[Marxism] Free labour, capitalism and anti-Chinese exclusion in California

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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My PhD, completed in early 2003, was on anti-Chinese exclusion in New
Zealand.  I'm starting to get chapters of it up on Redline.

This chapter is the literature review and includes some stuff on Australia
and California:
http://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/arrested-development-the-historiography-of-white-new-zealand/

This chapter is on the theoretical framework and includes some material on
unfree labour:
http://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/analysing-the-white-new-zealand-policy-developing-a-theoretical-framework/

This chapter is about New Zealand social relations and the beginning of
anti-Chinese discourse:
http://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/colonial-social-relations-the-chinese-and-the-beginnings-of-new-zealand-nationalist-discourse/

Phil

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Re: [Marxism] Adolph Reed on Karen Lewis and elections

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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There are all sorts of pointless and purist ideologies bouncing about what
people refer to as "the Left."

The only one that's really carried much weight is now--as it has been for
decades--the idiotic notion that any Democrat is better than a Republican.
When people reduce their progressive views to a mere religious impulse
disconnected from what they do, it has permitted them to enable the
rightward shift of the Democratic party over decades.  It elected Clinton
and his self-identified "Eisenhower Republican" preoccupations.  In 2006,
it put Reaganites into Congress ibecause they were running on Democratic
labels.  And it bears the responsibility for electing (and usually still
trying to defend) the present incarnation of Nixoniana--the one that seems
to be Tricky Dicky on steroids waging its multiple wars on terror, drugs,
the environment, and civil liberties,

Reed's piece just misses the point, which is not whether Karen Lewis would
decide to challenge the mayor by running initially as a Democrat.  The
central concern is whether she's then going to turn right around and
support Rahm.

It's pretty clear that anyone who willfully refuses to see how this would
be politically suicidal for anybody serious about fighting the neoliberal
agenda (rather than voting for its proponents) is exhibiting "the sort of
purist and pointless suicide mission that is the hallmark of their
ideological tendency."

ML

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[Marxism] The cops and the capitalist state

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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We've stuck up on Redline a very good article by the Irish Marxist group
Socialist Democracy.  We've slightly edited some of the punctuation and
added explanations for a few terms to make it more accessible to the
non-Irish reader.

It's here:
http://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/10/16/the-cops-and-the-capitalist-state/

Phil

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[Marxism] YPG claims it is now winning the battle for Kobane

[Marv Gandall via Marxism]

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From the late edition of today's Washington Post, encouraging news which could 
mark a decisive turn in the battle for Kobane. I don't give a rat's ass if US 
air power has made the difference, as the YPG has itself acknowledged in 
several reports.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/kurds-claim-to-have-turned-tide-against-islamic-state-in-kobane/2014/10/15/af9b5726-547f-11e4-809b-8cc0a295c773_story.html

[...]
"Kurdish fighters and activists on the ground said that two days of relentless 
attacks have turned the tide in their favor.

"Ihsan Naasan, the deputy foreign minister of Kobane’s self-proclaimed 
government, saidKurdish defenders had pushed the jihadists back more than four 
miles from the western edge of the town by nightfall Wednesday and were 
advancing into the eastern and southern neighborhoods of the city.

"He claimed that Kurdish fighters with the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, 
now control 80 percent of Kobane after losing more than half of it in heavy 
fighting in past days.

“The YPG now have the initiative,” Naasan said, speaking from inside the town. 
“They are on the counteroffensive against the Islamic State.”

"If the Kurdish fighters manage to retake Kobane, it would be the first time 
that U.S. strikes have helped eject the Islamic State from territory in Syria 
since the air war was expanded to include the northern and eastern parts of the 
country a little over three weeks ago.

"The border town, nestled amid rolling farmland in a remote part of 
north-central Syria, has limited strategic significance. Islamic State fighters 
had advanced toward it unimpeded, capturing scores of tiny villages across a 
large swath of territory along the way and sending more than 200,000 people 
fleeing in panic into Turkish territory.

"Although daily U.S. airstrikes had begun in Kobane over a week earlier, it was 
only on Tuesday, as militant reinforcements were said to have arrived, that 
coalition sorties sharply escalated. On Wednesday, the U.S. Central Command 
said it had carried out 18 strikes in the previous 24 hours, on top of 21 
reported the previous day.

"Ground-shaking explosions reverberated repeatedly across the countryside 
spanning the Syria-Turkey border Wednesday, sending plumes of smoke billowing 
from the town. Kurdish activists said that the bodies of “tens” of Islamic 
State fighters lay strewn around the streets of bombed neighborhoods that they 
said were subsequently retaken by defenders.

