Flyer by Wildcat which was distributed at the Euro March demo in Cologne, 29 May 1999
------------------------------------
Against "Social Europe" No peace with capitalism! No war but the class war!
Europe's "leftist" governments are responsible for an imperialist war of aggression.
They are also responsible for a social aggression which raises our cost of living, depresses our wages, cuts social spending and disposes of old and sick people.
Both aggressions are closely linked. It is no accident that "leftist" governments are in charge of them. Blair, Jospin, D'Alema or Schröder/Fischer - the capitalist states can only realise their goals with what is left of social democratic ideology, unions and citizens' action groups. And only greens and social democrats could have led an unprovoked two month war without hundreds of thousands of protesters taking to the streets.
NATO's intervention as global police is about the protection of capitalist exploitation - just like workfare against unemployed people and the "restructuring of the welfare state". The mass killing of human beings shows how far they are prepared to go in order to defend the system. Bombs and tanks, prisons and police - on the entire planet, their organised killings are supposed to give us a message: that it is useless to resist.
NATO is not helping anyone but itself!
NATO does not care about human rights any more than Milosevic does. It is only cynical if Clinton, Scharping or Fischer say they care about people in Kosovo while they care fuck-all when far more people are deported and murdered in Guatemala, Kurdistan or Ruanda - on the contrary, on those occasions they supply the arms. People who flee from oppression like in Kosovo or refuse to serve in the army are officially viewed as unwanted immigrants and deported back without mercy. The bombs on Yugoslavia are not directed against the Milosevic regime but against the people living there! With the help of NATO troops, the Balkans are being turned into a giant, militarised refugee camp.
The protection of the capitalist world order is at the centre of the war. NATO, Milosevic, Yeltsin etc. agree on that - it is their very basis for talks. NATO knew that its air strikes would escalate the expulsions and the killings. That was intended because despair, powerlessness and mutual hate are the foundations on which NATO and the various nationalist forces alike want to build a stable national order in the region.
This war is also about power between nations: * NATO countries want to expand their spheres of influence and secure themselves new oil pipeline and transport corridors. * The USA wanted this war (and others: Iraq is being bombed almost every day now!) in order to impose itself as the world's only superpower. * The "new" Europe would like to act as an imperialist stabilising power in "its" area. * The war is being used to legitimise giant increases of arms budgets and the development of new arms. Will that help capitalism overcome its crisis?
Let's not support the killers by worrying about the "social justice" of an injust and barbaric system or by calling for a "social Europe"!
"Working time reduction", "guaranteed income", "minimum wages" ... ... can barbarism be reformed?
The return to power of social democracy has raised many hopes of re-humanising capitalism. For example through "working time reduction", a "guaranteed minimum income" or "minimum wages". All these demands are being addressed to the state - just like the demand for NATO bombs as a response to oppression and deportations in the Balkans.
Today social democracy and the renegades of '68 are needed in order to create a social consensus: for a new "interior" social policy as well as for the protection of the capitalist world order by war and massacre. To that end they use the rhetoric of human rights just as they whine about unemployment. If we demand a working time reduction or a guaranteed minimum income capital's planners can actually tell us they are meeting our demands while they are really just stepping up exploitation:
What has Germany's glorious working time reduction since 1984 brought us but unlimited flexibilisation and lower wages (signed by the unions)? Today the ruling politicians offer a guaranteed minimum income to sell us low-wage jobs, limited contracts and self-employment.
One cannot fight the war and at the same time call for a "social Europe" - both are closely linked. War and nationalism have always been the midwives of the welfare state which serves to protect exploitation from class struggle.
At the EU summit, the war mongerers will debate "social problems" and decide on initiatives for more employment or minimum wages. But they are only interested in exploiting us with as little trouble as possible. War is an extreme expression of capitalism's truth: for capital people are just a means to an end!
Let's not help prolong the barbarism of capital! There is only one answer to war, exploitation and poverty: the destruction of the capitalist work prison!
Wildcat - Pf. 301206 - 50782 Köln wildcat at link-lev.de
Debate about the war and about social policy in New Europe (with interventions by Wildcat and Karl Heinz Roth - in german language) Friday, 18 June 1999, 5 pm Bürgerzentrum Alte Feuerwache, Projektraum, III. Stock (Melchiorstr. 3, U-Bahn Ebertplatz)