Ever since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in late February 2022 the British ruling class has permitted no opposition to its proxy war on Russia. All dissent, even of the feeble pacifist kind, was suppressed in the political system. The entire ideological structure of bourgeois society was deployed to whip anti-Russian sentiment to hysterical levels. No dissent was allowed; the Ukraine war is that important to the British ruling class.
So when in April 2025, the GMB — one of Britain's largest trade unions, with well over half a million members — formally affiliated to the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, this should be seen in the context of a massive ideological offensive from the ruling class. In fact, the affiliation merely set a seal on an established position. The union's Central Executive Council had already declared in 2022 that it "unequivocally condemns Russia's invasion of Ukraine" and called for "the provision of moral and material aid from the UK to Ukraine, including the means of self-defence". Congress went further the following year: the GMB now "support[s] Ukraine's right to appeal for, and be provided with, the military equipment and weaponry required to defeat the invasion", and condemns Western governments "for their failure to provide sufficient aid"
Read that again. A mass organisation of the British working class does not merely pass pious resolutions about solidarity: it lobbies the imperialist states to arm a war more generously, and attacks the British government from the standpoint of the arms lobby — for insufficient bellicosity. The GMB, which organises care workers, school staff, refuse collectors and warehouse workers, has taken up a position indistinguishable from that of the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Atlanticist think-tanks.
+--+
He'll be interviewed for my radio show, Oregon, as John Rachel lives in Japan.
- Minimum wage $20/hour -
- High-quality, inexpensive health care for all -
- Expand Social Security and Medicare -
- End the wars and reduce military spending -
- Money out of politics -
Here's a detailed electoral strategy based around a broad range of issues ...
None of this should surprise us. What the GMB's position expresses is not an aberration, not a moment of confusion, and not the personal failing of this or that general secretary. It is the predictable politics of a distinct social layer — the trade union bureaucracy — whose material position, and whose consciousness, Marxists have been dissecting for well over a century.
Across the pond in the InBred UnUnited QueenDumb:
Ever since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in late February 2022 the British ruling class has permitted no opposition to its proxy war on Russia. All dissent, even of the feeble pacifist kind, was suppressed in the political system. The entire ideological structure of bourgeois society was deployed to whip anti-Russian sentiment to hysterical levels. No dissent was allowed; the Ukraine war is that important to the British ruling class.
So when in April 2025, the GMB — one of Britain's largest trade unions, with well over half a million members — formally affiliated to the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, this should be seen in the context of a massive ideological offensive from the ruling class. In fact, the affiliation merely set a seal on an established position. The union's Central Executive Council had already declared in 2022 that it "unequivocally condemns Russia's invasion of Ukraine" and called for "the provision of moral and material aid from the UK to Ukraine, including the means of self-defence". Congress went further the following year: the GMB now "support[s] Ukraine's right to appeal for, and be provided with, the military equipment and weaponry required to defeat the invasion", and condemns Western governments "for their failure to provide sufficient aid"
Read that again. A mass organisation of the British working class does not merely pass pious resolutions about solidarity: it lobbies the imperialist states to arm a war more generously, and attacks the British government from the standpoint of the arms lobby — for insufficient bellicosity. The GMB, which organises care workers, school staff, refuse collectors and warehouse workers, has taken up a position indistinguishable from that of the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Atlanticist think-tanks.
+--+
He'll be interviewed for my radio show, Oregon, as John Rachel lives in Japan.
- Minimum wage $20/hour -
- High-quality, inexpensive health care for all -
- Expand Social Security and Medicare -
- End the wars and reduce military spending -
- Money out of politics -
Here's a detailed electoral strategy based around a broad range of issues ...
https://johnrachel.substack.com/p/the-contract-for-american-renewal
https://johnrachel.substack.com/p/the-cfar-is-a-game-changer
Here's an electoral strategy specifically based on peace . . .
https://warismakinguspoor.com/a-nation-at-peace/
How about some 'walk'? We've had enough 'talk'.
+--+More?
• Getting Big Money Out of Politics: Overturning Citizens
United and related judicial decisions and immediately
initiating comprehensive campaign finance reform banning big
money in politics, especially targeting “dark money” and
corporate contributions.
• Campaign Financing: Only accepting contributions from
individual donors. Campaign contributions and “dark money”
from major corporations, special interest groups or other
organizations, e.g. AIPAC, will not be allowed.
• Expanding Social Security: Making no reductions of current
benefits or raising the eligibility age; expanding Social Security
by increasing or eliminating the cap on taxable income;
increasing benefits by at least 10% for all eligible recipients.
• Reducing Military Budget: Ending the undeclared wars and
unnecessary military exploits across the globe, except where
absolutely required to protect the safety of American citizens
and to defend the nation from overt, verifiable aggression.
Limiting presidential deployment of military assets, except in
cases of absolute emergency, by requiring informed
congressional approval.
• Crime and Criminal Justice Reform: Reforming our
criminal justice system, focusing on our racially biased, for-
profit incarceration system. At the same time, investing in
effective crime prevention programs and community policing.
• Tuition Free College: Making tuition free at public colleges
and universities throughout America.
• Environment: Implementing bold measures to mitigate the
negative impact of climate challenges and to protect the
environment from human-caused degradation, pollution,
depletion of the oceans, deforestation, desertification.
• Fair Individual Tax Policies: Instituting fair tax policies to
relieve the onerous tax burden now borne by the middle and
lower classes; closing tax loopholes, especially targeting tax
avoidance using offshore tax havens; introducing appropriate
parallel increases to capital gains tax rates.
• Fair Corporate Tax Policies: Eliminating tax loopholes,
unnecessary tax credits and corporate subsidies, and barring
use of corporate funds to lobby Congress; requiring
corporations to contribute their fair share to federal revenue
needs.
• Electoral System Reform: Reforming our entire electoral
system, making voting easier and more accessible, establishing
secure and effective mechanisms for reflecting and realizing
the priorities and choices of U.S. citizens, including but not
limited to: requiring valid voter ID; making election day an
official holiday; amending the Constitution such that the
President is elected by popular vote; permitting same day voter
registration; standardizing procedures on a national level for
determining electoral outcomes, instituting fully transparent
protocols for a timely recording, collecting, storing, counting
and recounting of votes.
https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/and-so-the-continuing-criminal-religious
End of Sept. Wed and Thursday:
https://kyaq.org/an-interview-with-author-and-documentarian-abby-martin/
None of this should surprise us. What the GMB's position expresses is not an aberration, not a moment of confusion, and not the personal failing of this or that general secretary. It is the predictable politics of a distinct social layer — the trade union bureaucracy — whose material position, and whose consciousness, Marxists have been dissecting for well over a century.