"The Islamic State, which typically boasts about its conquests in videos and 
statements on social media, has fallen silent on the Kobane battle, amid 
unconfirmed reports that some of its more senior commanders have been killed. 
Among those mentioned are leaders known as Abu Khattab al-Kurdi, from the town 
of Halabja in Iraq’s Kurdish region, and Abu Mohammed al-Amriki, a Chechen who 
was said to have lived in the United States for a decade before leaving to 
fight in Syria."





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[Marxism] Fwd: Kobane Diary: 4 Days Inside the City Fighting an Unprecedented Resistance Against ISIS

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.newsweek.com/2014/10/24/kobane-diary-four-days-inside-city-keeping-incredible-and-unprecedented-resistance-277509.html

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[Marxism] Adolph Reed on Karen Lewis and elections

[Ethan Young via Marxism]

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http://nonsite.org/editorial/response-to-jay-and-sustar-bean

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[Marxism] Fwd: “We need to support forms of liberation struggle unconditionally”. An interview on Syria with Joseph Daher. | LeftEast

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Q: The mainstream media have described the civil war happened in Syria 
from 2012 as a clash between religious groups present in the country 
against the Assad regime, effectively ignoring the dynamics from below. 
Have there been groups of revolutionaries who fought for social justice, 
equality, freedom?


A: For more than three years now, the majority of observers have 
analyzed the Syrian revolutionary process in geopolitical and sectarian 
terms, from above, ignoring the popular political and socio-economic 
dynamics on the ground. The threat of Western intervention has only 
reinforced this idea of an opposition between two camps: the Western 
states and the Gulf monarchies on one side, Iran, Russia and Hezbollah 
on the other. But we refuse to choose between these two camps, we refuse 
this logic of the “least harmful [evil]” which will only lead to the 
loss of the Syrian revolution and its objective: democracy, social 
justice and the rejection of sectarianism.


Lately, mainstream media, whether in the west or in the Middle East, and 
Western and regional governments, have been wanting us to believe that 
the Syrian revolution is dead and has transformed itself into a 
sectarian war between the Sunni majority and the religious and ethnic 
minorities on the other side, or in a similar trend, in an opposition 
between jihadists vs. the Assad regime. This last perspective has 
actually pushed many to join the camp composed of people who range from 
the conservative right-wing to ill-informed anti-imperialists, who argue 
that Assad is a lesser evil to the Jihadists. In fact we should oppose 
both, because they nurture each other and are both seeking to establish 
an authoritarian system.


full: http://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/interview-joseph-daher/

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[Marxism] Articles of note in the latest LRB and not behind a paywall

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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A review of Owen Jones's latest book:

http://www.lrb.co/v36/n20/owen-hatherley/who-will-stop-them

Paul Farmer on ebola:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n20/paul-farmer/diary

Adam Shatz reviews a new history of Congo:

http://www.lrb.co/v36/n20/adam-shatz/ca-va-un-peu




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[Marxism] Tariq Ali on Mediapart

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(He finally writes something worth reading. Mediapart was crucial in 
exposing the danger of anti-Semitic elements in the Gaza protests.)


LRB Vol. 36 No 20 · 23 October 2014
Le Journal and Le Club
Tariq Ali

Walking from the Bastille to the rue Saint-Antoine in Paris a few weeks 
ago, I was thinking how swiftly the last few decades have taken their 
revenge on the past. The spectacle that overshadows all else in France 
today is the collapse of the political civilisation whose foundations 
were laid in 1789. Radical France – its intelligentsia, its political 
parties, its cinema and its press – has been neo-liberalised. Jean-Marie 
Colombani’s notorious post 9/11 editorial in Le Monde – ‘Nous sommes 
tous Américains’ – turned out to be a prophecy. Is it possible that the 
country’s historical memory will soon be erased and the events of the 
memorable years – 1789, 1793, 1815, 1830, 1848, 1871, 1936, 1968 – 
misrepresented or forgotten?


The new liberals, the historians François Furet and Pierre Nora, the 
politicians Jospin and Hollande, prepared the ground well for the French 
right. Manuel Valls, currently the Socialist prime minister, declares 
his admiration for Tony Blair while competing with the Front National’s 
Marine Le Pen to humiliate minorities. There is more than a whiff of 
Vichy in the air, with Muslims and Roma taking the place of Jews.


