critical-mass.net

In the early 20th century, an influential section of the German elite faced with a severe economic and financial crisis decided to back the rising violent ambitions of the Nazi movement in order to control the civil unrest of their population and to resist the demands of the poor and oppressed for less harsh and precarious working and living conditions. Room to expand the socio-economic system was an elite idea for the solution to this crisis and Lebensraum (living room) was the term used by the Nazis who had inherited it from the German intelligentia of the late 19th century. The idea was given a turbo boost as the Generalplan Ost (General Plan East) by the Nazis, but neither elites had actually invented it.

The idea had become widespread among the European elite and was based on the concept of ‘Manifest Destiny’ popularised by the European settlers in the USA. The settler conquest of North American territory from sea to sea, (the Atlantic to the Pacific) was the ‘destiny’ imagined by those who thought themselves superior to the indigenous peoples. The poor and desperate of Europe were encouraged to ‘go west’ and remake the New World in the image of the European old one. In utilising this form of racist ideology, the 20th century fascist movement, (Part 1) was developed in most European and western countries. Over many years these movements demonstrated an elite based racist supremacist set of ideas and actions and were prepared to injure or kill those who opposed them.

This ruthless determination of the Nazis clearly impressed certain sections of the ruling elites of that period and not only in Germany, but also in Italy, Spain, France, UK and North and South America. Each of these countries had for a time their own openly fascist movements. However, only in Germany, Italy and Spain did the openly Fascist elite gain sufficient total control of a state to declare war. From any form of Humanist perspective these elites in these latter three countries clearly backed the wrong movement and the ultimate result was the Second World War. This was another world war in which millions died, a comprehensive socio-economic destruction of German, French and UK society again took place and during which three communities were singled out for particularly savage treatment.

In Germany, the Nazis first went for the Communists and Trade Unionists, and practically destroyed them, then they went for the Jews and practically destroyed them, next they moved east and practically destroyed the slavic peoples encountered during their effort to invade and conquer Russia as far as Stalingrad. The high-tech machinery of military destruction developed by each country was used with very little or no regard for civilian populations as a whole. The working classes became cannon and bomb fodder yet again!

At the end of the Second World War, the remnants of Nazified German elite were put on trial for a list of their crimes against humanity that were eventually codified and encapsulated in the term and conditions now falling under the description of Genocide. Revealingly, the mass crimes against humanity of the winning side (the Allies) were never admitted or classified as crimes against humanity and no one was seriously criticised for fire – bombing the enemies German or Japanese civilians or for frying them alive on mass by Atomic bomb explosions on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Truth nearly always loses in wars and the winning side writes their own version of history!)

At the end of that war, the previous elite based systems personel in Germany were declared guilty as charged at the Nuremberg Trials and although many Germans accepted this guilt, not all were so inclined. Some lower level Nazi regime supporters still remained unrepentant and still accepted the hierarchical mass society logic of the exceptional needs required of a successful and an imagined superior hierarchical mass society. And, because such societies were (and are) unequal and unjust, the elite knew they would need to be held together by a strong leadership that exercised a firm hand to control populations who might think differently. The fascistic idea therefore didn’t die – it just went dormant.

However, after that war, the remaining extreme practitioners of this ideology, the Nazi Party members, were officially banned from holding office in Germany. So the question; ‘were the lessons of the Fascist experience not learned, by European elites?’ is not the appropriate question. This is because the ideological assumptions of all hierarchical mass societies are not based upon moral issues but on the hierarchical needs of these type of societies. Fascist and totalitarian ideas are not simply ideas floating around the intellectual spheres of political life but are products arising from the hierarchical mass society form itself. Therefore, these elite needs and aspirations, are reborn within every new generation when a new elite is formed within them.

So it should come as no surprise then that the US, UK, France and now the current German elite have decided to back a Zionist movement that has for years demonstrated their racially based supremacist ideas and actions in injuring and killing those who opposed them or simply stood in their way. This time standing in the way of the Israeli exceptionalists are the Palestinians, some of whom still live on remnants of the former Ottoman territory of Palestine. Most of the latter want nothing more than better living and working conditions and their stolen property back. So this time it is the western empowered Zionist Jews who are committing the most genocidal of crimes against humanity, but amply provisioned and actively supported by US, UK and Europe.

It appears on the surface, that the new German elite are committing the same type of mistake as their predecessors in backing a reactionary movement that is quite prepared to commit genocide and even go as far as provoking another huge war in order to establish themselves as the sole possesor of someone elses, land and homes. But as noted above there is something deeper than guilt motivating the latest German elite support for the genocide in Gaza by Israel. The new elites in Germany are simply following the same hierarchical mass society logic as their Weimar Republic predecessors. Since the logic of expanding hierarchical mass societies is known to their elites and it is to obtain enough land along with sufficient human and natural resources as are necessary to support a growing hierarchical mass society, then to maintain that hierarchical system expansion becomes a necessity.

Theirfore, the hierarchical elite imperative entails encroaching upon and controlling extra land, labour and resources at sufficient levels to also create enough surplus production, to feed, house and entertain the elite in the manner they have become accustomed. Moreover, they also need to provide resources for sufficient armed forces to ensure they retain power and privilege over their own mass societies and over those forces of rival hierarchical mass societies. Since military forces are unproductive their provisions must be supplied by the efforts of productive working class civilians.

Furtheremore, in a system containing rival hierarchical mass societies, many seeking to expand their territories and gain privileged access to key resources, will need to seek alliances with other such countries in order to be strong enough to overcome any opposition and ensure they win. This system of alliances to enable resource acquisition dates back to the ancient Mediterranean hierarchical mass society kingdoms and confederacies. For those who doubt this historical connection, it is extensively described by Thucydides in his lengthy history of the Polepennesian Wars covering early, Egypt, Persia and Greece. Among the many examples of allies and conquests he provides this following brief one, which should suffice to illustrate the pattern.

“The policy of Lacedaemon was not to exact tribute from her allies, but merely to secure their subservience to her interests by establishing oligarchies among them; Athens, on the contrary , had by degrees deprived hers of their ships, and imposed instead contributions in money on all except Chios and Lesbos.” (The History of the Pelopennesian War. Thucydides. Chapter 1.)

That one book in its 26 chapters provides more than enough historically probable evidence of the hierarchical mass society aims and objectives (including genocidal brutality) during the middle period of their ancient Mediterranean development. Although the primary reasons then (and now) for state orchestrated alliances and wars of conquest are predominantly economic, other factors are frequently involved. In this modern case of alliances of capitalist led hierarchical mass societies exercising dynamic control over the Middle East, there is an added religious dimension to the economic one. Europe desired effective economic control and domination of the Middle East from the moment they realised the benefits of oil over coal in providing motive power for industry, commerce and transport and for powering modern military equipment.

Forward looking state elites, before, during and at the end of the 1st World War, reasoned that only unlimited access to oil would keep Europe, North America and the UK competitive in the global markets for commodity production, resources and markets. They therefore installed puppet regimes of Arab elites in most oil producing Middle Eastern countries. However, the only way to really guarantee this continuous supply of oil well into the future was to have a loyal, like-minded, well militarised ally in the middle east. It would need to be an ally sufficiently powerful to be able to help forestall or suppress any anti-European, and anti-US liberation movements who might try to overthrow the puppet regimes and cut off or reduce the supply of cheap oil.

The Jewish Zionists of the immediate post Second World War offered to be that reliable ally, provided they were allowed to form an exclusively Jewish State. Hence they were backed up to the hilt, politically, economically, militarily and financially by the West from 1948 onwards. The US alone provides billions of dollars value yearly to Israel, in one form or another. This is not done out of sheer benevolence, but as a kind of insurance premium paid for a definite service of present and future  asset protection. The additional dimension that has now occurred within this largely economic scenario is the fact of the different religious traditions of the elites and their citizens within the various countries.

The western US, UK and European Christian, Abrahamic monotheistic countries have become predominantly secularised and modernised in granting women’s rights, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of unlimited wealth accumulation, the right of all to education etc. However, whilst the Islamic countries after the First World War, had started to liberalise they have under the impact of western exploitation and injustice, begun to progressively fall back upon more fundamentalist interpretations of the Islamic Abrahamic version of monotheism. In the 20th century Women’s Rights, have been curtailed, in most Islamic countries, freedom of criticism has also been curtailed, freedom of religion is not as well tolerated as in the West and the Religious elite Patriarchs have a definite secular elite-frustrating political power within many of these states.

It is the religious fundamentalist leadership of countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, India and other Gulf States that is privately and publicly viewed as threatening to the elites Israel, the US, UK, Europe and the West. This adds a dimension of existential fear in Europe and the west on top of their racist characterisation of Muslim peoples as inferior to Christian peoples. The coincidence of these two elements of the current western Capitalist psyche; the desire for effective economic control of strategic Middle Eastern resources; and the fear of and resistance to, Islamic patriarchal religious forms of domination has ramped up elite  existential concern. These twin concerns have become a double incentive for some elites (and for some of their citizens) to side with Israel in its destruction of Hamas and other Islamic militant leaderships.

