[Marxism] Crimea
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. * Aug 15, 2015 The list moderator has posted to this mail list a New York Times article alleging growing disillusion and discontent among the Crimean people with their vote in March 2014 to secede from Euromaidan Ukraine. The Times article is a useful foil to write a rejoinder showing how the Western propaganda machine works viz-a-ziz Kyiv's war in eastern Ukraine, and we will do so on New Cold War.org. WE have colleagues who have recently visited there and are well placed to comment. There is already a lot of recent material on the website which addresses the difficulties and challenges which the imperialist economic embargo against Crimea creates for the population there. (Surprise, the Times article does not mention the embargo!) There are also the difficulties and economic inequalities which integration into capitalist Russia creates. While those are far less extreme than what Crimeans would face today were they ruled by Kyiv (and Washington/Brussels), they are nonetheless real. I am disappointed that with all of his knowledge of the decades-long economic embargo by the United States against Cuba and the support role which the New York Times played during those decades, Louis cannot see the similarities between this latest Times article and the DECADES of such articles published in the Times aimed at discrediting and ultimately destroying Cuba. There, half-truths, innuendo and outright prejudice dominated, and thi sis the case fo rthe Times' newest efforts in Crimea. Have we learned nothing from the earlier decades, leave alone the EU's recent performance in Greece? I'm afraid that I see nothing but irony in Louis' posting of two paragraphs of excerpt from Boris Kagarlitsky's March 2014 article on Crimea published in Links. The article, including the two, excerpted paragraphs, stands the test of time very well. But such are the two worlds of observation of the deepening crisis in Ukraine today--in one view, this is a crisis caused by a ruthless and aggressive austerity EU and U.S.-dominated NATO; in the other view, that part counts little because what we truly confront is an aggressive Russian imperialism. Roger Annis http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/europe/in-crimea-a-disputed-beach-is-a-symbol-of-corruption.html?_r=0 http://links.org.au/node/3790 _ 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] From the vaults: Demystifying the Dalai Lama
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/2015/08/16/from-the-vaults-demystifying-the-dalai-lama/ _ 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] Crimea
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 8/15/15 9:10 PM, Roger Annis via Marxism wrote: I am disappointed that with all of his knowledge of the decades-long economic embargo by the United States against Cuba and the support role which the New York Times played during those decades, Louis cannot see the similarities between this latest Times article and the DECADES of such articles published in the Times aimed at discrediting and ultimately destroying Cuba. Cuba was trying to build socialism while Novorossiya is an attempt to recreate Katherine the Great's Empire on the economic basis of oligarchic larceny-capitalism. I am deeply sorry that you can't make such distinctions. _ 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] Guardian: Buzzfeed founder says unionization a buzz killer
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. * BuzzFeed founder says unionizing would not be 'great' for company http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/14/buzzfeed-union-jonah-peretti?CMP=ema_565 _ 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] Fwd: The Real Reason Donald Trump Embarrasses The GOP
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 bare truth is that until we have mandatory public financing of political campaigns and rigorously prohibit private donations, democracy is likely to remain a utopian ideal. Even then, without aggressive enforcement, the old order is likely to return. -- I think the bare truth is that without eliminating the winner-take-all system of single mandate seats (and replacing it with proportional representation for legislatures and instant runoff voting for executive posts) you won't have the kind of political competition that imposes a much firmer ceiling over the kind of rampant corruption we see in the US. Those kinds of reforms would go a much longer way to reducing the influence of money than campaign finance reform... 15 авг. 2015 г., в 9:12, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu написал(а): 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 Stanley Aronowitz http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/trump-gop-establishment-money-influencing-politicians _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/shalva.eliava%40outlook.com _ 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] Arrested head of Tehran teachers' union faces new charges
