Re: [Marxism] An iranian leftist's perspective on Syria
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The article is indeed a complete pack of lies, Andy's outburst was fully justified. Just on this: He would argue that being against ISIS and the other fundamentalist groups, which are the main alternative to the Assad dictatorship, is just sensible. Louis already responded to this adequately. That "ISIS and the other fundamentalist groups" is the typical sleight of hand engaged in by every apologist for tyranny. There is simply no comparison between ISIS and absolutely any other group (including Nusra, which itself accounts for not more than 10% of the cadres of the insurgency), quite apart from the fact that they fight on *opposite* sides. But so if we get rid of the loaded "and the other fundamentalist groups", we are left with the assertion that ISIS is "the main alternative to the Assad dictatorship." Anyone with more than a mere passing interest in Syria would know very well that ISIS has never been even remotely posed to take Damascus or Aleppo, has never even remotely been posed as an "alternative" to Assad. All one needs to do is look at a map. And the couple of times some wild strands, some outreach parties, of ISIS have ventured closer to Damascus (never even remotely with the forces to take Damascus), it has been none other than the Syrian rebels that have driven them away. As for the idea that it is "sensible" that there can be a worse alternative than Assad, I'll just quote Michael Neumann, someone who has consistently written good stuff on Syria http://insufficientrespect.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/yes-do-compare-atrocities.html: "The very same people who cannot believe that the world just throws up its hands over Syria belong to those who enable that reaction. They cry out about human rights and war crimes, legitimating ridiculously broad categories that level out all choices into exercises in futility. Human rights discourse sets you up to say, there are no good options. And that indeed is how people react. "Well, what's wrong with that? Drop the refusal to compare and the problem becomes apparent. The situation in Syria presents far more than a choice between alleged evils. Comparison would show the crucial fact whose neglect affects all the West's reactions and policy decisions about Syria: that Assad represents an evil orders of magnitude greater than what is normally encountered in this world. "Imagine that people did actually examine and compare the record of the various parties to the Syrian conflict. They might find reasons why it is not only morally permissible but morally obligatory, at times, to give full military support to people who commit war crimes and violate human rights. That realization can occur only when people stop saying it's all the same and really look at the details of atrocities. "The worst atrocities are almost never reported. Incredibly, the latest Amnesty International account of torture in Syrian jails specifies the details of only of cases which are mild by Assad's standards. Perhaps here again, to report worse is thought merely prurient by an agency known for its 'even-handedness', that is, its refusal to compare. "But the details say something otherwise impossible to convey: that the Assad régime, even in the face of all the other horrible régimes around the world, introduces a level of barbarism scarcely conceivable. How typical for the world to focus on Assad's bombing, as if this was his worst, as if some fancy American fighter jets could do some flyovers and make all well. There are two reasons this won't do. "First, the focus won't overcome the refusal to compare: think how many will say, "but doesn't the West bomb civilians too? Didn't the US and Britain do this, deliberately, in the Second World War? Isn't bombing civilians, whether or not it is fully expected 'collateral damage', a terrible thing? What, are we going to compare atrocities now?" Second, the focus on barrel bombs is oblivious to Syria's realities. For Assad, barrel bombs are a mere convenience. Before the barrel bombs, his forces didn't kill children from the sky. They took knives and slit the throats of babies and toddlers. There are photographs and well-confirmed reports of this for anyone who takes the trouble to find them. "The refusal to compare and its consequent avoidance of details conceals uncomfortable facts. ISIS' beheadings that so shock the world take moments; they are humane compared to the slow deaths Assad's torturers have inflicted on victims as young as 11. Bombing hospitals is indeed terrible: before the bombings, régime troops invaded the
Re: [Marxism] An iranian leftist's perspective on Syria
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 12/6/16 11:17 PM, Nick Fredman via Marxism wrote: The sort of things that seem to get Tony Iltis's columns in Green Left denounced as Assadist-Putinite-fascism. Oh please. Iltis labeled the FSA as bandits and warlords in 2014. The guy is incorrigible and an embarrassment. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] An iranian leftist's perspective on Syria
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 1:49 PM, Philip Ferguson via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: The dude is Iranian and grew up under the Islamic regime in Iran. Not sure > 'Islamophobia' is therefore an accurate description of his views. He would > argue that being against ISIS and the other fundamentalist groups, which > are the main alternative to the Assad dictatorship, is just sensible. > > Western leftists don't have to deal with living under the mullahs; Iranian > leftists do. > > If we're wrong about Syria, we won't be the ones who suffer. > > My own views have shifted around somewhat, but I take Karim's perspective > very seriously. He loathes the Baathists, and he has firsthand experience > of their horrors, but his view is that the fundamentalists would be even > worse. Witness Iran, witness Libya. > > His views can't just be dismissed with the cry of 'Islamophobia'. > > Phil > I agree with all that. At various international gatherings in Australia over the last 20 years or so I've sometimes thought the contributions of some overseas comrades such as from Pakistan could be construed as Islamophobic but considered that they're the ones with first hand experience and the ones who've been copping it from hard right forces organised around Islamist ideology — and that the point was that these forces are hard right, not that they happen to be in Islamic garb. I haven't got around to reading Burning Country yet but recently I've read the latest few entries in Leila Shami's