However, it is a serious miscalculation to allow this dynamic combination of elite fear and elite greed to justify crimes against humanity or genocide. It is a mistake for general humanitarian reasons; humans did not evolve over millions of years on the basis of routinely destroying each other on a huge scale. That is not a natural form of evolution but a social form degeneration. And the mass killing of Islamic believers is also counterproductive anyway, for it drives many of the women, youth and liberal minded adults of these countries back into the ideological swamp of religious fundamentalist patriarchy. In this way it furthers the risk of increasing fundamentalist terrorist type revenge actions, the loss of actual and potential economic assets, and through some unforseen and unintended consequences of military action – the possibility of yet another world war.

Again from a humanist standpoint this European and Western elite strategy of support for the genocidal strategy of the Israeli elite is particularly counter productive especially currently. It is occuring when many of the younger generations of Islamic countries, (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Egypt, Palestine, etc.), particular young women and young men are themselves beginning to refuse to obey the dictates of religious patriarchy in its fundamentalist forms. The elites in the US, UK, France, Germany etc., by their support for Israeli Zionist fundamentalism in Palestinian territories, has given in the past, and is now giving in the present, the example that the western forms of secular patriarchal world governance are not very much better (and in some cases such as their invasions of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Gaza), much worse than the Islamic patriarchal elite in their own communities.

But that human based value judgement doesn’t really concern the capitalist elite because their priority is for their system of resource acquisition and labour power exploitation to be viable and operational into the future. And that future for them is best served by loyalty to allied elites, not loyalty to humanity or loyalty to working class hope’s of not being forced into becoming canon fodder – yet again. In a way similar to the situation in the early 20th century, the hierarchical mass society system in the 21st century is in deep crisis yet again, and its elites are indicating that genocidal solutions to serious hierarchical mass society problems for them is not going too far or going beyond their predecessors promises of ‘never again‘. Hence, the possibility of a re-badged – FASCISM: TAKE TWO – involving everyone at a global supply level should not be dismissed as impossible.

Thus, the recent decision of the German state elite to stand alongside the Israeli defence team in the International Criminal Justice court to deny genocide, is, as noted above, not so much a second mistaken answer to a painfully clear lesson from history. It is simply the logic of the elite system of alliances between hierarchical mass societies operating within the modern historical context. The only alternative to the four or five thousand year old self-destructive rut and routine pathway of territorial direct (or indirect) expansion, war and genocide, is to create different forms of mass societies without including the deforming characteristics of hierarchical elites. It is the latter, who lead the rest of societies citizens in directions beneficial to their class but disastrous to the rest of the hierarchical mass society citizens and disasterous to nature in general.

Only non-hierarchical societies geared to production for general need rather than production for private profit and personal greed will end this cycle of elite sponsored war and genocide. Moreover, it is only radically different kind of societies which could also end and reverse the other unfolding crises facing humanity. Climate change, ecological destruction, wholesale pollution to land sea and air, cannot be ended by societies led by elites continually requiring and obtaining wealth and power, beyond the average needed for the rest of their own communities and also well beyond the needs of the rest of humanity.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2024)

The above noted ‘application’ to the International Court of Justice, complaining of genocidal acts by the nation of Israel against Palestinians, comprises of 84 extremely detailed pages containing 150 paragraphs, some of which are sub-divided into numerous sections and contain detailed references to 574 sources of information. The sheer length of this application will be something of a barrier to many people giving this important document the time and consideration its content deserves. For this reason I have decided it may provide a useful service to visitors to this blog to provide at least an overview by means of a few selected extracts from various sections of the document.

SECTION I.
Introduction
This section contains 20 paragraphs including the following;

“The acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group, that being the part of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip (‘Palestinians in Gaza’)” (para 1)

“South Africa is highly cognisant of the fact that acts of genocide are distinct from other violations of international law sanctioned or perpetrated by the Israeli government and military in Gaza — including intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population, civilian objects and buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected; torture; the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare; and other war crimes and crimes against humanity….For this reason it is important to place the acts of genocide in the broader context of Israel’s conduct towards Palestinians during its 75-year-long apartheid, its 56-yearlong belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory and its 16-year-long blockade of Gaza.” (para 2)

“..Israel, since 7 October 2023 in particular, has failed to prevent genocide and has failed to prosecute the direct and public incitement to genocide. More gravely still, Israel has engaged in, is engaging in and risks further engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Those acts include killing them, causing them serious mental and bodily harm and deliberately inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as a group.” (para 4)

“Civilian fatalities [in Gaza] lay bare the lie that the war is against an armed group. Rather, it is a collective punishment and genocide against the Palestinian people.” (para 12)

“.. at least 21,110 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and over 55,243 other Palestinians have been wounded, many severely. 56 The death toll includes over 7,729 children,57 not including the 4,700 women and children still missing, and presumed dead under the rubble.” (para 19)

“In 2019, the then Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (‘ICC’) held that “there is a reasonable basis to believe” that the Israeli army committed “war crimes… in the context of the 2014 hostilities in Gaza”, in particular.” (para 31).

“Since 7 October 2023, Israeli forces have carried out airstrikes and military raids on refugee camps in the West Bank, killing many Palestinians, bulldozing roads, and imposing severe restrictions on movement.154 There have been 236 attacks on ‘healthcare’ — including hospitals — in the West Bank, with Israeli forces detaining health staff and ambulances and preventing ambulances from accessing the wounded.155 Armed Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians — overtly supported by Israeli politicians — have also escalated dramatically.156 Settlers — often accompanied by Israeli soldiers — have killed at least eight Palestinians and injured at least 85 others, instilling terror among Palestinians, especially farming communities, and damaging property.157 2,186 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 1,058 children, have been internally displaced since 7 October 2023 as a result of extreme Israeli settler violence, alongside punitive or administrative house demolitions carried out by the Israeli army and damage caused to homes during Israeli military raids and operations” (para 38)

SECTION B
Historical Background.

This section contains (Paras 21 to 36) giving further detail on the historical Background to Israeli occupation, prior to 7th October 2023 and this includes six extracts from Special fact-finding reports from international organisations, plus the following.

“Entry and exit by air and sea to Gaza has been prohibited since the early 1990s, with Israel operating only two crossing points – Erez (pedestrian) and Kerem Shalom (goods) – through which Palestinians could access the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, for business, trade and healthcare and social and family functions.” (para 25)

Between 29 September 2000 and 7 October 2023, approximately 7,569 Palestinians, 102 including 1,699 children,103 were killed, including in those “four highly asymmetrical wars”, as well as other smaller military assaults, with tens of thousands of others injured. A further 214 Palestinians, including 46 children were killed during the ‘Great March of Return’,104 a large-scale peaceful protest along the separation fence between Gaza and Israel, in which thousands of Palestinians participated every Friday for over 18 months, demanding that “the blockade imposed on Gaza be lifted and the return of Palestinian refugees” to their homes and villages in Israel.” (para 27)

“The institutionalised regime of discriminatory laws, policies and practices applied by Israel subjects Palestinians to what constitutes an apartheid regime.140 Palestinians in the West Bank are contained behind a segregating Wall, subjected to: discriminatory land zoning and planning policies; punitive and administrative house demolitions;141 violent Israeli army incursions into Palestinian villages, towns, cities and refugee camps, including in Area A;142 routine violent Israeli raids on their homes; arbitrary arrests and indefinitely renewable administrative detention (internment without trial)”. (para 35)

SECTION C.
Genocidal acts.

This section contains 57 paragraphs including the following:

“Humanitarian veterans who have served in war zones and disasters around the world — people who have seen everything — [say] they have seen nothing like what they see today in Gaza” (para 44)

“Israel is said to be dropping ‘dumb’ (i.e., unguided) bombs on Gaza,195 as well as heavy bombs weighing up to 2,000 lbs (900 kgs),196 which have a predicted lethal radius “of up to 360m”, and are “expected to cause severe injury and damage as far as 800 metres from the point of impact”.197 This weaponry is being deployed in one of the most densely populated areas in the world” The level of mortality in Palestinian families is such that medics in Gaza have had to coin a new acronym: ‘WCNSF’, meaning ‘wounded child, no surviving family’.” (para 47.)

“To date, Israel has killed: over 311 doctors, nurses and other health workers, including doctors and ambulance drivers killed on duty; 103 journalists, amounting to over one per day, and more than 73 per cent of the total number of journalists and media workers killed globally in 2023; 40 civil defence workers — responsible for helping to dig victims out of the rubble — killed while on duty; and over 209 teachers and educational staff. 144 United Nations employees have also been killed, the

“highest number of aid workers killed in UN history in such a short time”. (para 49.)

