The ALP is a War Party but what can you do?

The Australian government has announced that it is providing $4.6 billion to a private company in the UK to develop its manufacturing capability. Ostensibly, this is to facilitate a future delivery of ballistic missile submarines for the Australian Navy. No one is saying whether the expectation is that the submarines delivered will be nuclear capable. It would be naive to believe that they wouldn't be.

This follows a similar investment made into US naval ship yards which facilitates building more new ballistic submarines for the US navy. Australia may be able to inherit some second hand submarines from the US as a reward for this subservience.

This is approaching a $10 billion commitment to a future weapons platform that is according to Richard Marles, Minister of Defence in the war party.:

"These are the most complex machines that humanity have ever built"

Marles is saying that the pinnacle of human achievment is to be able to manufacture a weapons platform with the purpose of engaging in armed warfare.

Somehow doing this will increase the capability of Australian industry and create jobs for Australians in the war industry.

This is a diversion of the creativity of Australian labour against itself and against our sisters and brothers in the Global South. Its an investment in war and a global system that perpetuates colonialism.

Its a travesty that the policy makers of the ALP fund preparation for war and fund the industrialisation of war with the justification that it means jobs and the development of Australian industry. Australian workers do not wish to be part of creating the tools of the next war, they would much prefer building peace. The money sent overseas to build weapons platforms could be better invested in developing the transition to a carbon free future in Australia.

There is conflict in the world and there are contending ideologies, and yet the common interest of ordinary people is always to avoid war, to not be involved.

The people do not want war, and yet it is forced on us. The first point of resistance is to oppose conscription.

At some point, ordinary people realise that no matter what reason is given for war it is they who suffer the greatest loss. And it is ordinary people who survive war, who live with its aftermath. The people survive war.

Revolutionary Defeatism

V.I. Lenin is often credited with advancing the concept of revolutionary defeatism during WW1. It was the most advanced position of resistance to war. It proposed that the interests of ordinary peope would be better served by ending the war irrespective of which side might be deemed as having been declared the winner. It advocated acting against the interests of the state, for mutiny in the armed forces and non-participation in national wars. The scale of casualties incurred during WW1 can never be justified in any nationalist terms. All nations suffered catastrophic loss of life. Australia may have an ANZAC story but it should not be glorified. The loss of lives has never been justified, except that it was war. There was no purpose for the loss of millions of lives except imperial ambition.

Capitalism might wish to characterise its role in war as legitimate - i.e. war shouldn't be run at a loss - War is profitable. The destruction of human life, habitat and environment is actually the outcome, rebuilding is profitable.

It is unreasonable to ask any humanist to participate in war, its preparation, or its manufacture. It is a human right to oppose war - if you assert it.

War is now Out Sourced

Professional armies are deployed by rich nations to continue colonial exploitation. The repetitive failure of forward deployments of the imperialist West should indicate some fundamental faults in the system and yet they are duplicated in a strangely destructive cycle. And the profits of the industrial war machine correlate with the body counts.

The government pays for employment in the war industries. Ordinary people are coerced into supporting war - when they do not want to be part of it. We need to start saying no and support others who say no.

Some Will Be Seduced by the money

The war machine is profitable. There is a lot of liquidity. People you know may be offered better pay to work in the war industries. When survival is determinable, people choose.

We have to convince them that there are alternatives - equally satisfying or better.  The people do not want war. No ongoing conflict should continue without a democratic vote. No Australian personnel should be put in harms way without a vote in parliament.

War is such a stupid thing that it should not be allowed easily. It should be resisted.

War is about capital, it is about who owns it and who exploits it

Hell no - we won't go.