[Marxism] Anything but the economy, stupid

[John Passant via Marxism]

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Anything but the economy, stupid

The two things Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has going for him 
are that the opposition within his party hasn't coalesced around one 
candidate, and the Labor Party Opposition has.


http://enpassant.com.au/2015/09/10/anything-but-the-economy/


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[Marxism] America’s Jewish establishment is out of touch with U.S. Jews

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Washington Post, Sept. 10 2015
America’s Jewish establishment is out of touch with U.S. Jews
By Harold Meyerson

Most of the organizations that make up the American Jewish establishment 
have opposed the nuclear arms control agreement that the Obama 
administration and the governments of five other nations negotiated with 
Iran. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its affiliates 
have spent tens of millions of dollars to persuade Congress not to 
ratify it.


And today, on the eve of the vote, eight of the 10 Jewish members of the 
Senate, and 12 of the 19 Jewish members of the House, have announced 
their support for the deal. Just two of the senators and seven of the 
House members oppose the deal.


If that leads you to conclude that the American Jewish establishment has 
lost touch with the American Jews it purports to represent, you’ve 
concluded right. The American Jewish community, like the United States 
itself, has seen the split dividing its left and right widen to a gulf. 
Most American Jews, including most of those in Congress, stand on the 
left side of that chasm. Most of the American Jewish establishment 
stands, defiantly or uneasily, on the right.


In late August, the Pew Research Center released a highly illuminating 
guide to the gulf that divides the Jews. Based on interviews with 3,475 
Jews across the nation, the report concluded that the 10 percent of U.S. 
Jews who are Orthodox — 3 percent of them “Modern Orthodox” and 6 
percent of them the “Haredi” who dress and lead lives much like the 
sects that arose in Eastern European shtetls — hold political beliefs 
increasingly at odds with the 90 percent of their co-religionists who 
are either affiliated with the Reform or Conservative wings of Judaism, 
or who aren’t affiliated at all.


Fifty-seven percent of the Orthodox, for instance, either are or lean 
Republican, while just 18 percent of other Jews claim GOP affinities. 
Fifty-eight percent of the Orthodox say homosexuality should be 
discouraged; a scant  8 percent of other Jews agree. (Like 
fundamentalists everywhere, many of the Orthodox refuse to distinguish 
between the Scriptures’ enduring moral principles and their 
2,000-year-old superstitions and hatreds.)


These divisions extend to Israel as well: 61 percent of the Orthodox 
(and 77 percent of the Modern Orthodox) say they are very emotionally 
attached to Israel, while just 27 percent of other Jews affirm such 
attachments. And the divisions also have a behavioral dimension: 84 
percent of the Orthodox say that all or most of their friends are 
Jewish, while just 26 percent of the other American Jews say the same.


The geographic clustering of the Orthodox clearly played a role in the 
decisions of Jewish members of Congress on the Iran deal. Fully 79 
percent of the Orthodox, and 89 percent of the Haredi (some of whom 
bloc-vote based on the guidance of their rebbes) live in the Northeast, 
chiefly around New York and New Jersey. The other 90 percent of Jews are 
diffused far more evenly across the nation. Four of the five Jewish 
House members from the New York area oppose the deal, while just one of 
the four Jewish House members from Southern California — home to the 
second-largest concentration of U.S. Jews, but with far fewer Orthodox — 
oppose it. Three of the four Democratic senators who oppose the deal — 
two of them Jewish — come from the Northeast.


One of the most striking, but not surprising, results of the Pew 
Research Center survey is the disenchantment that many, perhaps most, 
American Jews feel toward Israel. No nation can control another people 
and occupy its land for 48 years, as the Israelis have the Palestinians, 
without brutalizing and coarsening themselves, eroding many of the high 
moral hopes that American Jews once invested in Israel. Some older Jews 
are still attached to the Israel of 1948, to the scrappy but 
long-vanished Israel of kibbutz egalitarianism — one reason, perhaps, 
that three Jewish members from Florida, home to so many Jewish retirees, 
oppose the Iran deal. Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, 
Israel’s values have become less universal and more dangerously tribal — 
appealing to the more tribal and self-segregating sensibilities of 
America’s Orthodox, and less and less to the more liberal and 
cosmopolitan sensibilities of the American Jewish majority. Most 
American Jews still feel what Catholics term a preferential option for 
the poor, for immigrants, for minorities. They don’t see such values in 
today’s Israel — or in American Jewish orthodoxy, either.