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. * 08/15/15 Head of Tehran teachers' group faces new chargesSource: Radio Zamaneh The General Secretary of the Tehran Teachers' Association is now facing new charges: Conspiracy to disrupt national security and propaganda against the regime. The Teachers and Workers Rights website reports that on Tuesday August 11, 46 days after his arrest, Esmail Abdi informed his wife in a telephone conversation that he has been indicted on these charges by a Revolutionary office of interrogations and forwarded to court. Abdi had been charged with propaganda activities against the regime in an earlier file and was given a 10-year suspended sentence. Abdi's trial will take place in the next 15 to 20 days, and so far there has been no news of his possible release on bail. Abdi was arrested following the wave of teacher protests that began last March and spread across the country to demand better pay and conditions. Esmail Abdi's passport was confiscated at the airport on June 21, as he prepared to leave on a trip to Armenia. On Saturday June 27 he was summoned to Evin Prison and arrested after hours of interrogation. _ 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] Israel: world's most racist state
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. * Veteran anti-Zionist activist Tony Greenstein suggests any pretence to democracy and humane values in Israel are now gone: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/08/15/israel-worlds-most-racist-state/ _ 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] Iraq and inter-imperialist rivalry
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. * This piece is 12.5 years old, but still relevant I think: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/08/15/from-the-vaults-iraq-and-inter-imperialist-rivalry/ 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
[Marxism] Australian politics...
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. * 'Tis so ironic that the Abbott government should face a comeuppance over the issue of folk having sex and cohabiting with one another. Who saw that coming? To add to the fall out, the Abbottoirs seem determined to dig their own hole deeper. When you look at it from one step away from the coal face who today unconditionally supports the Abbott government? The mining industry and climate change deniers. Religious and moral fundamentalists. Even those with a keener austerity agenda must realize that the 'shock and awe' push, so much the rage early on in the government's tenure, has floundered. What sustains the government is racism -- a racism aided and abetted by the ALP -- over the issues of refugees, 'national security' and aboriginal disenfranchisement. Even the big business media has begun to turn on Abbott. That suggests, to me anyway, that what's missing from the options on the table is a clear offer from the ALP that it can drive austerity and remake industrial relations so that profits can be jigged up. Penalty rates come to mind. Further welfare and health 'reforms'. A new way to package tertiary education at our collective expense. A quickening of corporatism and asset sell offs. And an emissions green wash that will still protect the mining and power profiteers while allowing open slather Coal Seam Gas mining. On this last point, the Abbottoirs have painted themselves into a corner. While the folk of this land tend to be patient resilient, another horror Summer like the last three on the weather and bush fire front is sure to feed a keen angst. That the context of the UN Climate Conference occurs as our Summer begins is not in Abbott's favor. Nonetheless, the continuing break up of Australian electoral politics and drift away from the duopoly ensures that there will surely be wild cards in the mix. Not voting Abbott doesn't necessarily mean voting Greens or ALP. The racism driven shift of the discourse to the right has surely had an impact on the protest vote. That Abbott -- and Shorten, for that matter -- has been so right wing has suppressed a coarser conservative surge and for now we haven't a true UKIP phenomenon among us.Just a gaggle of right wing outfits playing boutique funny buggers. Nonetheless, that the Maritime Union of Australia has won a bit of a victory on the waterfront, changes the dynamic --as do the mobilizations around same sex marriage and the attempt to close remote aboriginal communities in Western Australia. The anti-CSG movement is still a potent regional force. Indeed our collective fatal flaw is racism.That's the divide that is sapping our solidarity.Its potency for savage harm is clear over the antics of the ALP lefts on the issue of boat turn backs.Clearly any left wing pretensions are sabotaged and made complicit when concessions are made to this racist push.Indeed, like the 1984 federal ALP conference that backed uranium mining, this year's conference result may prove to be a watershed moment for 'stay-in-and-fight' ALPers. Their, and their party's, progressive credentials have been gutted. It couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of apologists. dave riley _ 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] Britain adopts Australian cruelty with new racist policy