How many passers-by are aware that the monument in the centre of the 
place de la Bastille commemorates the martyrs of the July Revolution of 
1830? The king had insisted on pushing through unpopular ordnances, 
dissolving the recently elected Chamber of Deputies, taking the vote 
away from the middle class and suspending press freedom. Up went the 
barricades. Charles X, like previous royal asylum seekers, fled to 
London, leaving behind the corpses of more than two hundred citizens, 
killed in the fight for press freedom.


Today the French press is in a bad way. Le Figaro is not as biased as 
the Telegraph, but it’s getting there. Le Monde and Libération are 
corporatised and in decline. It’s true that Le Monde diplomatique still 
appears every month, but though dependable on statistics and global 
politics, it’s too worthy and too dull to have any serious impact on 
national politics.


The challenge to the press has come from a website called Mediapart, 
launched in 2008 to expose the corruptions embedded in the Fifth 
Republic’s institutions and political parties. It was the idea of Edwy 
Plenel, a former editor of Le Monde, and three senior colleagues – 
François Bonnet (the editor), Gérard Desportes and Laurent Mauduit – who 
between them had vast experience and, more important, good contact 
lists. In Fabrice Arfy they have a meticulous and thorough investigator 
reminiscent of the young Paul Foot of the old Private Eye.


Mediapart is run on a subscription model: for your first euro you can 
have access to the site for 15 days; from there it costs nine euros a 
month. In 2011, the site made a €500,000 profit even though it doesn’t 
carry ads; 95 per cent of the website’s funds come from its subscribers. 
There are two front pages: Le Journal, for articles written by 
journalists, and Le Club, where the subscribers blog, comment and 
interact with the editors. Each day there are editions at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. 
and 7 p.m., as well as English and Spanish versions; FrenchLeaks, an 
offshoot of Mediapart, is a domestic WikiLeaks.


Mediapart started with Sarkozy’s regime: the Bettencourt scandal; 
envelopes bulging with euros being handed directly to Sarkozy and Eric 
Woerth, a budget minister under Sarkozy. Then there were the funds 
Sarkozy received from Gaddafi (who wanted to help Sarkozy’s 
re-election), and the cover-up of the Karachi affair: 11 French 
engineers were killed (probably by the ISI) because the bribes linked to 
the sale of French submarines had not been paid in full to the great and 
the bad in Pakistan. Mediapart did not stop with Sarkozy. The Socialist 
government elected in 2012 was subjected to severe scrutiny, and the 
results were impressive. Jérôme Cahuzac, a cosmetic surgeon, 
hair-transplant king and junior economics minister, had been exhorting 
the nation to tighten its belt. Mediapart revealed that he had more than 
a million euros in secret Swiss bank accounts. Cahuzac lied about this 
to Hollande, to the French parliament and to the media. Mediapart 
persisted, now joined by the rest of the press. He was finally sacked.


The Mediapart offices, just off rue Saint-Antoine, house a team of 33 
journalists. They operate as a daily newspaper sans papier. With 100,000 
subscribers (and 2.5 million hits a month) Mediapart enjoy saying that 
they have half the combined circulation of Le Monde and Le Figaro. And 

Re: [Marxism] Latest Paper SD Ireland

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 10/15/14 6:03 PM, jmcanulty via Marxism wrote:

Water charges: The final straw?

http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins/SDBulletinOct2014Budget2015TheEndOfAusterity.html


This ain't the right link.

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[Marxism] Latest Paper SD Ireland

[jmcanulty via Marxism]

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Socialist Democracy Bulletin - October 2014

Contents

Water charges: 
Stop the war on workers!

http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins/SDBulletinOct2014WaterChargesStopTheWarOnWorkers.html

Greyhound dispute: Lions led by Donkeys

http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins/SDBulletinOct2014GreyhoundDisputeLionsLedByDonkeys.html

Greyhound dispute: A Socialist Alternative

http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins/SDBulletinOct2014GreyhoundDisputeASocialistAlternative.html

Stormont budget: Carving up the sectarian spoils

http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins/SDBulletinOct2014StormontBudgetCarvingUpTheSectarianSpoils.html

Night of the long knives

http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins/SDBulletinOct2014NightOfTheLongKnives.html

Budget 2015 – the end of austerity? 

http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins/SDBulletinOct2014Budget2015TheEndOfAusterity.html

Water charges: The final straw?

http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins/SDBulletinOct2014Budget2015TheEndOfAusterity.html

