Curiosity and War

Wake up and smell the rot

Most people who begin questioning the world do not start with books or political theory. They start with a moment. Something shifts for them. It may be their specific experience or circumstances, an injustice they have witnessed or a piece of information appears that cannot be unseen. For many the Epstein files are that spark; they realise the depraved and corrupt conduct of powerful people, of the entire establishment, once dismissed as rumour or exaggeration, is real. That the system is less stable, less moral and far less trustworthy than we were brainwashed into believing.

When that moment arrives, it’s like someone prodding you awake. Curiosity follows, questions spring to mind and consciousness grows. Why are things the way they are? Who benefits? Is there an alternative to the crooked capitalist system? If ‘they’ lied about everything else, could socialism be the solution?

It is from this place of curiosity that we should look at the growing talk of war.

At the Munich Security Conference this weekend, Keir Starmer pompously pontificated: “We must be ready to fight. To do whatever it takes to protect our people, our values and our way of life.” Knowing what we all now know about the ruling elite, we have to question to whom his ‘our’ is referring. The priorities discussed at the conference are certainly not the same as those faced by workers struggling with energy bills, rent and food.

In the same speech, Starmer described Russia as having made a “strategic blunder” yet warned that a peace deal in Ukraine could make the situation more dangerous. Read that slowly. Peace, he suggested, could increase the threat. When peace is framed as risky and war preparation as sensible, something fundamental has shifted. As the very fabric of the capitalist economic system crumbles and the curtain of their deceit has lifted, the fundamental shift is their guaranteed position as the ruling minority. From their perspective, something must be done!

We have to learn that societies are guided toward confrontation over time not through sudden announcements, but through language, repetition and normalisation. The steady introduction of the idea that conflict is inevitable provides the framework for our consent to austerity for security, and death and destruction for King and country.

The contradiction in western rhetoric is becoming clearer, don’t you think? If our leaders insist our economies and alliances are vastly stronger than rivals why at the same time do they call for emergency spending, rapid militarisation and long-term mobilisation. If the situation is so secure, why the urgency? If the opponent is weak, why the fear?

The truth is that Europe and the wider western world are inundated with uncertainty. Energy systems have been disrupted, economies teeter and supply chains are strained. Now governments speak openly about rebuilding military production, expanding defence industries and redirecting public spending on a scale not seen for generations but it’s all a lot too late.

Recent projections suggest that Britain alone may commit hundreds of billions of pounds to defence and security infrastructure over the next fifteen years. New bases, weapons factories, transport networks designed for military movement, and advanced technologies are all planned and are already being presented as necessary and unavoidable. But every pound spent in this direction comes from somewhere: inevitably public services, wages and taxes, and living standards. More bluntly – the working class, us!

War, or the preparation for it, reshapes societies long before the first shot is fired. It changes priorities, justifies surveillance, censorship and restrictions and concentrates power. It also redirects wealth and to make that all possible, public opinion must be manipulated and managed. The guns are not yet firing, but the targeting has begun, and the first territory to be occupied is our minds.

Expect increased hostility toward migrants and minorities. Expect constant media stories portraying rival countries as existential threats. Expect appeals to patriotism and ‘national values’. Expect military careers to be promoted as opportunity. Expect economic hardship to be blamed on outsiders or global instability rather than domestic policy. Most importantly, expect fear. Fear is the fuel of compliance because it discourages our questioning, narrows our imagination and persuades us to accept conditions they we would otherwise reject. If you are still numbly imbibing western propaganda the moulding of your mind is already well underway.

This is why awareness matters. The ability to notice patterns and to recognise when language is being used to steer your emotion. Always ask yourself some basic questions: who benefits, who pays, who decides and who dies? Also worth considering how those who pretend to defend working class values propose achieving it. Loosely, Reform, the Greens, Your Party, the Workers Party and others all suggest that their interests lie with levelling the field. That a vote for them is a vote for equality and justice for workers. It’s like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic: it doesn’t matter where you sit, you’re screwed. The only way to save ourselves is to get off the sinking ship! Any party or individual who maintains a pretence that the existing immoral capitalist system is redeemable is an integral part of the corruption. 

History shows that outcomes are not fixed and ordinary people can change the direction of travel. Look what the Russians achieved in 1917, revolution in the midst of WW1. When enough people recognise what is happening, when they refuse to be manipulated by fear or division, the course of events can shift. It does not require expertise, it requires attention. It requires conversations in workplaces, homes and communities. It requires refusing to see other ordinary people, in other countries as enemies. Above all, it requires staying awake, being curious, conscious and considered because our greatest danger is not conflict itself but sleepwalking toward it. We are being guided, slowly and steadily, toward a cliff edge. The language of defence, security, responsibility and stability is used to disguise the direction of travel. The task before us is simple but vital: to see clearly, to think independently and to refuse to be pushed.

We have been so steeped in propaganda that we have lost faith in ourselves. We are not individuals, we are the working class. Our true identity, our power, lies in the fact that we form the greatest class in society. We who produce the wealth, who make society function. We who simply have to massage the muscle memory of a generation or two past, our grandparents, who understood that the power of the technocrats, oligarchs, financiers are no match for a working class that is united and determined. The power of the propaganda machine hitherto has been to deny us that secret. 

The future does not have to be shaped by those who hold power now, but by those who recognise what is happening, who unite and who choose not to comply.