Class War is back
Everywhere there are, inexplicably, posters exhorting us to participate in a "stay at home street party" on behalf of the 75th anniversary of VE day. This, I am to believe, is a celebration. I don't really understand that. I can't relate to it any any meaningful level.
Of course on the simplistic level that most, unfortunately (yes, I am that arrogant), will indulge, I do understand. We beat the Germans! Like in the football twenty years later. We beat the Germans! We bombed their chip shops! Great. I hate fascism too - might be a tad trite to point out that not all Germans were Nazis! Yet here we are at a time when fascism has never been more of a threat and authoritarianism is ascendant. Our own leaders dress up in Reich party gear and crowds of misguided working class issue forth Nazi salutes, prostrating before Youtube reactionaries while voting for their own demise in a deceitful referendum.
Celebrate? Commiserate more like. I want nothing to do with some state led, and thus sanitised event mired in a selective remembrance. I feel much the same every November.
Our first clue: this is top down. It's a state led affair. Not some grassroots affair. I cannot see the working class wanting to organise something so vapid when there's more pressing affairs. So of course it's also a distraction. Focus on the flag, make everything great again. Put your faith in the channel of power that exists in this rotten state. Meanwhile our betters are abrogating their responsibilities to the rest of us. I will not be distracted.
It's state sanctioned imperialism. It exists, from the state, in the context of a country beggaring itself in the name of a shibboleth called Brexit. Isn't this just insulting? We spent four years being hectored by the lunatic fringe of the Tory party embarrassing themselves with ugly displays of nationalism and exceptionalism, belittling the likes of Germany. So now let's celebrate the 'ultimate victory' over them even though that was 75 years ago and the Germans of today are as repulsed by the Nazi regime as we are. Don't believe this is to celebrate freedom. It's to assert nationalism and patriotism. It's jingoism (of course there will always be well intended exceptions).
I hate all this stuff. It's not that I don't care about beating fascists, it's just that's not what this is celebrating. It isn't a sombre reflection on the end of a dark period. It's an excuse to wave a fucking flag. The most provocative thing any community can do. Grow the fuck up England! Anyway the modern military is just a political tool. Remember the story about squaddies using Jeremy Corbyn's face on a poster as target practice? What stupidity; it just shows what they are really about. The hired guns of the state kept servile by propaganda. Corbyn is dedicated to peace, but that's not profitable so literally shoot bullets at his face! Get them while they are young - like the tobacco industry.
In this context I won't be celebrating. None of this should be celebrated. Yes, spare a thought for those lost in state initiated violence as well as those who died serving with noble intentions. Reflect always on the ultimate futility of wars, but never believe the lies when they come from the state. The Ministry of Defence is a chamber of horrors and a lifestyle for the fat-cat generals and politicians.
And yes I mean futility: 75 years of peace (except when it wasn't) thrown down the drain by Brexit and its money making exploiters. A society ripped apart with growing seeds of neo fascism - the roots of which have always been there, eagerly fanned by authoritarians across the country. Now they have reasserted their dominance.
This isn't celebrating the end of war; it's celebrating victory. There's a difference
Tommy can you hear me?
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