The silence is not peace, nor is it acceptence, nor resignation. It is the vacuum seal of a pressure cooker. Iran has been struck and it has struck back. The Ayatollah is dead. Missiles arc over the Middle East like scythes. In Europe, Argentina, Austrialia and other 'western' countires, the streets are on fire with riot and protest. In the United States, dissenters are being collected—not in mass internments, but quietly, efficiently, on phony charges that dissolve into the algorithmic fog. The state has actively used the police, the surveillance apparatus, and other means to repress dissenters and silence critical voices. Lawfare, kidnappings, and the surveillance state keep our best organizers compressed, paranoid, and less effective. They are forced to operate within rhetorical gaps and permitted moves in a saloon poker game where the dealer's gun always prevents victory.
Polymarket ticks quietly upward: 20 percent odds a nuclear weapon is used before 2027. But real ones know that small things like this are soft disclosure that the use of a "tactical" nuclear weapon is already priced in. The fact that the polymarket put the odds out there, that the question can be asked publicly, that the Overton Window has slid open just enough to let that specific smoke out—this tells us that someone, somewhere, has already put out the word. The fire is already burning. The scenario is already written.
“Nobody wants a nuclear war, nobody wants a nuclear Israel [he obviously meant Iran], but nobody wants an endless war.”
Chuck Schumer
The middle part isn’t really relevant here, the statement “nobody wants a nuclear war…but nobody wants an endless war” seems revealing with regards to what is on the table.
The President at a desk. The Oval Office. He looks old. He looks like someone who just realized the thing he authorized actually happened.
"...necessary action to protect American lives and interests. The Iranian regime has been a state sponsor of terror for decades. They have murdered American soldiers. They have destabilized the entire region. We could not allow them to acquire the capability to..."
He stops. Looks down at his hands. For a moment, he looks like he might stop. Then he continues reading.
"develop nuclear weapons..."
@polymarket – [UPDATE] – Market: Nuclear weapon used before 2027
"Market resolved to YES. Settlement price: $1.00. 12,344 traders will receive payouts."
The underlying assumption of the past seventy years, Mutually Assured Destruction, is now believed to be off the table, by the decision making class. Iran does not have nuclear weapons, and it is of their belief, that a single nuclear weapon will not result in retaliation strikes from other nuclear powers, ergo MAD is not on the table, this is the line of logic those with the power to launch those weapons are operating under. We are dealing with the United States—the sole nation in human history to have deployed a nuclear weapon against another sovereign people. That is not a historical footnote; it is a behavioral fingerprint. It establishes a precedent of willingness that no treaty, no norm, no abstract theory of deterrence can fully erase.
Compounding this is the religious fanaticism that infects the decision-making corridors of both Washington and Tel Aviv. On one side, you have the evangelical substructure of the American empire—rapture prophecies demanding a final confrontation in the Middle East to usher in the end times. On the other, you have a Zionist project increasingly framed in messianic terms, where territorial expansion is divinely mandated and the "Samson Option" hovers not as a deterrent, but proof of a true lack of long term vision, and a suicide pact with the shock troopers for imperialism in the Middle East. When you combine a state with a proven track record of use with actors who believe they are fulfilling prophecy, the concept of "restraint" becomes a luxury of the secular.
The material conditions further narrow the path of non-use. The United States cannot put boots on the ground. You cannot rule a country of 85 million with airstrikes. You cannot effect regime change from 30,000 feet. The century of projecting power has collapsed under the weight of its own logistics, the hollowing out of manufacturing, the simple arithmetic of imperial overreach. When the B-2s have returned to Whiteman, when the Tomahawk magazines are empty, and the target still breathes, the imperialist class begins to reach for the last option left on the memo. The tactical nuclear weapon becomes the "Hail Mary." It is the play you call when you have exhausted every other, when your defense is spent. The dog has caught the mail truck, and it has no idea what to do now it's teeth are biting metal.
The footage, when it comes, will be a test of the spectacle's tensile strength. We have already seen the absolute horror emerge from Gaza. We have watched the pulverized architecture of human life, the children extracted from rubble like debris, the hospital bombings, the attacks on breadlines. And we have watched it get absorbed into hyper-normality. The sheer volume of carnage has normalized the abnormal; it registers now as background radiation, a low hum of atrocity that no longer disrupts the daily churn. The system is remarkably efficient at processing horror. It converts it into memes, into streamer drama, into psychic white noise.
Combine this with the algorithmic control now consolidated over every major platform, the new control over TikTok. Videos of a flattened Tehran would be flagged for "graphic content," deprioritized, buried beneath a thousand cat videos and dance challenges. The memetic irony poisoning of a generation means that even the most visceral image is met with a sarcastic comment, a disbelief in its authenticity, a cynical shrug. The shattering of the spectacle may not occur, because the spectacle has built redundancies. It has prepared us to not believe our own eyes.