“For many Palestinians, the forced evacuation from their homes is necessarily permanent. Israel has now damaged or destroyed an estimated 355,000 Palestinian homes — amounting to 60 per cent of the entire housing stock in Gaza. The extent of the destruction in the North of Gaza, in particular, has rendered it largely unliveable, with the destruction in the South reaching a similar level.” (para 60)

“The lack of water is severely impacting lactating women, in particular, who, even if undertaking only a moderate amount of exercise, require a supply of 7.5 litres of water a day for drinking, sanitation and hygiene to keep themselves and their babies healthy.” (para 67)

“Almost above all else, Israel’s military assault on Gaza has been an attack on Gaza’s medical healthcare system, indispensable to the life and survival of the Palestinians in Gaza. Israel “has declared an ‘unrelenting war’ on the health system in Gaza”, as observed by the United Nations Special Rapporteur ..” (para 76)

“In addition to the war wounded, there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza who still need routine medical care for conditions such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease or diabetes.380 Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are also in need of urgent care for kidney disease and cancer, and an estimated 130 premature babies are dependent on incubators for survival at any given time.381 Many of them are now unable to receive medical assistance. (para 85.)

“Along with its destruction of the physical monuments to the history and heritage of the Palestinians in Gaza, Israel has sought to destroy the very Palestinian people who form and create that heritage: Gaza’s celebrated journalists, its teachers, intellectuals and public figures, its doctors and nurses, its film-makers, writers and singers, the directors and deans of its universities, the heads of its hospitals, its eminent scientists, linguists, playwrights, novelists, artists and musicians. Israel has killed and is killing Palestinian story-tellers and poets, Palestinian farmers and fishermen, alongside Gaza’s local legends: pastry chef Masoud Muhammad al-Qatati,” (para 93)

“An ever-increasing number of Palestinian babies in Gaza are reportedly dying from entirely preventable causes, brought about by Israel’s actions: newborns up to three months old are dying of diarrhoea, hypothermia, and other preventable causes.” (para 99)

SECTION D.
Evidence of Genocidal Intent.

Section D of the ‘Application’ contains six paragraphs dealing with evidence related to not only the actual, but to the verbal intent to commit genocide which came from within the elite leadership of Israel and from others in Israel. Among them the following;

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 3 November 2023. “In a letter to Israeli soldiers and officers also published on the platform ‘X’ (formerly Twitter); the letter asserted that: “[t]his is the war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. We will not let up on our mission until the light overcomes the darkness — the good will defeat the extreme evil that threatens us and the entire world.” (para 101)

President Isaac Herzog: 12 October 2023. “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved. It’s absolutely not true. … and we will fight until we break their backbone.” (ibid para 101)

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. 9 October 2023. “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything. If it doesn’t take one day, it will take a week. It will take weeks or even months, we will reach all places.” (ibid para 101)

Minister for National Security: Itamar Ben-Gvir. 10 November 2023. “To be clear, when we say that Hamas should be destroyed, it also means those who celebrate, those who support, and those who hand out candy — they’re all terrorists, and they should also be destroyed.” (ibid para 101)

Minister of Energy. Israel Katz.13 October 2023, “All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.” (para 101)

Israeli Minister of Finance: Bezalel Smotrich. 8 October 2023, stated at a meeting of the Israeli Cabinet that “[w]e need to deal a blow that hasn’t been seen in 50 years and take down Gaza.” (para 101.)

Israeli Minister of Heritage: Amichai Eliyahu. 1 November 2023  posted on Facebook: “The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever. Everything is blown up and flattened, simply a pleasure for the eyes …” (ibid para 101)

Israeli Minister of Agriculture: Avi Dichter. 11 November 2023. “[w]e are now actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” (para 101)

Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and Member of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee: Nissim Vaturi. On 7 October 2023. “Now we all have one common goal — erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” (para 101)

Israeli Army Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories: Major General Ghassan Alian. 9 October 2023) “Human animals are dealt with accordingly. Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, no electricity, no water, just damage.” (para 102)

Israeli Army Reservist Major General, former Head of the Israeli National Security Council, and adviser to the Defence Minister: Major General Ghassan Alian. 7 October 2023. “The people should be told that they have two choices; to stay and to starve, or to leave….When the entire world says we have gone insane and this is a humanitarian disaster — we will say, it’s not an end, it’s a means.” (para 102)

Israeli Army reservist “motivational speech”: On 11 October 2023, 95-year old Israeli army reservist Ezra Yachin — “Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children.Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live.” (para102)

Assorted other public comments made in Israel are included in Paragraph 103 to 106 some of which are as follows;

“Destroy everything”; May their villages burn; May Gaza be erased; turned into a slaughterhouse;

“I tell you, in Gaza without exception, they are all terrorists, sons of dogs. They must be exterminated, all of them killed. We will flatten Gaza, turn them to dust, and the army will cleanse the area. Then we will start building new areas, for us, above all, for our security.” (para 106.)

SECTION IV.
The claims of South Africa against Israel.

(a) failing to prevent genocide in violation of Article I;
(b) committing genocide in violation of Article III (a);
(c) conspiring to commit genocide in violation of Article III (b);
(d) direct and public incitement to commit genocide in violation of Article III (c);
(e) attempting to commit genocide in violation of Article III (d);
(f) complicity in genocide in violation of Article III (e);
(g) failing to punish genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to genocide, attempted genocide and complicity in genocide, in violation of Articles I, III, IV and VI;
(h) failing to enact the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the Genocide Convention and to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to genocide, attempted genocide, and complicity in genocide, in violation of Article V; and
(i) failing to allow and/or directly or indirectly impeding the investigation by competent international bodies or fact-finding missions of genocidal acts committed against Palestinians in Gaza, including those Palestinians removed by Israeli State agents or forces to Israel, as a necessary and corollary obligation pursuant to Articles I, III, IV, V and VI. ( all in para 110)

SECTION V.
Declaration and Relief sought by South Africa from the ICJ.

a) Israel has breached and continues to breach its obligations under the Genocide Convention, in particular the obligations provided under Article I, read in conjunction with Article II, and Articles III (a), III (b), III (c), III (d), III (e), IV, V and VI; ” (para 111)

(b) must cease forthwith any acts and measures in breach of those obligations, including such acts or measures which would be capable of killing or continuing to kill Palestinians, or causing or continuing to cause serious bodily or mental harm to Palestinians or deliberately inflicting on their group, or continuing to inflict on their group, conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and fully respect its obligations under the Genocide Convention, in particular the obligations provided under Articles I, III (a), III (b), III (c), III (d), III (e), IV, V and VI;

(c) must ensure that persons committing genocide, conspiring to commit genocide, directly and publicly inciting genocide, attempting to commit genocide and complicit in genocide contrary to Articles I, III (a), III (b), III (c), III (d) and III (e) are punished by a competent national or international tribunal, as required by Articles I, IV, V and VI;

(d) to that end and in furtherance of those obligations arising under Articles I, IV, V and VI, must collect and conserve evidence and ensure, allow and/or not inhibit directly or indirectly the collection and conservation of evidence of genocidal acts committed against Palestinians in Gaza, including such members of the group displaced from Gaza

(e) must perform the obligations of reparation in the interest of Palestinian victims, including but not limited to allowing the safe and dignified return of forcibly displaced and/or abducted Palestinians to their homes, respect for their full human rights and protection against further discrimination, persecution, and other related acts, and provide for the reconstruction of what it has destroyed in Gaza, consistent with the obligation to prevent genocide under Article I; and

(f) must offer assurances and guarantees of non-repetition of violations of the Genocide Convention, in particular the obligations provided under Articles I, III (a), III (b), III (c), III (d), III (e), IV, V and VI. ” (all in para 111)

The remaining paragraphs of the Application’ cover a request for provisional measures to ensure the safety of Palestinian civilians, notes the jurisdiction of the Court and states the common humanitarian ideals which underpin the establishment of the United Nations, the Genocide Convention and the International Court of Justice.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2024)

Part 1. Exceptionalism.

When one group of people systematically kills another group of people, then some very powerful collective emotion and practical ambition is obviously driving this behaviour. Therefore, it is not very instructive to describe the phenomenon of mass killing as blindly destructive, collective madness or simply sub-conscious  racial hatred as some on the left have recently done. The lack of serious analysis of the underlying motives and the elite psychology of recent area bombing of other human communities is indicative of the intellectual weakness of the radical left in the 21st century.

Indeed, the use of such ill-defined terms actually serves to deflect or obscure the real human based rational calculations motivating the past and present perpetrators of mass crimes against humanity. Such use includes labelling the latest, most openly brazen crimes of collective punishment, inflicted upon the citizens of Gaza. It is not as if there is no alternative analysis either, for there are much clearer descriptions available. Since the early 20th century it has been usual to label such whole-sale destructive atrocities as acts of genocide, a term which includes a series of clearly defined horrific actions against peaceful populations, irrespective of their age, or gender. Moreover, it has long been known that;

“Conflict can become genocidal when powerful groups think that the most efficient means to get what they want is to eliminate those in the way.” and; “…genocidal mass murder is politically motivated violence that directly or indirectly kills a substantial proportion of a targeted population, combatants and non-combatants alike, regardless of age or gender. (‘Why not Kill Them All? D. Chirot, & C. McCauley. Introduction and chapter 1.)

