Tag: war

Surplus Humans are Not the Real Problem

Tony StauntonLeave a comment

There is an incredible depth and breadth of vitriol being published against migrants and asylum seekers right now, and a torrent of images on screen of mass human suffering. We are becoming desensitised and “used” to apocalyptic “Hollywood” movie images of people being torn apart, tortured and/or left to rot. Hence my weekly Comment in the daily Plymouth Herald (16.7.24) condemning any and all attempts to devalue even one human life.

We must not stop talking about it. Day after day we see horror on our screens. Everything from the apparent attempted assassination of a past-President to the blanket bombing of refugee camps.

We watch dramatic, high definition, cinematically enhanced moving pictures of bombs exploding into mushroom clouds and sound waves, collapsing buildings. 

There are close-ups of human carcasses with dissembled body parts, their relatives’ faces offered in close-up, blooded and wide-eyed, some screaming and others offering traumatised stares. The images can be paused, rewound, captured, recreated, saved and shared. Like a Hollywood movie.

In essence, we are being daily desensitised to the suffering of humanity.

Last week’s NATO conference in Washington heard world leaders ramping-up military plans for more war, more expenditure on war, and thereby, more images of death and destruction on TV. More frightening still was the latest language, intimated on stage and spoken more precisely on the fringes. The concept and identification of “surplus humans”. The term itself has been spoken in the Israeli Cabinet recently by a self-proclaimed fascist and racist war minister, referring directly to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Let’s think on that. Surplus humans. Surplus to what, to whom and by what criteria? When politicians demand to “send them back”, the presumption is they’re surplus to requirements. When walls are built to keep “them” out, permissions given to shoot to kill, they’re “surplus”. Militarised camps are built to warehouse and store hundreds of thousands at a time, of these surplus peoples. 

A couple of hundred years ago, in 1798, Thomas Malthus published a book still referenced by the more bigoted of politicians, and poorly paraphrased to suggest “overpopulation creates poverty and misery”. Malthusianism is back in fashion. Let the forces of war and climate reduce populations “naturally”, to give the smaller human race space to live. Malthus’s arguments were thoroughly disproved on the basis that as more people exist, so more resources can be produced to alleviate poverty. Today, it is largely only the elitists who still adhere to his tracts, although, in the face of climate collapse, a range of liberal minds are now starting to repeat his nonsense, amongst them the near-god of the environment, David Attenborough. 

To disprove this nonsense, is to recognise that humans have modified less than 15% of the global land surface, and settled to create homes on 10%. In the UK, 9% of the land is built-upon. There is space.   

A better example still: there more food produced in the world today than there are mouths to feed. The much-overstated argument that the current human population would require 2.5 Earth’s worth of resources in order for everyone to live to the standards of USA and Europe is full of holes – firstly, Capitalism’s overproduction of Stuff, including industrial food, is not a desirable nor sustainable way forward for humanity, and secondly Capitalisms exploitation and destruction of natural resources is not a stated goal of the vast majority of humanity. 

The issue, is resource (wealth) distribution. One-third of all food produced in the world is wasted. The reason is intentional – if the transport of the food to the people who need it is not profitable (often termed “economically viable”), and if the hungry people cannot pay the market price (including the surplus value known as profit), then they must exist in a condition of malnutrition and slowly starve – in their millions.

With a complete negation of any reason or rationality it is argued that the surplus food is a natural part of the System, it is the surplus mouths that are the problem. Capitalist society values only those who work to produce surplus for those who accumulate and hoard wealth. Those who do not or cannot are deemed a drain on society, an impediment to growth, surplus to requirements. 

Obviously it is not people who are the problem. After all, we’re all people. As a matter of fact, the System that commodifies and puts a price on every aspect of life is the problem. 

Were we to live in a system based upon human need not profit, resources could be prioritised to ensure every human has the basics of life ensured: nutrition, shelter, health care, education and community – love. And there is more than enough to go round.

Instead, adherents of the system of Capitalism are knowingly destroying the planet, descending into war, genocide and barbarism. And these acts don’t go away simply by turning off our TV. They continue to come towards us and engulf us. 

We are witnessing the rapidly developing situation towards one billion climate refugees by 2035, forced to leave their homelands due to extremes of weather impossible to live under. Crop failures, permanent drought, or fires or floods that destroy arable land create both war for the diminishing resources and mass migration for survival. 

These conditions, now recognised by the warrior class of NATO and every imperial power, are likely to be answered by rapid the development of more vast refugees camps, the people guarded and impoverished, incarcerating the millions forced to stay and die where they were born, surplus to requirements of the global system of Capitalism whilst the world leaders spend more than $2trillion each year on armaments.

