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STATEMENTS BY REVOLUTIONARY LIBERTARIAN SOCIALIST GROUPS AT THE START OF WORLD WAR IIISeptember 11 prompted statements by many of the groups and journals in our segment of the political spectrum, the revolutionary collectivists. In general the passages selected from the ten available in mid-October come from the concluding paragraphs where the authors make their point about the capitalist cause of what our rulers choose to call terrorist acts and about the revolutionary solution: the abolition of capitalism and the state. (From internet website, no date) The War Comes Home ... The US government and many Americans have made it clear that they believe that further war-making and "retaliation" are the way to prevent more bloodshed. But such actions will only result in the killing of more innocent civilians in other countries, increased hatred for the United States government and artned forces abroad, and, perhaps, other attacks on American civilians in this country and elsewhere. And it is likely that an increased concern for "security" will lead to restrictions on the freedom of Americans, by broadening the power of government to monitor our communications and transactions and control our activities and movements. It is disheartening that go many who are themselves grieving for victims of violence seem to envision more international slaughter and less domestic freedom as the only ways to respond. People need to realize that we will see an end to the ongoing terror only when the massive military establishment in this country is dismantled and those who rule the United States are no longer able to bully the rest of the world as well. -- The Bad Brigade http://world.std.com/~bbrigade/ (From Internationalist Perspective leaflet, no date) The Reality of the "First War of the Twenty-First Century" ... The atrocity perpetrated on September 11, and the atrocities to come in this first war of the twenty-first century, are the product of the profit-system, of capitalism, and will only disappear when that system does too. This is a war that those who grasp the link between the carnage in New York and capitalism must resist, even as we recognize that the terrorists who unleashed it are themselves the barbaric embodiment of the same civilization that has produced the rage and desperation from which it sprang.
--INTERNATIONALIST PERSPECTIVE (From De Leonist Society of Canada leaflet, 1984) Terrorism: Can It Be Ended? There is a idea in this ongoing "battle of ideas" that has been struggling against great odds to make itself known, an idea that must win out if mankind is to be saved from terrorism and much else that threatens to demoralize and destroy. It is the De Leonist Society's program of Socialist Industrial Unionism, a program of working class political and economic organization for a JUST social order--socialist industrial democracy. The biggest hope for tomorrow is that workers in North America will begin looking into this program today. The biggest blow against terrorism in the world would be the socialist reconstruction of society on this continent. There is no time to lose! The De Leonist Society of Canada, (From Workers' Solidarity leaflet, no date) AGAINST THE MADNESS ... Those who can end terror and war are those who are forced to die in it and produce it, the working class, both here in the U.S. and in the "enemy" countries. Even in the midst of the madness ve hear some voices calling for a new peace movement. Building on the recent mobilizations against corporate control, activists serious about blocking further destruction must reach out to, and more importantly, listen to working people. Workers serious about fighting for a society without bosses must not fall prey to the current jingoism, and war drumming. The real war for us must be class war, not military conflict. As body bags begin to pile up, it is also time for workers and anti-militarists to talk with each other, work together in an effort to end the mad rush to possible world destruction. As workers and peace activists, we must continue to build links across borders and cooperate with, not as some will advocate, agents of local elites and would-be States, but those fighting for liberation from fear, violence and oppression. Working cooperatively, resisting cooperatively, the working class can and will end the cycle of violence and oppression. For Liberty, For Peace, For Revolution Workers Solidarity Alliance, e-mail: wsany@hotmail.com (From International Bureau for a Revolutionary Party leaflet, September 2001) U.S.A COALITION DECLARES WAR ON THE WORLD ... The decay of capitalist civilisation has been evident for the best part of a century. The unspeakable horrors of the First and Second World Wars, the organised brutality of concentration and other death camps, the bloody regional war fought with the highest technology at the expense of the most impoverished workers, the fire bombing of Dresden, the carpet bombing of Cambodia and, of course, the use of the atomic bombs were all part of imperialist barbarism before these most recent abominations. It is a naive illusion to believe that such a system can bring peace and prosperity to the world. Only the international working class, once aware of its own interests, is capable of changing the world. We have no interest in supporting either side in this "new war" - if the ruling class has its way our only role will be as victims and cannon-fodder. All the bourgeois factions whether US-led, national liberationist or Islamist are equally against the working class. Only by paralysing these forces and politically defeating all the irrational ruling class ideologies will we be able to create a world without war, exploitation and terror. Socialism or Barbarism. There is no third road. Down with Nationalism