It was for this reason that Gorbachëv initiated a series of public debates. The policy was encapsulated in the slogan of glasnost. This is a difficult word to translate, broadly connoting ‚openness‘, ‚a voicing‘ and ‚a making public‘. Gorbachëv‘s choice of vocabulary was not accidental. Glasnost, for all its vagueness, does not mean freedom of information. He had no intention of relinquishing the Politburo’s capacity to decide the limits of public discussion. Moreover, his assumption was that if Soviet society were to examine its problems within a framework of guidance, a renaissance of Leninist ideals would occur. Gorbachëv was not a political liberal. At the time, however, it was not so much his reservation of communist party power as his liberating initiative that was impressive. Gorbachëv was freeing debate in the USSR to an extent that no Soviet leader had attempted, not even Khrushchëv and certainly not Lenin.

—Robert Service, The Penguin History of Modern Russia, (Great Britain: Penguin Books, 2020), 448.

Spiegel:

Es sind Augenblicke, in denen deutlich wird: Hier stehen sich zwei Konzepte, zwei politische Ansätze gegenüber.

Almut Rochowanski, Jacobin:

Under the ruling Georgian Dream party, Georgia might have excelled at adopting the technocratic reforms prescribed by its Western partners, but the latter nevertheless tried to squeeze Georgian Dream out of power. First partially, via a power-sharing scheme devised by the EU; then, after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, increasingly urgently; and finally, before elections in October 2024, openly so. Throughout, Western governments kept funding a powerful and vocal group of partisan NGOs that variously called for sanctioning, ousting, or toppling the government. So in spring 2023, the Georgian government first introduced a law that would oblige foreign-funded NGOs to disclose their finances. After a year of intermittent, large-scale protests, it was adopted.

Once the Georgian government started to push back against the foreign hold on the country’s NGOs, media, policymaking, and politics, it faced shrill accusations of secret pacts with Russia and being under Vladimir Putin’s influence — never mind the lack of evidence.

This double standard is barely ever acknowledged and never questioned, since according to a tacit consensus, the West is in the influence game only because we want what’s best for Georgia and would never seek any advantage from “protecting Georgian democracy” and promoting “reforms” (shorthand for a wide range of legal and political changes favored by foreign partners instead of the electorate). Foreign influence and the erosion of sovereignty are all good, as long as it’s us doing it.

Lukas Hermsmeier, Die Wochenzeitung:

Wie nennt man es, wenn eine Regierung gezielt Gesetze bricht und die Gewalten­teilung untergräbt? Wenn sie Bürgerrechte, Wissenschaftsfreiheit und Medien bekämpft, sodass demokratische Mechanismen immer weniger greifen? Wenn rechtsradikale Privatunternehmer plötzlich das Land lenken, ohne jegliche parlamentarische Legitimation?

Putsch, Verfassungskrise, das sind die treffenden Begriffe. Und so sollte man das, was derzeit in den USA passiert, auch verstehen. Die grösste Industrienation der Welt, in der Macht und Ressourcen sowieso schon abenteuerlich ungerecht verteilt sind, wandelt sich derzeit in einen unverhohlen autoritären Staat.

Between Gulf Wars I and II I clearly remember hearing Harris read from his book Our War on calling Vietnam “a mistake”:

While it may be an accurate conclusion, calling the war a mistake is the functional equivalent of calling water wet or dirt dirty. … In this particular “mistake,” at least 3 million people died, only 58,000 of whom were Americans. These 3 million people died crushed in the mud, riddled with shrapnel, hurled out of helicopters, impaled on sharpened bamboo, obliterated in carpets of explosives dropped from bombers flying so high they could only be heard and never seen (talk about cowards!) they died reduced to chunks by one or more land mines, finished off by a round through the temple or a bayonet in the throat, consumed by sizzling phosphorous, burned alive with jellied gasoline, strung up by their thumbs, starved in cages, executed after watching their babies die, trapped on the barbed wire calling for their mothers. They died while trying to kill, they died while trying to kill no one, they died heroes, they died villains, they died at random, they died most often when someone who had no idea who they were killed them under the orders of someone who had even less idea than that. … All 3 million died in pain, often so intense that death was a relief. This war was about us. We made it happen. It was ours. And, even at this late date, any genuine reckoning on our part must include assuming the full responsibility of that ownership. Nothing less will do.