With disproportionate financial support from Orthodox and 

[Marxism] Fwd: Patrick Cockburn suggests coordinating bombing campaign with Assad regime - YouTube

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7grl9IieGNE=youtu.be
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[Marxism] URGENT CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL ACTION

[Ian J. Seda-Irizarry via Marxism]

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PEOPLES’ DEMOCRATIC PARTY

HALKLARIN DEMOKRATİK PARTİSİ

___

10 September 2015 URGENT CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL ACTION

Turkey is increasingly drifting into a civil war. Politics of violence
have escalated after

the general elections of June 7 led by the AKP provisional government.
Today, the peace and negotiation process between PKK and the Turkish
state has come to a halt and war has started again.

Just within the last month, severe clashes have taken place in many
Kurdish cities such as Silopi, Lice, Şemdinli, Silvan, Yüksekova and
Cizre where the civilian population has been targeted by state forces.
Tens of civilians, guerillas and members of state security forces have
died in the ensuing clashes. Since July 24, the AKP interim government
has not been attacking ISIS, as it claims to be doing, but the Qandil
Mountains in the territory of the Kurdistan Regional Government
instead, as well as Kurds, democratic forces, democratic politics,
civilians, women and the opposition as a whole in Turkey.

The Turkish state and the provisional AKP government are implementing
all sorts of oppressive measures such as forbidding entry into and
departure from Kurdish cities against which it launches military
operations, cutting off all communication including phone and internet
lines, blocking off press and observers to prevent the truth about
what is happening on the ground from reaching national and
international public attention. A curfew has been in place in the
province of Cizre for the past week where 21 civilians have been
killed. The province of Cizre have been under siege for days where
there is serious shortage of food, water, access to basic health
services, preventative treatment of the wounded, and burial of those
who

have been killed by state security forces. Serious concerns regarding
fears of civilian massacre in Cizre have been voiced by the elected
members of the parliament and civil society organizations.

In this very violent situation, HDP has also been targeted by AKP
spokespersons and pro-AKP mass media. Almost every day, our party
officials and especially our co-chairs are being put on the target for
those “nationalist and patriotic” people. Many calls and statements of
AKP officials have been signaling a call for war against HDP. As a
result of this violent discourse of AKP, many of our buildings in
several cities have been attacked by groups of people associated with
racist and fascist groups. On September 8, they attacked our HQ in
Ankara, setting fire to the building. Our party archives and records
were targeted specifically. No one was injured in the attack but our
HQ is now heavily damaged and unavailable for use.

___

Until now, over 128 party buildings all over the country have been
attacked. Moreover, the police and other security forces of the state
did not do their job to prevent the attacks.

We once again want to emphasize that HDP is not a part of these
violence-based, war- oriented policies. As HDP, we did not take part
in any decision-making process of the war. On

the contrary, we are trying to push both PKK and the Turkish state to
end this armed conflict. It should be known that it is the AKP who is
insisting on war politics and implementing anti- democratic practices
all over the country.

In spite of these adverse developments, we call on all international
communities, civil society organizations and the international media
for solidarity and support to bring about an immediate cease-fire and
the commencement of peace talks. Our call is also one for urgent
action against increasing state violence, the violation of human
rights and anti-democratic practices and measures ins Kurdish cities
as well as the cities in the western regions of the country. We now
need the support of the international public more than ever in order
to achieve the realization of a lasting peace in the Middle East,
Turkey and Kurdistan. In this context we invite all of our friends,
political parties, associations, networks, civil society organizations
and all peace-loving forces to act in solidarity with us. We call on
all democratic international institutions and forces to take concrete
steps against the Turkish state’s violent, anti-democratic actions
against its own people and citizens.

