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Jan 24, 2025 | 
thebattleground.eu | John Foster
Likewise, the mainstream media’s disgraceful practice of sane-washing it all is equally distressing. Despite all of this, it is essential to recognise the underlying dynamic: the strange death of North Atlantic liberalism. Part of the challenge is specifying exactly what is designated, although the term might encompass a better word.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
thebattleground.eu | John Foster
One in five voters is prepared to vote for the fascist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a party with few identifiable policies except xenophobia. Elsewhere, mainstream German parties are wedded to policies that haven’t motivated voters in more than a decade and are too timid to try anything else. The Social Democrats (SPD) epitomise this inertia. Decades ago, the one-time progressive party rebranded itself as a party of the extreme centre.
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Dec 13, 2024 | 
thebattleground.eu | John Foster
Marcuse wrote: “Do terrorist actions contribute to the weakening of capitalism? Are these actions justified in view of the demands of revolutionary morality? To both questions, I must answer in the negative.”What followed was a devastating critique of the campaign of violence undertaken by the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction or RAF) and other groups.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
thebattleground.eu | John Foster
First, it was the German government. This was easy to see coming since the Free Democrats had been forced to suppress their libertarian instincts by being junior partners in a coalition with the Social Democrats and Greens. This is not to say that either of those two is waving the red flag of socialism. Pace their Marxist roots; today’s Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands is about as radical as a ham sandwich.
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Nov 29, 2024 | 
thebattleground.eu | John Foster
If one were to point to a trend, it would be the decline of the cartel party system, which has grounded Western European political life (such as it is) since the end of the Second World War. Oddly, the collapse of this system has always been what people on the left thought they wanted, confirming the truth of the old adage about being careful what you wish for. To a great extent, the end of the cartel system has been the collapse of social democracy.
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Nov 22, 2024 | 
thebattleground.eu | John Foster
There’s the self-satisfaction of the populist right (“the common sense of the people has been expressed”) and a great deal of liberal hand-wringing (“the turkeys just voted to expand Thanksgiving”). Thankfully, there’s another angle. In a recent episode of his Foreign Policy podcast, Why Are Poor Americans Voting for the Party of the Rich? Columbia University historian Adam Tooze went straight for the jugular.
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Nov 15, 2024 | 
thebattleground.eu | John Foster
As Germany’s governing coalition limps through its final days, one wonders if Chancellor Olaf Scholz has considered all the possible outcomes once the electorate has spoken. Thuringia, anybody? How about Brandenburg or Saxony? The current government is often referred to as the Ampel-Koalition (Traffic Light Coalition) because the colours associated with the SPD (red), the Freie Demokratische Partei (yellow), and Die Grünen (the Greens) are the same as those of traffic light.
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Nov 14, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Bhabani Nayak |John Foster |Megan Russell |Kim Petersen
The U.S.-China Business Council report on “U.S. Exports to China 2023” reveals that $151.3 billion worth of American goods were exported to China, supporting over one million U.S. jobs. According to the American Bureau of Economic Analysis, an official U.S. government agency, “In 2023, U.S. exports of goods and services to China were $195.5 billion, down 0.9% from 2022, while imports from China were $447.7 billion, down 20.6% from 2022.
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Nov 8, 2024 | 
thebattleground.eu | John Foster
For the Democrats, once again, it was a case of repeating their mistakes and expecting different results. This time they managed to arrange things such that a Republican candidate won the popular vote for only the second time in forty years. The blame game is in full swing right now. While many of the problems are short-term, this story has a long-term aspect that brings more immediate issues into focus.
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Nov 2, 2024 | 
thebattleground.eu | John Foster
Obscene because it was acquired by surviving eleven months in Auschwitz, a place that has justly become a metonym for human depravity. Levi’s postwar writings are some of the most important of the 20th century, containing profound and powerful insights about the human condition. But it was knowledge and wisdom gained at a terrible cost and for the sake of his humanity. It would have been better if he had never been put in the position to learn it.