US: The Racist Murder of Michael Brown

http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins/SDBulletinOct2014USTheRacistMurderOfMichaelBrown.html

Socialist Education: The police, the state and the ‘prevailing 
Philistinism’

http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins/SDBulletinOct2014SocialistEducationThePoliceTheStateAndThePrevailingPhilistinism.html

Talks: A new carnival of reaction

http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins/SDBulletinOct2014TalksANewCarnivalOfReaction.html

Bono Backlash - U2 graduate on the web as malware

http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins/SDBulletinOct2014BonoBacklash.html

Solidarity 

John McAnulty




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[Marxism] Fwd: Attorney general: Univ. of Illinois must explain why Salaita memo can't be found | The Electronic Intifada

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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he Office of the Attorney General of Illinois has asked the University 
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to explain why it cannot find a 
memo about Steven Salaita handed to Chancellor Phyllis Wise by a major 
pro-Israel donor just days before Salaita was fired.


The move by the state’s top law officer follows a request from The 
Electronic Intifada.


Meanwhile, Wise has apparently told a faculty meeting that she discarded 
the document, a potential admission that she violated state laws and 
university regulations on preserving records.


full: 
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/attorney-general-univ-illinois-must-explain-why-salaita-memo-cant-be-found


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[Marxism] Fwd: Obama's ISIS strategy is going down a path with one destination: an alliance with Assad - Vox

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.vox.com/2014/10/13/6961925/obama-ally-with-assad-isis-syria

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[Marxism] How Will We Protest the Permanent War?

[Ron J via Marxism]

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http://stillhomeron.blogspot.com/2014/10/how-will-we-protest-permanent-war.html





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Re: [Marxism] West-obsessed anti-imperialists and Kobane, "genuine natives" and "fake natives"

[Lenin's Tomb via Marxism]

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I was going to ignore this post, which badly misquotes me at a number of 
points, but as you draw attention to it, a few simple logical points:

> 
> Their counterpart is the fake native, whose sociopolitical standards and 
> practices are perceived as sharing common ground with Euro-North American 
> liberal values. West-obsessed anti-imperialists propose that "fake natives" 
> perform practices that match liberal values, in order to familiarize 
> themselves in the eyes of Western audiences and to become an object of 
> obsession of the Western mainstream media. In some cases, they argue that the 
> mainstream media romanticizes them and depicts them as familiar subjects, or 
> savages whose values are compatible with liberalism. As Richard Seymour 
> writes:
> 
> "There's something very strange about the sudden rediscovery of the Kurds in 
> the Anglophone press. They were a useful alibi when the invasion of Iraq was 
> planned, romanticized out of all proportion by the humanitarian 
> interventionists, and then basically forgotten about. Now, they're lauded in 
> a way which comprises a contradictory mixture of 'noble savage' ideology 
> coupled with a narcissistic solidarity with 'people like us’."

There are precisely two examples of “West-obsessed anti-imperialists” cited by 
the author: myself and Asad Abu Khalil.  

We are supposed to have constructed a binary between ‘real’ and ‘fake natives’, 
the latter performing “practices that match liberal values”.  Now, I am 
entirely unaware of having made any such claim. I am also unaware that 
‘matching liberal values’ is a crime, but leave that to one side.  The author 
doesn’t therefore attempt to substantiate this point, but rather moves on to 
substantiate a claim that sounds a little similar, but is in fact substantively 
the opposite.  That is, she quotes me saying that the media has deployed the 
imperialist ’noble savage’ ideologeme with regard to Kurdish forces.  This is 
obviously not a commentary on the practices of any particular group of Kurds, 
but the author is clearly attempting to imply that it is.

> 
> West-obsessed anti-imperialists express a fear of Kurdification conducted by 
> Syrian Kurds in case they would be armed (which at this point means in case 
> they survive). As Richard Seymour says:
> 
> “First, who are ‘the Kurds’ in this slogan?  If it is taken to refer to all 
> Kurdish forces currently fighting ISIS, then one is effectively calling for 
> the arming of the PUK and KDP forces whose policy of 'Kurdification' is part 
> of the sectarian dynamic unfolding in Iraq since the inception of Operation 
> Iraqi Freedom.”


The statement quoted does not express a fear of Kurdification by ‘Syrian 
Kurds’, but refers to an actual process of ‘Kurdification’ - ethnic cleansing 
and persecution, let’s be honest - by the Iraqi Kurdish leadership.  