Foreign Affairs Commission of HDP

Contact: internatio...@hdp.org.tr Web: www.hdp.org.tr
Address: Barbaros Mah. Tahran Cad. Büklüm Sok. No: 117 06680
Çankaya / Ankara / Turkey Phone: +90 312 427 17 

[Marxism] A Russian view of the refugee crisis

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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http://tass.ru/en/opinions/819928

"It’s a very serious and multi-faceted problem," Professor Irina Zvyagelskaya, 
of the oriental studies department at the Moscow state institute of 
international relations MGIMO, told TASS. "The civil war in Syria and tensions 
in Iraq and Libya keep fueling the flow of migrants, but that is not the only 
cause. I agree with those who see the current events as a trend towards another 
mass resettlement of peoples, which leave the weaker countries with ineffective 
economies. There are systemic problems that cause people to abandon their homes 
and take to the road. And the liberal European legislation allows many of them 
to not only stay in Europe, but also to live there on social benefits without 
seeking employment."
"These people are exhausted, angry and humiliated. They have no idea of 
European values, lifestyles and traditions, multi-culturalism or tolerance. 
They will never agree to abide by European laws," says Russian author, 
playwright and stage director Yevgeny Grishkovets in his blog. 
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[Marxism] If you turn your back on Syria’s Muslims, forget about ‘Team Australia'

[Michael Karadjis via Marxism]

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Good comment on Australian government's policy of preferencing 
"persecuted minorities" from Syria in the new refugee intake.


If you turn your back on Syria’s Muslims, forget about ‘Team Australia'
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/if-you-turn-your-back-on-syrias-muslims-forget-about-team-australia-20150908-gjhr06.html?stb=fb
September 9, 2015
Maher Mughrabi
I know that many people will already have moved on to some other social 
media sensation, but I would ask you to cast your mind back a couple of 
days to the boy on the beach.
How terrible, you thought, when you saw Aylan Kurdi's lifeless little 
body, or maybe just his shoes as he "rested" in the arms of a Turkish 
policeman.
Now look again. Because the little boy on the beach - like the vast 
majority of those fleeing Syria and Iraq's wars - was a Muslim.
You and I have no idea what kind of Muslim he would have turned out to 
be.
Maybe he would have prayed five times a day and kept his political views 
to himself. Maybe he would have said "in the name of Allah, the 
compassionate and the merciful" before tucking into a bacon sandwich and 
never darkened the door of a mosque. Or maybe he would have beaten his 
wife or gone into organised crime or blamed the West for his and his 
people's misfortune and blown up a bus.


Illustration: Cathy Wilcox
It doesn't matter. What matters, it seems, is that we can now decide 
that Muslims are trouble and that if we walk into a burning house, we'll 
save the others first. What do we know about the others? We know they're 
not Muslims.
In mid-August, when little Slovakia said it would take some refugees - 
200 in all - but that they had to be Christians because Slovakia 
"doesn't have mosques", we all knew what was going on: the rise of the 
far-right in Europe's post-Communist east, part of a wider wave of 
anti-immigrant feeling across the continent.
The last time I checked, Australia had a few mosques. Indeed, there is 
one of them at the end of the street where I live. And that means there 
are Muslims here. Indeed, some of them would be generous enough to say 
that I am one of them. I have always said that I am not a Muslim, but 
that Islam is a part of me.
The question is now whether this country can truly say - for all the 
mosque visits by pollies, for all the iftar dinners at Ramadan, for all 
the talk of "Team Australia" - that Islam is a part of it. After 
watching the Reclaim rallies recently, after hearing some of what passes 
for commentary and debate, the question seems almost foolish, naive. Of 
course "we" don't want them! Muslims are just trouble. Let them go 
somewhere where they can get their sharia and their halal and their 
fatwas and their burqas and all the rest and leave us alone.
Perhaps this country has decided that Muslims are too big a cultural 
problem. In the same way that in 1938, when Thomas Walter White, the 
minister for customs in the Lyons government, attended the conference at 
the French resort town of Evian on the plight of Jewish refugees, he 
told those gathered there that Australians would rather not import a 
"racial problem".
I am not the only Arab of Muslim parentage who regards what has happened 
to the Christian populations of the Arab world in recent decades as a 
shame and a disgrace and a crime, one that shows little sign of ending. 
It is true that Arab Christians are confronted with an existential 
threat. But it is also true that the bulk of those being butchered by 
the Assad regime and by the so-called Islamic State are Muslim Arabs and 
Muslim Kurds.
Australian Muslims were alive to the plight of these people long before 
the death of little Aylan. On YouTube and on Arabic-language satellite 
channels they saw far worse horrors involving men, women and children. 
And they became convinced that what was happening in Syria was a 
genocide.
But when they turned over to mainstream Australian TV and to political 
debate in this country they saw no urgency in the discussion. The Prime 
Minister was happy to label Bashar al-Assad "the worst of the worst" and 
to accuse him of "serial atrocities", but as for doing something . . . 
well, it was all too hard.
Now we are told that Canberra is considering bombing the areas held by 
Islamic State - areas where the population is largely Muslim - and 
rescuing Christians and Yazidis and Druze - but not Muslims. If this is 
so, then there is no point in talking about relations with the 
Australian Muslim community.
Perhaps that will win the Coalition some votes in some important seats. 
I don't know. But I do know that the Arab communities of this country 
are already bitterly 

