Den svenska antimilitarismen

Panel arrangerad av tidningen Internationalen på årets SocForum i ABF-huset på Sveavägen den 29:e november ställde frågan ‘Vad hände med den svenska antimilitarismen?’:

Så här annonserades den:

“På årets Socialistiskt Forum anordnar Internationalen ett samtal om vad som hände med den socialistiska antimilitarismen? Håller vi på att få ett nytt ‘befäst fattighus’?

Deltagare är Håkan Blomqvist, historiker, Kajsa Ekis Ekman, journalist och författare och Jacob Johnson, tidigare riksdagsledamot för Vänsterpartiet.

Rapporter om krigets skoningslöshet och ohyggliga konsekvenser i Gaza och Ukraina når oss ständigt och den offentliga debatten i Sverige och Europa handlar alltmer om att förbereda för krig. Fem procent av BNP ska satsas på militär upprustning. Håller vi på att få ett nytt ‘befäst fattighus’? Är insikten om krigsmakten som en del av ‘den borgerliga staten’ borta nu liksom ‘Inte en man, inte ett öre till militarismen’? Var finns vänsterns och arbetarrörelsens motstånd i denna tid av skenande rustningar och Nato-anpassning? Hur ser sambandet mellan fred, antimilitarism och klasskamp ut 2025 – eller ska vänstern bejaka militära rustningar till demokratins försvar?”

Lyrics (Ferry)

Denna bok motiverades bl.a. av Ferrys missnöje med att folk ofta fann hans sångtexter felaktigt återgivna på internätet; han ansåg en definitiv, auktoritativ utgåva nödvändig:

Den publicerades 2022 av Chatto & Windus – sedan länge, fusionerat med Jonathan Cape, en del av Random House och därefter Penguin Random House, men kanske ändå fortfarande i någon mening Aldous Huxleys gamla förlag – med en introduktion av James Truman (NYT, Condé Nast) och ett förord av Ferry.

Konsultativ helprocess-demokrati

Radio Free Amanda (Amanda Yee) på PSL-knutna BreakThrough News intervjuar mångstädes publicerade Pawel Wargan om kinesisk konsultativ demokrati eller s.k. whole-process people’s democracy.

Intervjun föranleds av Wargans och antropologen Jason Hickels artikel ‘Building Whole-Process People’s Democracy in China’, nyligen publicerad av Progressive International. Man är inte helt övertygad om alla Hickels forskningsresultat, men han tycks inta rätta ståndpunkter i flera viktiga frågor.

Intervjuerna på Amandas The China Report föregås alltid av några minuters Kinarelaterade nyheter.

William Van Wagenen: Creative Chaos

Inside the CIA’s Covert War to Topple the Syrian Government

The Libertarian Institute, 2025

Amazon.com

Publisher’s Description:

In Creative Chaos, journalist and author William Van Wagenen tells the real story behind the U.S. and Israeli origins of Syria’s so-called “civil war” of 2011-2016 which led to the takeover of the country by Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) in 2024.

The book examines the U.S.’s role in instigating an al Qaeda-led insurgency against the Syrian government, in collaboration with regional powers, including Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.

About the Author (from The Cradle):

William Van Wagenen is a writer for the Libertarian Institute. He has written extensively on the Syrian war, with a specific focus on the role of US planners in sparking and exacerbating the conflict. William holds a master’s degree in Theological Studies from Harvard University and survived a kidnapping in the Sinjar region of Iraq in 2007.

Polska högernationalister förbjuder konservativa partiet

Det lilla partiet KPP i Polen uppges ha förklarats strida mot den polska konstitutionen. Svenska SKP:s tidning Riktpunkt har i flera artiklar följt den utveckling som lett fram till detta. Googles AI berättar – med en felaktig länk till Polska förenade arbetarpartiet – att Polens konstitutionella domstol i onsdags avgjorde att partiets aktiviteter

“strider mot landets konstitution och beslutade att förbjuda partiet. Förbudet motiveras med att partiets mål och verksamhet är oförenliga med konstitutionen, som förbjuder partier som förespråkar totalitära ideologier som nazism, fascism och kommunism. Domstolen ska nu besluta om att avregistrera partiet, vilket i praktiken innebär att det upphör att existera.”

