hugo Boss would never!
I wonder what prompt was put in to generate this, looks obviously ai generated
“Nazi uniforms with Space Force logos.”
Gimme space nazi I mean officer uniforms with apple colors
Seriously. Look at the names of the colours.
I got pretty close on the first try with a very simple prompt: https://chatgpt.com/share/6a9ea9cf-b7e4-83eb-9ff6-d9ceb5df9420
Not gonna waste resources by iterating, but I’m confident it wouldn’t take much to get almost the same result.
Not sure why you wouldn’t just screenshot instead of linking to ChatGPT.
Prompt
Can you make me a realistic poster for the United States Space Force that highlights the new officer uniforms which should be black and modeled after the Star Wars Empire officer uniforms, but with US Space Force iconography
AI generated Concept art for “what if the Star Trek federation were nazis”
I was going to say it looks like the uniform of the terran empire.
Hmm who were the bad guys from Star wars based on again?
Trump is a caricature of James Bond movie villains. At least they have the honesty to know they’re evil.