To believe there are surplus humans is to have lost all humanity. If a society says some lives don’t matter, then one day that life is likely to be yours. Not watching the latest news will only bring this ever closer to our doors. The real news is that we’d best change the System, fast.

Third World War is a Real threat

Tony StauntonLeave a comment

My weekly column in the Plymouth Herald (16.4.24) linking the various recent quotes from Grant Shapps, Kier Starmer, Sharon Graham and Rishi Sunak but without naming them during this period of electoral party-political media purdah (space wouldn’t allow for inclusion of Biden and Netanyahu). The signs of war are with us. The plans are being laid, whilst a single error of judgement of mistake could start the conflagration now. Organise to Stop the War!

The unedited version below:

Historians can describe the signs of coming war: crisis of economy, class tensions at home, scarcity of resources, competition for land and food, pestilence and poverty forcing mass migration.

But war does not begin before they’ve built their armies. War needs advanced planning, not just of the military hardware but of the emotional commitment of the populations involved.

Politicians need to begin making carefully contrived propaganda speeches years in advance. Allying the individual citizen with national interests is a starting point.

Identifying and detailing the alien nature of ‘The Enemy” and broadcasting their atrocities is an essential prerequisite to the conscription of the population ready to fight and kill the subhuman hoards threatening all borders.

The guns and tanks, fighters and mass uniforms must be produced well in advance. New factories have to be built, paid for by a raise in the tax percentage of the Gross Domestic Profit siphoned-off for weapons in spite of any other social concerns and needs of the day.

A sense of national pride must be reestablished, especially if the nation has, to date, been internationalist and multicultural. This can take years and years. Friends who enjoy a variety of cultural lifestyles or faiths have to be set against each other. A new hierarchy of acceptable and unacceptable behaviours and beliefs must be enforced, mirroring the nations’ elite.

This takes a concerted effort that crosses all other political drives within the ruling class. There has to be governance that espouses national unity to the masses – the working class. Corporations that are in constant competition can unite in favour of the flag, even while seeking fresh profits inside a war economy.

Politicians begin public statements early on. Some of their kites fly immediately, others need to be thrown-up over and over again on the run. A likely lad, easily disposed of if scorned and derided by public opposition, has to be chosen to say, for example, “we are moving from a post-war to a pre-war world”, and “Britain needs to be prepared for war”. Now.

It’s important that the Leader of the Opposition agrees, amplifying the call that the tax-payer must “raise the UK’s defence spending to 2.5% of GDP as soon as resources allow”.

Better still, outdo the policies of the current Party of government. Emphasise the barbarity of the Enemy. Expel the anti-imperialists. Promise to extend and accelerate current development of weapons of mass destruction. Ultimate support for, say nuclear weapons, should trump all other pledges.

All tensions between employees and employers, profiteers and wage-slaves, must be eliminated, class consciousness replaced with nationalist fervour.

Most vitally, the spokespeople for the working class – the people who will be transferred into military uniforms to die for King and Country or be moved to essential military production – must be forcefully cajoled into accepting the changes and bundled into common effort for the coming conflagration.

Trade union leaders have that role to play, primarily to oppose and isolate all anti-warfare activists inside their ranks. In park until they must witchhunt “groups that look to build networks inside trade unions to undermine the defence industry. Jobs for death must replace jobs for life.

An enormous degree of top-down propaganda promoting the need for war is needed because working class people know war is no good.

There has to be a period of one-off clashes, escalating violence and heightened tension between the opposing sides in order to prove that war is essential. Alliances need to be formed and tested between nations before the global war begins.

An enormous amount of top-down propaganda promoting the need for war is required because working class people know that war is no good. The doubters have to be identified as “The Enemy Within”.

War doesn’t make life better for us. Mostly, we die. A military economy is one of shortages and rationing, the absence of welfare, long queues for medical aid or charitable distribution of food aid.

War does make big money for the arms manufacturers and their big shareholders. On all sides. It produces long-term suffering for the rest.

It is time, in fact past time, for a fresh movement against war. The signs are with us, echoing the pre-war years of 1912-14 or 1937-39. The Third World War will dwarf the 70 million deaths of the last world war. All the efforts of those who care for the future of humanity have to combine to prevent the current drive to world war.

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Beware, Fascism is on the Rise.

Tony StauntonLeave a comment

My weekly column in the daily Plymouth Herald (27.2.24) trying to say too much in too little space. But the point is made, I hope, that the political games at Westminster about Gaza are intended to divide and rule us, at a time when polls and protests suggest more than two-thirds of the UK population want a Ceasefire. The unedited version is below:

Beware, Fascism is on the Rise.