However, whilst the above description covers a lot, it still does not really explain the full range of motives going on within the individual and collective mind-set of the perpetrators of systematic mass killing. Consequently, it is also useful to focus on what the collective perpetrators of genocide hope to gain from entirely destroying another section of humanity who in the perpetrators perspective just happen to be undesirable and ‘in the way’. Frequently, motives for commiting genocide, are to obtain exclusive access to land or other valuable resources, from populations who already exist and reside upon them.

Nevertheless, a rewards-based understanding of mass killing also does not complete the explanation as to why such resources could not be exchanged or shared by humanity and why total extermination is seen by the perpetrators of it as the final solution to their perceived problem with their victims existence. This is why I suggest identifying the phenomenon of exceptionalism and collective narcissitic ideologies of group (or nation) will add a further dimension to the understanding the phenomenon of genocide. In particular the anthropocentric exceptionalisms contained within the ideology of Judaic Zionism and the territorial ambitions of the nation of Israel, will reveal much about the conflict in Palestine.

“Human exceptionalism is the conviction that human beings are made in the image of god, as ensouled bodies, integrating intellectual, emotional, social, psychological and moral dimensions of human life into a flourishing whole, and are different in kind from nonhuman creatures.” (‘The Perils of Human Exceptionalism’. D.L Durst. Introduction.)

It is clear from any study of the relevant religious texts that the Abrahamic monotheistic religious versions of exceptionalism (all thinking themselves as God’s ‘favoured’ or ‘chosen’ people) already had a strong element of  exaggerated self-importance. Moreover, the histories of the practitioners of Judaism, Christianity and Islam reveals that the long running aptitude of fundamentalist Abrahamic ‘believers’ for mass  killing in the name of god or country, confirms an active immersion in the ideological expressions of exceptionalism.

Furthermore, the calls by Israeli officials to empty and level Gaza until it becomes like Nazi extermination camps such as Auschwitz, indicate how far belief in Jewish exceptionalism is prepared to go in elevating it’s own community and denying the humanity of another community standing in its way. Therefore, when additional elements of ideology, such as exceptionalism are incorporated into the collective institutions of ancient as well as modern states the phenomenon becomes exceptionally lethal as even a religiously inclined author admits.

“Violent tendencies, hatred, mistrust, arrogance and fear are always characteristic of nationalist exceptionalism.” (‘We are Great’. The Evils of Exceptionalism. G. Gowing.)

So far it is hard not to recognise that most of the characteristics outlined in the first three quotations above, closely match many past genocidal events as well as the recent Nakba 2 destruction perpetrated by the Apartheid state of Israel. Indeed, the existence of a Jews only state, (a state for a distinct ‘race‘ or ‘people‘ as advocated by T Herzl) was openly intended to be an institutional form of exceptionalism to the other multi-religious and multicultural groupings known as states and it has maintained that status ever since. Whilst the concept of exceptionalism is somewhat wider than the concept of Narcissism, there is nevertheless a continuum between the two which testifies to their common origin in the socio-economic structures of hierarchical mass societies. Thus;

“The narrowest form of exceptionalism is narcissism, the belief that “I am exceptional, I am superior, I deserve all of this, I’m owed all of this and I am going to take it or I’m going to hoard it.” The ‘I’ can be extended to ‘we’ and when it does, it becomes a more recognisable and more potent form of exceptionalism…. Exceptionalism almost always plays off fear. Yes we are are superior, but we must stick together and we must use our superiority to crush, to eliminate those lesser beings. (‘Ibid, ‘We are Great’: The Evils of Exceptionalism’.)

At this point two further aspects of hierarchical mass society exceptionalism need to be recognised. First, exceptionalism is systematically drilled into the military institutions of hierarchical mass societies, literally and metaphorically. Their esprit de cour in terms of organisation and sworn loyalty to their elite insists they are militarily superior to their own citizens and superior to the citizens and military of all other hierarchical mass societies. In the military wing of such societies narcissistic exceptionalism is consciously promoted and intensified by regulation, internal troop and battalion competition and their flag fetishisms.

Second, elite fear must always arise as a consequence of the arrogance and violence derived from the actions of self-elevated exceptionalist groups or nations, particularly when their ideologies are driven by an imaginary and exaggerated superiority. This is because in reality humanity is one species with a vast range of talents and abilities spread across all communities and nations and no one community actually has a monopoly of talent or ability in general.

Furthermore, having a particularly superior technological level of killing and using it, does not not indicate a general level of superiority at all. Far from it. Outside of any isolated institutional bubble, arrogance and superiority of state or military violence presents itself as an inferior level of social adjustment and loss of humanity. Practically everyone knows these two basic truths. Every community also knows that ‘might is not right’ and all communities know that the perpetrator of unnecessary official or unofficial violence must always – without exception – fear not only varying levels of distaste, dislike, disgust, and hatred, but even eventual revenge. 

Perpetrators of violent forms of group exceptionalism must therefore, constantly live in fear of eventual official or unofficial retaliation and this pattern of violent Israeli exceptionalism since 1948, has only increased the fear and insecurity for Israeli and non-Israeli Jews. So in late 2023, existential fear has not only increased for those Jews who live in Israel, but the lives of those living elsewhere have again become inceasingly endangered as a result of the genocide in Gaza. The ideas that violence can end violence or that wars can end wars, have long been exposed to be oxymoronic cliches, only maintained by those whose general humanity has been seriously impaired .

From the above extracts, from historical records and from our own current observations we can also conclude that the destructive results of current national and religious forms of exceptionalism are not unique to the religion of Judaism and the nation of Israel. The 1930’s Nazi Aryan aspiration of extending blood and soil agriculture eastward was motivated by a form of narcissistic exceptionalism based on the imaginary concept of a superior Germanic race entitled to expand its territorial boundaries by military conquest.

Similarly, the origin of American exceptionalism, was rooted in a mixture of exagerated religious and secular, non-aristocatic characteristics which were considered gloriously exceptional and this example also involved the genocidal elimination of indigenous north and south American tribal peoples. The latter too were considered inferior peoples and by their hunting and gathering mode of production in the plains and valleys, stood in the way of settled, small-holding agricultural communities and plantations  favoured by early European settlers in the so-called New World Americas.

Indeed, exceptionalist ideologies of superiority are manifested in practically all religions and nations to a greater or lesser degree, and the elites in nations such as Britain, America and France have on the alleged basis of past  cultural superiority not only been previous practitioners of colonialist mass genocides in Australia, Africa, India and North and South America, but are also present partners in supplying weapons and supporting the colonialist genocide of Zionist Israel in Palestine. Moreover these exceptionalist collective ideologies (and others not mentioned) have always functioned to the detriment of their own ordinary working people.

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the elites of hierarchical mass societies occasionally call each other out for their respective atrocities but rarely (or never) own up to their own. (e.g. Routine oppressor of Kurds and others, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, recently told a packed hall in Istanbul: “Israel has carried out atrocities and massacres!!!). Similarly the elites of Iran, ISIS, the Taliban and Hamas, call out the attrocities perpetrated against them, but not the ones perpetrated by them. However, as noted earlier, since exceptionalism always contains or creates some element of narcissism, it is worth reminding ourselves of the symptom of individual narcissism before considering it further in its collectivist form.

(Part 2 Narcissism: Individual and Collective, will follow soon.)

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2024)

Every vote at the United Nations Assembly on the suspension of hostilities in Gaza  has revealed the impoverished moral condition of world’s elites in the year 2023. Particularly if it is born in mind that it took weeks of scenes of absolute devastation within Gaza to even stir elites into sitting round a table to debate whether the genocide had gone far enough  to even suggest a halt. Bear in mind also the fact that millions of ordinary citizens in the world’s states, who were allowed to demonstrate, had done so repeatedly almost since the genocidal bombing and shelling began. No loss of humanity there!

The list below is the latest example of elite infamy with regard to their absolute disregard for other human beings  in the latest high-tech destruction of the civilian population of Gaza by the Jewish Zionist elite in Israel.  The elites and their supporters in the countries listed below, have indicated they have as little concern for the systematic targeted deaths of 20, 000 men, women and children of our own species, as they do for species of insects, plants and other animals. This list should therefore also shatter the dream of those among us who think these elites are going to help save the planet from pollution, ecological destruction, climate change, and poverty among the non-elites.

A. At the UN, which countries elites, have voted against preventing further genocide in Gaza.

Israel
U.S.
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Austria
Czechia
Guatemala
Liberia
Micronesia
Nauru

B. At the UN, which countries elites have  abstained from preventing further genocide in Gaza.

Argentina
Bulgaria
Cabo Verde
Cameroon
Equatorial Guinea
Georgia
Germany
Hungary
Italy
Lithuania
Malawi
Marshall Islands
Netherlands
Palau
Panama
Romania
Slovakia
South Sudan
Togo
Tonga
Ukraine
United Kingdom
Uruguay

Roy Ratcliffe (December 2023)

Part 4. The necessity of revolutionary leadership.