And yet. The sheer, primordial horror of a nuclear weapon possesses a quality that may overwhelm even the most sophisticated propaganda apparatus. There is a threshold of suffering beyond which the algorithm cannot mediate.
"Tactical nuke", "tact-nuke". The Call of Duty language here, the use of the word "tactical" is such a linguistic obscenity, a bureaucratic euphemism designed to render the unthinkable thinkable. There is nothing tactical about a nuclear weapon, and it would behoove anyone whom feels the need to pontificate on the glory of the usage of one, should read the Japanese accounts, and remember that, MAD is still absolutely on the table in a world with such few rational actors.
We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world—a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
—Martin Luther King Jr., Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, 1967
So then, what can we do to stop this madness? There is a marked lack of anti-war protests happening in the US right now. Materially, I believe there are three reasons for this.
1) The state has actively been using the police, ICE, and other means to repress dissenters and silence critical voices. Lawfare, kidnappings, and the surveillance state keep our best organizers compressed, paranoid, and less effective. They are forced to operate within rhetorical gaps and permitted moves, all within a framework that is designed to prevent victory. Essentially, we are playing poker, but our opponent has a gun to our stomach under the table. We are forced to play, knowing we cannot win—if we try, we’ll be shot; if we fold too many hands, we’ll lose and be shot. So we must keep playing until we find the opportunity to escape the bullet. Large protests have occurred for Palestine—100,000 marched in D.C. in 2024—but the lack of tangible effect has led to fewer of these actions. The most critical organizers are either dead, in jail, bogged down dealing with ICE, or have begun to see the ineffectiveness of mass street protests.
2) With unions representing less than 15% of the total working population, and an economic system that is debt-based and increasingly less labor-focused—due to the AI bubble and extreme financialization—the conditions for a mass work stoppage are dire. The unions that do exist, often backed by the state, tend to be less than anti-imperialist. These modern unions are not the ghost of the IWW. Calling for a nationwide general strike in response to a war that seemingly had little "run-up"—meaning little propaganda priming or consent manufacturing—seems impossible within the limited window of time available.
3) The dogmatic, insular views of the left have made it incapable, or perhaps unwilling, to deal with the realpolitik involved in organizing a GI movement that can operate within the material conditions of a settler-state-imperialist army. Essentially, if there are dissenting soldiers, they have no outside movement to latch onto. Given the economic systems engineered by the capitalist, there will always be a segment of military members, veterans, and those connected to that world who can and should be propagandized. Yet, I do not believe the left has the stomach to do this work.
Lenin stated, "Whoever expects a ‘pure’ social revolution will never live to see it." Currently, the left primarily exists online, within spectacle systems designed to control psychic engagement with true reality. From this vantage point, the left simply does not view the military in a way that would allow for its organization. How can you create a movement where the military can consciously object, if you believe that those within the ranks are fundamentally evil for being in a position to object? Regardless of one's moral views of those people, organizing them is a key to unlocking strong anti-imperialist progress.
But again, there is a total lack of ability to even answer the national question, or to provide a framework for a vision of what these men and women could "fight" for instead. There is a growing leftist veterans movement, but it is nascent and potentially heavily disorganized. Many on the left with a military background view it as a black mark. Those capable of strategizing a modern GI movement are often the last people to speak on these topics, due to their background and the perceived moralistic views of their comrades. This is politically catastrophic. It means that when a soldier begins to doubt the war, there is no welcoming structure, no political home, no vision, no public, no "America" to defect to. The lack of a draft further complicates things.
Therefore, even if the war is deeply unpopular in the ranks, the choice is between following orders or facing military courts, potentially summary executions, and life sentences. Those in a position to object will not. If the conditions were different—the creation of a strong socialist vision for the future, combined with assurances of a role within that vision, and a strong public outcry that aligns with the desire to object—then the potential for executions and life sentences would lower (due to public relations pressure), which would then increase the potential for objection to the war.
This is a clear example of the hegemonic forces of US imperialism deciding both sides of the opposing forces allowed to propagate within the spectacle of discourse. In the dominant narrative, soldiers are individuals; they made a choice. They are either heroes or villains, veterans or war criminals, sons or sons of bitches. In every allotted selection of dialogue, the narrative thread is woven: these are individuals, and they made a choice. Yet we, as socialists, know that systems are what move history, not individuals. The moralistic framework toward organizing within, around, and toward the ranks maintains the hyper-individualism of capitalist alienation. This allowed dissent actually reinforces imperialism. If the opposition says soldiers are evil and deserve to die, then the imperialist has an even easier time painting the hero narrative within the ranks and for those who support the war effort.
