<story><title>The Unexotic Underclass (2013)</title><url>http://miter.mit.edu/the-unexotic-underclass/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JabavuAdams</author><text>The veteran thing is strange. To a non-American the veneration of military personnel and veterans seems over-the-top to the point of self-parody. Watching the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, I wasn&amp;#x27;t sure whether I was watching a sporting match, or Starship Troopers.&lt;p&gt;That said, for all the splashy thank-you-for-your-service it&amp;#x27;s a shame but no real surprise that veterans are getting shafted, behind the scenes, by one of the largest bureaucracies in the world.</text></item><item><author>doktrin</author><text>Describing veterans as an &lt;i&gt;un&lt;/i&gt;exotic underclass feels incorrect to me. Maybe it&amp;#x27;s just perception bias, but for instance my FB feed contains an order of magnitude more appeals for veterans causes than literally any other endeavor. GoFundMe&amp;#x27;s, petitions, charities, races, events - you name it. 4 out of 5 of my last donations concerned veterans (as a group) or individual vets, as were 5 out of 5 of my last signed petitions (whose value, I will grant, is probably a bit tenuous)&lt;p&gt;Maybe there is some other social circle out there that exclusively cares about black and latino inner city youth, or Kenya, or Bangladesh - but if they really are as over-represented and over-valued as the author seems to derisively imply, then I&amp;#x27;d like to see some data to support that.&lt;p&gt;edit : the instant downvotes interest me. Can you qualify your disagreement?&lt;p&gt;edit : to clear up some confusion, I mentioned anecdotal experience with veteran charities and fundraising efforts in order to illustrate their relative popularity - not their success. In my opinion, a popular cause is by definition not un-exotic (i.e. marginalized), which is the notion that I am responding to.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>doktrin</author><text>Absolutely. The VA is a disgrace, and it&amp;#x27;s a clear cut example of the government not living up to its obligations vis a vis veterans.&lt;p&gt;However, my point concerns public perception, which is to a significant degree the focus of the OP. Specifically, the author made the claim that veterans are perceived as being an unexotic cause in public consciousness - whereas I think the opposite is true. I think their cause is a popular one in America.&lt;p&gt;For comparison, this is how I personally perceive a few of the various underclasses he mentioned :&lt;p&gt;The rural poor in Appalachia? Unequivocally unexotic : lower income whites often appear to be more scorned than pitied. Inner city youth? Periodically exotic. Veterans? Unequivocally exotic, in the sense that I perceive their cause to be one of the most popular in contemporary American society.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Unexotic Underclass (2013)</title><url>http://miter.mit.edu/the-unexotic-underclass/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JabavuAdams</author><text>The veteran thing is strange. To a non-American the veneration of military personnel and veterans seems over-the-top to the point of self-parody. Watching the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, I wasn&amp;#x27;t sure whether I was watching a sporting match, or Starship Troopers.&lt;p&gt;That said, for all the splashy thank-you-for-your-service it&amp;#x27;s a shame but no real surprise that veterans are getting shafted, behind the scenes, by one of the largest bureaucracies in the world.</text></item><item><author>doktrin</author><text>Describing veterans as an &lt;i&gt;un&lt;/i&gt;exotic underclass feels incorrect to me. Maybe it&amp;#x27;s just perception bias, but for instance my FB feed contains an order of magnitude more appeals for veterans causes than literally any other endeavor. GoFundMe&amp;#x27;s, petitions, charities, races, events - you name it. 4 out of 5 of my last donations concerned veterans (as a group) or individual vets, as were 5 out of 5 of my last signed petitions (whose value, I will grant, is probably a bit tenuous)&lt;p&gt;Maybe there is some other social circle out there that exclusively cares about black and latino inner city youth, or Kenya, or Bangladesh - but if they really are as over-represented and over-valued as the author seems to derisively imply, then I&amp;#x27;d like to see some data to support that.&lt;p&gt;edit : the instant downvotes interest me. Can you qualify your disagreement?&lt;p&gt;edit : to clear up some confusion, I mentioned anecdotal experience with veteran charities and fundraising efforts in order to illustrate their relative popularity - not their success. In my opinion, a popular cause is by definition not un-exotic (i.e. marginalized), which is the notion that I am responding to.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cryoshon</author><text>Militarism has intellectual consequences. The tacit admission that US military members sign up to fight pointless wars is not allowed: loud patriotism drowns all dissent so that they will not be demoralized by the grim reality that they are expendable pawns.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s all PR, of course: the veterans end up as broken husks that are left to rot as soon as they get home-- a very convenient political issue that is stored safely in the bank for whenever a distraction or stirring election platform is needed.&lt;p&gt;To answer your question: it is Starship Troopers that you are watching.</text></comment>