James Connolly Society's 'Neither King Nor Kaiser' Campaign

[framed]

A brief note about the JCS #NeitherKingNorKaiser campaign. Any support from people here would be greatly appreciated.

We're trying to provide an alternative, pro-working class, anti-war message as an antidote to the type of state-sponsored 'celebrations' of the carnage of WW1 that are taking place today in Glasgow and Folkestone, with politicians of all shades and royalty at the forefront of the revisionism.

Your 'selfies' with the hashtag #NeitherKingNorKaiser represent a small but important statement that the revolutionary anti-war tradition lives on... We've already got support from "Casuals" author, blogger, community activist and general troublemaker, Phil Thornton, plus Mensi of the Angelic Upstarts, socialist activist and former SSP MSP Rosie Kane, folk singer David Rovics and Steve Hedley, candidate for general secretary of the RMT, but we'd like as many people as possible to join us in making this statement against capitalist wars.

Send your pics with the NKNK slogan to: neitherkingnorkaiser@gmail.com

More info about the campaign on the website:
Neither King Nor Kaiser

 

[butchersapron]

Good work. Maybe bung it on the end of this thread too? I know a number of people involved in the remembering the real ww1 stuff keep an eye on it

 

[framed]

Good work. Maybe bung it on the end of this thread too? I know a number of people involved in the remembering the real ww1 stuff keep an eye on it

Yeah, cheers for the heads-up about the other thread... I've been following the Bristol project, there's some outstanding articles on that Remembering The Real WW1 website.

 

[butchersapron]

Yeah, cheers for the heads-up about the other thread... I've been following the Bristol project, there's some outstanding articles on that Remembering The Real WW1 website.

Ask our mutual friend about having to play a pro-war jingo wrapped in a union jack for the war debate recreation we did the other week - not a happy bunny

 

[framed]

Ask our mutual friend about having to play a pro-war jingo wrapped in a union jack for the war debate recreation we did the other week - not a happy bunny

Haha! He's been keeping me up-to-date. I ran something by him today about sharing some of the Bristol stuff on the NKNK website as well, with credits and links, etc... Spreading the word.

 

[framed]

David Rovics has written a song for the campaign

(BA - If this is relevant for the Bristol comrades, please feel free to use the audio track... I can send it as an mp3 for you to put your own images for a YouTube vid)

 

[chilango]

When can we get t-shirts?

 

[framed]

When can we get t-shirts?

If there's not some already on the JCS website, I'm sure they're already in production... The folk in Edinburgh are usually on-the-ball with stuff like T-shirts and stickers. So far there's been a really great response...

 

[juice_terry]

Great video framed few ugly mugs in there especially the fat guy in the RA tshirt [emoji6]

 

[gamerunknown]

This Steve Hedley?

 

[framed]

Great video framed few ugly mugs in there especially the fat guy in the RA tshirt [emoji6]

Darn it... In my defence, it's a 25-year-old T-shirt squeezed on to a man now in sight of his late dotage... a bit of respect for the elderly please.

 

[october_lost]

This Steve Hedley?

This sounds like a fantastic effort by JCS, so I don't feel too thrilled at wading in with only a criticism to hand, but gamerunknown is right, Steve Hedley should not be touched with a barge pole.

 

[framed]

This sounds like a fantastic effort by JCS, so I don't feel too thrilled at wading in with only a criticism to hand, but gamerunknown is right, Steve Hedley should not be touched with a barge pole.

I don't know who you or 'gamerunknown' are? You've never been 'comrades' of mine as far as I am aware and I've never seen either of you show interest or support for anything else I've posted with regard to the JCS and other campaigns, so I can only assume that you have an agenda, one that is more interested in Steve Hedley and the RMT than what we are actually doing around the NKNK project.

Publishing one-liners which are effectively saying that this guy is 'verboten' without further personal comment and containing only one link to info on a website that is fiercely disputed by both Hedley and many of his (and his former partner's) RMT colleagues is not sufficient evidence imho. I'm not a judge nor a jury, and I'm not in a position to make any decision on this without all of the evidence, not just one side's account.

If there is another thread on Steve Hedley and these issues please point me in the direction and we can discuss it there. Until then, I'd appreciate it if you did not try to derail this thread and the NKNK campaign it is promoting any further.

 

[spliff]

... .. . If there is another thread on Steve Hedley and these issues please point me in the direction and we can discuss it there.

Here and here

Now back to JCS & NKNK

 

[framed]

When can we get t-shirts?

Facebook page: Neither King Nor Kaiser

The T-shirts are in production...

 

[dylanredefined]

I asked on another forum where they debate alternative histories. If the UK decided not to go to war opinion seems to be it just puts off a really big war for a few years.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I asked on another forum where they debate alternative histories. If the UK decided not to go to war opinion seems to be it just puts off a really big war for a few years.

