The thinly veiled recruitment drive that is "Armed Forces Day"
Militarism is an inevitable effect of capitalist domination and the struggle for markets and profit, and so long as the workers are ruled by a master class, so long will their masters use them as cannon fodder. The only solution of the question of militarism from the proletarian point of view is the abolition of capitalist exploitation. It is then our duty to concentrate our efforts upon Socialism, upon the triumph of those who labour . It is our bounden duty to do so, for the lives of millions of workers under capitalist rule perpetuate horrors that are just as worse than from any war. All the various problems that affect the working class hinge upon the ownership of the means of life, and yet outside of our ranks practically the whole of the workers' energies are being directed against effects rather than to the removal of the cause of the trouble. The origin of poverty, war and slavery lies in class ownership of the means whereby the people live. The straightest road is the shortest road, and the only way to get rid of the evil of militarism is to get rid of capitalism.
The army has historically been a way out for the poor and powerless. A source of empowerment (or , at least , of feeling that someone somewhere is in control), of belonging and of being part of a corporate body , a story of positive action and values. It is not just all about the so-called positive side of the Armed Forces teaching discipline and how to feel you're doing a great job killing fellow workers you've never seen before and who've done you no harm, but there is its side-effects of living under such conditions . Only recently has there been an admission that life in the Forces can easily make you unfit for life outside.
Studies show soldiers have a very strong revulsion for killing and require the necessary and traditional processes to facilitate the rationalization and acceptance of their killing experiences. The book “On Killing” by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman finds predisposition to killing in only about 2 percent of soldiers. The most startling evidence to many will be that in World War I and II, most soldiers (80-85 percent) did not even fire their guns, because they could not bring themselves to kill even when they were being fired at by the "enemy".The military then developed conditioning techniques, based on the "operant conditioning" pioneered by B.F. Skinner. In the U.S.-Vietnam war, only 5% of US soldiers failed to fire. . The U.S. military incorporates "justice" (the enemy is bad), and control in its conditioning, so that the soldier has a "reason", and must be told to kill.
(Techniques which have been used successfully by the military to bypass the human revulsion for killing are now in widespread use on youth. This conditioning is now the heart of many movies and video games.)
Studies show soldiers have a very strong revulsion for killing and require the necessary and traditional processes to facilitate the rationalization and acceptance of their killing experiences. The book “On Killing” by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman finds predisposition to killing in only about 2 percent of soldiers. The most startling evidence to many will be that in World War I and II, most soldiers (80-85 percent) did not even fire their guns, because they could not bring themselves to kill even when they were being fired at by the "enemy".The military then developed conditioning techniques, based on the "operant conditioning" pioneered by B.F. Skinner. In the U.S.-Vietnam war, only 5% of US soldiers failed to fire. . The U.S. military incorporates "justice" (the enemy is bad), and control in its conditioning, so that the soldier has a "reason", and must be told to kill.
(Techniques which have been used successfully by the military to bypass the human revulsion for killing are now in widespread use on youth. This conditioning is now the heart of many movies and video games.)
This has left them with a significant rate of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, manifesting itself as "recurrent and intrusive dreams and recollections", "emotional blunting, social withdrawal, exceptional difficulty or reluctance in initiating or maintaining intimate relationships, and sleep disturbances. These symptoms can in turn lead to alcoholism, divorce and unemployment." Twenty-five percent of homeless men sleeping on the streets of London are ex-servicemen (Times, 3 August 1999). The smelly, aggressive drunk was once a hero! A survey carried out in 1993 concluded that the main cause of homelessness and its consequences is the breakdown of relationships and alcoholism, and these develop during military service. In the Forces you are taught to hide and discipline your feelings and traumas and stresses of what they may have seen or suffered cannot be discussed leading to further isolation or heavy drinking. The latter, the major leisure occupation in the Forces is, at worst, encouraged and at best ignored.
After "serving their country" they may have escaped death or physical mutilation but their experience has left them scarred for life. What made them part of an effective fighting machine has made them incapable of maintaining normal relationships within the family and friends or coping with the different stresses of working under capitalism. In the USA twice as many ex-servicemen committed suicide after the Vietnam war than were killed during it.