The centering of the individual reinforces the cultural hegemony within capitalism—the idea that the individual is ultimately responsible for the outcomes of capitalism. Neoliberalism continues to shock and jolt the mind's eye. Therefore, we must remember the systems of imperialism, the systems of birth-place RNG, the decades of propaganda, and the fundamentally Marxist understanding of how the capitalist uses "common sense" to maintain control. Those within the ranks are, in their essence, proletarians who have been acted upon by these systems.
Therefore, the lack of a vision-narrative and counter-hegemony to compete with those systems of "common sense"—the fault of the lack of a true anti-imperialist GI movement—falls not upon the individual soldier for joining, but on those systems as applied to a group of proletarians. This means that yes, there are those who have committed terrible crimes in the name of the United States. But even if we assume the best possible case—that the moral "wrong" of joining imperialist forces is seen as morally "good"—it is the psychic warfare waged by hegemonic systems (jets flying at football games, 3 Doors Down songs) that planted this belief of "right and wrong" within the proletarian. The inability of the left to craft the narrative-vision means that "common sense" becomes all-encompassing. Within the framework of the "saloon poker game," the only hand allowed to be played is the nihilistic, individualist perspective of moralism. This framework reinforces the imperialist's individualist narrative and removes system analysis.
If we are to win, we must begin to draw new hands. This is why active socialist organizations and thinkers should attempt to build that vision-narrative, in conjunction with an actual GI movement, even if it means stomaching the moral impurity of the individual as affected by the systems of the capitalist. It means crafting narratives, discussing alternatives, understanding the economic reasons, and learning from the past—all while understanding that the fundamental lack of a draft fundamentally restructures how our approach should be taken.
Assume we only need to win over 10–15% of the force to slow the war to a crawl and prevent more casualties. Regardless of the often-cited statistics about the more middle-class background of the overarching military, there are no doubt many working-class people from impoverished backgrounds who felt this was the only choice left. You would only need to win over some of these men and women, in addition to those who can be swayed by that vision of a better means to serve, in order to achieve that 10–15%.
The means of propaganda, the means of psychic engagement, the purity moralistic views, and the lack of a serious desire to engage in realpolitik—meaning engage with military members despite their moralistic failings—must be overcome. In the long term, this engagement provides a stronger potential for actual anti-imperialist progress than short-term shame-based tactics and fatalistic engagement. Though no doubt some level of shame will be involved, the overarching memetic sphere already provides plenty of that. Wojak edits of dead soldiers will surely dissuade some recruits. But we—the organizer, the activist, the revolutionary, the activated left—do not need to engage with that in any real way. It would be best not to internalize the viewpoint that what gets the most Twitter engagement will be the best agitprop organizational strategy, lest we fall into the same trap as our enemy.
They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.
Eugene V. Debs
There is a strain of thought that anti-imperialists should attempt to capture, within the U.S., the robust tradition of isolationism. Most Americans understand what isolationism means; most Americans do not understand what anti-imperialism means. If someone used the framework of isolationism and American-centered politics in order to convince people to not support the war effort, is this incorrect because the person in question did not explain things by way of unequal exchange or by the correct "terms"? If the same conclusion is reached—i.e., less support for the war effort—does using the isolationist frame foreclose future radicalization, or does it create an on-ramp?
Anti-imperialism is often stuck in a moralist position, and we know that proletariats are limited in their choices. Structural determinism and other factors within the superstructure (which is crafted to create said conditions) mean that some level of people within the U.S. will join the military, and they will probably never see your epic "AMERICA NEEDS TO BE NUKED NOW" comments on Twitter. No, they will engage with the superstructure's hegemony: they are heroes, the war is noble, this is what real community service looks like, this is how you make sure you and your family can have a good life.
In a Gramscian sense, the construction of the moral policing that the left relies on to dissuade recruits from joining is, at best, incredibly ineffective at its stated goals—being to end the war effort and the economics that drive it. The reason we cannot engage in these levels of realpolitik is because we are so stuck on politics as moral compass, politics as personality, politics as something you are, and our own strategy of using moralistic shaming to prevent recruitment. This is why there is no GI movement: because the allowed opposition which has been cultivated forbids it.
There is also a network effect of this moralistic approach to shame tactics as a means to lower recruitment rates (which, these shame tactics would exist memetically, without the left's need to adopt them as principle). Anyone who exists within the hegemonic thinking, the "common sense" of the empire, will seldom be swayed by shame-based appeals: "You're a monster if you joined, you deserve to die in war if you signed up" (which, again, would exist memetically due to the "allowed opposition" within the hegemony). Anyone who has a friend or an uncle or knows someone who is in the military might be alienated from this approach; they might also be ashamed of their person within the ranks. But this shame is not actionable. It does not get the mother to call her son: "You should object. I've seen the footage of the drone strikes on schools. I'll support you no matter what they do when you say no."
Actionable material considerations are the key to strong propaganda work. Shame creates paralysis; paralysis is an acceptable choice within the hegemony, and ergo it is ineffective as an organizational tool.