Photo/Daymonjhartley.com
World War III is beginning. It is starting in the Middle East. The war being waged against Syria by the US and its allies is in fact a proxy war between the US on the one hand and Russia and China on the other. If we don’t act, the world war that is developing could well destroy humanity and the earth. The American people have the key role to play in stopping this war.
War is politics by other means. War is inevitable under capitalism because of the competition among capitalists. The world war now getting under way is about the competition between the US, Russia and China for markets and resources, and it is a struggle for survival among the world’s major capitalist classes. The competition among capitalist countries, and thus the drive toward war, is even more pronounced today than in the past because the world market continues to shrink as a result of advancing technology eliminating jobs.
The various wars and interventions by the US and its allies across North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, and the repositioning of US forces in the Pacific, is about encircling Russia and especially China militarily. It’s about disrupting markets for Russian and Chinese goods and controlling China’s energy supply. It’s about capturing markets for US corporations.
If the MidEast struggle continues to escalate, it will eventually lead to a nuclear war that will kill hundreds of millions and perhaps destroy the world.
This is not a question of which country to side with. No country is the “good guy” in this process. We must take the side of humanity against capitalism, against the greed and lust for power that would destroy humanity and the world.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2011—the most recent year available—the United States led the world in military spending at $711 billion, or 41 percent of the world total and more than the next 12 nations combined. The US investment in military spending not only helps fuel the drive toward war, it consumes resources we need for feeding people, ending poverty, providing health care and educating our people.
The American people can stop the coming world war. We can take our country away from the corporations and build a cooperative society. This is not a choice for the people, but a necessity, given that technology is wiping out jobs and markets and thus wiping out the foundation of capitalism. If we try to continue with capitalism and private property, then growing poverty, fascism, and another world war are inevitable.
If we in America take the political power away from the corporations and turn their private property into public property, we can build a cooperative society. By doing this, we can not only guarantee that our economic needs are met, we could literally save the world. Our daily struggles should be guided by the understanding that we are fighting for a cooperative society, and we should demand that our country’s resources be diverted from war to meeting our people’s basic needs. The future is up to us.
A MATRIOT’S PLEA
There’s not much that’s important at my age except making the world a better place.
What would I do?
I say we damn well better get out on the streets again.
Everyone has to put their hand to the wheel and get out and get off their butt like in the sixties. We had compassion then,
and we’ve lost it. It breaks my heart.
I’ve lived through two depressions, two of them. Everyone at that time was just sick about the way things were, just like now, only it’s worse now.
I see everything falling apart — People, starving on the streets. Children, beaten in their homes. Sick people without health care.
Imagine this, in a country that spends so much on the war machine.
I’d spend the money on health instead. I’d see that children are born healthy and make sure they stayed that way. All children no matter what age.
I’d clean the air, the water. I’d take away all that polluting shit they put on vegetables.
I’d promote the use of sun, sea, and wind for natural energy. I’d save the forests, especially the redwoods. I’d ban firearms.
I’d take away every nuclear device man to man.
No more wars, ever. Now we’re talking health.
How are we going to pay for all this?
No one ever says we don’t have enough money to go to war. No one ever says we don’t have money for national defense.
This is national defense
Frances Payne Adler 1992