I was streaming a documentary series online titled “The Vietnam War”, and in the fourth episode of the first series it talks about the anti-war movement. What struck me was that it made a very valid point about the middle class protestors. What began as a moral (in the case of religious types, liberals, etc) or even a political movement (socialists, leftists, etc), change when the government realised that they needed to start drafting middle class kids. Previously they had only drafted working class kids, to go off and kill other working class kids. However as has already been said, they later had to draft middle class kids.

This is when the middle class took to the streets against the war, and the direction of the anti-war movement changed from one of either political or moral objection, to one of self-preservation. They were not bothered when working class kids were killing other working class kids, they only became bothered when they were faced with the fate of being sent to fight in that war.

It is typical, the middle class are only bothered and only protest when faced with issues of self-preservation. As a class they do not do out of affinity with our class, they do it because their privileged position within the ruling class is threatened. Once their trivial and temporary problems of self-preservation have be remedied, they revert to type. They revert to licking the upper class’ boots and forget about the working class.

This is partly why the middle class as a class do not have the same interests as us, do not share the same aspirations and the same fate, and certainly do not share the same fight. Their involvement is not incumbent upon solidarity with the working class, it is incumbent upon their own self-interest(s).