blog https://leilashami. wordpress.com/. She emphasises the "sectarianisation of Syria", that the democratic opposition are "increasingly marginalised", that Jabhat Fatah Al Sham (Al Qaeda rebrand) leading the advance into Aleppo in August was a "monumental change". The sort of things that seem to get Tony Iltis's columns in Green Left denounced as Assadist-Putinite-fascism. Of course Shami sees a democratic, progressive opposition as still existing and worthy of energetic solidarity. Even if that's true it seems pretty tenuous as the main way to approach the conflict. Especially as while she rightly points to the brutal cynicism of the regime in provoking sectarianism, she doesn't seem to have much to say about the funding-support-meddling of Saudi Arabia and the gulf states in the opposition. Surely the progressive, radical democratic uprising against Assad on 2011 has been considerably if maybe not totally crushed between these pincers. A weakness of Shami's anarchism is perhaps not recognising that local committees are a necessary but insufficient condition of a revolutionary movement, that without a strong progressive leadership and program they're vulnerable to dominance and cooption by centralised forces with other ideas (as in Iran). And maybe there's little left for the PYD current to be allied with as it tries to fight for a consistent policy of self-determination and social justice. One thing for sure is that there's too much bluster, hyperbole and name-calling and not enough discussion about Syria among the left. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] An iranian leftist's perspective on Syria
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 12/6/16 10:32 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: There is a large body of literature on the Syrian rebels from people who have done serious research ranging from Aron Lund to Charles Lister. The author of this article has not done his homework. Just another word on this. He stated: "One of the largest brigades of the FSA is lewa al tawhid (the Brigade of Monotheism)." I didn't catch the reference at first but this is obviously the al-Tawid Brigade, which cut its ties to the FSA THREE YEARS AGO. He didn't even bother to say that it "was" once one of the largest brigades. This is inexcusably sloppy and illustrates the oceanic gulf between him and the people who are really committed to analyzing the Syrian rebel movement as it exists and not some crude cartoon version. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] An iranian leftist's perspective on Syria
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 12/6/16 9:49 PM, Philip Ferguson via Marxism wrote: He would argue that being against ISIS and the other fundamentalist groups, which are the main alternative to the Assad dictatorship, is just sensible. Maybe so. But he makes an amalgam between ISIS and just about every other group in Syria, most of whom have done most of the fighting and dying against ISIS. He writes: "The so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) is taken to be a representation of the ‘moderates’ in Syria. This entity does not exist in the real world but it is a good-looking cover for multiple groups that have never hidden their aim to establish a ‘caliphate’ in Syria, to impose Shari’a law there and to view minorities as simple wrongdoers who deserve nothing but ‘purification’." What is this nonsense about the FSA being a cover for groups trying to establish a "caliphate"? Because a group affiliated with the FSA calls itself "the Brigade of Monotheism", it means that it is the same as ISIS that chops off the heads of people caught with alcohol? There is a large body of literature on the Syrian rebels from people who have done serious research ranging from Aron Lund to Charles Lister. The author of this article has not done his homework. He is really just a bullshit artist. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] An iranian leftist's perspective on Syria
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Louis responded to: "As horrible as the Assad regime is, however, the alternative is worse." With: So jarring to see such naked Islamophobia on display but then again it is fairly virulent nowadays. The dude is Iranian and grew up under the Islamic regime in Iran. Not sure 'Islamophobia' is therefore an accurate description of his views. He would argue that being against ISIS and the other fundamentalist groups, which are the main alternative to the Assad dictatorship, is just sensible. Western leftists don't have to deal with living under the mullahs; Iranian leftists do. If we're wrong about Syria, we won't be the ones who suffer. My own views have shifted around somewhat, but I take Karim's perspective very seriously. He loathes the Baathists, and he has firsthand experience of their horrors, but his view is that the fundamentalists would be even worse. Witness Iran, witness Libya. His views can't just be dismissed with the cry of 'Islamophobia'. Phil _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] An iranian leftist's perspective on Syria and western left
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 12/6/16 8:15 PM, Philip Ferguson via Marxism wrote: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/12/03/the-conflict-in-syria-and-the-western-left-an-alternative-view/ "As horrible as the Assad regime is, however, the alternative is worse." So jarring to see such naked Islamophobia on display but then again it is fairly virulent nowadays. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] An iranian leftist's perspective on Syria and western left
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/12/03/the-conflict-in-syria-and-the-western-left-an-alternative-view/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Interesting comment on Trump's support base
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/12/07/on-trumps-support-base/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Of Levant and Leviathan: Cautionary Tales from a Turbulent World - Los Angeles Review of Books
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * By Idrees Ahmad. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/of-levant-and-leviathan-cautionary-tales-from-a-turbulent-world/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: ‘He got up there and lied his a– off': Carrier union leader on Trump’s big deal - The Washington Post
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/06/he-got-up-there-and-lied-his-a-off-carrier-union-leader-on-trumps-big-deal/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] A Bigger Economic Pie, but a Smaller Slice for Half of the U.S.