[Marxism] Fwd: Two other members of the Syria amen corner: Slavoj Zizek and the Nation Magazine | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://louisproyect.org/2015/09/10/two-other-members-of-the-syria-amen-corner-slavoj-zizek-and-the-nation-magazine/
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[Marxism] Other (non-racist) Russian views of the refugee crisis

[Thomas Campbell via Marxism]

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https://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2015/09/05/refugee-crisis-eu-latvia-russia/
Raimond Krumgold, "The Refugees and the 'Death of Europe'"

https://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/skoibeda-germany-islamophobia/
Greg Yudin, "Germany Going Down the Tubes, or, Lies Come in All Sizes"

Here is what I wrote about Yevgeny Grishkovets's infamous blog post on
Facebook:

Watching a whole country go off its rockers might, theoretically, be
interesting, were it not for the fact that the country in question is the
biggest in the world and armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons.

Russian thespian and opinion leader Yevgeny Grishkovets, writing on the
"refugee crisis":

Нам всегда нравилась европейская улыбка. Мы знали, что эта улыбка не более
чем форма повседневной вежливости. Мы знали, что европеец улыбается
постоянно. Но нам это нравилось. Потому что мы не улыбчивы. Но сейчас
европейская улыбка выглядит только и исключительно фальшиво, да к тому же
глупо и бессмысленно. Чему улыбаться-то?

"We always liked the European smile. We knew that smile was no more than a
form of everyday courtesy. We knew that Europeans were constantly smiling.
But we loved it. Because we are not smiley. But now the European smile only
looks false, and stupid and pointless to boot. What is there to smile
about?"

This is, perhaps, the most innocent passage in Grishkovets's racist,
anti-immigrant, anti-European and essentially deranged screed, published on
the website of Rossiiskaya Gazeta, the official newspaper of the Russian
Federation.

http://www.rg.ru/2015/09/08/grishkovets.html

If you think Grishkovets is a lone wolf on this matter, think again. The
hysteria he exhibits is practically the official Russian position on the
"crisis," and the grassroots are being encouraged and encouraging
themselves to adopt it as well.
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[Marxism] nearly all of Gaza's water undrinkable

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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http://www.juancole.com/2015/09/nearly-water-undrinkable.html
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[Marxism] Fw: The Syrian Revolution and the crisis of the antiwar movement

[Michael Karadjis via Marxism]

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Excellent run-down of the issue. This interesting clip from the long 
article details how the demands of the Friday demonstrations (ie, part 
of the ongoing civil movement that the "jihadwatching" left ignores and 
denigrates) demonstrates how the mood of the Syrian masses moved from 
calls for help from the West, through demands for arms to fight 
themselves, to recognition that western imperialist states were 
fundamentally on the side of the regime:


