Topic
State competition & ImperialismConstitution & Reason of statePeople & NationPublic sphereDemocracy

Accompanied by humanitarianism, judged from a legal point of view, disputed on moral grounds
Israel’s Gaza war — a challenge to the powers and moralists of the imperialist world[1]

Israel is going forward with its war against Hamas' state-founding terrorism in Gaza. So more and more of the population's living conditions and the population itself are being destroyed because with this war Israel is defining and treating this population as a swamp of terror. Gaining momentum alongside this is the wrangling over the question of which of the atrocities of this war are necessary — and which are superfluous and should therefore be blamed on Israel as a violation of good manners in state killing and destruction. The provisional highlight in this context is the accusation of “genocide,” because according to the relevant legal texts, nobody should be doing such a thing at all. The debate about whether Israel's terror-extermination campaign in Gaza is still within the green range of military violence permitted under international law or whether it is already criminal — is obviously so edifying for those involved in it. GᴇɢᴇɴSᴛᴀɴᴅᴘᴜɴᴋᴛ does not take part. Instead, it explains how ends and means also belong together in this war; it explains further the imperialist content of the concerns about legality and admonitions of the supporting states as well as the mistakes and achievements of the public and private moral statements on the ongoing war.
Topic
DemocracyPeople & NationState competition & Imperialism

On the global boom in radical patriotism
Populist anti-imperialism

The German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is not the only party in the world that boasts a polemical excess of patriotism.[1] Parties of this kind are successful everywhere, ones that promise to put their country at the top as it deserves, however the comparison goes; to put it “back” where it used to be according to their philosophy of history.

Topic
State competition & ImperialismCapital & CompetitionState support for the classes

On some recent advances in the competition of states

The technological and economic advances that capitalists have been achieving — largely not on their own but rather through their states’ action — are in many ways of the utmost importance to these states, especially and above all others the mighty ones. These advances urgently require their supervision, control, and direction because they are essential for their own competition with each other, whether on the economic, world-market strategic, or military level — in short, essential for their “future.”
Topic
State competition & ImperialismWorld-power project Europe

Summit to mark NATO’s 75th anniversary
The NATOization of the Ukraine war and the Europeanization of NATO

NATO is celebrating its 75th anniversary as a war alliance and considers itself to be more necessary and more alive than ever before. Although it is not directly at war, it refers to the war in Ukraine as the “greatest security crisis in generations.” Russia’s violently asserted opposition to NATO’s eastward expansion has given the alliance back the enemy that constitutes its unity and that it had lost with the abdication of its system rival. And for the past two-and-a-half years, its proxy war in Ukraine has proved to be a productive force for the alliance’s power, extended its deployment area to 32 states, and added fuel to the members’ rearmament efforts, the financial level of which now finally largely meets the alliance’s requirements.

Topic
DemocracySovereignty & Constitutional state

A hot summer of campaigning in the USA
What must an American president be able to do and be?

There is no summer slump in American political life this year. After all, the president will be elected in the fall. And because the post of the world’s most important ruler is at stake, the leader of the world power par excellence, every twist and turn in the American election campaign enjoys the attention of the whole world. And there has been no shortage of twists and turns so far: the first direct clash between the two candidates turns out to be such a disaster for the Democrats that Trump’s renewed election victory seems to be a safe bet. But just a few weeks later, nothing is certain: after Biden assures that only the Almighty himself can stop him from running again, he suddenly renounces in favor of his — even more unpopular — running mate Kamala Harris; contrary to all expectations, she is met with a wave of enthusiasm in the party and among the electorate. Just a few weeks later, she overtakes Trump in several polls.
Topic
Capital & CompetitionMarxismConstitution & Reason of statePublic sphereWage relation

On some recent advances in the competition of capitalists
Digitizing the circuit of capital

A few years ago, capitalism was reinvented in California’s Silicon Valley. China has been following suit and can now show a thing or two about the “artificial intelligence” business. So as not to be left behind by this epochal progress, Berlin’s politicians are vigorously trying to “digitize the economy.” How this is actually advancing capitalist competition is easily overlooked.
Topic
Wage relationPeople & Nation

An American union struggles for recognition
What is a hard-working American and what does he need?

In 2023, the American auto union UAW — United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America — astonished domestic and foreign observers with a six week industrial action against America’s proud “Big Three” auto companies — GM, Ford, Stellantis. No wonder. After all, it was demanding a wage increase of more than 40 percent over the next four years as well as the abolition of the “two-tier” pay system which stipulates lower wages — almost 50 percent less per hour — and a lower pension for all workers hired after 2007. In addition, “cost of living allowances” — a type of annual compensation for inflation — are being brought back. The UAW demanded all this to reverse the drastic concessions that had been extorted from it a decade and a half ago when the Obama administration averted the bankruptcy of its employers in the wake of the financial crisis by mobilizing a huge amount of government loans.
Topic
DemocracyPeople & NationSovereignty & Constitutional statePublic sphere

The Capitol attack
The last battle (for now) in the “Fight for America’s soul”

That sure was traumatic for the nation. For the first time since 1814, the Capitol in Washington is ransacked, but this time not by foreign soldiers acting on the orders of a hostile, undemocratic monarch. On the contrary, it’s ardent American patriots, bursting with love for “freedom and democracy,” who are going at it certain that they are only claiming their good democratic right to “four more years!” under the rule of their favorite president.
Topic
DemocracyPeople & NationSovereignty & Constitutional statePublic sphere

America in election year 2020
Chronicle of a “Fight for America’s soul”

“I’m voting for the president I’ll make more money under” (an unnamed hard-working American on German television)

That is pretty close to America’s true soul: to the false materialism going with the capitalist competition that the land of unlimited opportunities excels at. But it is not even half the truth when it comes to the second wave of Donald Trump’s election campaign for “America first!” after 2016. The officially launched ‘culture clash’ between populist lies and democratic hypocrisy is about nothing less than the nation’s morality — that is, about the obedience of the people that the global might of the state is based on in the land of the free.

Topic
State socialismState competition & ImperialismThird World countries

Cuba’s “new path to socialism”
State-Organized Third-World Capitalism

The Cuban leadership has decided on far-reaching reforms. Promoting foreign exchange–earning economic sectors and attracting foreign capital; committing state-owned companies to profit-oriented production standards; dismissing at least one million state employees; considerably expanding the small-scale private sector and promoting private farmers; abolishing what remains of state-guaranteed basic services as soon as possible. The government justifies its list of measures by pointing to the country’s catastrophic budget situation, which makes painful corrections unavoidable. At the same time, however, it promises that these measures will “preserve socialism, strengthen it and make it truly irreversible.” (Raúl Castro) GᴇɢᴇɴSᴛᴀɴᴅᴘᴜɴᴋᴛ takes the reforms as an opportunity to critically assess the current end point as well as the general intentions, barriers, contradictions, and negative progress of fifty years of Cuban “socialism” — with an epilogue on Cuban friendship and enmity past and present.