WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY News Journal Update - (en) Italy, FDCA: AGAINST IMPERIALISM, WAR AND MILITARIZATION OF SOCIETY (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Two years have passed since the armed forces of the Russian Federation

attacked Ukraine on 24 February 2022, giving rise to a dramatic
escalation of the conflict already underway since 2014. In addition to
those already underway, other bloody conflicts would also have occurred
successions raging across the planet: in Africa, in the Middle East and
in the China Sea the main powers clash for control of the world market,
rekindling latent conflicts, and the war also reoccurs in the heart of
imperialist Europe.
All states are rearming: the increase in military spending is not only a
characteristic of the main imperialist powers (United States, the
European Union, Russia and China), but also of those in the area such as
Turkey, and the arms race also concerns the nations that emerged
defeated by the Second World War: Germany and Japan invested
considerable resources in the arms race. In the US, "Biden's military
budget for 2024 breaks all records, reaching at least $1.5 trillion in
spending for the Pentagon, CIA, homeland security, non-Pentagon nuclear
weapons programs, unsubsidized foreign arms sales, other expenses
related to the military sector and payment of interest on previous
war-related debts".(1)

Throughout the world, war is therefore not only blood, destruction,
hunger and tragedy for our class but, above all, it is the creation and
accumulation of new profits for capital, whose interests are now firmly
established in the state institutions of the various countries. On an
international level, the beginning of 2024 reconfirms an alarming
scenario for the future: imperialist competition for control of the
world market has caused a dramatic increase in conflicts and their
intensity; in many parts of the world the radical right continues to
reap electoral successes; the average increase in the temperature of our
planet in 2023 recorded an increase very close to that limit of 1.5° C
beyond which global warming will have its worst effects.

After the brutal and bloody attack by Hamas on 7 October 2023 on the
military forces of Israel and its civilian population, the retaliation
unleashed by the state of Israel against the population of Gaza has now
exceeded 25,000 victims, recording a dramatic escalation that does not
seems to be finding positive outlets at the moment and which has
completely overshadowed the other theaters of war: in particular the
inter-imperialist conflict between Russia and Ukraine seems to be
overshadowed, a war which continues to claim victims and to destroy and
heavily pollute those territories.

The massacre in Gaza is taking place in the absolute silence of the
European media, with the evident complicity of the EU, the USA and NATO.
Hamas' attacks have for years oscillated between a helpless reaction in
the face of ruthless Israeli repression and an attempt to maintain
itself as the defenders of the Palestinian people; the bloody Israeli
retaliation against the civilian population is unlikely to lead to the
disappearance of Hamas and in any case the Palestinians will have to
decide on their political representation. Israel has provided and
implemented the final solution for Gaza: once again in history the
institutional uniform is needed to cover up these horrible crimes.

And if the Israeli government now invites us to consider Hamas the new
ISIS by loading its militaristic and warmongering propaganda with
falsehoods, how can we forget that Hamas was originally supported by the
Israeli state to weaken the more secular Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO)? There are now thousands of civilian victims of this
war whose consequences are increasingly atrocious and the large-scale
invasion of Gaza has generated waves of refugees that no Arab
government, outside of increasingly empty declarations of solidarity, is
willing to welcome . Hamas is a reactionary political-military force,
proponent of a fundamentalist and anti-Semitic vision, financed by
regional powers that have objectives other than those of the
self-determination of the Palestinian people, just as Netanyahu is today
an expression of the most extreme nationalistic impulses. Both are
wallowing in the blood of the victims of recent months.

Together with the war between Russia and Ukraine, the conflict between
Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh and the growing tensions
between China, Taiwan and the United States in the Pacific, the possible
widening of the Israel-Palestine conflict, for example in Lebanon with
Hezbollah, it constitutes yet another piece of global instability that
threatens us all. What emerges unequivocally is the totally subordinate
role of the European Union to the dictates arriving from the other side
of the Atlantic, as well as its inability to develop its own foreign and
military policy and to thus fully establish itself as an autonomous
imperialist power at the world.

