The proof!

Just to prove what I wrote yesterday, David Cameron goes all the way to Afghanistan to praise the hell out of the troops.

He also said he wanted to "rewrite and republish the military covenant" - the pact of support between Britain and its armed forces - and put troops "front and centre of our national life again".

"I want you to help me create a new atmosphere in our country, an atmosphere in which we back and revere and support our military," he added.

He also quoted someone who said that without soldiers there is no democracy, no free speech, no freedom. Funny, I could have sworn the soldiers arrested John Lilburn, arrested Colonel Brass and (in the form of the Police) fought against the Chartists at Hyde Park. Those are the people who brought us freedom.

Also, true to Tory form, he has increased troop pay - doubling operational allowance to £5K. Now, noticeably, the natural Tories in the military brass (and the general Labour ambivalence or antipathy to the military) meant that the army was used as a political football to help bring Labour down, and the Tories want to use the hired killers as a sort of bread and circuses thing - pumping pride in the army as they cut the social wage for the rest of us (and also ensure the loyalty of the means of death should things kick off at home).

Jenkins channels Kautsky

viaJon's Union Blog Simon Jenkins has been fulfilling his requirement to "say something controversial":

I say cut defence. I don't mean nibble at it or slice it. I mean cut it, all £45bn of it. George Osborne yesterday asked the nation "for once in a generation" to think the unthinkable, to offer not just percentage cuts but "whether government needs to provide certain public services at all".

Certainly, that's not the sort of suggestion the Tories want from their consultation (by consultation they mean announcing a set of fixed choices and then getting the answer they wanted in the first place anyway).

Of course, as a practical matter, I would much prefer that killing people was cut before helping people (although a few hundred thousand suddenly unemployed squaddies roaming the streets doesn't appeal). As you can see from the comments section, a lot of people remain wedded to the idea that we need to spend such fortunes on defence, because a threat might be round the corner.

Now, this is what Kautsky had to suggest would happen 'the day after the revolution':

In the first place it is self-evident that it would recover what the bourgeoisie has lost. It would sweep all remnants of feudalism away and realize that democratic programme for which the bourgeoisie once stood. As the lowest of all classes it is also the most democratic of all classes. It would extend universal suffrage to every individual and establish complete freedom of press and assemblage. It would make the State completely independent of the church and abolish all rights of inheritance. It would establish complete autonomy in all individual communities and abolish militarism. This last could be brought about in two ways; through the introduction of universal armament and the dissolution of the army. Universal armament is a political measure and dissolution of the army a financial one. The former can under certain conditions cost as much as a standing army. But it is essential to the security of democracy, in order to take away from the government its most powerful means of opposing the people. Dissolution again aims mainly at a diminution of the military budget.

Opposition to militarism is both political and practical in terms of wastage and social power. Simply ending the army isn't enough, it needs to political revolutionary change to a radical democratic society, in which all have a stake to remove the threat of disgruntled ex-military types forming new deaths quads.

In other news...

32 "Taleban" killed in Afghanistan.

The war in Sri Lanka continues, with 14 year-old girls compelled to fight. Unknown thousands have died and been displaced in the many years of warfare.

The war in DR Congo that has claimed over three million lives continues, including mass rape and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.

Ethiopian troops pull out of Somalia. Four civilians were killed on the day of the pull-out. Ethiopian forces have been drained by this occupation, which has not restored stability to Somalia, which remains a nest of warlords and pirates.
For once, a power in war exagerates its kill count, as Colombia claims to kill 8 guerillas a day - though the BBC suggests maybe civilians are being counted towards that total.

Fighting continues in Darfur, Sudan where also, apparently, slavery flourishes.


I give in, here's a list of current conflicts.

A rational person would think that maybe a sustained worldwide effort for peace would be needed - maybe some sort of co-ordinated action. Certainly, that must be the only rational view for anyone who wants to be called a socialist. Bop-a-mole responses to local flashpoints with media saturation that allows horrors that would be considered minor incidents in other conflicts are clearly insufficient.

AFK

I went home up north for a while, and so have been afk.

I missed the big demo on Saturday, I was busy meeting up with a mate I'd not seen for a while. Anyway, whilst I would agree it is futile for a socialist in London who is a member of a tiny party without parliamentary or council representation of any stripe to actually make comments on the war in Israel/Palestine (there is a comment on the Party's blog here), I do think there is something needful to be done. That is, to counter the support from equally impotent, but still vocal supporters of the war in this country and many similar. By whom, chiefly, I mean the "No justice, no peace" crowd - glibly chanting away and pushing others to their death from the comfort of their armchairs.

But first, back to class. The is a, if you will, hard edged class-centric way of posing the matter. The strength of the working class comes not simply through raw numbers, and certainly not through military might. Our strength is creative, we make, maintain and remake the world around us - and will use that ability to build socialism. The more of us there are to do the building, the lighter the work and the greater our strength to get our way.

War runs contrary to all of that. It destroys our work and our ability to work. It destroys the fruits of our labour. It destroys us. By disrupting daily life, causing unemployment, by cutting back democracy, by taking our time, energy, inclinations and thought processes and turning them towards destruction rather than creation, war, warfare and militarism undermine our consciousness as a class and our existence as a class.

It promotes plebian rather than proletarian politics - so much of Gaza is now unemployed that there is no working class strength left, only numbers, only the bitter will to fight and be killed. Hamas and Israel both as provocateurs and agents have brought this about to suit their own ends. Israelis are being pulled from their work to serve as reservists, while the national economy is put through more strain and its coffers are drained by dropping $BigNumber bombs.

The war undermines the working class in Gaza and in Israel. The immediate object must be peace: for its own sake, whatever political settlement is required. Those who take sides, or call for the victory of one side or another, and who give succor, encouragement and the prospect of international intervention on one side or another, are directly attacking the workers of Israel and Palestine.

Within our means, within our limited capacity, we can influence at least that much - take the argument on, and maybe stop the ludicrous corpse counting, hand wringing and its concommitant macho bullshitter rrrrevolutionary violence posturing. Getting the international strength of the workers behind a peace first is incredibly difficult, but expressed in terms of solidarity with the workers of both those states it would do more good than the endless tit-for-tat game of siding with the ruling class of either state.