HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEWS? (ZOOM)

 Socialism From the Barrel of a Gun

Executive Action

Whine of drones is a clear indication

Diplomacy is not being considered.

Legitimacy’s readily deferred

Concerning judgement of a rogue nation.

It’s the will of the Commander in Chief

That can decide upon robust action

To eliminate a capital faction,

Disregarding the terror and the grief.

Borders are not sacrosanct boundaries,

Sovereignty not so sovereign after all.

Which governments rise, succeed or fall

Is subject to the markets’ vagaries.

Sound of drones is sycophants eulogising

The great leader whose stock, it seems, is rising.

D. A.   

Writers, even non sci-fi ones, who want to infer a dystopian future or society signal that by setting the story in a far off time. There are exceptions. William Morris’s very opposite of dystopian News from Nowhere is set in 2102.

Metropolis the German Fritz Lang of 1927 is set in 2026. Ray Bradbury’s 1950 There Will Come Soft Rains about nuclear destruction and its aftermath in California is set in 2026.

Anyone wishing for a peaceful New Year is already on a sticky wicket. The Russian/Ukrainian conflict continues with there still remaining some doubt as to whether a decapitation strike was attempted on President Vladimir Putin just before the old year’s close. The odds of a major flare up in the Middle East are astronomically high. There are flashpoints all over the place just waiting to burst out into open battle.

One of the most dangerous states in the world, one perusing capitalist ends with military force to achieve its aims of taking and controlling resources, looking to extend its geopolitical power and attempting to squash other capitalist competitors, is the USA. Its illegal attack upon Venezuela and its elected President is just another oil and other resources grab. Whether nationalism will rear it head and resistance will occur from within or whether the population sigh with relief and embrace, even if not enthusiastically, the puppet regime the Americans impose on Venezuela remains to be seen.

Whatever the outcome the circumstances of the vast majority will remain unaltered: continued exploitation by a ruling property owning class, and assets and wealth transferring to a powerful minority.

 ‘Happy New Year!’ exhortations are beginning to fly around. What’s the ‘Happy’ you are trying to convey to whoever is on the receiving end of one of this time limited urges? Happiness is subjective anyway and whatever event provides it for one person may not do so for another. Money can’t necessarily provide happiness it’s said, but for those who don’t have enough of it the expression miserable but rich as opposed to happy and poor would win hands down. In a capitalist society, money, either the surfeit or the lack of it, goes a long way toward determining one’s mental make up. So do you really expect that the forthcoming new year will provide you with positive benefits over and above ones you already enjoy assuming you believe you have some?

At this period in time just before the calendar clicks over there will be lots of pundits, experts, influencers, media personalities and others, keen to suppose what may occur in the new months ahead. In the majority of cases one might as well take Mystic Meg seriously.

The crystal ball will be perused for ideas in various fields, sporting, economic, political, geopolitical, and cultural. Educated guesses based upon existing data may prove to be close to the mark. Some events will provide the kicking from the capitalist system, the football world cup for instance. Which not only distracts but also reinforces nationalist fervour. Double win for capitalism.

Propaganda machinery in the UK will have to work hard in May when local elections occur except a large number of voters have already been disenfranchised by the ruling Party who worry about the kicking it can expect there.

Internationally, there will be the continuance of existing conflicts and new conflicts exploding around the planet. These will likely be driven by the thirst for resources and profit made by carious capitalist entities. The race for hegemony in various spheres of the globe will continue.

Attacks on free speech and the imposition of more and more censorship will gain ground everywhere because capitalism can’t lose control of the peasants revolting.

What will be the response when, in twelve months time, the question is posed, what did 2026 ever do for us? Hopefully the answer may surprise us especially those who view its beginning through cynical and jaundiced eyes.

But without eschewing a plethora of cliches, each of which proves the point that nothing happens with effort, and whether you believe that making new year resolutions are helpful, the goal, the focus, the point has to be ‘make capitalism history.’ Let’s rid ourselves of capitalism before capitalism rids itself of all of us.