Meanwhile, across Syria people held weekly Friday protests, asking for
solidarity and support in their struggle. These hundreds of thousands of
voices were ignored. Every week tens of thousands of Syrian activists
voted in online polls to choose the main slogan for the Friday
demonstrations. Some called for intervention, some for weapons, many
asked simply for help, and to spread awareness of their struggle.
Reading through the slogans you can chart the disillusionment of the
protestors as their calls for solidarity went unanswered:
20: July 29, 2011 – “Your Silence Is Killing Us”
26: September 9, 2011 – “International Protection”
38: December 12, 2011 – “The Buffer Zone is Our Demand”
51: March 2, 2012 – “Providing Weapons for the Free Army”
53: March 16, 2012 – “Immediate Military Intervention”
67: June 22, 2012 – “Governments Let Us Down, Where Are the People?”
74: August 10, 2012 – “Arm Us with Anti-Aircraft Weapons”
82: October 5, 2012 – “We Want Weapons, not Statements”
91: December 7, 2012 – “No to Peacekeeping Forces in Syria”
99: February 1, 2013 – “The International Community Are Partners to
Al-Assad in His massacres”
128: August 23, 2013 – “The Terrorist Bashar Kills Civilians with
Chemical Weapons While the World Watches”
131: September 13, 2013 – “The Murderer Is Under the International
Community’s Protection”
146: December 27, 2013 – “Death Barrels with International License”
206: February 20, 2015 – “The World Failed us, God Give Us Victory”

The Syrian Revolution and the crisis of the antiwar movement
rs21onSeptember 10, 2015/0 comments
http://rs21.org.uk/2015/09/10/the-syrian-revolution-and-the-crisis-of-the-anti-war-movement/ 


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Re: [Marxism] A Russian view of the refugee crisis

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 9/10/15 8:49 PM, Shalva Eliava via Marxism wrote:


""These people are exhausted, angry and humiliated. They have no idea
of European values, lifestyles and traditions, multi-culturalism or
tolerance. They will never agree to abide by European laws..."

I actually think that applies far more to the average Russian (thanks
to their steady diet of state TV propaganda and the Soviet heritage
of promoting Russian/eastern Slavic mores and habits as the zenith of
cultural enlightenment) than Syrians, Afghans, or Iraqis - all of
whom come from extremely diverse countries and have long-standing
ties/affinities with their former European colonial masters...(that's
probably less true of the unconquerable Afghanistan, but still).


10 сент. 2015 г., в 9:58, Ken Hiebert via Marxism
 написал(а):

"These people are exhausted, angry and humiliated. They have no
idea of European values, lifestyles and traditions,
multi-culturalism or tolerance. They will never agree to abide by
European laws




Actually it reminds me of Zizek:

Refugees should be assured of their safety, but it should also be made
clear to them that they must accept the destination allocated to them by
European authorities, and that they will have to respect the laws and
social norms of European states: no tolerance of religious, sexist or
ethnic violence; no right to impose on others one’s own religion or way
of life;

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n18/slavoj-zizek/the-non-existence-of-norway
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Re: [Marxism] A Russian view of the refugee crisis

[Shalva Eliava via Marxism]

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""These people are exhausted, angry and humiliated. They have no idea of 
European values, lifestyles and traditions, multi-culturalism or tolerance. 
They will never agree to abide by European laws..."

I actually think that applies far more to the average Russian (thanks to their 
steady diet of state TV propaganda and the Soviet heritage of promoting 
Russian/eastern Slavic mores and habits as the zenith of cultural 
enlightenment) than Syrians, Afghans, or Iraqis - all of whom come from 
extremely diverse countries and have long-standing ties/affinities with their 
former European colonial masters...(that's probably less true of the 
unconquerable Afghanistan, but still).

