Re: [Marxism] Fwd: As Trump shores up Assad's genocidal regime, America's hard left is cheering him on - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.com

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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Just one correction to David: Joanne Landy and her Campaign for Peace and
Democracy have been wonderful at all points and on all questions since the
regional revolution broke out.
p.s. Speaking of that revolution, its flashpoint at this very moment is in
Morocco, where revolutionary socialists are organizing amidst a mass
uprising. See internationalviewpoint.org and my Facebook shares.
p.p.s. The response to the Zionist attack on Al-Aqsa mosque in recent days
would in the abstract be another flashpoint were it not for the fact that
we know the Palestinian "leadership" will piss away this opportunity as
well.

On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 9:48 AM, David McDonald via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Michael writes:
>
>
>There are good reasons why the big majority
>of leftists from Trotskyist, semi-Trot (eg state-caps) and anarchist
>backgrounds have been fairly good on Syria.
>
> I'm not so sure, and I would like to hear what you think those reasons are.
>
> My research on Trotskyist groups on this question, which I admit is not
> exhaustive even in the English-writing world, leads me to believe that this
> poisonous trend crosses all sect boundaries.
>
> Among the US Trot & semi-Trot groups only the ISO is actually good and
> covers Syria consistently. Socialist Alternative, the sister group of the
> Socialist Party (UK) has a crappy position and does not cover the issue.
> Socialist Action is by far the worst I have come across, and it is the
> sentimental favorite of numerous former SWP-US members because it seems to
> resemble the pre-Barnes-cult SWP. SA's position is based on an extremely
> narrow reading of Permanent Revolution that goes more or less along the
> lines of "get a real working class and we'll talk."
>
> On the other hand, as Marxmail subscribers know, the Oakland Socialists
> have an excellent take on Syria despite having come from a Hoxhaite
> background. Hoxha, you may remember, attacked both China and Russia (then
> the Soviet Union) for insufficient Stalinism.
>
> On the third hand is the intermediate position of like Joanne Landy and Sam
> Farber who are clear on the crimes of Assad but cannot find anyone to
> support and would not send a pen knife to Syria.
>
> It is possible that I have mis-characterized something here, and, if so, my
> apologies. I'm not really up for this sort of excavation anymore unless it
> yields some immediate results.
>
> I would say "Go figure" except there is no one but us and a large bunch of
> Arabs who get this. Of the Not-Trotskyist type formations, I think that a
> history of looking for or at least accepting the idea of "Third Camp" makes
> it easier to see through to the actual Syrian Revolution.
>
> The Arab Spring has altered the world. It requires revolutionaries in the
> West to do more than try to apply lessons from the past. I am re-reading
> "Orientalism" to try to get a handle.
>
> Reading Wendy Pearlman's "We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled -- Voices
> from Syria" I was struck by the first-hand accounts from different cities,
> towns, and villages in Syria of the moment when the dam broke. In numerous
> cases people gathered tensely and silently until finally someone broke the
> spell and unleashed the fervor brimming up in everyone's heart with a cry
> of -- not "freedom", that was the second utterance -- but "Allahu Akbar."
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: As Trump shores up Assad's genocidal regime, America's hard left is cheering him on - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.com

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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Michael writes:


   There are good reasons why the big majority
   of leftists from Trotskyist, semi-Trot (eg state-caps) and anarchist
   backgrounds have been fairly good on Syria.

I'm not so sure, and I would like to hear what you think those reasons are.

My research on Trotskyist groups on this question, which I admit is not
exhaustive even in the English-writing world, leads me to believe that this
poisonous trend crosses all sect boundaries.

Among the US Trot & semi-Trot groups only the ISO is actually good and
covers Syria consistently. Socialist Alternative, the sister group of the
Socialist Party (UK) has a crappy position and does not cover the issue.
Socialist Action is by far the worst I have come across, and it is the
sentimental favorite of numerous former SWP-US members because it seems to
resemble the pre-Barnes-cult SWP. SA's position is based on an extremely
narrow reading of Permanent Revolution that goes more or less along the
lines of "get a real working class and we'll talk."

On the other hand, as Marxmail subscribers know, the Oakland Socialists
have an excellent take on Syria despite having come from a Hoxhaite
background. Hoxha, you may remember, attacked both China and Russia (then
the Soviet Union) for insufficient Stalinism.

On the third hand is the intermediate position of like Joanne Landy and Sam
Farber who are clear on the crimes of Assad but cannot find anyone to
support and would not send a pen knife to Syria.

It is possible that I have mis-characterized something here, and, if so, my
apologies. I'm not really up for this sort of excavation anymore unless it
yields some immediate results.

I would say "Go figure" except there is no one but us and a large bunch of
Arabs who get this. Of the Not-Trotskyist type formations, I think that a
history of looking for or at least accepting the idea of "Third Camp" makes
it easier to see through to the actual Syrian Revolution.

The Arab Spring has altered the world. It requires revolutionaries in the
West to do more than try to apply lessons from the past. I am re-reading
"Orientalism" to try to get a handle.

Reading Wendy Pearlman's "We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled -- Voices
from Syria" I was struck by the first-hand accounts from different cities,
towns, and villages in Syria of the moment when the dam broke. In numerous
cases people gathered tensely and silently until finally someone broke the
spell and unleashed the fervor brimming up in everyone's heart with a cry
of -- not "freedom", that was the second utterance -- but "Allahu Akbar."
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: As Trump shores up Assad's genocidal regime, America's hard left is cheering him on - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.com

[mkaradjis . via Marxism]

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A very good article, but I wish people like Oz would stop already with
this populist tendency to use the "hard left" labelling of liberals
like Blumenthal and Norton, who wouldn't know what a class analysis
even means. "The far right and far left" are united on this etc. No,
they're not (except wsws). There are good reasons why the big majority
of leftists from Trotskyist, semi-Trot (eg state-caps) and anarchist
backgrounds have been fairly good on Syria. It has been the
Stalinist/ex-Stalinist/centre left/left-liberal milieu that as a whole
has been the worst. Oz even says in his article, referring to
Blumenthal, "These are the words not of a Leftist or
"anti-imperialist", but of a Westerner fully embracing the expansion
of Bush, Obama and now Trump's 'war on terror’." Yes, precisely. But
"not of a leftist" is anything but "hard left".

On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 12:00 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism
 wrote:
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>
> This evidence-free, propaganda heavy position on Syria has been fawned over
> by the far-right. Blumenthal’s work has received gushing praise from
> America’s leading racist commentators including Ann Coulter, Pamela Geller
> and former KKK leader David Duke.
>
> full: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.802391
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