For most of the 20th century, there was a dream among a minority of the worlds populations, that a revolution to overthrow the exploitative mode of production known as capitalism, was both necessary and possible providing it had the ‘correct’ leadership. The concept of a revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist mode of production was developed in the 19th century and was the result of two independent factors coming together during that period. The first factor resulted from the progressive industrialisation of manufacturing controlled by those who owned capital. This scaled-up development in the means of production had created a mass working class employed in large numbers in factories, mines and commercial enterprises, living in relative poverty and whose daily lives had been severed from a direct nutritional relationship with the land.

The dispossession of the agricultural population from private and ‘common’ land meant as workers they had no direct independent means of sustaining their lives other than being employed by the capitalist class. Unlike previous land owning ruling elites, the capitalist class engaged in productive and commercial activities for one main and overriding purpose – to increase their capital and revenue. The capitalist motive for engaging in production was (profit) and their methods of production (industrialised manufacture) created the most abhorrent employment practices and conditions of living for those they employed. Riots, sabotage, and reforms (for voting and trade union rights) seemed the only way of challenging this new form of capital-owning, elite power that had replaced the power of the landed aristocracy. When these tactics were tried and failed some people started to think about revolution.

Of course political revolutions were known to have previously ocurred, but these had only resulted in changes in the make up of the elite strata ruling the hierarchical mass societies. They spectacularly failed to improve the condition of the working classes in agriculture, manufacturing and commerce. For a considerable period of time, there were only vague ideas of how working and peasant classes might back revolutionary minded intellectuals in order to overthrow the capitalist mode of production and replace with something else. However, with the arrival of one particular individual named Karl Marx a more detailed revolutionary perspective was introduced. Among other things, Marx had made a detailed study of the Paris Commune and noted that ordinary everyday working class citizens once abandoned by the French ruling elite had organised themselves to keep the social form of the Paris commune operating in a satisfactory manner.

He was not the only middle-class observer of the Paris commune to realise this potential of the ordinary working citizens to facilitate the functioning of social affairs at that time. Indeed, in pre-revolutionary Russia in 1865, it was well known that Russian peasant agricultural communes were largely self-governing. However, Marx made an extensive study of the Paris Commune and concluded that;

“…plain working men for the first time dared to infringe upon the governmental privilege of their ‘natural superiors’ and, under circumstances of unexampled difficulty, performed their work modestly, conscientiously and efficiently..” (Marx. Class Struggles in France. Page 76.)

Marx was also one of the very few who seriously studied the economic and social logic of the system of capitalism and to do so at a forensic level of detail. He concluded that the capitalist mode of production would lead to the destruction of all previous modes of production. It would sooner rather than later begin to fully control the international economy until it dominated the entire world. In other words, the capitalist mode of production despite its fundamental contradictions, would sooner or later economically, politically and militarily destroy all other human socio-economic forms of organisation and make global humanity subservient to the capital investment needs of the capitalist classes. Nevertheless, the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production would also result in repeated crises of relative overproduction.

“Since the aim of capital is not to minister to certain wants, but to produce profit, and since it accomplishes this purpose by methods which adapt the mass of production to the scale of production, not via versa, a rift must continually ensue between the limited dimensions of consumption under capitalism and a production which forever tends to exceed this imminent barrier.” (Marx. Capital Vol 3 page 251.)

The rift, which resulted from the mass production of commodities and services at a rate beyond the means to be profitably sold would create economic and financial crises. The resulting layoffs, bankruptcies and business failures would plunge the working classes into desperate poverty and trigger social unrest. However, in replacing indigenous modes of subsistence production during its global spread, capitalism had also create a large-scale, international working class. Consequently, due to capitalisms cycles of boom and bust, this would create extreme conditions of living which would threaten – at a global level – the existence of the very working people who it exploited in its factories, mines, farms, shops, and commercial premises. Marx reasoned, along with many others, that in order to save themselves from continual devastation (wars, unemployment, occupational diseases etc.) working people would sooner or later be forced to socialise the means of production and prevent them being used for personal greed by private capitalists.

From then on, the dream of revolution imagined that production in every country experiencing such revolutions would be used to satisfy general social need rather to satisfy particular elite private greed. This concept of a workers revolution then became a dream of a widespread liberation from want and warfare, in contrast to the pro-capitalist (bourgeois) narowly focussed dream of ever increasing profits for the few by ever increasing levels of production. It was a dream strenouously and exhaustively promoted by some 20th century middle class intellectuals, particularly Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia and Chairman Mao in China. It was eventually pursued in reality by millions of working people in Russia and China. The masses employed in factories and farms etc., were persuaded to become followers of these supposedly great, forward-looking men. Those among the Bolsheviks such as Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin etc., actually claimed to be guided by the detailed studies of Karl Marx.

However, instead of facilitating workers to organise economic and social affairs for themselves, they systematically organised the workers in industry and peasants in agriculture and created a top down hierarchical mass societies with themselves as a new elite in place of the previous elites. In these Bolshevik and Maoist versions of revolution,, the workers remained highly exploited wage slaves as previously (something not advocated by Marx) and the new elite ruled as ruthlessly or more ruthlessly than the previous elites had done – also not something advocated by Marx. The political complexion of the elites in control of these hierarchical mass societies had certainly changed, but socially and economically nothing had been fundamentally revolutionised. Under this form of political revolution, pollution, ecological destruction, and physical exhaustion continued and regular assassinations and concentration camp internments of rivals replaced occasional assassinations and imprisonment of rivals by previous elites. The dream of something better had become a nightmare of something worse.

Consequently, for millions of working people the dream of a revolutionary transformation of capitalism by being led by a so-called revolutionary sectarian vanguard was over. Working people in Russia, China and elsewhere had trusted their educated, middle class radical politicians of the 20th century and had been betrayed by them. In the rest of the world the working class were promised better futures under welfare state capitalism run by educated, middle class liberal or social democratic politicians, and they too were betrayed as the western hemisphere hierarchical mass society systems simply continued, but also under a different political elite. The masses there also remained highly exploited and precarious wage slaves and wars, occupational diseases and unemployment continued to blight their lives. In fact by the mid 20th century, other problems were also developing. The combined productive efforts of workers, directed by the bureaucratic elites in all hierarchical mass society countries (of whatever political, religious or secular persuasion) were producing in order to sell at a profit, which led to pollution of land, water and air as well as climate change.

By the 1970’s the dream of green and pleasant lands courtesy of private or state based capitalism was only kept alive by a few dogmatic mini groups or sects.
Although, those 20th century hastily and badly constructed day dreams of elite vanguard-led revolutions are also mostly over, the problems created by capitalism are not. In fact, the living nightmare of an alienating, war torn, ecologically destructive, patriarchal, inhuman capitalist mode of production has on many levels  become far worse and therefore, still requires overcoming. However, three crucial interconnected material and ideological factors have changed which informed the basis of 19th and 20th century day dreams of revolution. These new factors have to be understood and factored into any consideration of the contemporary contradictions which are now causing cracks in the socio-economic dynamics of the capitalist mode of production. I will argue in the remaing sections of this article that anti-capitalists and single issue reform based activists can no longer cling to the formulas, cliches and policies of previous centuries and expect to be treated as credible by citizens of modern hierarchical mass societies.

The first change is to the occupational aggregations of working people. The days of huge numbers of productive workers in daily and hourly solidarity-inducing contact in factories, mines, offices have been replaced by automation and robotic assembly lines. The dream that the intensely exploited industrial, commercial and agricultural masses would would be the workers of the world who would eventually unite because they had nothing to lose but their chains, had mostly been made redundant. Many working people had been forced to become self-employed in the advanced countries and the few remaining aggregations of workers are now in hospitals, government bureaucracies and educational establishments. The second change is to the mass consciousness of working people. Few are now in awe of the middle-classes, elite forms of authority and politicians in general. The experience of the last four or five decades has produced an almost universal distrust of politics and politicians in all countries, particularly among the younger generation. Working class consciousness has also become more focussed on individual rights and on an entitlement to conspicuous levels of consumption. Solidarity was never general and continuous, but it is now particular and specific.

The third substantial change has already been mentioned and that is the failure of past revolutions to address, reduce or end the numerous forms of exploitation, oppression and alienation endemic to hierarchical mass society forms of living. If revolutions are understood to require considerable effort and sacrifice only to deliver more of the same hierarchical alienation under a different label (Soviet Union, Red China, Cuba, National Socialism in Germany and Italy etc.) then these socio-economic models now and in the future will not even be considered as a possibility, let alone as a probability in the majority of peoples minds. The above noted changes rooted as they are in reality, mean that in a severe crisis workers joining mass political parties and followng another self-appointed male vanguards is clearly extremely unlikely. Solidarity among the disparate sections of the population including the working class sections, will have to evolve from curent particular class and sectional issues into a more general humanist perspective.