I should say that the author of this piece has claimed to me that 
‘Kurdification’ never happened and was a fabrication of Arab nationalist and 
Turkish sources.  You can draw your own conclusions about the politics implied 
by that.

But here, the author tries to find something controversial in a perfectly 
obvious statement.  There is no implication in what I say that Syrian Kurds 
should not be allowed to arm themselves.  Indeed, I have repeatedly told the 
author of this preposterous piece, and anyone else who needs to hear it, that I 
am entirely in favour of the Kurdish forces in Kobane arming themselves by 
whatever means they deem fit.  Given that the author is aware of this, the 
misrepresentation can only be deliberate.


> When a genuine native is killed, West-obsessed anti-imperialists fully mourn 
> the death of the victim and offer stories of the victim’s life. When a fake 
> native is killed, West-obsessed anti-imperialists do not find the victim’s 
> life worthy of grieving and only protest the Western mainstream media’s 
> attention given to that victim. West-obsessed anti-imperialists, through 
> dismissing the life of a fake native as a true life, construct a competition 
> between the ghosts of the fake and the "genuine natives" over who receives 
> more attention from the media or whose struggle is more respected.
> 
> As Richard Seymour stated:
> 
> “I'm really struck by the media's sympathetic interest in Kurdish martyrdom 
> stories, including the use of suicide attacks, vs ISIS. Surely this is what 
> the psychobabblers call a 'teachable moment’?”


Again, this is an attempt to contrive a controversy.  Nowhere do I ‘protest the 
Western mainstream media’s attention’ to Kurds.  The point being made was that 
with the media coverage as it is, this was an *ideal point* at which to 
demystify the tactic of suicide attacks and to roll back years of imperiali

[Marxism] From prison to table - the other side of the Whole Foods experience

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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clip - If Whole Foods sells free-range eggs because it’s inhumane to keep
hens in cages that rob them of their quality of life, it seems more than a
little contradictory to then claim that exploiting the labor of caged
humans who have been ripped from our communities—often for nonviolent
offenses—and locked up by a barbarous criminal injustice system is “serving
the community.”

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/prison-to-table-the-other-side-of-the-whole-foods-experience

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[Marxism] West-obsessed anti-imperialists and Kobane, "genuine natives" and "fake natives"

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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A FB post by Mina Khanlarzadeh.

West-obsessed anti-imperialists and Kobane, "genuine natives" and "fake 
natives"

October 15, 2014 at 2:04am

The global Left has no prospects other than commenting on sociopolitical 
affairs, and leftists, like most other people, are not actively part of 
any actual change-making in the current sociopolitical order. Even the 
idea of a sociopolitical order other than the existing various forms of 
capitalism seems like the script of a disturbing science-fiction movie. 
Yet the global Left mostly ignored Kobane, the Kurdish city in Northern 
Syria, a place in which egalitarian ideals have blossomed into daily 
realities and people in there have moved beyond nation-statism and 
identity-based divisions. Kobane stands on decades of struggle of 
Kurdish people in leftist parties or individually under the oppressive 
and anti-Kurdish policies in the region. One must look into the history 
of the Kurdish political struggle to unearth the seeds of Kobane; it is 
no random phenomenon, nor is it a dream fabricated by the Western media, 
as some commentators suggest.


Some sections of the global anti-imperialists have responded to Kobane’s 
resistance against ISIS with a variety of theories and propositions: the 
Western media is hypocritical in supporting the fighters from Kobane, 
the empowerment of Kurds in Syria can result in the Kurdification of the 
region, Euro-North American leftists must not support the arming of 
Kurdish fighters by imperialist forces, Kurdish intellectuals must 
support Kobane, not non-Kurdish people. Kobane, its resistance against 
various reactionary global and regional forces, and its alternative 
political practices (unprecedented in the region and the whole world) 
are all overlooked. Amongst the same group of commentators, there has 
been a tendency to only invoke the Kurdish people of Kobane in order to 
contrast them with Palestinians, for the purposes of pointing out the 
double standards in Western mainstream media. This is a truism with 
which I nonetheless agree; however, for these commentators, Kobane only 
exists to prove the hypocrisies of the Western mainstream media.


Such propositions, which disregard any of the sociopolitical 
particularities of Kobane, are ungrounded, as they do not bring up the 
delayed reaction of the media to what was happening in Kobane. This 
media reaction has always been disproportionate to the catastrophe that 
could happen there and unenthusiastic about the practices of progressive 
political alternatives in Kobane.