But the world at war is very good for weapons producers: military
spending is growing rapidly all over the planet; already last year the
highest value in terms of military spending was reached in Europe, and
the forecasts for the closing year are no different. Russia has
predicted for the three-year period 2024-2026 a worrying 70% increase in

military expenditure compared to 2023, which will constitute 29% of
total expenditure. Even in China, military spending continues its upward
trend, with an increase of around 7% for 2023, more than the recent GDP
growth values which now stand at 5%. At the same time as the expansion
of military arsenals, we are also witnessing, and certainly not by
chance, the polarization of the sides, with the countries of the Global
South uniting behind the banner of the BRICS, positioning themselves as
an alternative and autonomous subject to the Western bloc.

It is therefore necessary to completely clear the field of all those
deviations that would make the BRICS champions of anti-imperialism,
remembering that this is a project with clear imperialist connotations.
In this difficult situation, however, mass and radical opposition to the
bourgeoisie's offensive is struggling to emerge, while a growing wave of
reaction is manifesting itself which is consolidated in the affirmation
of right-wing and far-right formations which are returning to the
forefront of politics of many European and American countries: in Brazil
with Bolsonaro, in Argentina with Milei, in the United States with Trump
(who risks re-election!) and in Europe with the Orban government, the
successes of the AfD in Germany, Le Pen in France and Vox in Spain, as
well as our own Fratelli d'Italia and Lega. Beyond their electoral
successes and their consolidation as leading political forces, what is a
great source of concern is that these alignments involve substantial
parts of the oppressed classes everywhere. The recipe adopted by them
certainly does not shine in originality: identifying an external enemy
to whom to attribute responsibility for the nation's misfortunes.

It is a choice that proves to be extremely effective also because it can
count on the almost total subordination of the reformist left, in their
political and trade union components, to the compatibility policies
imposed by capital. In this regard, it is worth remembering that the
shreds of what remains of the left have aligned themselves with the
military policies imposed by NATO without any sign of opposition. But
there is much more: it is the definition of a new ideological paradigm
in which there is room for racism; for the stigmatization of those
living in conditions of poverty caused by the same policies of
destruction of labor rights and social protection measures; for the
onset of militarization processes in society; for the re-emergence of
patriarchy and homophobia, of violence against women even in its
homicidal configurations; for climate denial theories; for even violent
attacks on sexual minorities, all seasoned with aggressive and direct
language, a pervasive presence on social media and the promotion of a
"Western" lifestyle in the worst sense of the term, which absolutely
cannot be questioned .

All this to mask the substance of these policies, that is, an
unprecedented attack on the gains that the working class has worked hard
to achieve over the decades. Against a backdrop of a decline in work in
many parts of the planet, the predicted failure of Cop28 is taking
place. In Dubai, in the heart of the Arab petro-monarchies, it was
established that it is important to act against climate change and limit
the rise in temperature to 1.5 °C compared to pre-industrial levels, but
the substance is unfortunately very different: it will be done as
everyone pleases, possibly also making use of so-called "transition
fuels" (read natural gas). Furthermore, some change will be made to
finance mitigation and adaptation interventions and the damage and loss
repair fund, while recognizing that several trillion dollars would be
needed for this type of intervention.

Capitalism has no scruples about increasing the destruction of the
planet, beyond "green" propaganda. The varied movement, which has taken
to the streets of much of the world against the wars of capital and
which also sees the presence and participation of the Israeli
anti-Zionist opposition to Netanyahu's government, firmly calls for the
immediate suspension of the bombings and war crimes currently ongoing
and the end of the embargo on Gaza; respect for international
resolutions and a political solution for Palestine. We make our own what
was supported by our Israeli comrades, who for almost twenty years
fought the Wall in the West Bank by building popular committees with the
inhabitants of Palestinian villages and supported the Refusniks, against
the military occupation. Because the solution to the conflict can
ultimately only be a common society, classless and stateless, in which
different religious, atheist and ethnic backgrounds can coexist peacefully.

We are aware that if the priority is the end of hostilities in all war
areas for the protection of civilian populations, the only real
long-term political solution consists in strengthening the united and
internationalist social struggle against capitalism and its wars, which
leads to the overcoming of nationalist, fundamentalist and statist
logic. The way to achieve this goal can only be through class struggle
alongside workers who unite on both sides to improve their living
conditions and thus overcome long-standing resentments. It is up to us,
anarchist communist militants, libertarian and class activists, to give
our contribution, today as yesterday, to those who support the
possibility of a free and equal society, of a just peace, of coexistence
beyond borders, beyond religions and nationalities.

https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/blog/2024/02/04/contro-limperialismo-la-guerra-e-la-militarizzazione-della-societa/
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