With these changes in mind, we need to ask ourselves why then are some activists still operating with pre-modern categories such as nations, religions and other sectional ideologies when a global movement is not only necessary to fix the social, economic and ecological problems humanity now faces, but also desirable? And why a local sectional focus continuing now that humanity is also globally wired up? Yet in the 21st century, practically very term used to encourage collective action expresses some form of unity – but only partially and narcissistically; their group issue being  presented as the most  important. Nationalism focuses on a particular nation, Judaism on Jews, Islam on Muslims, Catholicism on Catholics, Protestantism on Protestants, Feminism on Females etc. Evangelism, Methodism, Calvanism, Marxism, Socialism, Comunism, Fascism, Sectarianism etc., are all likewise essentially narrow ingrained categories, resembling habits, which conserve the same historic superior/inferior divisions of us and them as if we are not a species; as if our problems are not universal ones. We only need to look how much social unity these ideologies have – over generations – actually destroyed within global humanity.

All these categories (and many others) seek a unity based upon a narrowly drawn set of criteria and conforming to ideas which exclude all other non-conforming categories of human being. Therefore they are all ideologically and practically reactionary however much some individuals within them wish to include others. And it gets worse. When reactionary ideological criteria align with the socio-economic dynamic of hierarchical mass societies, then the authoritarian tendencies within them can become extreme to the point of totalitarianism. In any serious crises, total internal control of hierarchical societies is exerted by their elites along with total warfare against other rival hierarchical mass societies. It is not that only some societies become fascistic, but all such societies in such situations become fascistic.

This is why in the 20th century, Stalinist Russia resembled Nazi Germany with their police states and concentration camps and draconian laws against criticism. This is why Putins authoritarian Russia in its 21st century military blitzkrieg on Ukraine also resembles Nazi Germany’s blitzkrieg on Poland etc., and Putin’s crack down on dissent resembles, that of the Nazis and Stalinists on their 20th century internal critics. Incidentally, it is also why the Zionist control of Israel in its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank along with it’s crack down on its own internal Jewish and Arab citizens criticism, also resembles the Nazi treatment of countries they invaded and internal dissent during their period of absolute power.

There has been a disastrous failure in Europe and the west, to recognise that the totalitarianism of 1930’s Germany and Italy, which was self-identified as fascism, was not something new or specific to Germany. It was (and is) common to all hierarchical mass societies both in their expansionary colonial stages and in their current declining stages. Concentration camps and assasinations were used by Britain in Africa way before the Nazis and Stalinists used the same strategies and tactics of social control and incarceration. British atrocities in India prior and during the period of the British Raj, toward the native peoples, were similarly racially diected as the Nazis were towards the Jews and the people of the east. The visceral brutality of North Amercan elites against the native Indian peoples and the total war inflicted by the North on the South in the American Civil war were every bit as barbaric as the Nazis against the Jews and Eastern peoples and as the British, Germans and French were during their periods of colonial possession in Africa and Asia.

When historical reality is seriously considered, the self-satisfying liberal myth that totalitarianism (Fascism) is something only a few other countries descend into is shattered. More people need to wake up to 2023 reality, look around the globe and recognise that totalitarianism is a systemic tendency of all hierarchical mass society elites. But why? The thin edge of the wedge that is inserted into the social fabric of hierarchical mass societies that leads to fascism, begins with the discriminatory practices between genders, occupational activities and rival hierarchical mass societies. After distorting the basic humanity of a critical mass of the elite citizens of such societies, the hierachical mass society process leads by degrees to the violent spectacle of humanity being the only species of life on earth that systematically kills it’s own species in huge numbers and on a continually recurring basis. Its socio-economic process also leads to the spectacle of global elites who in the 21st century will only ask for a pause in, and not declare or condemn a clear case of openly perpetrated genocide, a crime against humanity when it happens in Gaza, because it may negatively effect their international business interests or their political support from an electorate whose votes for re-election they rely upon.

This model of society and its leadership form is itself nothing but an inherited contradiction based upon prejudiced elitist assumptions. In ancient as well as modern reality, no one person has any characteristic or aptitude which exceeds the collective characteristics and aptitudes of the community in which that person resides. It is nonsense to suggest and act as if it were otherwise. Even a brief familiarity with the history of hierarchical mass societies and their hierarchical-led movements of reform or revolution reveals the utter inability of any of them to reproduce anything other than replications of the existing hierarchical mass society contradictions. Worse still by adopting the leadership model copied from all previous elite based forms, the process reproduces the worst reactionary elements in those becoming leaders and those who have chosen to be followers. Considering even a potted history of the movements or trends initiated by Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Blair, Bush, Biden, Macron, Popes, Bishops, Business tycoons, etc., at the top levels and those on lower local levels, demonstrates the tragedy of adhering to the logic implicit and explicit in the hierarchical mass society form.

And the effect of this socialisation process also occurs in more cases than those at state and country level. For example as recently as the post-second world war decades, Radical feminists disrespected and distanced themselves from socialist and liberal feminist, Zionist Jews turned on more humanist Jews, Islamists on more tolerant Muslims, Stalinist communists turned violently on Trotskyist communists, and each other. Trotskyists also turned on other Trotskyists. Narrowly drawn category ‘isms’ are a form of intellectual cancer, which tears away at their own structure and narrow form of unity. The leaders (and their immediate supporters) are required to pretend to an excellence which they clearly do not possess and never will posses. Their followers are required not to think and act to their own level of collective ability but to await guidance and follow orders. Put crudely those who wish to have a shepherd in charge of their lives need to be prepared to, and are expected to act like sheep. Those who wish to have a warrior king in charge of their sect or societies must act like dutiful soldiers and execute (literally as well as metaphorically) their every command to kill their fellow human beings whether innocent or guilty. Enough is enough of that, the future would benefit from a different model.

Finally, any crude dream world understanding of how revolutions occur needs to be replaced by a more accurate level of understanding. freed from the patriarchal myth of an extraordinary individual (invariably a man) stepping in to save the day. Revolutions are not identical with uprisings, which make pleas directed at elite leaders to authorise reforms which will treat them less harshly. Revolutions only occur when the politial and economic elite are viewed as the problem not the solution. The previously mentioned Paris Commune was set up by committees of ordinary citizens. In Russia, Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky did not create the Soviet Committees; the workers and peasants did. Neither did the Bolshevik trio create the socio-economic crisis; the Russian elite system did. The Bolsheviks did not start up the factories after the owners had abandoned them; the workers committees did. The mistake the urban workers and rural peasants made in Russia, China (and elsewhere), when their systems collapsed and they restarted it, was letting the Bolsheviks and Maoist elites take over control of their local and regional commitees and dictate what they subsequently did and what they thought. Enough is enough of that also.

For a revolution to occur the existing elite led system (in general) has to decay and at least partially collapse and the people working at the coal face (so to speak), whether in small groups or large, have to self organise and start (or keep) the socio-economic system running and encourage other workers to do the same. Then they need to resist elites (any elites) insistence on taking back control when the workers have stabilised the socio-economic crisis. Until those two aspects, elite disintegration and citizen willingness to continue socio-economic activity favourably coincide, then talk of revolution or of exceptional individual talents are of no practical consequence. Indeed, such imagined superior abilities can be a hindrance to collective self-activity and collective learning from experience. Nevertheless the empire of capital will eventually collapse from it’s own internal contradictions and those surviving such a collapse will have the opportunity to replace hierarchical mass societies with non hierarchical societies with full knowledge of being one species which is able to cooperate when not being urged or compelled by circumstances to compete.

This does not mean doing nothing whilst awaiting the inevitable catastrophic collapse of the capitalist mode of production, small group, local non-sectarian solidarity can begin now as they have with food banks, local campaign groups that are not blinkered to the wider struggle of other human beings in foreign lands. It seems logical that if the way humanity – as a global species – is currently organised socially and economically is self-destructive and destructive of the environment and ecology upon which all life depends, then human beings – as a whole – are the agents responsible for halting and changing this destructive and self-destructive trajectory. Therefore, to consider oneself as a humanist first and foremost, is the only way to be factually consistent with our species biological identity. Humanism only needs the addition of a revolutionary perspective and enough of us, to begin the process of humanity undoing the intense alienation that hierarchical mass societies have caused by the exploitation of humanity, plus all the other species of life on earth and of course the planets limited natural resources.

Roy Ratcliffe (December 2023)

Part 3. Truth, the first casualty of war.

It has long been a cliche that the first casualty of any war is the truth. This cliche applies to much more than military wars, but certainly military and civil wars contain the worst examples. It is certainly the case that many people in all countries will be directly or indirectly aware that outside of warfare those people with power and authority will deliberately, mislead, hide evidence of their wrong doing; plant or fabricate evidence where non exists; and get away with lies and false accusations, if it assists what they wish to achieve. Dodgy documents on “weapons of mass destruction”; “there were no parties at number ten during lock down”; “I never had sex with that woman”, “…we don’t bribe people with cash for questions in parliament”; “.. we found this gun in the suspects glove box”; such examples have all been repeatedly exposed as lies.

