“Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don’t want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

– Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trial, 1946

If there’s one thing that makes people turn off the telly it’s news about war and politics.

And if there’s one thing that makes people turn on the telly it’s news about war and politics.

If there’s one thing that makes them feel better it’s to compare their lives with the horrors of wars and of the politicians that make them.Here we try to look a bit below and beyond that initial contradictory and superficial reaction, born out of passivity towards this society, to look at the social relations that are making war – war being the continuation of politics and commodification by other means.

Bubbles stuck onto Territorial Army recruitment poster:

Adrian Cunliffe: “When duty calls adventure groans…”

Bob Child: “…but in the ruling show these irreconcilables are made to appear united…”

Roger Seymour: “…all the better to seduce the mass of obedient masochists….”

Tony Cook: “…whose self-pride forces them to put a glamorous gloss on their submission…”

Not all the texts here look at dominant politics, and its function in the process of commodification; some look at politics – the world of domination and submission, of manipulation and institutionalised hypocrisy, from an angle where for some it is least expected: in radical organisations.