For those of us concerned for the advancement of human rights and social justice, last week’s chaos in the Commons offered many warnings.

Parliament was supposed to debate a motion about the destruction of Gaza and deaths of at least 30,000 civilians, including no fewer than 12,000 children under the age of 14, all trapped without means of escape.

By the weekend we could all be excused for believing that the debate had actually been about the mortal threat to MPs at the hands of extremists and terrorists inside the UK. The original motion, tabled by the Scottish nationalists, deploring the very apparent “collective punishment” of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli State and calling for an immediate Ceasefire had been cancelled-out by self-interested politicking.

The shenanigans in the House of Commons saw both Tory and Scottish MPs walk out in disgust, leaving a Labour amendment to be voted for, unanimously by the Labour benches, declaring there should be a humanitarian ceasefire (without explanation of what that may look like), no military assault on Rafah, release of all hostages and immediate humanitarian relief.

There’s no sign of that happening amidst growing reports of hundreds of thousands now suffering malnutrition in a collective condition of enforced starvation. Instead, the UK’s Prime Minister accused the Speaker of the House of Commons to have “sided with terrorists”. 

The Tory Party had stood with Israel’s right to self-defence in opposition to the Scottish motion. The Labour Party had carefully manipulated the proposed debate to prevent the UK agreeing to an immediate Ceasefire, effectively condoning the continuation of the killing of civilians. 

It was later revealed that Keir Starmer spoke to the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, before drawing-up Labour’s amendment, whilst the Speaker of the House, Lyndsey Hoyle recently visited Israel and that his father, Doug Hoyle, helped found Labour Friends of Israel. The complicity is obvious to all. Hoyle helped Starmer to block a vote on the humanitarian SNP motion, depriving the public of any voice.

Criticism of the policies and actions of the Israeli State is not a criticism or attack on Jews. Support for Palestinian rights – equal to the human rights of everyone else – is not anti-semitic. The level of active protests across Britain, numbering into millions of people on our streets since the 7th October proves beyond doubt that the majority opinion in Britain is of horror and outrage at the level of death and destruction in Gaza. Once again, Parliament has not represented The People, not just in Scotland but across the entirety of Britain, including England.

It is astounding, even in comparison with all the morally bankrupt political games of the past few years, that a debate on human rights – civilians should not be intentionally bombed in their thousands under any circumstances – has been used to introduce yet more laws against our freedoms and suffrage. 

This is political gaslighting: the psychological manipulation of the electorate, repeatedly challenging our understanding and perception of reality, seeking to confuse and create uncertainty, creating a passivity, giving-in to the perpetrators of the abuse.

Gaslighting can be a very effective tool for the abuser to control an individual. It’s done slowly so the victim writes-off the event as a one-off or oddity and doesn’t realize they are being controlled and manipulated.

Just as politicians impose ever-greater authority over us, they claim they are the victims. New laws are proposed for lawful assembly and protest to be further curtailed this week specially to protect MPs from us, adding to the most extreme laws against strike action and protest already enacted in the last year. Those supporting war abroad are also using it to force tighter social controls at home.

This is important. Democracy here is in chaos and being undermined daily. Authoritarianism is being advanced and ramped-up through a mix of gaslighting, warmongering and racism. Ministerial statements minimising the impact of war whilst dehumanising entire populations are used to promote the UK production and sale of ever-more deadly arms to dictatorships, warlords and gangsters on all sides.

The ramping-up of Islamaphobia by back-benchers such as Lee Anderson, Liz Truss and Suella Braverman calling for “direct action” against refugees, minorities and the Left – that is, those of us protesting for human rights – and praising the likes of Tommy Robinson, sees them empowering the home-grown fascist thugs to go on the attack, not only with their vile on-line threats and abuse but with violence on the streets. They are building a new Party of the Far-Right, of which Reform UK is seeking to become the mass vehicle. 

For the record, the majority of those here protesting for a ceasefire in Gaza are White working class anti-racists, not least because we know that racism divides and weakens us.  Our  protests for Freedom for Palestine need to be ramped-up. Those moved into action by the horror must recognise that this is not only a call for a ceasefire and international social justice but also human rights at home. 

In these volatile times it is not difficult to imagine Britain falling into a totalitarian state. All that is needed is for working class people to be convinced of imminent risk and attack from a “foreign force” alongside personal risk from the “enemy within”. This falsehood, this “Great Lie”, is being enacted. Now.