Throughout this process, such commentators display that they themselves 
are troubled by their own double standards and discrimination against 
those whom they consider as unworthy of their attention. In other words, 
these commentators are a branch of Western mainstream media, albeit with 
different love/hate lists. I call these commentators the West-obsessed 
anti-imperialists located in different parts of the world.


West-obsessed anti-imperialists, following in the footsteps of colonial 
traditions, use imagined sharp-boundaries to separate communities into 
friend/ good and enemy/ bad dichotomies. They unconditionally and 
uncritically support the political struggle of those whom they consider 
good/friend, and dismiss and belittle the struggle of those whom they 
consider bad/enemy. Accordingly, there are two kinds of brown people in 
the eyes of West-obsessed anti-imperialists: "genuine natives" and the 
"fake natives". The belief that sociocultural practices in the Muslim 
world are distinct from liberalism lies at the foundation of this 
West-obsessed anti-imperialist worldview.


The "genuine natives" and "fake natives"

West-obsessed anti-imperialists consider "genuine natives" to be 
completely outside of the current Euro-North American liberal social 
order:  depictions, for instance, of poor women in hijab, only at the 
moment of being attacked by the US and Israeli governments, and various 
Islamist (and some non-Islamist) groups, fighters, states, etc. who, in 
one way or another, stand against the governments of the US and Israel. 
West-obsessed anti-imperialists perceive "genuine natives" as the 
absolute other of liberalism, pure and untouched by the West, and 
therefore in need of unconditional love and protection preferably in a 
place like a safe museum. The "genuine natives" must preferably speak 
Arabic. Ironically, to West-obsessed anti-imperialists, "genuine 
natives" are the only ones capable of practicing liberal values and 
therefore are worthy of the attention of the Western media and powers. 
If "genuine natives" stand for liberal values, such as democracy and 
civil rights and liberties, West-obsessed anti-imperialists use this 
moment to argue that

[Marxism] World War Three called off

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Oct. 15 2014
U.S. and Russia Agree to Share More Intelligence on ISIS
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

PARIS — Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday that the United 
States and Russia had agreed to share more intelligence on the Islamic 
State, as he sought to lay the basis for improved cooperation with Moscow.


Just six months ago, Obama administration officials suggested that their 
goal was to isolate President Vladimir V. Putin following Russia’s 
decision to annex Crimea and provide military support to separatists in 
eastern Ukraine.


But Mr. Kerry made it clear that he would welcome expanded cooperation 
with Mr. Putin after a meeting here with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian 
foreign minister.


While nobody on the American side said the United States was undertaking 
another “reset” — the term the Obama administration used to describe its 
early attempt to improve ties with Russia — the tenor of Mr. Kerry’s 
comments suggested that the State Department was pursuing a new tack.


full: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/world/europe/us-and-russia-agree-to-share-more-intelligence-on-isis.html


---

NY Times, Oct. 13 2014
As Putin Talks Near, Both Sides Take Steps to Defuse Ukraine Tension
By ANDREW ROTH

DONETSK, Ukraine — Russian and Ukrainian officials on Sunday continued a 
series of measured steps aimed at decreasing tensions before the 
countries’ presidents meet this week to discuss the six-month conflict 
in Ukraine’s east.


Despite the continuing fighting over disputed territories, President 
Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine said he believed that a full cease-fire 
could soon be achieved under a peace plan that he and Russia’s 
president, Vladimir V. Putin, had endorsed.


On Sunday, Russian news agencies reported that Mr. Putin had ordered 
troops deployed on the Ukrainian border to return to their bases.


full: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/world/europe/as-putin-talks-near-steps-to-defuse-ukraine.html


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[Marxism] Guerrilla groups hunt down Islamic State in Syria

[Michael Karadjis via Marxism]

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Guerrilla groups hunt down Islamic State in Syria

BEIRUT Mon Oct 13, 2014 12:27pm EDT

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/13/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-shrouds-idUSKCN0I21JW20141013

(Reuters) - Small groups of Syrians are hunting down Islamic State 
fighters in one of their main strongholds in eastern Syria in a new 
guerrilla campaign that has emerged as a response to the Islamists' 
growing brutality.


The main aim is to generate fear in Islamic State's ranks, said the head 
of "White Shroud" - a group that says it has killed more than 100 
Islamic State fighters in attacks in Deir al-Zor province in recent 
months.