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 only cost-effective way to stop illegal immigrants trying to storm through the Channel Tunnel is to set up a machine gun and take out a few people,” Steve Uncles, the extreme right-wing English Democrats' candidate for the post Kent Police and Crime Commissioner, wrote in an August 4 Facebook rant. “[T]hat would stop it very quickly and immediately cut dead this tactic … who has got the guts to do this in our politically correct society?” Uncles is an outlier on the racist far-right of English politics, but his rhetoric differed only in degree from that of Tory government ministers and could be matched by commentators in the tabloid press. The English Democrats' immigration policy explicitly cites Australia's immigration policy as a model. In this respect Uncles and the English Democrats are trendsetters more than outliers. https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59790 -- “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism “The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker _ 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] Greece: SYRIZA on brink of split over new bail out deal
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. * Dick Nichols By any logic, Greece's SYRIZA-led government should be sinking in the opinion polls. At the Brussels Eurosummit of Eurozone leaders on July 12, SYRIZA Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras agreed to a set of draconian preconditions for obtaining a third €86 billion bailout. The decision effectively reversed the opposition to austerity on which SYRIZA was elected in January. Surely the Greek public would feel, as SYRIZA’s internal critics in its Left Platform do, that by caving in to the European establishment, Tsipras and finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos had betrayed the Greek people’s 61.3% vote against such austerity measures at the July 5 referendum? Not if the most recent Greek opinion polls are anything to go by https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59785 -- “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism “The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker _ 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] Ted Rall vs LAPD
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[Marxism] Open Letter to Bernie Sanders
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[Marxism] A report from Greece
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. * This was sent to Curtis Hinson, a North Star editor, on FB: Sammy Black A chilling first hand account of the unfolding disaster in Greece, as the brutal European Central Bank and I.M.F. loan sharks squeeze blood from a stone. Coming soon to a country near you! From an American friend who lives in Greece. This is what they are experiencing. *So...I'm assuming you're asking me how I'm holding up as far as Greece goes. Well...I'm barely holding up. Shit is so fucked right now in this country. Greece is in the process of being sold out to big banks and corporations to pay off their debts that they acquired from the same banks trying to buy up all of Greece's assets. Greece will have to sell off ancient ruins, islands, beaches, power companies, airports, and other travel infrastructures and utilities to pay back a debt that was never really meant to ever be paid back. The banks from the three biggest economies in Europe (The Netherlands, France, and Germany) called the Troika knew by lending the first two bailouts to Greece, that the country would not be able to pay them back, thus being forever in debt (or financial slavery) to these banks until the debt was paid off...or in this case...until the banks and corporations bought up all of Greece's assets for dirt cheap to pay back the debts. The media spun the Greek debt story to get people to think the first two bailouts to Greece went to the Greek people. Not one average person on the street saw a penny of that money. 