WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY - RUSSIA UKRAINE WAR - News Journal Update - (en) Italy, FDCA, il Cantiere #23: 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 then follow one
another, raging throughout 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 it also recurs 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 a dramatic increase very close to the 1.5°C
limit 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, a war which
continues to claim victims and destroy and heavily pollute those
territories, seems to be overshadowed. 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.

TWO PEOPLES NO STATE

AGAINST IMPERIALISM AND ITS WARS

LONG LIVE THE INTERNATIONAL UNITY OF THE OPPRESSED CLASSES

Hamas' attacks have for years oscillated between a helpless reaction in
the face of ruthless Israeli repression and the 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 forecast a worrying 70% increase in military spending for the
three-year period 2024-2026 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 is 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 and workers uniting 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.

Note

1) (Jeffrey Sachs:
https//www.commondreams.org/opinion/biden-foreign-policy-failure).

http://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
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