If it’s to provide opposition to Russian aggression, that is something that should be done. I am fully behind opposing fascism and imperialism.
‘social’ patriotism is still fascism. the proletariat have nothing to gain in a war waged under capitalism. you can oppose the war without supporting the military-industrial complex. revolutionary defeatism remains as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago.
just as then, this clash of civilisations narrative is creating a left-to-right pipeline and disappearing comrades into militaries or (if they refuse) prisons. anticapitalism is being sidelined for ‘national unity’ and ‘social cohesion’. money that previously didn’t exist is now allocated to US-bound tributes and funding for corporations which are in the business of fucking killing people, to support the nationalist programme of a Banderite State as these two capitalist countries grind each other’s lower classes against each other. surveillance becomes a ‘necessity’ to defeat the Evil Nonwhite (read: Nonhuman) Hordes. the Bad Refugees need to be expelled to make space for the Good Refugees. housing and funding for refugees and integration programmes suddenly materialises, and these Good Refugees get expedited (and sometimes exclusive) access to such help. literal nazi ideology and dogwhistles are rehabilitated to make all this more palatable.
where is the antiïmperialism in this? where’s the antifascism? i am convinced militarist-patriotic ‘left’-ists don’t personally know any comrades from Ukraine.
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/evasions-on-the-left-over-ukraine
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/aotearoa-workers-solidarity-movement-the-betrayal-of-donbas-no-war-but-class-war
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-anarchist-antimilitarism-and-myths-about-the-war-in-ukraine
i see. so we must escalate the security dilemma and bolster the capitalist military to defeat the Oriental Hordes to protect our managers’ very peaceloving and democratic ways of life. only once the capitalists have installed someone nicer to manage the Orient can we hope to return to begging the capitalists to relinquish their weapons and their power, of which they now have more of, and which many more people have been integrated into. in the meantime, leftists need to put their shit on hold. none of this will contribute to the rise of the far right or stoke xenophobic tendencies. i’m not a nationalist; joining the military is simply the forward-thinking thing to do. military service very famously attracts good people with good intentions. this is definitely not a right-wing position based in false consciousness and a Tom Clancy-esque view of geopolitics. this posturing has no relation to how we ended up in this situation. the fact that all of this benefits international capital is merely a coïncidence. mutually assured destruction means nothing to me.
with business going so well for the MIC, Gaza beach resorts should be open just in time for the postwar economy to swing back around! we could all use a little time in the sun after making everything worse.
/s
the military is not my/our tools. it’s the state’s tools.
our tools are being torn at to make way for a war economy, for a war that isn’t ours.
and if you tell me you’re not advocating for joining the military, then who does?