The ones noted above are just the everyday deceitful activities of police forces, politicians and bureaucrats, practically everywhere. ‘Licensed to Lie’ is not just the title of a book exposing deceit and corruption in the US Department of Justice, but is a statement of fact for the vast majority of state institutions and their elite occupants in all countries. Because they have the power to control events and people, they can lie with impunity. When they are colonising countries they can also steal land and property as Israel has done with Palestine, the USA did with North America, Europe did with Africa and the UK did with many Egyptian and Greek monuments and artefacts.

Of particular contemporary relevance is the case of the ‘Elgin Marbles’ stolen from Greece. In November 2023 UK prime minister Sunak lied about the ownership of the stolen Elgin Marbles and that therefore they could not be given back to Greece. This is an obvious lie. Governments have unlimited powers to not only hang people never mind give back previous stolen countries, land and monuments. Clinging on to stolen property and lying about it seems to be in the DNA of powerful national elites.

Even the knight of the floundering UK realm, Sir Kier Starmer could only suggest lending the ‘Marble Frescoes’ back for a period of time. The offer, of lending back something previously stolen, would be laughable if it occurred in a local magistrates court or small claims court, but this offer by a leader of the loyal UK opposition just about sums up elite integrity. It also demonstrates the extremely narrow differences between the two wings of the cultured gangster mobs currently in political control of the hierarchical mass society of Britain. That may seem bad enough.

However, when it comes to war, the stakes are much higher and the motives and opportunities for deceit and false evidence are much greater for those elites involved. Babies being ‘bayoneted’ or ‘decapitated’, women being raped on initial contact (as if these were primary mission objectives for enemy combatants), are common fabricated tropes traceable over many centuries of organised warfare initiated by hierarchical mass society elites. Sadly men do rape in war as they do in peace time, but not all men do. So extrapolating from the relative few who do in order to smear the relative many that don’t is not only false propaganda but takes serious analytical attention away from the social and psychological factors influencing the actions of those males that do.

Lies about how bad the enemy is, are often supported by dodgy, fabricated or often no evidence, just outright assertion. In other cases, sophisticated levels of false or incriminating evidence are produced by special state departments tasked with creating such falsehoods. The ‘Protocols of Zion’; the ‘Zinoviov Letter’ are notorious examples of such practices. There are books full of such activities and their exposures. In terms of the middle east, I personally, would not trust the truth of any Israeli or Hamas claim or counter-claim against their opponents or the statements of either sides political representatives. In these days of artificial intelligence and photo-shopping, I would certainly count myself naive or stupid if I believed anything I read or saw on TV or in news photos, unless it was sufficiently confirmed by independent, trust worthy evidence and confirmed by non-partisan third parties.

I was advised long ago by one of my teachers to always keep my ‘crap detectors’ well honed because in modern societies there is a lot of crap being churned out hourly and daily. And that advice was given in the days of radio, newspapers and TV. In other words before AI and internet plarforms allowed anyone to say anything without any attempt at rationality or accuracy. My life since those days at college have provided ample evidence that most of what those in authority; government, politics, and management say should be viewed with great suspicion. Indeed, the more elevated the authority articulating any so called ‘conveniently’ manipulated facts, the more that suspicion is warranted.

It may or may not be true that Hamas has bases under schools and hospitals, but I also know that Israeli elites having claimed that this is so, if none are actually found under schools or hospitals, Israeli troops will be unable to resist ‘planting’ some ‘evidence’. As with other elites, those with power, opportunity and motive in the Israeli hierarchy are certainly able to ‘stage’ some event or fill some space with sufficient incriminating material and equipment, to fool those who wish to be fooled. Retrospectively justifying having done something nasty such as bombing, shelling and killing, teachers, doctors and patients in medical locations, has long been in the play book of black ops state actors. Furthermore, the Israeli elite have authorised and perpetrated so much killing and destruction in Gaza that they probably think that without such ‘evidence’ the global disgust they have already brought upon themselves will be even greater. If so they are correct.

Moreover, planting evidence to justify a crime pre-supposes a knowledge that what has been done is morally wrong and that planting evidence is also legally wrong. Technically getting away with such crimes does not mean they did not happen.
However, I suggest that even if it were true that every school, hospital, public building and apartment block obliterated in Gaza had one or more Hamas operatives hiding there, this would still not lessen the injustice and crimes against humanity of killing tens of thousands of men, women and children who were not perpetrators of crimes against Jews or Christian’s in Israel or elsewhere.

Is it not a fact that even enemy combatants in most previous wars, ancient and modern – once trapped and surrounded by superior numbers – were taken prisoners and became prisoners of war, not obliterated along with non combatants by remotely collapsing buildings on them and leaving them to die of injuries or starvation? Such obviously unnecessary callous cruelty and inhuman indifference to members of their own species, by the Israeli military is a phenomena previously restricted to the Nazis, the Stalinists, the Argentinian Junta and Plantation slave owners.

Furthermore, the enormous, vindictive cruelty inflicted by the armed forces of Israel on Gaza and the West Bank, plus those of Russia against Ukrainian villages and towns, together with the enormous indifference and silent consent of the global elites everywhere to this latest example of genocide against the Palestinian working classes, should also act as a wakeup call to the working classes of the entire world. The wake up call is that in 2023 the charade of elites being against crimes against humanity is unequivocally over; that elite nationalism and elite capitalism is yet again engaged in a full-on war with collective humanity, albeit one or two national communities at a time.

This ongoing spectacle is so horrific that at a superficial level of thinking, what is happening in the 21st century world can appear to be, (and has been said to be) a form of madness by elites. However, using such terms provides no ‘explanation’ at all, for there is method to such apparent ‘madness’. The hierarchical mass society system has run out of new resources to exploit and so it is in a protracted period of decline, economically, ecologically, intellectually and morally. Consequently, in order to retain their privileged positions, its elites are turning in upon each other and upon their own citizens. What is occuring in response to ordinary Palestinian resistance to their oppression by the militarised hierarchical mass society elites of Israel, is also happening elsewhere in the world and this universal elite response to their system in crisis, prefigures what will happen to all forms of working class resistance to their oppression by hierarchical mass society elites.

Whether future uprisings occur in Asia, America, Africa or Europe, unless the hierarchical system collapses before hand, the available might of a militarised state or combinations of them, will be used to suppress any concerted resistance, uprisings or revolutions by ordinary citizens. Evidence? It has already happened in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, Myanmar, etc. Movements aiming at radically changing the current system and its latest mode of production will be ruthlessly stamped upon by elite self interest. In such cases all ordinary human beings resisting oppression have effectively become, or will effectively become the equivalent of Palestinians in their own geographical versions of Gaza or the West Bank.

Nevertheless, in contrast to this ‘reactionary’ development among the global elites, mass popular demonstrations world wide, over issues of oppression have long illustrated where the remaining sources of humanity reside. This is so even though they failed to prevent the war against Iraq, motivated as it was, by the false weapons of mass destruction claims by Blair, Bush and their national and global cronies. They just went ahead anyway, with silence or complicity of most other global elites. Mass popular demonstrations world wide in support of Palestinian people again demonstrated in 2023 where the source of humanity still resides and this too has failed to halt the blitzkrieg war against the masses in Gaza and the West Bank.

This latter case is also a war motivated by false claims – this time the false claim of occupational legitimacy! These events strongly suggest that on a more global and ecological scale, saving humanity and the planets climate and ecology as a whole, is not going to be spearheaded by an elite who have so little in common with humanity at its ordinary everyday level, and so little in common with life on earth in all its myriad species forms. Resolutely turning their backs on what is really important is a result of a life-long elite reflex of turning their attention exclusively toward their own selfish self-interests.

What is really important to humanity is actually achieving peace, justice and sustainability, not just hoping for it. The dream of almost effortless transitions to better times are over. The dream that popular elections can make the lives of national communities better; that trade union strikes can bring improved results for everyone; that at least a core of politicians are in politics to help others, not just to help themselves; that modern hierarchical mass societies are a source of civilised behaviour; that people under this hierarchical mass society system have the right to self-determination; that the elite can eventually be persuaded by rational argument, to stop polluting the planet and killing the myriads of species which support all life on earth. In actual fact, the historic and contemporary reality is both dark and stark. It is a reality of  elite governed hierarchical mass societies  versus humanity and the rest of the life on earth species.

So the future of global humanity and the general life support system of integrated and inter-dependent species evolution, will of necessity have to be decided and constructed by the ordinary working people of planet earth. Like life itself, the humanity of the human species, is reborn with each generation and if humane characteristics are not socialised out of individuals by them becoming part of the self-indulgent elite, these humane characteristics are overwhelmingly retained within the majority of ordinary people. Their humanism may not be fully thought out,  considerably hindered by the dominant dualist framework of western thinking and not yet revolutionary, but it is there nonetheless.