Lions led by donkeys is a phrase that’s been used many times. ‘Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used it on 27 September 1855, in an article published in Neue Oder-Zeitung, No. 457 (1 October 1855), on the British military’s strategic mistakes and failings during the fall of Sevastopol, and particularly General James Simpson‘s military leadership of the assault on the Great Redan. ‘The joke making the rounds of the Russian army, that “L’armée anglaise est une armée de lions, commandée par des ânes” [“The English army is an army of lions led by asses”] has been thoroughly vindicated by the assault on Redan.’ ‘‘Wiki.

The asses, i.e. Generals, have beenhee hawing a lot recently. In a long list in 2025, is the Polish Chief of the General Staff General Wieslaw Kukula. The ‘adversary’, although he doesn’t specify who that is, it’s obvious who he’s finger pointing at, ‘has begun preparing for war” by creating the “conditions favourable to potential aggression on Polish territory.’

French General Fabien Mandonand, army chief-of-staff has “jeter un pavé dans la mare“ by telling French Mayors that ‘France’s biggest weakness in today’s dangerous times was the lack of a will to fight,’ oh and being prepared to see your children and grandchildren slaughtered. ‘’What we are lacking – and this is where you [the mayors] have a role to play – is the spirit. The spirit which accepts that we will have to suffer if we are to protect what we are. If our country wavers because it is not ready to lose its children…or to suffer If our country wavers because it is not ready to lose its children… or to suffer economically because the priority has to be military production, then we are indeed at risk. You must speak of this in your towns and villages.

The remarks were in line with other pronouncements the general has made, warning of a coming confrontation with Russia and stressing the need for psychological as well as economic and military preparation. For the far-right National Rally, Sébastien Chenu said the general had committed an “error” because he did not have the “legitimacy” to pronounce on such matters. But another senior figure Louis Aliot said it was “necessary to be ready to die for one’s country … if the war is just or to ensure the survival of the nation”.

“Our policy is to do everything to avoid war but at the same time prepare, and consolidate that collective moral force without which no nation can survive the test,” said Vautrin.

Other senior European defence figures have also warned of the need to prepare for a possible clash with Russia – particularly if it disengages from Ukraine following any peace deal. German defence minister Boris Pistorius told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that the general view had been that a Russian act of aggression could come from the year 2029. “But now some are saying that it could be envisaged from 2028 – and there are even experts who think we might have just lived through our last peacetime summer.”

We now have another ass, UK Chief of the Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton pushing the ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ line. he said ‘more people’ needed to be ready to take up arms to protect the country. British families must be prepared to send their sons and daughters to war against Russia. Sir Richard called for schools to encourage children to take up jobs in the arms industry and said more British families will ‘know what sacrifice for our nation means’. Mail Online.No, it is not sweet and never has been to die for your country. Whose country is it anyway?

‘A shocking new forecast has emerged of how Vladimir Putin will trigger World War 3 in little over a year. Ukraine’s respected GUR military intelligence chief, Lt-Gen Kyrylo Budanov, claims to have inside knowledge of Russian battle plans. Putin intends to occupy three NATO and EU states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 2027, he said. Russia will also attack Poland – striking the country, but not immediately intending to invade it. “According to the main plan, the Russian Federation was supposed to be ready to start operations in 2030,” said Budanov, whose forces are behind many Ukrainian strikes on Putin’s territory. “Now the plans have been adjusted, revised towards reducing the deadlines to 2027,” he warned.’ Daily Express.

As someone famously said, he would say that wouldn’t he? They all, like the legacy media, are working to a coordinated script as are politicians who are likely in for a shock when push comes to shove because despite all the propaganda the majority will not be prepared to lay down their, or their children’s, lives for capitalism.

What should they be doing instead? Acquiring knowledge about socialism and kicking leaders and asses to the kerb.