> 10 сент. 2015 г., в 9:58, Ken Hiebert via Marxism 
>  написал(а):
> 
> "These people are exhausted, angry and humiliated. They have no idea of 
> European values, lifestyles and traditions, multi-culturalism or tolerance. 
> They will never agree to abide by European laws

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Re: [Marxism] Anything but the economy, stupid

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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John was at his biting best on the state of play with Australia's Prime
Minister.  John however wrote

*"Given this ‘leader’ [Abbott] can only speak in sound bites and three word
slogans and these non-answers are all this unworthy custodian of the
capitalist system can come up with, how much longer can idiot boy last? Do
capitalists really still support him in all his splendid ignorance and
irrelevance?You know it is a bleak time for capital when the alternative on
offer is Bill Shorten. That must inspire the one percent with dread."*

I am inclined to agree that a feeling of dread is in the air and that it is
not confined to capital. But does the reality of Bill Shorten - right wing
ex union leader fill the capitalists with dread?  How could it?  He is a
sheep in sheep's clothing. He is to his very core the epitome of the
non-commissioned officer, anxious to carry out every order from above. They
all know that.  The only source of dread may be that Shorten will never
attempt to save capitalism from the capitalists.  There is some slight
evidence that a small section of capital want the state to do just that.
For example recently in Queensland a group of capitalists penned an open
letter begging for the state government to enact a fiscal stimulus.  Would
Shorten have the nerve to undertake such a task at the national level?  I
cannot see it.

Yet we are in the dying days of the Abbott ministry.  For two years now, a
steady rejection in the opinion polls of his austerity offensive has left
his government paralyzed.  The Labor opposition has in no ways articulated
an anti-austerity alternative. Shorten looks almost certain to become Prime
Minister on the back of a "Anybody but Abbott" surge. The Labor Party look
certain to come to power on a similar "Any party but the governing
Coalition" tide of rejectionism.

Yet no one in the parliamentary arena is contesting hegemony. And so
parliamentary politics in Australia has a strange kind of *Waiting for
Godot* irrelevance.  Perhaps, that is the source of dread.

comradely

Gary

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 8:17 PM, John Passant via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Anything but the economy, stupid
>
> The two things Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has going for him are
> that the opposition within his party hasn't coalesced around one candidate,
> and the Labor Party Opposition has.
>
> http://enpassant.com.au/2015/09/10/anything-but-the-economy/
>
>
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[Marxism] The gathering crisis in the north of Ireland: more Provo capitulation?

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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The latest crisis in the slow decay of the Irish peace process was
unleashed following the murder of republican Kevin McGuigan when the local
chief constable announced that the IRA continued in place with an organised
structure and that members were involved in the murder of their opponent.

In the furore that followed the most honest comment came from a surprising
source. British secretary of state Thersa Villiers said she was “not
surprised” by the news. Neither was anyone else on the island of Ireland.
Former southern Irish minister Michael McDowell explained that the
governments had decided to leave a dried up husk, calculating that this
would act as a barrier to the formation of a new republican movement. In
fact the IRA have been involved in killings since the claim that they had
been stood down and the police have obscured the issue with a formula
similar to that used today.

So why have Irish politicians been thrown into crisis by a ghost?
Especially one whose appearance lacks the element of surprise and where the
police have used a familiar formula, used in the past to obscure direct IRA
involvement, invoked purely imaginary cover names for the IRA such as
Action Against Drugs and stopped short of alleging that the killing was
carried out by the IRA as opposed to individual members, in fact explicitly
ruling out evidence of a chain of command.

*Peace process*

The explanation lies at the foundation of the peace process. The process is
at odds with the programme of . . .
full at:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/the-gathering-crisis-in-the-six-counties-more-provo-capitulation/
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[Marxism] Fwd: NYC Solidarity Rally with Syrian Refugees Sat. 9/12-noon

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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[image: Campaign for Peace and Democracy]


Dear Friend of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy,

 *At 12 noon this Saturday, September 12, there will be a rally "NYC
Solidarity with Syrian Refugees" in Union Square in Manhattan. If you are
in the New York area this weekend, please join us in support of Syrians
fleeing from war and the brutality of both the Assad regime and the Islamic
State. *If you're elsewhere in the United States, or around the world, look
for another demonstration where you can show your support for refugees
desperate for refuge.