90% of the bailouts went to bailout foreign banks (France, Germany, and Netherlands banks) in Greece. The rest of 10% of the bailout money lined the pockets of the corrupt politicians making these back room deals with the Troika. It's really like a sick joke, but it's similar to what happened in the U.S. back in 2008 when the banks started to go belly up in the USA and had to be bailed out or else the economy was going to collapse according to the big banks in America. Well the Troika bailed out Greece with two bailouts, and nothing got better in the country-it only got worse. To add insult to injury, the Troika expects the average citizen on the street to pay back these debts that the Greeks did not get themselves into through super high taxes on everything from food to utilities bills. Now the Troika has given Greece a third bailout, which they know will not be able to be paid back, so in turn the Greeks will be in financial slavery for the next 30 years until every asset that Greece owns will be bought up for dirt cheap by them and their corporate buddies. It's pretty much a financial takeover of the country. Instead of sending in tanks to take over the country, they sent in bankers to get everyone into debt so the country has to sell natural resources and it's infrastructure. Kind of similar to the U.S. invading Iraq for oil, and Afghanistan for opium. But like I said, instead of having a full out war with tanks on the streets, the economy was taken over by bankers. They're pretty much financial terrorists. When the banks knew Greece wasn't going to be able to pay back the loans and they were going to default, they closed down the banks and issued capital control right before Greece defaulted on their loans. It was the bankers (Troika's) way of scaring the Greeks into paying back debts that they did not acquire themselves by cutting them off from their money. For almost a month, I could not get more then 60 euros out of the bank each day. Some days you couldn't even get more then 50 euros out because the banks were running out of money and certain bills like 20 euro bills were running low. I'm thankful nothing seriously went wrong during that time(even though now is not much better) like a medical emergency or the car breaking down, etc. because there would have been no way to pay the hospital or anything else when you could only get 60 euros out at a time...and that was IF you could find an ATM that still had money in it. There's still capital control though, but now you can get 420 euros once a week, which it still breaks down to 60 dollars per day. It's fucked up. The new taxes just kicked in and there's a new 13%-23% tax on EVERYTHING. 30% of my electric bill is taxes. Now my grocery bill and utilities bills will be even more. We could hardly pay for shit before, now we're really screwed.The sad part is is that my husband makes one of the better wages in Greece. The average person here makes 500 euros a month, and that's IF they even get paid because employers have been paying in grocery vouchers, or sometimes not at all for months on end. My husband
[Marxism] Fwd: MH17: Recording of CIA agents 'conspiring to bring down flight' ridiculed after errors expose it as Russian propaganda - Asia - World - The Independent
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. * http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/mh17-recording-of-cia-agents-conspiring-to-bring-down-flight-ridiculed-after-errors-expose-it-as-russian-propaganda-10455957.html _ 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: How the Israel Lobbies hurt U of Illinois-UC 1st Amendment (Salaita Case) | Informed Comment
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[Marxism] Guardian: The workers catering to the Hamptons' super-rich: 'This is not paradise for me'
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. * Expropriate the expropriators... http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/14/hamptons-super-rich-inequality _ 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] To Many in Crimea, Corruption Seems No Less at Home Under Russian Rule
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 8/15/15 11:47 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: Boris Kagarlitsky: In perfectly rational fashion, the population of the peninsula reasoned that Russian rule, with all its shortcomings – which Crimean residents knew intimately – was nevertheless better than the chaos and collapse that were afflicting Ukraine. This was especially true since Moscow was now compelled to make the peninsula a sort of shop window for the national economy. It was because they understood this that the Crimean leaders rejected the “Trans-Dniestrian” variant that Moscow was offering them, and confronting the Kremlin with an accomplished fact, forced the leadership of the Russian Federation to adopt the solution the Crimean chiefs wanted. Aksenov and Chaly should be given full credit for their guile; they scored a brilliant victory over both Kiev and Moscow. Now resources will start flowing into Crimea. Use this link instead: http://links.org.au/node/3790 _ 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] Guardian: two opinion pieces on BLM vs Sanders