The name reflects that aim: White Shroud is a reference to the death 
shroud it says awaits Islamic State fighters responsible for crimes 
against the Syrian people, said the group's leader, Abu Aboud, in an 
interview via Skype.


As the United States advances plans to train and equip the moderate 
opposition to President Bashar al-Assad as part of its strategy to 
tackle Islamic State, the appearance of such groups shows how it has 
generated new enemies on the ground.


Abu Aboud, who declined to give his real name for security reasons, was 
a commander in an anti-Assad insurgent group crushed by the better armed 
and financed Islamic State as it seized almost full control of Deir 
al-Zor earlier this year.


The small band he now leads is in no position to deal a major blow to 
Islamic State. But it does pose an extra challenge as the United States 
and its allies target the group in air strikes in both Syria and Iraq.


The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war, has 
recorded a rising number of attacks by gunmen on Islamic State targets 
in Deir al-Zor province. Together with Raqqa province further north, 
Deir al-Zor forms the bedrock of Islamic State's influence in Syria.


White Shroud shows no mercy to Islamic State: when it manages to abduct 
one of its members, it is only to "liquidate" him later on, said Abu 
Aboud.


It operates in and around the town of Al Bukamal at the Iraqi border - 
an area of crucial importance to Islamic State as the link between the 
territory it controls in Syria and Iraq. The group currently numbers 300 
members, said Abu Aboud.


"Eighty percent of the members of White Shroud did not take part in 
combat before (Islamic State) came. We trained them and they joined 
White Shroud because of the great oppression they felt after Islamic 
State took control," said Abu Aboud.


The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says White Shroud is one of 
several small groups that have taken up arms against Islamic State in 
Deir al-Zor province in recent months and are picking off Islamic State 
fighters whenever they get the chance.


They have all taken similarly menacing names. These include the "Phantom 
Brigade" and "The Brigade of the Angel of Death", said Rami Abdulrahman, 
who runs the Observatory, which says it gathers information from sources 
on all sides of the conflict.


INCREASING ATTACKS

One such group killed no fewer than 10 Islamic State fighters in a 
nighttime gun attack on a checkpoint in the town of Al Mayadin in Deir 
al-Zor province last Thursday, the Observatory reported. In a separate 
attack, a gunman on a motor bike opened fire on another Islamic State 
checkpoint.


"There is an increase in their operations against Islamic State," 
Abdulrahman said.


Islamic State has made plenty of enemies during its conquest of Deir 
al-Zor, an oil-producing region.


It expelled most other insurgent groups from Deir al-Zor in July, 
emboldened by rapid gains in Iraq where it seized the city of Mosul in 
June, capturing with it Iraqi army equipment that has been deployed in 
Syria.


Mirroring its approach elsewhere, Islamic State has used crucifixions 
and decapitations to suppress all opposition in Deir al-Zor. It executed 
700 members of one rebellious tribe, the Sheitaat, in August, the 
Observatory reported.


Members of anti-Assad armed groups loosely referred to as the "Free 
Syrian Army" had the choice of fleeing, submitting to Islamic State 
rule, or death. The Nusra Front, al Qaeda's official affiliate in Deir 
al-Zor, withdrew from the province.


The Syrian government still controls a portion of Deir al-Zor city and 
its airport.


"Secrecy is the most important element of White Shroud's work," said Abu 
Aboud. The group comprises four-man "cells" that work independently of 
each other, Abu Aboud said.


One of White Shroud's biggest operations was an attack on an Islamic 
State position in Al Bukamal in which around 11 Islamic State fighters 
were killed, according to the Observatory and Abu Aboud.


The U.S.-led air strikes are not making White Shroud's job easier, said 
Abu Aboud. Where Islamic Stat

[Marxism] Fwd: Egypt’s Conservative Nationalism: Discourse and Praxis of the New Regime

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(When will Egypt be hailed as a frontline state of the "Axis of 
Resistance"?)


