Friday 29th of March 2024

war porn ....

war porn ....

Ruling classes around the world have their national myths. These attempt to tie working people to the capitalist class through the false idea of nationhood, itself a recent historical development.

The Australian version of this national myth is ANZAC Day. It is supposedly the day Australia became a nation. It celebrates the day on which began the defeat of Australia’s and other countries’ invading troops at Gallipoli in Turkey in 1915.

It is important to understand the historical context around the establishment of this day. The first ANZAC Day was held in 1916. The war to end all wars was bogged down in bloody slaughter. In Australia support for the imperialist adventure was split.

Many workers remembered the bitter class battles of the 1890s and the depression that drove large numbers into poverty.

Workers had ignored Federation, despite the cheer squads of Australian capitalism attempting to use that event to glue workers to the system and the exploitation that arises from it. For many workers class was the most important determinant of loyalty.

The war further exacerbated class divisions.

Many rejected outright participation in the battle between two competing imperialisms. Others, influenced by the Labor Party, supported it but opposed conscription.

The class still had a memory of internationalism, and the impending outbreak of revolutions across Europe (including the German revolution, which ended Germany’s war) would only further reinforce this sense of class solidarity across borders and against the common enemy – capital.

Here in Australia the divisions were highlighted by the rapid growth of the Industrial Workers of the World, a revolutionary group committed to a democratic society without bosses. Indeed the “Wobblies” were such a threat that the police and security forces framed leading members for arson, and the state made being a member illegal, closed down their press and finally outlawed the organisation itself.

Conscription was the issue that saw class divisions come out most starkly in Australia. Working people and their parties opposed conscription, and defeated both referendums on the issue. The ALP split, with the forces around Billy Hughes going over to join the Conservatives and form a Government.

In 1917 there was a general strike in New South Wales. Overseas the Tsar’s regime in Russia collapsed after a five-day strike begun by women workers on International Working Women’s Day.

The first ANZAC Day in 1916 was an attempt to divert anger away from the capitalist class to those who were “disloyal”. It was also an important part of the pro-conscription propaganda.

An immediate concern the ruling class had was that disaffected soldiers – and there were many, having witnessed the reality of war – would link up with the radical sections of society. ANZAC Day deliberately offered them an alternative, an alternative that celebrated their role and remembered those who died rather than questioning why war occurred and why workers died for profits.

In fact, class polarisation (which reached its apogee in 1917 in Russia with the working class taking power on 7 November) continued in Australia and elsewhere for a number of years after 1916 and 1917. This saw ANZAC Day almost disappear in the early 1920s.

It revived after that as the revolutionary tide ebbed (exemplified by the rise of Stalin in Russia and Stalinism elsewhere). The forerunner of the RSL rebuilt itself by setting up clubs and pubs and helping returned servicemen and women (especially during the Depression).

World War II saw the idea of Australia, as a nation, “arrive” (and also boosted the popularity of ANZAC Day).

The sense of class and internationalism lost its way under Stalinism. In Australia the Communist Party wrapped itself in the flag of patriotism to fight the fascists. In fact World War II was among other things a repeat of World War I – the clash of two blocs of imperialism.

The Australian ruling class has always had an imperialist “protector”. This used to be Britain and is now the US. As part of the ruling class’s desire to be the major imperialist power in the region, they have attached themselves and us to a powerful ally which will enable them to carry out that role and to ‘protect’ the Australian ruling class from invaders who don’t.

To do that the ruling class here must pay its dues, its insurance policy. That is why Australia have a long history of following ‘our’ ally into imperialist adventures around the world.

From Sudan in 1885 to Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003 we have participated in a large number of foreign wars to help keep the UK and the US on side with our own expansionist project.

Iraq and Afghanistan were about showing to the US the Australian ruling class’s commitment to the alliance and to allow its own role in the region – East Timor, the Solomon islands, PNG for example – to continue.

The disguised defeat that is Afghanistan sees all the troops except a few advisers on the way out of the country. For what? What did the 39 dead Australians die for?

Gallipoli itself is an example of Australia’s ongoing imperialist view of the world. We were part of a force that invaded a country that we had no quarrel with and which did not threaten us.

ANZAC Day also performs another function.

War is an integral part of capitalism and imperialism. Most people’s initial reaction is to recoil from war and all the horror it brings. ANZAC Day downplays that horror and makes war acceptable.

It is propaganda to allow the ruling class to call on the next generation of workers to join the war effort if needed.

And it may divert people’s attention away from immediate economic concerns – I may be losing my house or job but at least we diggers are good fighters and I am so proud my son or daughter was in Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or East Timor. Or the Solomon Islands.

As Tony Abbott prepares to spend $12 billion on useless fighter jets and up to $30 billion on submarines while at the same time he attacks Medicare, Universities, jobs, wages, unions, pensions, disability pensions, legal aid, Aboriginal communities, scientific research, and spending on social services, remember this. We are not all in this together. ANZAC Day is cover for these attacks on the poor and workers. It celebrates an imperialist war to divert attention away from the one sided class war the rich have waged against us for the last 32 years and to prepare us for future wars and justify our ruling class’s imperialist expansion in the region.

The less bread we get the more circuses they put on.

ANZAC Day – less bread means more circuses

 

je suis Scott McIntyre ….