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. * Black lives tend to be five years shorter. That's why we interrupt you by Steven W. Fraser http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/14/black-lives-five-years-shorter-why-we-interrupt-you ...and... Bernie Sanders must show he takes race as seriously as class struggleby Syreeta McFadden http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/14/bernie-sanders-must-take-race-seriously-black-lives-matter?CMP=ema_565 _ 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] U.S.-Led Air Campaign Is Linked to Civilian Deaths in 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. * NY Times, August 15 2015 U.S.-Led Air Campaign Is Linked to Civilian Deaths in Syria By BEN HUBBARD and KARAM SHOUMALI ANTAKYA, Turkey — An airstrike by the American-led military coalition in northern Syria this week killed eight civilians, including two women and five children, according to neighbors and relatives of the dead. The episode revived accusations by monitoring groups that the United States and its allies are not careful enough about who is killed by the air campaign against militant groups. The target of the strike, mounted late Tuesday in Atmeh, a village near the Turkish border, was a munitions factory run by an Islamist rebel group. The strike left a yawning crater strewed with mortar shells. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said 10 foreign fighters had been killed. But the explosions also caused the roofs of nearby homes to collapse, witnesses said. “My brother lost his five daughters, and I lost my wife,” Maan Amouri said in a telephone interview from Atmeh soon after the blast, referring to his fiancée, Fatima Yassin, who was among the dead. The deaths in Atmeh may dent the credibility of the United States among Syria’s rebel groups, when the Obama administration is trying to assemble and train an insurgent force that can grapple effectively with the extremists of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh. The episode highlighted the complex social dynamics in rebel-controlled areas of Syria, where armed groups often operate in civilian communities and sometimes provide services that are sorely lacking after more than four years of war. The American-led coalition began bombing in Syria in September 2014 after the Islamic State seized large stretches of territory. Since then, the coalition has mounted 2,300 strikes in Syria, most of them against the Islamic State, but in some cases against the Nusra Front, the Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda, or against prominent jihadist leaders. American officials say they strive to avoid civilian casualties and investigate all reports of wrongful deaths. In an email on Thursday, the United States Central Command said it had received reports of 31 such episodes since the air campaign began and had dismissed 17 of them as not credible. Six episodes are currently being investigated, the command said. The command has released its findings concerning two of the 31 reports. One was found not credible. The other was investigated for more than six months and led to a conclusion that two children had probably been killed wrongfully by a coalition airstrike. Monitoring groups say that the command’s figures are a gross understatement and that coalition strikes aimed at militants have taken a much higher toll. “They do not hit civilians because they are civilians,” said Ossama Suleiman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the conflict from Britain through contacts in Syria. “They have info that makes them think they are hitting ISIS, but sometimes they kill civilians.” By his organization’s reckoning, 181 civilians have died because of coalition strikes, including eight in Atmeh. Other groups have reported higher estimates. The deadliest case reported by the observatory happened in the village of Bir Mahle on May 1, where an airstrike was said to have killed more than 60 people, including dozens of women and children. A coalition representative said in an email that the coalition did not cause civilian casualties in this case “based on the best available evidence.” Other strikes have killed civilians living or working near facilities used by the Islamic State or the Nusra Front, Mr. Suleiman said, including militant hide-outs, grain silos, oil facilities and fuel depots. At least one strike that killed a militant also killed his wife and children. Analysts caution that documenting death tolls poses challenges, especially in a place like Syria, where the war’s brutality and the spread of extremist groups make it difficult or impossible for journalists and independent monitors to visit the sites of attacks or contact witnesses. Moreover, local residents sometimes exaggerate the number of victims or conceal the presence of foreign fighters in the area. “Some of the reports of fatalities caused by the U.S. have proven to be inaccurate, so I would treat the reports with a good deal of skepticism,” said Lama Fakih, senior crisis adviser at Amnesty International. Ms. Fakih said that coalition strikes tend to hit their targets accurately, but that some have nonetheless killed civilians who were near
[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] To Many in Crimea, Corruption Seems No Less at Home Under Russian Rule