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * NY Times, Dec. 6 2016 A Bigger Economic Pie, but a Smaller Slice for Half of the U.S. By PATRICIA COHEN Even with all the setbacks from recessions, burst bubbles and vanishing industries, the United States has still pumped out breathtaking riches over the last three and half decades. The real economy more than doubled in size; the government now uses a substantial share of that bounty to hand over as much as $5 trillion to help working families, older people, disabled and unemployed people pay for a home, visit a doctor and put their children through school. Yet for half of all Americans, their share of the total economic pie has shrunk significantly, new research has found. This group — the approximately 117 million adults stuck on the lower half of the income ladder — “has been completely shut off from economic growth since the 1970s,” the team of economists found. “Even after taxes and transfers, there has been close to zero growth for working-age adults in the bottom 50 percent.” The new findings, by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, provide the most thoroughgoing analysis to date of how the income kitty — like paychecks, profit-sharing, fringe benefits and food stamps — is divided among the American population. Inequality has been a defining national issue for nearly a decade, thanks in part to groundbreaking research done by Mr. Piketty at the Paris School of Economics and Mr. Saez at the University of California, Berkeley. But now a new administration in Washington is promising to reshape the government’s role in curbing the intense concentration of wealth at the top and improving the fortunes of those left behind. During his tenure in the White House, President Obama pushed to address income stagnation by shifting more of the tax burden from the middle class to the rich and expanding public programs like universal health insurance. Both strategies are now targeted by President-elect Donald J. Trump and Republicans in Congress, led by House Speaker Paul Ryan. Like many conservatives, Mr. Ryan argues that aid to the poor is ultimately counterproductive because it undermines the incentive to work. Proposals put forward by Republican leaders, though short on details, make clear that they want to roll back benefits like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which primarily help the poor, and direct the largest tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. About 30 percent of the country’s income is channeled to federal, state and local taxes. Apart from military spending and performing basic public services, much of that is distributed back to individuals through various programs and tax benefits in the form of Social Security checks, Medicare benefits and veterans’ benefits. But until now, no one has truly measured the full impact that tax payments, government spending, noncash benefits and nontaxable income together have on inequality. Abundant documentation of income inequality already exists, but it has been challenged as incomplete. Studies have excluded the impact of taxes and value of public benefits, skeptics complained, or failed to account for the smaller size of households over time. This latest project tries to address those earlier criticisms. What the trio of economists found is that the spectacular growth in incomes at the peak has so outpaced the small increase at the bottom from public programs intended to ameliorate poverty and inequality that the gap between the wealthiest and everyone else has continued to widen. Stagnant wages have sliced the share of income collected by the bottom half of the population to 12.5 percent in 2014, from 20 percent of the total in 1980. Where did that money go? Essentially, to the top 1 percent, whose share of the nation’s income nearly doubled to more than 20 percent during that same 34-year period. Average incomes grew by 61 percent. But nearly $7 out of every additional $10 went to those in the top tenth of the income scale. Inequality has soared over that period. In 1980, the researchers found, someone in the top 1 percent earned on average $428,200 a year — about 27 times more than the typical person in the bottom half, whose annual income equaled $16,000. Today, half of American adults are still pretty much earning that same $16,000 on average — in 1980 dollars, adjusted for inflation — while members of the top 1 percent now bring home $1,304,800 — 81 times as much. That ratio, the authors point out, “is similar to the gap between the average income in the United States and the average income in the world’s poorest
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Vietnam: the War That Won’t Go Away
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Gary MacLennan wrote: "This is a wonderful article." Thanks, Gary, for the kind words. Michael Uhl's book is well-worth a read. Michael _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Chris Hedges: The Mafia State - Truthdig
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The established elites dislike Trump because he is gauche, vulgar and boorish. He is not part of the refined group of mandarins trained to become plutocrats in Ivy League universities and business schools. He never mastered the cloying patina of refinement and carefully calibrated rhetoric of our courtier class. Trump and his coterie of half-wits, criminals, racists and deviants play the role of the Snopes clan in William Faulkner’s novels “The Hamlet,” “The Town” and “The Mansion.” The Snopeses rose up out of the power vacuum of the decayed South and ruthlessly seized control from the degenerated aristocratic elites. Flem Snopes and his extended family—which includes a killer, a pedophile, a bigamist, an arsonist, a mentally disabled man who copulates with a cow, and a relative who sells tickets to witness the bestiality—are fictional representations of the scum we have elevated to the highest level of the federal government. They embody the ethos of modern capitalism Faulkner warned us against. full: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_mafia_state_20161204 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Twilight of the Idylls - bookforum.com / current issue
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Three new books on utopia in America http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/023_04/16790 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