The crisis discourse also conveniently lends itself well to conspiracy. 
The state’s official discourse—which is also expressed by its allies in 
the local media—often portrays Egypt as a “Noah’s arc” that is 
navigating through the dark and perilous waters of chaos induced by 
international conspiracies. For instance, in an August meeting with 
journalists, al-Sisi expressed his belief that Egypt and the region as a 
whole are a target of the “fourth generation wars” (H’urub al gil al 
rabe’). “Fourth generation wars” is the a term popularized by some 
counterrevolutionary writers and public figures in the aftermath of the 
2011 revolt. It refers to wars that are no longer based on external 
aggression but rather on the instigation of internal conflict using 
international and social media, rumors, and other means. Of course, the 
Arab revolts of 2011 can be framed as falling under this category of wars.


full: 
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/19628/egypt%E2%80%99s-conservative-nationalism_discourse-and-pra


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[Marxism] Kobane's own Vasily Zaitsev

[Greg McDonald via Marxism]

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http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/female-kurdish-fighter-praised-killing-over-100-isis-militants

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[Marxism] [UCE]Evo Morales has proved that socialism doesn't damage economies

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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http://tinyurl.com/p6z2am7



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[Marxism] What's new at Links: Kurds vs. ISIS, Hong Kong, marriage equality, Ireland water revolt, Catalonia, World Bank, Gulf states, Bolivia & climate, Haiti

[glparramatta via Marxism]

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What's new at Links: Kurds vs. ISIS, Hong Kong, marriage equality, 
Ireland water revolt, Catalonia, World Bank,Gulf states, Bolivia & 
climate, Haiti


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   Kurdish leader: 'We are the only humanist shield against barbarity'
   

October 6, 2014 -- /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ -- 
*Gharib Hassou* is representative in Iraqi Kurdistan of the Syria-based 
Democratic Union Party (/Partiya Yekitîya Demokrat/, PYD), the main 
force of Kurdish resistance in Syria. He is interviewed by *Stéphane 
Aubouard* in Erbil for the French left-wing newspaper /l'Humanité./ 
Translated by *Isabelle Métral*. (Note: DAESH is also know as "Islamic 
State" (IS) or ISIS).


 * Read more 


   Accusing Hong Kong activists of being tools of US policy is ignorant
   and dangerous 

By *Dave Lindorff*
October 10, 2014 -- A number of progressive and left-leaning writers  
have jumped on a report by Wikileaks that the neocon-dominated National 
Endowment for Democracy (NED) and various other US-government linked 
organisations with a history of subversion and sowing discord abroad are 
operating in Hong Kong and on that basis are making the leap of "logic" 
that the democracy protests in Hong Kong must therefore be a creation of 
US policy makers.


 * Read more 


   Malalai Joya: 'Fiery salutations to the brave women of Kobane'
   

By *Malalai Joya*, Afghanistan
October 12, 2014 -- These days the bravery and resilience of the women 
of Kobane has amazed people around the world. To defend their soil from 
the criminal ISIS murderers, they are neither looking at the US and 
NATO's support, nor appoint the West and the US to defend their homeland 
from terrorists and foreigners, like a handful of mercenary analysts in 
Afghanistan. The noble men and women of Kobane selflessly defend their 
honour, freedom, and homeland with their own hands and have accepted to 
make all kinds of sacrifices for this purpose.


 * Read more 


   Two cheers for marriage equality 

By *Colin Wilson*
October 10, 2014 -- This week has seen a striking victory for US 
campaigners for LGBT equality. On Monday, October 6, the Supreme Court 
decided not to hear appeals from five states that sought to uphold bans 
on same-sex marriage. This is the end of the road for opponents of 
marriage equality in states as conservative as Utah, where over half the 
population are Mormons, and where marriage licences were issued to 
jubilant same-sex couples from Monday.


 * Read more 


   Water revolt in Ireland: Socialist candidate wins by-election as
   100,000 march 

By *Henry Silke*, Dublin

October 13, 2014 -- Saturday, October 11, saw a major revolt in Ireland 
over the implementation of the controversial water charge. An estimated 
100,000 people marched in unseasonal sunshine, while former member of 
the European parliament (MEP) Paul Murphy was elected in the Dublin 
South West by-election. Murphy stood for the Socialist Party's (CWI) 
electoral front, the Anti Austerity Alliance (AAA).


 * Read more 


   Catalan national struggle enters critical stage
   

By *Dick Nichols*
October 12, 2014 -- On September 29, the normally sluggish Spanish legal 
system had an attack of extreme speed. Its Usain Bolt-like behaviour was 
sparked by the regional government of Catalonia formally decreeing the 
long-awaited November 9 non-binding consultation of Catalan opinion 
[referendum] on the future political status of the region.


 * Read more 


   The 'World versus Bank' seen from South Africa
   

By *Patrick Bond*, Durban
October 11, 2014 -- In Washington DC and 10 countries across the globe, 
protests on October 10 targetted the World Bank during its annual 
meeting. Many are asking, isn't 70 a dignified age for institutional 
/retirement/, especially f