

This is exactly it. For Westerners just feeling the weight of the military-industrial complex, this feels unbelievable. The reality is, we were ignorant. Maybe we knew that Bush invaded Iraq, and had seen the pictures of Obama’s drone strikes in Yemen, but seeing those events could never match the daily toll of knowing you’re being targeted every single day. The few times that these crises bled onto US soil (Kent State, killings of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, police brutality at BLM protests, Jan 6th insurrection) it felt like an unbelievable atrocity, but this was what the anti-war movement was trying to highlight.
I thought I understood what was being said because I knew the facts. Trump’s reelection showed me how wrong I was.

Bigger picture: The whole way people talk about talking about mental health struggles is so weird. Like, I hate this whole generative AI bubble, but there’s a much bigger issue here.
Speaking from the USA, “suicidal ideation” is treated like terrorist ideology in this weird corporate-esque legal-speak with copy-pasted disclaimers and hollow slogans. It’s so absurdly stupid I’ve just mentally blocked off trying to rationalize it and just focus on every other way the world is spiraling into techno-fascist authoritarianism.