Google förklarar närmare:

Bakgrund: Försök att förbjuda partiet pågår sedan tidigare. År 2023 infördes ändringar i straffbalken som ger upp till tre års fängelse för att offentligt främja ett kommunistiskt statligt system eller sprida, sälja eller inneha material som syftar till detsamma. Även kommunistiska symboler kan vara föremål för straff om de används för att främja ett totalitärt system.

Domstolens beslut: Domstolen fann att de mål och den verksamhet partiet bedriver är oförenliga med konstitutionen, som förbjuder partier som förespråkar totalitära ideologier.

Konsekvenser: Förbudet leder till att partiet omedelbart måste avregistreras och upphör därmed att existera som officiellt politiskt parti.

Tidigare händelser: Förbudet är ett resultat av en längre politisk process som inletts sedan regeringspartiet Lag och Rättvisa (PiS) kom till makten. Ett tidigare försök att lagstifta mot kommunistiska symboler och idéer gjordes 2017.”

Det här är, till skillnad från mycket annat som av vänstern beskrivits så, en entydigt fascistisk typ av åtgärd initierad av högernationalistiska PiS. Den ligger visserligen helt i linje med den “liberala demokratins” långa rad av liknande åtgärder alltsedan kalla krigets början. Men det är PiS allena som nu har drivit igenom den, under ledning av presidenten Karol Nawrocki och utan stöd av regeringspartiet KO och Tusk. Det har m.a.o. möjliggjorts av PiS’ i väst så hårt kritiserade tillsättningar av domare, här närmare bestämt i konstitutionsdomstolen, Trybunał Konstytucyjny.

Domaren Krystyna Pawlowiczs motivering att partiets ideologi “goes against the fundamental human values and the traditions of European and Christian civilization” framstår som mycket märkligare och falskare idag än den tidigare skulle gjort. Jag ger ordet till dr Wiki, som hänvisar till vad som ser ut som trovärdiga polska och kinesiska källor:

“Amongst the radical left parties, the KPP has been classified as rather conservative. The party is friendly towards religion, and published an article titled ‘Communists and Catholics – working people – united by a bond of solidarity and fraternity’ in which it argued: ‘It is not that the Communists were and are opposed to Catholics. On the contrary…’. It reasoned that instead of being anti-theist, the Polish People’s Republic was strongly religious in terms of customs, and that the Vatican had authority over the priests on religious matters. It demands a fairer agreement between the Vatican and the Polish state. The KPP spoke against same-sex partnerships, criticizing the political culture of Polish centre-left parties in which ‘the pinnacle of leftism has become the fight for the rights of sexual minorities’. The party argues that centre-left parties are ‘full of people who are wealthy and therefore absolutely uninterested in the fate of the poorer social classes’, and criticized same-sex partnership proposals as ‘a priority for the homosexual lobbies based on the ideology of the European Union’. The Polish Communist Party also argued that ‘who equates the vision of the left with the defence of sexual minorities, feminism, abortion and euthanasia reveals the lack of ideology […], clearly betraying the entire left’. It wrote:

‘Since the early 1990s, the rivalry between political parties, which have failed Polish society in the 21st century, has focused on abortion, religion in schools, crosses in the Sejm and other public places, and more recently, gender and animal rights. These petty bourgeois parties and their leaders argue about this instead of issues that are relevant for a society that has “broken free” from communist “oppression”.’…

In 2025, the party reiterated its position on feminism and the LGBT movement:

‘Our position on LGBT and other issues such as quotas and feminatives [specifikt polskt politisk-korrekt språkfenomen, tycks det som] has remained unchanged for many years. These topics have dominated the activities of organisations and many parties in the West, in our opinion diverting public attention from the real causes of social problems and tensions. […] Everyone should have the right to their own views, including those who do not like people of a different orientation. Currently, even those who express their views on these topics very cautiously are immediately classified as backward, and their words are labelled with the overused term “hate speech”.’”

Tiderna har förändrats. Det politiska sakläget har förändrats. Det är nu KPP som står för den meningsfulla konservatismen. Och även för Europa. Medan PiS verkar för Epstein- och folkmordsatlanticismen.

Scott Horton: Provoked

How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine

The Libertarian Institute, 2024

Amazon.com

Publisher’s Description:

Over and over, U.S. government officials and their mainstream media allies called Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine an “unprovoked attack.” The slogan became so overused that people began to ask the obvious question: Why do they protest so much?

In Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, Scott Horton explains how since the end of the last Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, successive U.S. administrations pressed their advantage against the new Russian Federation to the point that it finally blew up into a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine.

From NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, to “shock therapy” economic policy, the Balkan and Chechen wars, color-coded revolutions, new missile defense systems, assassinations, Russiagate and ultimately the brutal conflict in Ukraine, Provoked shows what really happened and why it did not have to be this way.

From the Inside Flap:

Over and over, U.S. government officials and their mainstream media allies called Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine an “unprovoked attack.” The slogan became so overused that people began to ask the obvious question: Why do they protest so much?

In Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, Scott Horton explains how since the end of the last Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, successive U.S. administrations pressed their advantage against the new Russian Federation to the point that it finally blew up into a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine.

From NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, to “shock therapy” economic policy, the Balkan and Chechen wars, color-coded revolutions, new missile defense systems, assassinations, Russiagate and ultimately the brutal conflict in Ukraine, Provoked shows what really happened and why it did not have to be this way.

Blurbs/Reviews:

“Scott Horton has become an invaluable chronicler of the destruction wrought by our interventionist foreign policy. With his new book Provoked, Scott blows the lid off the mountains of lies used to justify Washington’s waste of billions of dollars and countless Ukrainian lives in a futile proxy war with Russia. Truth is the greatest disinfectant and Scott Horton’s crucial account of this awful chapter in U.S. foreign policy is like a spring cleaning. Read this book and pick up copies for your friends…and adversaries!”

Dr. Ron Paul, former Texas congressman, chairman and founder of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and co-host of The Liberty Report

Provoked is manna from heaven for anyone who wants to know where the extreme Russophobia in the West came from, as well as the central role the United States played in causing the Ukraine war. Horton provides a detailed account of America’s foolish and dishonest behavior toward Russia in the years since the Cold War ended.”

John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago

“Scott Horton’s important new book traces America’s journey to war and intervention through a succession of presidencies and builds a case that points to a frightening, potential final destination for the United States: isolation and alienation from most of the world. Scott’s message is simple. Stop now before it’s too late.”

Col. Douglas Macgregor, U.S. Army (ret.), CEO, Our Country Our Choice

“Scott Horton is a treasure. He is also the neocons’ nightmare. He knows their deceptions and lies and he is fearless in exposing the disasters they have wrought. Provoked is the most thoroughly researched, rationally grounded, and compellingly presented assault on war and defense of peace written in English in the post-9/11 era. It will become the standard against which all similar works are measured, and indispensable reading for all who need to understand how the American government has time and again brought civilization to a terrifying precipice.”

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, New York Times best-selling author and commentator, host of the Judging Freedom Podcast

“Scott Horton’s new book is one of the rare literary works that is impeccably sourced, unimpeachable in its logical conclusions – and fearless in presenting the truth, regardless of how unpopular or inconvenient it may be. It’s a hard read, though. Not because of its length – its very thorough – but for its revelations and implications: our country has some ugly warts that must be addressed and some sins for which it must atone. If we honestly look ourselves in the mirror and make necessary changes, we can avoid some of the worst outcomes. Ignore Scott’s sage observations, however, and we could be in for a rough future.”

Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, U.S. Army (ret.), author of Eleventh Hour in 2020 America: How America’s Foreign Policy Got Jacked Up – and How the Next Administration Can Fix It and host of Daniel Davis – Deep Dive

“Delving deep into the record of how the U.S. national security machine lied and conspired to birth a new Cold War that grows hotter by the day, Scott Horton has once again done us a fantastic service. Never has the axiom that the devil is in the details been more powerfully demonstrated. His account, powerful because it is so detailed, covering the serial cynical maneuvers that expanded and transformed Nato into an instrument of aggression all the way to the promotion of the war that has destroyed Ukraine is a resource that apologists for these feckless policies will find it hard to answer.” 

Andrew Cockburn, Washington editor, Harper’s Magazine, author of The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine

About the Author:

Scott Horton is director of The Libertarian Institute, editorial director of the online written publication Antiwar, host of Antiwar Radio for Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and host of the Scott Horton Show podcast. He has conducted more than 6,000 interviews since 2003. He is the author of Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War With Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine (2024), Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism (2021), Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan (2017) and editor of The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004-2019 (2019) and Hotter than the Sun: Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (2022). He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Larisa Alexandrovna Horton.

Agon