Do you believe?

 

“Corresponding disasters every night on the TV

Sickening reality keep gripping me in its guts

All my friends talk and joke and laugh about Armageddon

But like a nightmare it's still waiting there

At the end of each and every day”

War Baby, Tom Robinson.

It becomes more dire every day. How do you cope? Immersion in sports and soap operas?

Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of."

Edward L. Bernays. Propaganda 1928

 

Karl Marx had an explanation:

 “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.”

 Education or indoctrination into becoming a wage slave?

‘I learned our Government must be strong;
It's always right and never wrong;
Our leaders are the finest men
And we elect them again and again’

Pete Seeger

 Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

‘Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori’ - It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.

From a Latin Ode by the Roman, Horace.

First World War poet, Wilfred Owen knocked that one out of the park:

“If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.”

 

NUCLEOMITUPHOBIA  is anxiety or a phobia in the face of a potential future nuclear holocaust.

Up until January 24^th 2023, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists doomsday clock stood at 100 seconds to midnight.

On that date it was changed to ninety seconds to midnight.

On a Saturday in January, 2018, anyone with a Hawaiian telephone number received this message:

‘Ballistic Missile threat inbound to Hawaii

Seek Immediate Shelter. This is not a drill.’

 It was. The text had been sent as “accidentality”

 Donovan’s 1965 anti-Vietnam song, The War Drags On still resonates today.

Last night, poor Dan had a nightmare it seems
One kept occurrin' and reoccurrin' in his dreams
Cities full of people burnin', screamin', shoutin' loud
And right there overhead, a great orange mushroom cloud

And there's no more war
For there's no, no more world.

Heavy Metal bands were on the ball too.

 

Black Sabbath's War Pigs. 1970

“Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah’

 

Iron Maiden said, hold my beer:  Two Minutes to Midnight.  1984

‘As the mad men play on words
And make us all dance to their song
To the tune of starving millions
To make a better kind of gun ‘

 

The  Edwin Starr timeless classic, War, What is it good for? poses a question:

‘They say we must fight to keep our freedom but there's got to be a better way,

War, What is it good for? You tell me (nothing)

Stand up and shout it  (nothing)'

Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s,  When Two Tribes Go To War official video had it right, Let the “leaders” fight it out amongst themselves. Reagan and Chernenko were featured in the video. Better still, let’s abolish leaders along with capitalism.

 In August 1914, the Socialist Party of Great Britain Executive Committee said:

  Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our good will and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism
THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

 Clifford Slapper wrote in the Socialist Standard, July 1984 of the Greenham Common Peace Camp:

 ‘Perhaps they don’t know, or don't care, that socialists alone have opposed every single war this century, not just before they began, but during and after them too, even where this meant incarceration in prison for many of our members during both World Wars. We do not sneer at the opposition to war of millions of our fellow workers. But how is this opposition to be turned into a practical movement, which will be effective in ending all war?’

 

‘Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'

Bob Dylan. The Times They Are A-Changin

Capitalism is on notice that the revolution will happen. Socialists work toward a peaceful transition from capitalism to a global sane society which is dependent upon us all  ‘getting together.’ Capitalist, the choice is yours...

‘Hand out the arms and ammo
We're going to blast our way through here
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here and you know it's right.’

Thunder Clap Newman. Something In The Air.

Dave C.