http://space.tin.it/computer/naestefa/Inglese/doc/usa_coalition_declares_war.htm International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (From the New Unionist [New Union Party], October 2001) U.S. Population Pays the Price for Rulers' Actions Abroad ... The immediacy of the suffering of the Palestinian people and other oppressed nationalities will of course make them impatient and angry with the political backwardness of the workers of the U.S., Israel and other imperialist nations, and the temptation will be great to see them as part of the enemy camp. But the fact remains that an international working class movement is the only force capable of overcoming the injustices endemic to the international capitalist system. Political organization and action, as necessary as they are to change society, are not enough: Alone they only result in exchanging one set of crooks for another. To enact a thorough-going change from the grassroots up, the workers must also organize economically, into an all-inclusive industrial union. It is this workplace-based organization that can give the people direct democratic control over their own labor and the product of their labor, becoming in the process the nation's new form of government. Industrial organization also gives the people a power base to back up their political will, a power that succeeds where the force of armed violence and terrorism fails. The hallmark of the workers' movement must be the rejection of violence and terror as weapons of liberation. It is political and industrial organization that will destroy the exploitation and oppression of capitalism. New Unionist, 1821 University Ave. W., Suite S-116, Saint Paul, MN 55104 (From Socialist Standard [Socialist Party of Great Britain] October 2001) Terrorism versus Terrorism ... The solution to the ongoing insanity, we insist, remains the same. There is one world and we exist as one people in need of each other and with the same basic needs. There is fat more that unites us than can ever divide us along cultural, nationalistic or religious lines. Together we can create a civilisation worth living in, but before that happens we need the conscious cooperation of ordinary people across the world, united in one common cause - to create a world in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation, a world without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders and a world in which production is at last freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the good of humanity - socialism. Socialist Standard, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN, U.K. (From Internationalism leaflet, September 16, 2001) WORLD CAPITALISM LEADS HUMANITY INTO A FUTURE OF BARBARISM ... The workers of the world have no state or country to defend. Against the war cries of our exploiters, against their sordid attempt to distort the genuine drive towards human solidarity into the most despicable nationalist chauvinism, our only interest is to revive the class war against exploitation, and finally to put an end to this so-called "capitalist civilization" that is pushing humanity towards barbarism and the destruction of humanity. Internationalism, (From The People, [Socialist Labor Party] October 2001) Socialists Condemn Terrorist Attacks ... The roots of terrorism in the modern world will not be found in the mountains of Afghanistan. They are embedded in the soil of a social system that bears terrorism as one of its fruits. Rooting out terrorism, whether perpetrated by a political state armed with sophisticated weapons or by some sect of self-anointed avengers, will take much more than a few bombs tossed in the wrong direction. The root of terrorism in the modern world is capitalism, a system that, "foments civilization, and yet ... incites to barbarism," as Daniel De Leon once observed. There is no need to track down terrorism, but the need to root it out is urgent. The People, PO Box 218, Mountain View, CA 94042 (From Internationalist Notes, 4th Quarter 2001)
World Trade Center Bombing : Workers should not be suckered into uniting with our bosses and exploiters either under the flag or religion! We should organize to wage the only struggles, the only war worth fighting, THE CLASS WAR! This is the war of wage workers against their capitalist exploiters. The world's workers should unite for the mass struggle and revolution to overthrow capitalism! We conclude with a good question to ponder: "What evokes greater horror: instantly snuffing out thousands of lives in this country to destroy centers of financial and military might, or slowly snuffing out millions of lives around the world to maintain centers of financial and military might?" Internationalist Notes, PO Box 57483, Los Angeles, CA 90057 (From International Communist Current Leaflet October 8, 2001)
The Only Answer to Imperialist War : ... Humanity is not faced with the alternatives of war and peace. It is faced with the alternative between an insane spiral of imperialist wars and the development of the class war, between the descent into barbarism and the victory of the communist revolution. This was the alternative announced by Lenin and Luxemburg in 1914, and answered by the strikes, mutinies and revolutions which brought an end to the first imperialist world war. After almost a hundred years of capitalist decadence and self-destruction, that alternative stands before us with even sharper clarity today. Against capitalism, which is responsible for the wars, the poverty, the famines and all the barbarism in the world today, the slogans which have always belonged to the workers' movement have never been more relevant: WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! THE EMANCIPATION OF THE WORKING CLASS IS THE TASK OF WORKERS THEMSELVES! Write to: BM Box 869, London WC1N 3XX
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