Reply To: Venezuela
I also referred to the Right-wing who use the slogans “A Just War” and “humanitarian intervention” so we have to reach out to workers who fall for those concepts, as well.
I know it is not only ourselves that face this problem, after all, prevailing ideas in society are invariably the ruling class’s until we have the effective means to combat them in the battle of ideas.
Maybe we could design a banner that we can hold up when these pro-war supporters stage their marches.
But even so, only a very tiny number actually go on these demonstrations except for the very notable exception of 2003 anti-Iraq invasion one. It was a new experience for me not to have to explain to people I knew or worked with that the war had an economic cause. The war for oil argument couldn’t be defeated by all the government and media pro-war propaganda. Oil was widely recognized as the reason for UK/US involvement. But memories are short.
I don’t think generally there exists an appetite for military action of any sort, any where. It is one reason the emotive appeals to poison gas and civilian atrocities are more and more resorted to in attempts to build up a war fever. So yes, all we can do is keep responding with reasoned explanations of why the working class have no interests in war and should never take sides and maintain the case that it is the capitalists who declare war but the workers who die in them. But even so, every time there is a war or threat of war, I have this deja vu sensation of being there before.