AUT: Re: SABOTAGE THE WAR EFFORT!

["Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "anthony hayes" <antyphayes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 30. januar 2003 01.53
Subject: AUT: SABOTAGE THE WAR EFFORT!


> hi all. below is an anti-war leaflet peter and myself
> have written. some context: here in canberra,
> australia - the centre of the bureaucratic state
> spectacle of australia - the anti-war organising group
> is run by castro lovers & the ISO. peter, myself and
> maybe 2 or 3 others are the only visible manifestation
> of an *attempt* at organising along libertarian
> communist lines. hence this leaflet perhaps attempting
> to cover too much ground, though still not enough...
>
> any constructive comments and criticisms would be
> appreciated. thanks.
>
> anthony


I like the general tone and framework but a few things
might ruin the overall impression.

That the pub is "just as much a part of the war machine
as the recruiting office, barracks or ADFA ..."  not many --
and for good reasons -- are going to take seriously. And
that is an understatement.  The pub might however at
times serve as a good breeding ground for anti-war
ideas and actions.


You write::

        "In the Vietnam war the dogged resistance of the
         Vietnamese people and the massive global anti-
         war and anti-capitalist insurgencies, wildcat strikes
         and urban rebellion, as well as the growing mutinous
         mood in the U.S. army in Vietnam brought the U.S.
         war to an end and the world to the brink of
         revolution."

The conclusion of the following passage is to put mildly,
doubtful. Not many for good reasons ever was aware
that  the end of the Vietnam war "brought ...  the world to
the brink of revolution." This kind of historical phantasy
will will only undermine the main message.

The picture of how various wars ended would have been
more correct if preceded by "contributed to".

"General strikes shook Nigeria, Italy, Spain, Greece and
Portugal."  How many of mentioned states were really shaken
by these strikes? Agitation does not loose but increases
in value by more precise langauge.


You write: . "We all suffer whether it is from ... , as
well as when the inevitable rise in the price of oil
pours through into price rises for just about every
other commodity.". and further down ".. . to seize
Iraqs oilfields with the hope that a new cycle of
accumulation can be launched based on energy".

The two statements may at least seem to, if necessairly
do not contradict each other. Maybe a footnote
or something might be called for here. This is within
Midnight Notes' specific field of inquiry. So Monty or
others might have something to say on the subject.

It is quite obvious that petroleum prices have already
risen in a great part due to the prospect of war. If
the war does not last for long, it is however unlikely
that it will rise any further, and mosty likely will fall
again at the end of the war, though Iraqi oil production
is not likely to in itself make much a difference in
the short term.. It might be good idea to in footnote
try to explain why you consider "a new cycle of
accumulation can be launched based on energy".

I also sort of wonder about the last two words in the
following: "A life of loneliness, suicide and senile
dementia." Why you put loneliness, suicide in there is
very clear. "Senile dementia"  -- that is old age
dementia -- is however far more problematic, though it
has some relation to loneliness and some times
causes suicide.


About the causes of war. I think the irrational parts are
also important to stress. An important part of capitalist
crisis is that brings about irrationality. I think this is also
something very many sense these days. These whole
al Qa'ida and "weapons of mass destruction" hysteria
has given the peculiar result that more and more hear
the voice of Bin Laden and Saddam Husein every time
Bush and other representatives of the dominant U.S.
political and media power open their mouth. It just have
to be articulated and incredibly many will recognise
it.  This is a fundamental change from the Clinton period,
and even the old Bush period., or the "good old"
cynicial yet somehow pragmatic Kissinger -- and I
might add Assad -- power politics.  It migh be said that
up to now Assad have ruled in Washington D.C.
while now a strange, ignorant interbreed of Bin Laden
Saddam  and a reborn John Wayne have taken hold of
the steering weel. Some mad hurt animal idealists who
really believe in what they are doing!
        I like old westerns, but something weird happens
when you know longer recognize the difference between
a "peacemaker" and yes *weapons of mass destruction*.
mobilized against the Iraqi people and here, there and
everywhere. In a strange way the Bush administration
are one of the most obvious victims of the modern
spectacular society, while the after all far more rational
Blair is being caught in his own game, by his own
performance, wanting to play Churchill without overplaying
it only to discover that some takes his act more seriously
than he does himself. Clinton was his perfect playmate..

Well, enough about that. But *fear* is a key-words here.
It can as easily be turned against the campaign of Enduring
War as they can be used to propel it. There is accelerating
feeling spreading that "our leaders" are out off control.


This whole *weapons of mass destruction" theme -- alluded
to above might also deserve to be paid a visit. And this has
very much to do with the use of langauge: The planned
bombardement of Iraq will be carried on a scale which
combined effect cannot be desribed as anything *weapons
of mass destruction" (with deadly ecological after effects).
While I am not a expert on the field, nothing I have heard
suggest that biological and chemical weapons -- I not for
a moment believe  the Iraqi regime wholly stopped
developing (*) -- have anything near the same murderous
capacity. If I remember right , Washington has also threatened
with the use of nuclear bombs

* [But unlike what was the case before the last Gulf War, Iraq
regime do not today pose a military threat to others than the
citizens.of Iraq. Ironically enough, "the West" and Israel have
always been the ones who had the least to fear from these
regime.]

Well , no reason to go into this other than pointing out that
that a war of mass destruction is precisely what has been
planned in Pentagon. Nothing new in that of course but ...


