Then the companies had come. He had watched the privatisation of war with disgust throughout his military career. In his opinion, the moment the focus went from duty and loyalty to the man next to you to a pay cheque, the coherence wrought by military discipline was gone. At best you got badly equipped individuals in way over their heads. At worst you got atrocity.
He wasn’t some peace-loving, anti-capitalist hippy protestor. He remembered when they had occupied Wall Street. Unlike many amongst his peers, he had had respect for them. Rightly or wrongly, they had taken a stand for what they believed in. He’d been furious when they’d started getting beaten and moved on, silenced. Their right to voice their opinions was one of the things he had thought he’d been fighting for. Nowadays they would just be branded as terrorists and mown down by corporate goons, like the so-called Resistor group that had been protesting outside a CELL facility in Tokyo. Barclay had read the intelligence briefings on them. They hadn’t been terrorists, that was spin bullshit. They’d just been kids.
He wasn’t some peace-loving, anti-capitalist hippy protestor. He remembered when they had occupied Wall Street. Unlike many amongst his peers, he had had respect for them. Rightly or wrongly, they had taken a stand for what they believed in. He’d been furious when they’d started getting beaten and moved on, silenced. Their right to voice their opinions was one of the things he had thought he’d been fighting for. Nowadays they would just be branded as terrorists and mown down by corporate goons, like the so-called Resistor group that had been protesting outside a CELL facility in Tokyo. Barclay had read the intelligence briefings on them. They hadn’t been terrorists, that was spin bullshit. They’d just been kids.