The job of the armed forces is to do the State's dirty work, that is to plunder land, wealth and raw materials, as well as secure routes for international trade, or to prevent another state from doing same. This definition of any army's role does not preclude murder within the ranks. Granted, killing your own chaps doesn't sound like an efficient way to run an army, but the legally-sanctioned execution of comrades-in-arms during World War One was not only efficient, it was absolutely necessary. It would have done no good to tell a dissenter that he was a naughty boy and to sit in the corner for the rest of the day; nor would there have been any point in threatening to send him to prison for life. After all, he would still have his life. No, the only way to ensure that insanity prevailed was to offer a Hobson's Choice: either go over the top and face almost certain death, or refuse and face certain death.
Today, Britain has a professional volunteer army, and technical advances mean that modern warfare is a much more scientific affair. Now there are no poorly trained conscripts, and no need for battalions of troops to go "over the top", and so there is no need for summary executions to enforce discipline.
If you were from Mars you might want to ask is why are millions of men, men of no property and no financial interests, men who had never met those they are now told are their enemies and with whom they do not share a language that would allow them to curse at one another, why are they killing? Why are they dying?The answer is that they were fighting over markets and the political and economic appurtenances of trade; that war was, and is, simply a logical extension of a brutally competitive system of social organisation predicted on profit and ongoing expansion; a system that dominated their lives, took away their human dignity and reduced them to the status of wage slaves and cannon fodder. So the question must be avoided at all costs; capitalism's apologists, its politicians, its beholden clergy and media hacks will change the script: Tell the fools how brave they were and how proud they should be; that'll keep them happy to the next time. "Give a benediction, bless them with a prayer, And tell them how the son of God was longing to be there!"
After "serving their country" they may have escaped death or physical mutilation but their experience has left them scarred for life. What made them part of an effective fighting machine has made them incapable of maintaining normal relationships within the family and friends or coping with the different stresses of working under capitalism. In the USA twice as many ex-servicemen committed suicide after the Vietnam war than were killed during it.
The job of the armed forces is to do the State's dirty work, that is to plunder land, wealth and raw materials, as well as secure routes for international trade, or to prevent another state from doing same. This definition of any army's role does not preclude murder within the ranks. Granted, killing your own chaps doesn't sound like an efficient way to run an army, but the legally-sanctioned execution of comrades-in-arms during World War One was not only efficient, it was absolutely necessary. It would have done no good to tell a dissenter that he was a naughty boy and to sit in the corner for the rest of the day; nor would there have been any point in threatening to send him to prison for life. After all, he would still have his life. No, the only way to ensure that insanity prevailed was to offer a Hobson's Choice: either go over the top and face almost certain death, or refuse and face certain death.
Today, Britain has a professional volunteer army, and technical advances mean that modern warfare is a much more scientific affair. Now there are no poorly trained conscripts, and no need for battalions of troops to go "over the top", and so there is no need for summary executions to enforce discipline.
If you were from Mars you might want to ask is why are millions of men, men of no property and no financial interests, men who had never met those they are now told are their enemies and with whom they do not share a language that would allow them to curse at one another, why are they killing? Why are they dying?The answer is that they were fighting over markets and the political and economic appurtenances of trade; that war was, and is, simply a logical extension of a brutally competitive system of social organisation predicted on profit and ongoing expansion; a system that dominated their lives, took away their human dignity and reduced them to the status of wage slaves and cannon fodder. So the question must be avoided at all costs; capitalism's apologists, its politicians, its beholden clergy and media hacks will change the script: Tell the fools how brave they were and how proud they should be; that'll keep them happy to the next time. "Give a benediction, bless them with a prayer, And tell them how the son of God was longing to be there!"
The Socialist Party calls upon the workers the world over to understand that mere opposition and pious moralising against the war is not enough, and that it lies within their hands to make the necessary changes.The Socialist Party has always stood against war – asserting the urgency with which the workers must combat and stop any immediate instance of the ongoing global war, and the need to struggle against the system of exploitation and poverty which causes all these wars. We have asserted that war and organised violence are not the means by which a civilised society can be achieved. Where all other parties utter their sanctimonious opposition to war: "Of course, no right minded person wants war," they say, but then turn around and produce their plans for just that. Plans for achieving their policy ends by cold-blooded murder. Consistently, the Socialist Party has counter-posed to war and violence the working class methods of co-operation, and rational application of our minds and imaginations. We have refused to fight, choosing, rather, to point the way to real peace. As the slaughter forever continues , we take this opportunity to avow our solidarity with the workers, of all nations, and their mutual cause. Further, we call upon the workers to organise consciously and politically to use the power at their disposal to bring the bloodshed to a standstill; and secure the space we need in order to build the co-operative world socialist commonwealth.
"I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World." - Eugene V. Debs
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