Harald

> -------------------------------
> SABOTAGE THE WAR EFFORT!
>
> The war waged against Iraqis is a war waged against
> all of humanity. The war on Iraqis is directly opposed
> to the interests of the majority of the worlds
> population: the working multitude. War will kill,
> maim, and make refugees of thousands of Iraqi working
> people - dreams and life brought to a brutal end. As
> well as the millions of Iraqi workers immediately
> affected the war is also an attack on the entire
> global working class. We all suffer whether it is from
> increasing state repression, continuing cuts to
> government services such as health and education, as
> well as when the inevitable rise in the price of oil
> pours through into price rises for just about every
> other commodity.
>
> Capitalism is falling back on mass slaughter as a way
> out of its intensifying & deepening crisis. Crisis is
> the indispensable condition of capitalism. The
> irreconcilable contradiction between the needs of
> people for life opposed to the needs of capital to
> hoard and accumulate things and profits, results in a
> world of constant upheaval and permanent crisis. War
> is the ultimate destructive expression of this
> contradiction.
>
> On television the Australian government blares out its
> justification for joining all of us to the U.S. war:
> the way of life we all value so highly must go on.
> But what is this way of life that our rulers are
> prepared to wage war for? A life of more work, more
> stress and less pay. A life of labyrinthine borders
> and detention camps. A life of fast food, junk food
> anorexia and obesity. A life of loneliness, suicide
> and senile dementia. A life of emotional impotence and
> patented cures. A life of credit cards, lifelong
> mortgages and internet porn. A life spent in front of
> a box. This is the rapidly escalating and intensifying
> world of things and their prices. For capital the
> value of values is found in harnessing our time for
> the production of a world of things. The capitalist
> world needs us to reproduce our own chains. And our
> time is the one thing that once sold can never be
> bought back.
>
> The last decade has seen some impressive working class
> revolts against this world of pointless and monotonous
> work. The ongoing Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas,
> Mexico; The country wide strikes in France in 1995;
> Suharto and Milosevic chased out of office by mass
> strikes, demonstrations and riots; General strikes
> shook Nigeria, Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal. In
> December 2001 four successive Argentine presidents
> were toppled by open mass rebellion against the
> government in a movement that continues to this day.
>
> On the capitalist side the crisis expresses itself in
> anti-human terms: a crisis of money flows, capital
> flows, budget deficits and the need to tighten fiscal
> responsibility - the usual mantra of leaders and
> other little men and women. During the last decade we
> have seen the deep recession of the early 1990s. From
> the bailout of the Mexican economy in 1994, the Asian
> financial crisis of 1997-98, the Russian financial
> crisis of 1999, the bursting of the Internet bubble in
> 2000 and the Enron collapse in 2001, capitalism has
> staggered from crisis to crisis with things likely to
> get worse. As part of capitals response to the
> current crisis the US state has cobbled together a
> small coalition of mostly reluctant allies to seize
> Iraqs oilfields with the hope that a new cycle of
> accumulation can be launched based on energy.
>
> Capitalism is faced with the interrelated problems of
> economic crisis and explosions of struggle and
> resistance. Their solution is war. For those opposed
> to capitalism stopping the war should be the highest
> priority.
>
> Historically wars have been stopped by mutinies,
> strikes and revolution. Revolutionary mutinies in the
> Russian and German armies ended World War 1. In the
> 1991 Gulf War Iraqi troops deserted en masse in the
> face of overwhelming U.S. firepower and went home to
> turn their guns on Saddams state. In the Vietnam war
> the dogged resistance of the Vietnamese people and the
> massive global anti-war and anti-capitalist
> insurgencies, wildcat strikes and urban rebellion, as
> well as the growing mutinous mood in the U.S. army in
> Vietnam brought the U.S. war to an end and the world
> to the brink of revolution. Recently Serbias
> surrender in the Kosovo war was caused by the mass
> desertion of reserve units.
>
> We are faced with the problem that modern military
> forces, such as those of the U.S. and Australia, are
> professional operations that rely largely on a small
> number of Special Forces troops and Airforce
> personnel. The direct participation of a large
> proportion of national populations in a war machine,
> like in the Second World War, seems to be no longer
> required. To successfully prosecute its war, ruling
> classes across the world need us to stay passive in
> our daily lives far from the battlefields.
>
> To stop war in these times means sabotaging the smooth
> running of the basis of the war machine at home. The
> shopping mall, the factory, the office and the pub are
> just as much a part of the war machine as the
> recruiting office, barracks or ADFA. We must go beyond
> the spectacle of rallies and demonstrations - they are
> a good beginning but a poor end. Howard and Bush count
> on opposition to the war to otherwise not affect their
> ability to wage war. This is risky for their side as
> it depends upon the anti-war movement not growing into
> rebellion against the world of work and war.
>
> As capitalism is everywhere, and this war is an
> expression of the current capitalist crisis, then our
> opposition and subversion of the war must find a home
> everywhere. Strikes & occupations of workplaces,
> schools & universities; The widest possible
> dissemination of anti-war & anti-capitalist
> propaganda; Graffiti where ever a hand can reach;
> Disruption & occupations of military recruitment
> centres & other military facilities. These and other
> direct actions are the only way to bring this war to
> an end.
>
> Already recruitment centres have been destroyed in
> Bristol in the U.K., and Indianapolis and San Jose in
> the U.S. Air bases have been invaded in Ireland and
> England. Train drivers in Scotland recently refused to
> transport war materiel. At the January demo in San
> Fransisco where 100,000 marched against the war, 2000
> people broke away and went on a rampage against the
> symbols of a world order that has most to benefit from
> this war - Starbucks, McDonalds, Nike, the British
> Consulate and the Immigration and Naturalisation
> Service were the targets of a fury that wont stop at
> bringing just this war to an end, but the entire
> system of degradation, humiliation and exploitation of
> the human spirit.
>
> canberratreason@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
> =====
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