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. * Boris Kagarlitsky: In perfectly rational fashion, the population of the peninsula reasoned that Russian rule, with all its shortcomings – which Crimean residents knew intimately – was nevertheless better than the chaos and collapse that were afflicting Ukraine. This was especially true since Moscow was now compelled to make the peninsula a sort of shop window for the national economy. It was because they understood this that the Crimean leaders rejected the “Trans-Dniestrian” variant that Moscow was offering them, and confronting the Kremlin with an accomplished fact, forced the leadership of the Russian Federation to adopt the solution the Crimean chiefs wanted. Aksenov and Chaly should be given full credit for their guile; they scored a brilliant victory over both Kiev and Moscow. Now resources will start flowing into Crimea. full: http://secure-web.cisco.com/1iQM31T6dv7pE1c69lkiiQ5lB0aLV4_2c_UMHA7ZJGDKO9yBuBC3j0a8oks5EmwdPu81cFzkGpSNodX-SVephV27DkQhTOGl3tT9qAF3WEQsIaHYgT9Ir56IIJLmyBAig3-zzfn9RX9rwsFL9mDYWlm1FaQoa8IUSokaLENlEgAK1rl0KHp-uC-J_tn_SlbWHn14ZQ4JunA2oB0ARw2tg5yFpJ_XTSAlDEC3jqnaExzxVO6a1CygPxtSKhoSSRuc7Q-FL8j8LFK2v2h35Zm1D-jzUoqyi1xMSBU08_zQ4E2c/http%3A%2F%2Fnewcoldwar.org%2Fboris-kagarlitsky-crimea-annexes-russia%2F --- NY Times, August 15 2015 To Many in Crimea, Corruption Seems No Less at Home Under Russian Rule By NEIL MacFARQUHAR GURZUF, Crimea — On a sweltering summer day, Crimea’s burly prime minister, Sergei Aksyonov, stood in a black suit on a contested public beach in this resort town, once a famous retreat for artists like Anton Chekhov. The prime minister, who was appointed by Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, tried to speak over the din created by about 100 jostling residents all yelling at him simultaneously. An occasional voice soared above the rest to hurl abuse like: “There were scoundrels in Ukraine, there are scoundrels in Russia. They all stay here!” Mr. Aksyonov pleaded repeatedly for calm and for time, trying to reassure everyone that Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year would improve matters eventually, but that nothing would change overnight. “I am not a magician who can make everybody happy in a few minutes,” he said. Seventeen months after Mr. Putin deployed Special Forces troops to seize Crimea from Ukraine, prompting the deepest confrontation with the West since the Cold War, life on this Black Sea peninsula remains in disarray. Freedoms of speech and assembly have largely evaporated, as has a free and independent news media, but that is not what upsets people here. It is the familiar demons, government corruption, venality and incompetence, that have infuriated many. A half-dozen cabinet members and other senior officials have been either arrested on corruption charges or fired for incompetence in recent months, and a Kremlin audit released in June found a huge chunk of highway funds missing. Two nights before his beach appearance, Mr. Aksyonov spent more than three hours answering a battery of questions live on television, a rare event, trying to explain it all. Aside from the political shambles, Crimea has been isolated from the outside world by Western sanctions. Credit cards from abroad do not work. Cellphone signals drop constantly, and app stores are often inaccessible. Many mainstream web services like Gmail are frequently blocked, too. University degrees issued here are no longer recognized in the West, prompting an exodus of thousands of foreign students. Even minor international travel links remain suspended. The Turkish government stopped a ferry service across the Black Sea, as well as an attempt by a Chechen airline to fly from Simferopol, the Crimean capital, to Istanbul with a pit stop in southern Russian. “We have ersatz education, ersatz mobile phones, ersatz banks. As a result, we live in a kind of isolation here,” said Vladimir P. Kazarin, a university professor. “Even other Russian systems perceive us as something foreign. We are not entirely integrated as part of Russia.” In opposing annexation, Mr. Kazarin has been in the minority. The standard refrain among the majority, who voted in the hasty March 2014 referendum to join Russia, is that despite the chaos, Crimea avoided a war like that in southeastern Ukraine that has claimed more than 6,400 lives. “We feel safe now,” said Yuri Skorik, a history teacher here in Gurzuf who led protests against the seizure of a public beach. “I would say that, on balance, security is worth all these problems.” During the prime minister’s televised town hall meeting, Mr. Aksyonov blamed most of the problems on
[Marxism] Fwd: Lars Lih and Lenin’s April Theses | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
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. * http://louisproyect.org/2015/08/15/lars-lih-and-lenins-april-theses/ _ 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