 *CPD will be standing with Havaar: Iranian Initiative Against War,
Sanctions, and State Repression. Havaar members and supporters will be
calling for solidarity with Syrian, Palestinian, Iraqi, Yemeni, Afghan and
all refugees. Look for us at the Gandhi statue at Union Square West and
West 14th Street.*

 At the same time that we continue to support democratic struggles for
justice and peace, we must assure that today's victims of repression and
war in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia can find the safe
haven and resettlement they so urgently need. Your action can make a
difference!

In peace and solidarity,
Joanne Tom
Joanne  Landy and Thomas Harrison
Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy
www.cpdweb.org

*Please go to the rally's Facebook event page
 to let
the organizers know if you'll be able to attend. Here's the text from the
rally announcement:*

It’s time for the US to play its part in alleviating the Syrian refugee
crisis. Since the conflict began the US has taken in just 1,434 Syrian
refugees. As refugees risk their lives everyday to reach Europe, let’s
gather to let them know that they are welcome here and call upon the
government to resettle more Syrian refugees in the United States. Join us
Saturday and tell the US, the EU, and the international community: Refugees
welcome! No human is illegal! Our demands:

1) In solidarity with refugees trying to reach Europe, we call upon the
European Union member states to open their borders unconditionally for
asylum seekers, to allow free movement for refugees within the European
Union to reach the country of their choice, and to halt the building of
borders and fences that are being constructed for the sole purpose of
keeping refugees out.

2) We call upon the United States to take steps towards the alleviation of
the refugee crisis. The International Rescue Committee has called upon the
US to accept at least 65,000 refugees by 2016. We call upon the Obama
Administration to pledge to accept at least 65,000 refugees from Syria for
resettlement in the United States by 2016.

Refugees who have escaped the brutalities of war in Syria deserve a life of
safety and security. Unfortunately, this is not the case. In Hungary,
refugees are being caged in “holding camps.” In the Czech Republic,
authorities are pulling refugees off trains and numbering them with
markers. Thousands have drowned in the Mediterranean sea desperately trying
to reach Europe in the only way they can: through dangerous smuggling
networks. The photo of the Syrian child Aylan Kurdi washed up on the beach
in Turkey shows us the result of these disastrous policies. Syrians who
have lived through war do not deserve such a fate.There are more than 4
million refugees that have fled the war in Syria. Lebanon, which has a
population of 4 million people, currently has over 1 million Syrian
refugees. Turkey also has over 1 million refugees. Germany estimates that
it will have 800,000 refugee arrivals this year. The UN high commissioner
for refugees has called upon industrialized countries, including the US, to
accept 130,000 refugees in the next two years. The US must live up to its
responsibility and create a fast, simple, and easy process for refugees
from Syria to resettle in the United States.

** * * * * * * **
Please donate
 to
support CPD’s work.
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Campaign for Peace and Democracy
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[Marxism] Fwd: The Arab of the Future: A Graphic Memoir: Riad Sattouf: 9781627793445: Amazon.com: Books

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.amazon.com/The-Arab-Future-Graphic-Memoir/dp/1627793445
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[Marxism] The Islamic State, OR the main reason for the millions of refugees from Syria?

[Michael Karadjis via Marxism]

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I don't necessarily agree with all of Joseph Daher's formulations - in 
particular, he tends to push too many different kinds of groups together 
as "reactionary Islamists", barely distinguishing Daesh from Nusra, and 
even worse, barely distinguishing Nusra from mainstream Islamists. That 
said, however, he has assembled the real evidence here for the fact that 
the Syrian refugee crisis has been overwhelmingly created by Assad, not 
by Daesh as the entirety of the imperialist media and imperialist 
politicians (and their leftist echo) are telling us.

MK

The Islamic State, or the main reason for the millions of refugees from 
Syria?

