The lessons of the 2004 election must be drawn. The massive anti-war protest movement that erupted in the global demonstrations of February of 2003 was driven into a blind alley because it was channeled behind the Democratic Party and the campaign of its presidential candidate, John Kerry.
Workers and young people in the United States must link the struggle against war with the broad masses of working people around the world, who overwhelmingly oppose the Bush administration and the crimes of US imperialism.
The fight against war must be connected to a struggle against the attacks on the social conditions of the American people: the assault on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education and pensions, and the relentless attack on the jobs and wages of workers. It must also be linked to the defense of democratic rights, against the police-state policies of the government.
This means the struggle against war must be connected to a social policy directed to the defense of the interests of the working class — one that places human needs above the drive for profit and the accumulation of personal wealth: that is, a socialist policy.
- The material above is excerpted from articles published recently by the World Socialist Web Site, the Internet center of the Socialist Equality Party. For more information, please visit www.wsws.org daily, read our articles, contribute to the site, and contact us about building the SEP in the Pacific Northwest.
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I can understand why one might reasonably believe that replacing capitalism with a socialist system could be expected to eliminate social injustice within the society. But this expectation that it would also eliminate militarism and war puzzles me. WHY do you think that?
Yes of course, capitalist societies will fight wars for capitalist reasons just like feudal socieites fought wars for feudal reasons and Neolithic farming communities fought wars for reasons which made sense to them << remember, Jericho had a substantial town wall 7000 years ago -- and walls 20' high and 8' thick aren't to keep cattle from straying>> Capitalism can not be "the ultimate cause" why humans fight wars if wars predated capitalism (and of course they did).
So while I can't precisely explain the reasons why socialist societies might find what seem to them to be good reasons to make war upon one another that doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling that they would not. Can you give me a reason to be more optimistic, Noah? A reason beyond ideological faith?
PS --- That is NOT an argument in favor of retaining capitlaism. I am simply saying that we shouldn't expect more from socialism than the DIRECT benefits promised (elimination of inequity of distribution among the people of that society). Also promising to eliminate war or restore us humans to balance with the rest of Nature --- well it would be nice if these happened as a result but there is no good REASON to expect it.