After Donald Trump escaped an assassination attempt on Saturday evening, all the world leaders joined as one, to express their "shock". And with exactly the same absurd message, put in a nutshell by president Macron of France, who said "it's a tragedy for our democracies".
Prime Minister Modi of India wrote on X: "Violence has no place in politics and democracies". A spokesperson for Putin said: "Russia... categorically denounces any displays of force in a political battle". Perhaps the most outrageous of all these utter hypocrisies came from Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu who said he watched the shooting "in horror".
It's hard to know where to begin! Do we call them out for their condemnation of violence when they all preside over "armed bodies of men" and are right now feeding wars in Ukraine, Gaza, the Middle East, Africa... Or in Modi's bigoted case, encouraging political - aka religious - violence against Muslims?
And by the way, isn't one of Keir Starmer's first actions meant to be a "root-and-branch-review" of the armed forces? One can be sure it's not to cut them; he is responding to calls for new recruitment and up-to-date hardware!
Or do we call out these world leaders for talking about their "democracies" when under this global, integrated system of capitalism, there can be no democracy for the "have-nots", and only a rule of law (and violence whenever needed) to protect the few "haves" against them...
Indeed, every single society on this small planet is a divided society; first and foremost divided by class; capitalists against working class. Class violence is intrinsic; in its DNA. And every single society has a political system designed specifically to defend those at the top, the richest of the rich, whose aristocrats are, of course, the arms' merchants!
Big protfits from big guns
Yes, it's the sale of weapons of mass destruction and the profit thereby derived, which makes the world go around in these violent times of recession. It is this same vicious greed which promotes the selling of guns to all Americans - and thus opens the way to lethal reactions, like shootings by the disaffected. It won't stop until the profit system is stopped!
But that doesn't prevent the politicians who represent this iniquitous system, from daring to be "shocked" when someone fires a gun at one of their "own"! It's beyond all irony to hear someone like Netanyahu express "horror" at the Pennsylvania shooting, when day after day, under his orders, his army subjects the imprisoned Palestinian civilians of Gaza to endless, real horror. Another 90 were blown to pieces in the al-Mawasi tent camp on Saturday.
But what about this "Mother of all democracies" right here in Britain? This Wednesday, a "King's speech" opens the new parliamentary session. Yes, this "constitutional monarchy", a left-over of feudalism which the 1640 revolution couldn't quite get rid of, is above all a class society ridden with inequality. One million children don't have a bed to sleep in, while this "King" has 10 Castles, 12 homes and 56 cottages, probably with a few thousand empty beds in them...
Anyway, nobody here and certainly not the increasingly badly-off, low-waged working class, could possibly imagine that they live under a "democracy" which serves them in any way. The only way to express disgust at the past years of Tory rule, when presented by variations on the same theme on 4 July, including Labour's "do-nothing to upset the Banks and Bosses" policy for government, was not to vote at all!
The have-nots can inherit the Earth
What's more, in societies divided into various degrees of "haves" and "have nots" where the "have nots" are expected to be satisfied with the bread (crumbs) thrown to them, and the circuses put on for them - what else are today's Euros, or the Olympics? - the ruling class itself doesn't expect social peace to reign. And especially not in times of capitalist decline, like now. Today, they all gruesomely stoke war and send their armed men to beat up the poor and imprison them to the point where prisons are no longer big enough to hold everyone.
As to what they say, is it possible to take their politics seriously? Today Trump nominated as his running mate, JD Vance, who once called him "America's Hitler". So who or what changed?
Neither and nothing, in fact. The political game they play literally means an alternation in power of different faces, but policies which are more and more similar - and more and more anti-poor and anti-worker - as times get tougher. And that's the real problem.
The working class has the strength to stand up for itself, and de facto, the interests of all, however. But only if our different sections find ways to organise together. It would mean doing something new: looking beyond the loyalty to one's own workmates and taking responsibility as the majority class, to build a political organisation which fights unashamedly for socialism. We can do it. Workers and the poor in this society have one great strength: "ye are many, they are few..."