Posted on September 9, 2015

https://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/2015/09/09/the-islamic-state-or-the-main-reason-for-the-millions-of-refugees-from-syria/

The vast majority of television programs, articles and so called experts 
talking about millions of refugees from Syria have the same discourse: 
the problem is the Islamic State (IS). Some even say that we should 
coordinate with the Assad regime and its allies Russia and the Islamic 
Republic of Iran to resolve and end the problem of the IS and therefore 
refugees. Without being surprised by these statements, I’m still a 
little disillusioned.


To be clear, the IS is an ultra reactionary and barbaric organization, 
killing and terrorizing whole populations of all religions and 
ethnicities. This ultra reactionary organization forced into exile 
hundreds of thousands of people, and probably even more than one 
million, between Iraq and Syria [1]. This movement must be fought 
relentlessly, like other religious fundamentalist organizations of the 
region such as Al Qaeda and other jihadist and Salafist forces backed by 
Gulf monarchies or private networks of these countries, but before 
reaching the solution against such organizations, I would like to simply 
remind some facts about the reasons for the exile of millions of people 
from Syria.


Firstly, the establishment of the IS in Syria was in Autumn 2013 and 
already before that millions of Syrians were displaced outside and 
inside the country.


On September 3, 2013, the UNHCR declared that the number of Syrians 
forced to flee as refugees in foreign countries since the beginning of 
the popular uprising in Syria in March 2011 had exceeded the threshold 
of two millions. This meant an average of about 5000 Syrians fleeing on 
daily basis to neighboring countries. Over 97% of Syrian refugees were 
hosted in countries located in the surrounding area. In addition, some 
4.25 million people were displaced within Syria, according to statistics 
dating from August 27, 2013 published by the UN Office for the 
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Taken together, these figures 
totaled more than six million displaced people.


The reasons that prompted millions of people to flee their homes were 
the Assad regime that killed, bombarded and repressed large parts of the 
Syrian population who had risen against its tyranny and barbarism. Here 
are some examples.


In October 2012, the entire Al Masaa Arbaeen’s neighborhood in the city 
of Hama, whose inhabitants were seen as favorable to the opposition of 
the Damascus regime, was destroyed. 3256 buildings in total were 
completely destroyed.


In May 2013, the historic pedestrian bridge over the Euphrates in the 
city of Deir Zor was bombed by the Syrian regime. It allowed to access 
the city of Hasakeh. Its destruction deprived of access tens of 
thousands of people.


In July 2013, in the city of Homs, called the capital of the revolution 
at the beginning of the uprising, in which some 900,000 people were 
living at the beginning of 2011, 60-70% of Khaldiyé district was 
destroyed, most the houses were uninhabitable, the neighborhoods of Old 
Homs were in ruin and destruction of the besieged neighborhoods of Homs 
was done in a systematic way, according to the Syrian Observatory of 
Human Rights. The city was under siege and bombardment of the regime’s 
forces since February 2012.


From the end of summer 2012, the regime began to bomb certain 
neighborhoods of Aleppo.


The Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in Damascus has suffered a hard 
and strict siege imposed from summer 2013, with the prohibition of 
movement of persons and foodstuffs, to the neighborhoods that joined the 
uprising South of Damascus, by the Assad regime and Palestinians 
organizations linked to the latter, in particular the Popular Front of 
the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), controlled by 
Ahmad Jibril. There is currently between 15 000 and 20 000 people in the 
camp, before 2011, Yarmouk had a total 

[Marxism] Change-Links new Syria list policy would make Putin proud

[Clay Claiborne via Marxism]

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New from Linux Beach:


 Change-Links new Syria list policy would make Putin proud
 


*change-li...@yahoogroups.com* is a progressive list-serve based in 
Los Angeles that was started by my long time friend John Johnson to 
complement the monthly Change-Links newspaper that for decades has 
been the go-to guide of progressive activities in Southern California. 
I wrote about this paper, the email list it spawned, and John Johnson 
after his passing last year in April, *Rest In Peace John Johnson of 
Change-Links 
*. 
I have been a member of, and posted regularly to the Change-Links list 
long before I started blogging in support of the people rising up 
against the fascist Assad regime in Syria. Now the moderator and 
several prominent list members want to banned me from the list for 
alleged pro-war views:


*More...* 


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