Jens Berger, NachDenkSeiten:

„Die USA werden den Gazastreifen übernehmen“ und dorthin Truppen entsenden, so Trump. Man werde das Gaza „planieren“, die Palästinenser sollten den Gazastreifen „für immer verlasen und anderswo in schöne Häuser umsiedeln, wo sie glücklich sein können und nicht erschossen werden“. Was für ein Zynismus. Was Trump da vorschlägt, ist ein völkerrechtswidriger Angriffskrieg, die völkerrechtswidrige Annexion eines souveränen Staates und ethnische Säuberungen. Sein Traum einer „Riviera des Nahen Ostens“ klingt derweil wie ein Immobilienentwicklungsprojekt. Wahrscheinlich sollen israelische und amerikanische Touristen künftig im Trump Hotel Gaza dem Glücksspiel frönen und bewacht von US-Militärs den Sonnenuntergang über der Levante genießen. Ginge es hier nicht um Trump, die USA und Israel, sondern um Putin und Russland wäre der medial-politische Komplex sicher schon völlig aus dem Häuschen und würde zur nächsten Zeitenwende blasen. Da es aber um unsere „guten Freunde“ aus den USA geht, begibt man sich lieber in eine Duldungsstarre und übt lauwarme Kritik, ohne dieser Kritik etwas folgen zu lassen.

Das ist sogar „verständlich“, da die einzig logische Folge, die man aus Trumps imperialen Getöse ziehen müsste, Transatlantikern gar nicht schmeckt. Spielen wir Trumps Pläne doch mal durch. Ohne die US-Stützpunkte in Deutschland wäre ein „robustes militärisches Engagement“, wie man einen derartigen Angriffskrieg wohl euphemistisch bezeichnen würde, in Nahost überhaupt nicht denkbar. Wenn US-Soldaten in Gaza das Völkerrecht brechen und ethnische Säuberungen vornehmen, wäre Deutschland, von dessen Boden dieser Krieg mitgeführt würde, Mittäter, solange es den USA die Nutzung von US-Stützpunkten für diesen Krieg nicht untersagt. Doch wer glaubt ernsthaft, dass ein Donald Trump sich darum scheren würde, ob ein „Mister Schulz“ oder ein „Mister Mörz“ ihm irgendwas erlaubt oder verbietet.

Wenn man mitbekommt, dass ein Dritter eine schwere Straftat begehen will, und diese Straftat geschehen lässt ohne zu versuchen, sie zu verhindern oder zumindest zu erschweren, macht man sich selbst schuldig. Deutschland muss also tätig werden. Es reicht nicht aus, in Sonntagsreden über Trump und seine außen­politischen Wahnvorstellungen zu zetern. Wer A sagt, muss auch B sagen und seinen Worten Taten folgen lassen. Ami go home – nie war diese Forderung schlüssiger als heute.

„Because Gazans – it’s guaranteed that they’re going to end up dying. The same thing’s going to happen again. It’s happened over and over again, and it’s going to happen again as sure as you’re standing there Peter. So, uh, I hope that we could do something where they wouldn’t wanna go back. Who would want to go back? They’ve experienced nothing but death and destruction.“

I found the embassy posting this interesting.

This is how things look going into the last three weeks before the election, after a week of tens of thousands of pious, narcissistic self-righteous Germans dutifully braving the streets with their cellphone flashlights to proclaim their fear and hatred of the horror that is the AfD. BSW touched 10% this last year but now approaches the 5% hurdle from the top, while Die Linke attempts to approach it from the bottom, and aims to hold onto its direct mandates.

Posts on X, Mastodon, and Bluesky crow about the numbers of the Good People who have demonstrated against The Bad Ones while polling numbers remain stable or occasionally show a 1% improvement for the AfD.