What does the most gigantic economic rebuilding program of all time announced in the US under the title "Build Back Better" have to do with the increasingly fierce internal American culture war over issues such as abortion or theories of race and racism? At first glance, nothing, but for the world power, its leadership and its people, apparently a great deal. In our article on the subject, you can read about what the US is actually suffering from and why its leaders are so single-minded in thinking that they have to take care of the "soul of America."
When German chancellor Friedrich Merz announces that in these hard and challenging times Germany must “learn the language of power,” two things are clear: this is not about phrasing political statements in different ways. The intended meaning becomes clear in the accusation leveled against the president of the enemy state currently at war, Russia: He only understands the “language of force,” and consequently, this is how he must be dealt with, rather than with the language of diplomacy. The “lesson” announced by the chancellor here is thus about how to position and assert his nation as a global actor capable of wielding force — both in its dealings with Russia and on the world stage in general. Secondly, it is also clear for the Federal Republic’s Commander-in-Chief that a policy involving threats and the use of military force is not, in fact, a new language that has to be learned from scratch; rather, it is a practice already honed over four years of conflict with the Russian adversary. Considerably more of this is required: this is what Merz wants Germany to learn.
Iran did not ask for America’s war, and as far as it is concerned war could have been avoided, but if America thinks it has to wage it, the Iranian people will prove that this war is unwinnable for America. First of all, Iran has always been great and beautiful, and that is why, secondly, America’s attempts to diminish it — starting over seventy years ago — were not only bound to fail but have actually made Iran — “one of the oldest continuous civilizations in human history” — even stronger than it ever was. The Iranian president is talking about nothing less than the raison d’être of the state of Iran.
Trump is declaring a state of general emergency for the great America he thinks has been so totally mismanaged. This is supposed to enable him to make sure the nation can once again make the most of the global dominance and omnipotence that his predecessors betrayed and bungled — in other words, stole from the American people. The latter have long got used to foreign drugs and home-made food stamps instead of chasing after dollars and making themselves useful for America’s greatness. Trump is fighting migrants, the welfare state, wokeness, and the political opponents he blames for the spread of all these plagues, to help his Americans be great again, that is, truly American.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
In wartime, the morality of bourgeois society is turned upside down. What people must never do in peacetime — kill other people ---- they are now ordered to do. The right to life, one of the inalienable rights protected by basic law, now gives way to the duty to sacrifice one’s life for the state. This revaluation of values makes war the ultimate moral challenge. It provokes the need for justification, of all things.