Scott McIntyre is, or rather was, until ANZAC Day, a sports reporter at Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service. He tweeted a number of truths about war and the war porn week we have had to endure celebrating the defeat of Australian colonialism at Gallipoli.  According to Michaela Whitburn at the Sydney Morning Herald he said:

McIntyre, a soccer reporter and presenter, referred to some Australians marking Anzac Day as “poorly-read, largely white, nationalist drinkers and gamblers” on his officially verified Twitter account on Saturday night.

“Remembering the summary execution, widespread rape and theft committed by these ‘brave’ Anzacs in Egypt, Palestine and Japan,” he wrote to his 30,000 followers.

“Not forgetting that the largest single-day terrorist attacks in history were committed by this nation & their allies in Hiroshima & Nagasaki.”

He also said: ‘The cultification of an imperialist invasion of a foreign nation that Australia had no quarrel with is against all ideals of modern society.’

He also posted this photo.

 

je suis Scott McIntyre ….

 

Under it he wrote: ‘Innocent children, on the way to school, murdered. Their shadows seared into the concrete of Hiroshima.’

SBS sacked him.  There are two issues here.

First, McIntyre was telling his version of the truth, a version much closer to reality than the war porn about ANZAC Day the Australian ruling class has force fed us over the last week.

Second, sacking McIntyre explodes the lie of the ruling class that our participation in this imperialist war was about defending freedom and democracy then and now.

Of course sacking McIntyre will please a lot of people who would never watch the ‘multicultural’ SBS.  That shows how great the task of the left is to have our voice and with it our truth in the wider public arena heard.

The degeneration of mainstream media to become nothing other than a mouthpiece for neoliberalism and jingoism (with the occasional meek and mild non-conformist asking permission to politely disagree with the tsunami of ruling class lies) goes hand and hand with the two party coalition of Labor and Liberals over how to address the underlying problems of capitalism by making the poor and working class bear the burden. The one sided class war has produced little working class response over the last 32 years, in the main because their living standards have been increasing or their debt levels have been increasing to give the impression of increasing living standards.  Now that living standards are falling or at least looking like they will fall, that could change.

My union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, represents journalists at SBS. It is a weak union in a time of generalised working class inactivity and inaction. Its leadership will do nothing to defend McIntyre, despite the obvious threat his sacking poses to independent thinking  and questioning authority in the mainstream media.

The relevant Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, the darling of the Liberal left, condemned McIntyre’s tweets.  He tweeted (before McIntyre was sacked):

Difficult to think of more offensive or inappropriate comments than those by @mcintinhos. Despicable remarks which deserve to be condemned.

There is nothing despicable about McIntyre’s remarks. In a world of truth they would have been unremarkable.  Turnbull’s comments were a subtle direction to SBS to sack him. No doubt the Free Speech Commissioner, Mr what’s his name thingamejig, will be on to it straight away. [Sarcasm for those who can’t spot it.]

According to Rebecca Sullivan in the Herald Sun SBS Managing Director Michael Ebeid and Director of Sport Ken Shipp, after sacking McIntyre, said, among other things:

SBS apologises for any offence or harm caused by Mr McIntyre’s comments which in no way reflect the views of the network. SBS supports our Anzacs and has devoted unprecedented resources to coverage of the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings.

The truth causes offence or harm? Perhaps the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves … In other words rabid nationalism, jingoism and celebrating white men is systemic and encouraged from above by the politicians and the capitalist media and hence exists in much of civil society when class struggle is non-existent.

Equally problematic is the fact that SBS felt the need to both ‘support our ANZACs’ and to proudly proclaim it. One important point for serious journalism even within capitalism is to challenge the status quo. This is especially the case for a station established to challenge the white nationalist view of Australia. Now that white nationalist world view has infected SBS.

We live in the age of untruths. As George Orwell wrote: In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act. We on the left must keep telling the truth and continue building the resistance to the parliamentary liars and bosses’ bigots who attack workers’ jobs, living standards, health and education, and the poor. That way we can help create oases of our truth in the desert of their lies.

Evidently the ANZACs died for free speech, except at SBS

the decline of the empire...

Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, was much in key with the French writers' preoccupation with Enlightenment and Reason, and their dismissal of historical and religious myth. The Decline and Fall, sceptical, lucid and throuroughly researched treated history as — in Gibbon's own words — "little more than the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind". Despite opposition from churchmen the book was immediately successful and made Gibbon famous. 

                          Frank Muir (The Frank Muir Book)

 

Gus: Gibbon used irony in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire... 

 

See also: 

free speech isn't free...

created more problems than it solved...

 

William McGurn wants Americans to feel bad about ending the unnecessary wars their government has waged on their behalf:

In the 40 Aprils that have come and gone since, Vietnam has become shorthand for a political orthodoxy built on the idea that American military intervention overseas creates more problems than it solves. This thinking feeds an entire industry pumping out tedious lectures about “The Lessons of Vietnam.”

Still, the most obvious lesson of Vietnam is the one hardly ever acknowledged: the terrible price paid—human as well as strategic—when America loses a war.

If this lesson of the Vietnam War is “hardly ever acknowledged,” it is probably not one of the “most obvious” ones available. This lesson is probably not acknowledged very often because it is untrue. In almost all cases, American military intervention in the last half century has created more problems than it solved

Bold by Gus. read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-obvious-lessons-of-the-vietnam-war/