I can easily identify with these two authors and their perspective as activists against an earlier war engaged in by the Empire--the Vietnam War. This war brought in a huge cross-section of young Americans by the ruling capitalist class to kill people in Indochina who had been fighting the French to gain independence. It was during the buildup to this war that saw other events that created opposition to the war from many sections of the society: the Cuban missile crisis, the Civil Rights Movement, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and many people in radical type organizations like the Black Panther Movement. While all of these events were contributing to a huge opposition to the war, the ruling capitalist class were learning many lessons from this experience which they then proceeded to implement in the years that followed.
There were two main lessons that resulted in profound changes in US society: increased control over media coverage by the capitalist class to transform mainstream media into a pure propaganda organ, and the embedding of a secret deep state to take direct control of the official organs of the nation, Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Supreme Court, whose independent powers were greatly diminished.
As a result of these changes, the ruling capitalist class, also known as the One Percent, have succeeded in engaging in military aggressions, directly or indirectly, against many countries across the globe without significant opposition from the well-indoctrinated people of the US. And, whenever the American people get tired of war, the ruling class will always whip them in line by creating new fears, new evils, and new bad guys that will come to the US and kill them. The 9/11 project was a hugely successful example of this. The creation of ISIS is the most recent illustration.
In this article the two authors demonstrate a clear understanding of the root causes of war in our era, and end on a note of hope:
Sadly, war will continue as long as capitalists run the country and the world.
War is highly profitable. And almost without competition. The carefully masked fascist war machine already controls the US government, it has already bribed government officials. The payoff comes with every new plane, ship, bomb, missile, mortar, gun, and bullet ordered by the military. Not to mention unlimited access to the US treasury.
The enemies of war are the people who value the lives of everyone’s children, their own lives, and the lives of animals, and the destiny of this planet—our only home. Precious as they are, they have no place in the current capitalist paradigm.
Yet they are the future of mankind.
They are the revolutionaries.