They are the only section of humanity that has little or no vested interest in continuing to labour in the equivalent of a 24/7 socio-economic treadmill of production that rewards an elite, while impoverishing the many and damages the atmosphere, the water quality, the fertility of land and the ecological balance of life on earth. This undoubted fact means there is still a need for the ordinary people of the world to overcome any less important differences and unite, because as difficult as that may be, there is an amazing world of variety and species interdependence to lose if we do not.

However, there is another warning that arises from documented history as well as being illuminated and confirmed by contemporary events. As long as the hierarchical mass society form is accepted as a legitimate form of socio-economic organisation, little else matters. It will matter not whether the hierarchical elite chosen to lead them are of left, right, centre, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Atheist, Socialist, Communist or Fascist persuasions. The socio-economic logic and the material conditions of hierarchical mass societies, at the very best determine what transpires within them, and at their worst dictates what must be done by elites to maintain and sustain these systems. Thinking that a different ruling elite can solve the problems endemic under all previous ruling elites is an intellectual product of cultural and ideological entrapment by the form and content of one dominant but disfunctional type of social organisation.

To realise a really revolutionary transformation of how all life on earth is treated, any future popular uprising needs to include the intention to achieve a revolutionay transformation of human social and economic forms of organisation. Human societies will need to cease to be socially hierarchical, economically unequal and anthropocentric. One or even two of these transformations would be insufficient, all three are essential for social stability and ecological sustainability. Finally, it is important to remind ourselves of the well known unreliability of statements and claims by all nation state elites in their military wars of possession or annexation or also in their internal civil wars undertaken to maintain their domination. Truth is still the first casualty of war and; in 2023 the ‘Dream of Bourgeois Progress’ is clearly over.

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2023)

Part 2. Elite interest quickly dissolves elite integrity.

That sordid reality mentioned at the end of Part 1, is the fact that elite, self-interested commitment to having a share in the available and potential profitable resources of the globe is placed higher, much higher, than the interests of humanity. Calling for and achieving a short pause would only allow a trickle of aid to enter Gaza, and give the appearance of humanitarian concern, before the continual crimes against humanity would be allowed to start up again. Everybody not willing to delude themselves about peaceful outcomes know this. Thus the prime concern that the middle eastern profitable resources are kept within the western sphere of influence by the presence of a militarily strong Israel will be pursued.

Such negotiated pauses, past, present and future are not intended to allow a solution for Palestinians. They are tacit acknowledgements that brief intervals before the Israeli national elite continue what they have started do have some PR value. What it had re-started in early October 2023, has been revealed not only as reflex tactic of terrible revenge, but as a renewal of the final stages in the long drawn out solution to what the Zionist Jews consider to be their Arab problem. European and Western elites support this strategy by Israel because, as previously noted, it counters any threats to their profit sources from changes to the middle eastern autocracies they have heavily invested in.

This latest episode in the Zionist program of being a base for protecting US, UK and European based capital from competitors, is also one of a privileged section of the human species (the Israeli elites) removing another less privileged section of the human species (the Palestinian elites) from life itself and from the land of Palestine. The means employed is courtesy of the latest batch of advanced armaments profitably supplied by Israel’s elite friends in US, UK and Europe. Nevertheless, destroying most of the remaining Palestinians and all they possess by a massive bombing and shelling campaign within the territory of Gaza and the West Bank has introduced a new generation of global citizens to the practice of settler colonisation and the horrors of ‘total war’.

Total war is when people are killed by every means possible, not just by guns, bombs and missiles. Total war includes systematically depriving the enemies non-combattants of food, water, shelter and medical attention. Using disease outbreaks  as a biological weapon of mass destruction therefore kills those that have dodged the guns and bombs. Despite the daily visual horror of this mass destruction of human life and buildings this spectre is still not outrageous enough to alter the unwillingness of any other national elites singly or collectively to openly condemn it or seriously attempt to reign it in. This is because this massacre of the innocents along with the guilty by Israel is not an outrageous global anomaly as many naive media commentators seem to think.

It is something the Israeli elites share with all elites in authority over hierarchical mass societies, and is fully in line with the past actions of all national elites. Massacres of those resisting colonisation is as old colonisation itself, but not everybody knows that. Our more recent generations of global human beings, were unborn when the U.S. military dropped over 100,000 bombs and missiles on Mosul in Iraq, Raqqa in Syria, and on other areas occupied by ISIS or Da’esh, so most will probably be unaware of regular massacres. Furthermore, some of the youth of today may also be unaware that the United States and its allies have dropped more than 350,000 bombs and missiles on 9 countries since 2001.

Likewise, the ugly history of Western and European mass killing in Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and Nicaragua, has long been kept out of (or relegated to the margins of) news media, whilst the public have been provided with a constant euphoric monologue extolling the benefits of western ‘civilisation’. All these examples of western imperialist type, gun-ship diplomacy and armed skirmishes along with Western military outposts in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, are not undertaken to provide soldiers, sailors and airmen with exotic off-duty experiences. They are there to protect profitable resources.

Moreover, in 2023 a new generation of global human beings have now, by means of the internet and alternative media, been able to witness first hand the mask of civility and humanitarian concern slip from the faces of modern hierarchical mass society elites, to reveal the underlying unmoved expressions of self interested greed. If so many global elites can show so little compassion or concern to prevent the wholesale killing and dismembering of members of their own species in Gaza, and the West Bank, etc., then it should come as no surprise why most of them show no compassion for the poverty and homelessness they create for their own lower valued citizens.

If in doubt of this assertion, just consider who gets killed most by bombs, bullets and poverty! Death by the weapons used in these latest wars between Hamas elites and Israeli elites, and Russian elites and Ukrainian elites, has been greatest among unprotected civilians. If ranks of dead babies in bombed and shelled hospitals do not move global elites to compassion and action, then people who in their elite eyes are only homeless (as a life-style choice!), queuing at food banks, or unemployed (also considered as being by their own choice!), or living next to swollen rivers, (presumed to be their own choice!) will be shown no compassion or serious action.

We should not overlook the fact that the above symptoms of global austerity and infrastructure neglect are the results of political and economic choices by national elites and  IMF  elites and that the resources expended by war armaments production will result in further austerity and high prices for those at the bottom of the hierarchical mass society system. The only thing protecting the old age pensioners in the UK and Europe from a similar severe level of callous indifference by advanced nation political elites is that fact that many pensioners continue to vote to elect the elites into positions of power, privilege and ample remuneration. In this case the elite hope by being less harsh on the old folk than the younger their chances of being voted into continued milking of the system will be better.

A further characteristic that elites in authority the world over have revealed they have in common is the their loose intellectual hold on logic. This also applies to the news media personnel that are employed to pass on the chosen narratives of the elite. The recent claim by Israel’s political elite that Israel has a right to defend itself – repeated by practically every one of the thousands of experts, politicians and officials, whether of left right or centre or United Nation persuasions – highlights this global intellectual disability. It is public knowledge that scores of UN resolutions, accepted after long heart-felt (?) discussions, have declared, time and time again that according to Internationally agreed law, Israel’s occupation of Palestine is illegal.

The logic of the Israeli elites claim to have the right to defend itself by any means, therefore, amounts to claiming the that it has the right to defend by any means, it’s illegal possession of Palestinian territory. The UN staff know the occupation is illegal as do Politicians of all tendencies in the UK, US and Europe, so when they repeatedly preface their remarks by repeating the mantra  “Israel has the right to defend itself”, they have merely publicly  contradicted themselves. There is no legal right to defend an illegal act or to defend the continued possession of stolen property. According to agreed international law Israel has no legal right to defend it’s illegal possession of Palestinian land and property stolen since 1948.

In effect, the elites in the UK, the US, European nations and assorted others are collectively endorsing an illegal act which their own representatives have previously repeatedly condemned. The parroting of this same contradictory formula of a right to defend an illegal act or actions in this illegal occupation by media pundits everywhere, exposes their own shallow grasp of knowledge and an even less firm grasp on logic. Now I am certainly not going to defend either the right of Israeli elites to order the bombing of Gaza into the stone age, and its genocidal killing of the ordinary Palestinian masses, nor am I going to defend the right of Hamas elites to fire rockets or kill Israeli civilians in other ways.

Irrespective of legal rights, or in one case their complete absence, both sets of elites (and their elite supporters elsewhere) are merely personifying the immoral policy of killing innocents as part of their political agendas to gain absolute control over terrirory and resources, in this case the territory of former Ottoman Palestine.  Both elites (and their supporters)  should therefore be openly condemned as crimes against humanity.  Moreover, by such self-contradictory convenient distortions, all such elites, established ones or ones wishing to replace them, are overwhelmingly trapped by the socio-economic logic of elite controlled, hierarchical mass society dynamics. Under hierarchical elite systems, economics determines politics. Thus elite self interest, continually corrodes elite integrity.

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2023.)