Pretty much, the impact of ww1 (and ww2) needed to be felt in order to make wars unpalatable to the population and as such to the politicians. A case of "ok so this is what modern war and logistics can do, holy shit its going to wipe out the fucking country"

 

[dylanredefined]

Pretty much, the impact of ww1 (and ww2) needed to be felt in order to make wars unpalatable to the population and as such to the politicians. A case of "ok so this is what modern war and logistics can do, holy shit its going to wipe out the fucking country"

The best outcome was supposedly not allow Haig to kill so many of his soldiers so they had the spare soldiers to keep going so the armistice doesn't happen till about 1919 and Germany is Beaten soundly. So Versailles is less Humiliating and less excuse for Nazis.

 

[Casually Red]

germany ftw

 

[Pickman's model]

Pretty much, the impact of ww1 (and ww2) needed to be felt in order to make wars unpalatable to the population and as such to the politicians. A case of "ok so this is what modern war and logistics can do, holy shit its going to wipe out the fucking country"

i don't think it did make it unpalatable to the population. a) because people went to war again 20 years after the end of the first one. b) because so much of british post-war culture is bound up with the war. imagine britain without the great escape, without dambusters, without in which we serve, without ice cold in alex, without the bridge on the river kwai, dad's army etc etc etc ad nauseam. in 2002 churchill was voted the greatest briton - this being the same churchill whose life up to 1942 or thereabouts had been one big litany of fuck-ups paid for in other people's lives. i think that, were the situation right, there could be another big war and that people - or most people - would get behind it. that's been made more difficult by iraq, but i wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

 

[likesfish]

Nukes rather make huge citizen armies redundant isiss build a thousand turkish car ferrys intent on liberation the uk for islam or something nearly as daft

And they disappear in a mushroom cloud.
The age of peer to peer combat is over its too dangerous.

 

[Artaxerxes]

i don't think it did make it unpalatable to the population. a) because people went to war again 20 years after the end of the first one. b) because so much of british post-war culture is bound up with the war. imagine britain without the great escape, without dambusters, without in which we serve, without ice cold in alex, without the bridge on the river kwai, dad's army etc etc etc ad nauseam. in 2002 churchill was voted the greatest briton - this being the same churchill whose life up to 1942 or thereabouts had been one big litany of fuck-ups paid for in other people's lives. i think that, were the situation right, there could be another big war and that people - or most people - would get behind it. that's been made more difficult by iraq, but i wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

Thing is WW2 was a much simpler situation, it wasn't a political mess like WW1. The Nazi's actually were f*cking insane and its about all we had to be proud of that we stood and fought them alone as the Empire fell to bits and we became an irrelevance on the global stage from the 50's onwards.

Basically we're just trading on our memories and a last sensible war that we can proud of against cartoon supervillains.

 

[coley]

Nukes rather make huge citizen armies redundant isiss build a thousand turkish car ferrys intent on liberation the uk for islam or something nearly as daft

And they disappear in a mushroom cloud.
The age of peer to peer combat is over its too dangerous.

Seems to continuing merrily in many parts of the world though doesn't it?

 

[Artaxerxes]

Seems to continuing merrily in many parts of the world though doesn't it?

You'll note that in actual wars people aren't picking on those with Nukes. War has also reduced in scale a lot in the West instead we're now back to fighting "The enemy within" and the whole terrorist bullshit.

 

[likesfish]

Bet ukraine is regretting handing its nukes over

 

[Artaxerxes]

Bet ukraine is regretting handing its nukes over

I liked Dan Carlins idea of handing out Nukes to a coalition of 2-3 countries. Give Ukraine a nuke and the other half of the codes to Romania or something. It won't end the world if one goes off and Russia needs to choose if it wants to risk loosing a guaranteed chunk of its land if it presses on. Same with Estonia, Latvia and the Baltics, give them the tools to protect themselves.

 

[Casually Red]

some of connollys speeches on the wars outbreak



https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1914/09/wrsotbrk.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1914/08/waronman.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1916/03/germbrit.htm

 

[Casually Red]

I liked Dan Carlins idea of handing out Nukes to a coalition of 2-3 countries. Give Ukraine a nuke and the other half of the codes to Romania or something. It won't end the world if one goes off and Russia needs to choose if it wants to risk loosing a guaranteed chunk of its land if it presses on. Same with Estonia, Latvia and the Baltics, give them the tools to protect themselves.

except one wont go off. if a NATO state fires one thats it . End of the world. Same as if a warsaw pact nation ..Romania Estonia Latvia Ukraine..lobbed one back in the day in the opposite direction.

 

[coley]

You'll note that in actual wars people aren't picking on those with Nukes. War has also reduced in scale a lot in the West instead we're now back to fighting "The enemy within" and the whole terrorist bullshit.

It was a reference to LFs comment re; " peer to peer combat" not war in general.

 

[dylanredefined]

I liked Dan Carlins idea of handing out Nukes to a coalition of 2-3 countries. Give Ukraine a nuke and the other half of the codes to Romania or something. It won't end the world if one goes off and Russia needs to choose if it wants to risk loosing a guaranteed chunk of its land if it presses on. Same with Estonia, Latvia and the Baltics, give them the tools to protect themselves.

Ken Macleod had the idea in a sci fi book of his. A soviet republic was left with nothing ,but, environmental disaster and a stock pile of icbms. So rented them out to who ever needed a nuclear deterrent.