“Only the dumbest calves choose their own butchers" — Bertolt Brecht
The day on which you are supposed to say “yes”. Yes to rearmament. Yes to compulsory military service. Your vote for the deportation of refugees. Your vote for further austerity... Money for tanks and missiles instead of affordable housing and free public transport - compulsory military service and labor service instead of takeover - conscription instead of education...
This is exactly what awaits us if we believe that voting for one party or another will give us, the working class youth, a future. Incidentally, around 10 million1 of “voting age” in this country are not even allowed to vote in this election, but are just as affected by the above measures. Our future can only get worse as long as we don't have the courage to fight for it. And this fight does not start with a cross on the ballot paper, but with standing up against the war in our schools, universities and companies; to find those with whom we can block the entrance together when youth officers are to attend classes.
For 18-year-olds, the upcoming federal election offers only one choice: which signatory the draft notice should have. Because the banks and corporations have nothing but war to offer young people in Germany. And the election programs of the bourgeois parties offer nothing other than the goals of the banks and corporations. A choice between warmongers out of self-conviction and warmongers out of economic compulsion.
War has long dominated everyday life around the world; countless people have lost their homes and families. 122 million were displaced worldwide in 20242 . The destruction is growing in scale; it is the only way for capitalists to survive: If the profits of the capitalists can no longer be maintained with the normal fraud, destruction of people and nature and exploitation of the workers, then the other peoples must bleed. 80 years after the liberation from Hitler fascism by the Red Army, this Greater German beast is once again seeking to invade foreign countries. Today, its military is back in Lithuania, not far from Vilnius, where the SS murdered over 100,000 people.
This election, like everything else at this time, is measured by one question: how can the murder and destruction be stopped? And the federal election cannot provide an answer. How could it? The capitalists have no other way of holding on to their position than through robbery and destruction. Their parties, their parliament, their system cannot end the war!
But whoever wants to wage war on the outside must ensure peace on the home front. If the masses are to be let go, if they are to be sent into labor service and to the front instead, the right to strike and freedom of assembly will only stand in the way of the rulers. Every freedom, no matter how small, will have to be fought for.
The AfD alone does not make fascism. Fascism requires the most aggressive capital and the bourgeois parties, which are already paving the way for fascism. For the most part, the laws have already been made: restrictions on freedom of assembly, pilot models of compulsory work/preparation of a labor service, payment cards instead of cash for refugees, which is now also being demanded for the unemployed. The militarization of society as a whole is on the agenda. It has long been common practice for youth officers to appear in schools; in Bavaria, the law on the promotion of the Bundeswehr has overridden the principal's domestic authority against the militarists. At the same time, civilian clauses were banned at universities. More and more people are being placed under the command of the Bundeswehr: The homeland security, i.e. those who for the most part are not permanent soldiers but have normal professions and can therefore nestle directly in companies and, in case of doubt, also be used as strikebreakers, are being integrated into the army as a newly founded homeland security division. In addition, there are over a million firefighters, volunteers and full-time rescue workers, as well as the entire healthcare system: As part of civil-military cooperation, they are all under the command of the military in the event of a state of emergency. And they also have to stir up racism and hatred against other peoples: anyone who shoots at young people from other countries must believe that they have some kind of right to do so.
Yet the peoples of the world have long since proven that things can be done differently. When it is not the greed for profit of a few that dictates production, but the question of how to enable the whole of society to lead a healthy, happy life. The material conditions for this have long since been created: The incredible wealth in this world, the technical possibilities.
But this has never been achieved through elections alone! As Kurt Tucholsky said: “If elections changed anything, they would have been banned long ago.” You can't vote out war. Neither can compulsory military service. Only a blind person can still believe that fascism and war can be prevented by voting. The fight against fascism and war has always taken place and still takes place in the factories and on the streets.
The myth that all you have to do to change the state of the world is to go out and vote is supposed to make people passive and individualize them. This is exactly the opposite of what is needed now! At school, university or work: stand up and contradict the warmongers and defenders of the fatherland, whether they are colleagues, classmates or teachers. You are certainly not the only one who is against the war. But someone has to stand up and make a start.
When the first data collection letters from the Bundeswehr flutter into 18-year-olds' homes, the answer cannot be that everyone has to deal with it alone. Nor is it enough for individuals to decide not to hand over their data and have to pay a hefty fine as a result. No! We need joint actions, in front of and in the municipal registration offices or “career offices” of the Bundeswehr, and above all in our schools, universities and companies!
These are the issues we need to be concerned with right now, not the question of which party to vote for! So take to the streets: class struggle instead of election campaign!