[Marxism] Political Gingervitis episode
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. * A comedy show with Marxist analysis. https://rimediacoop.org/podcast/political-gingervitis-episode-4-don-debar-and-david-abraham/ -- Best regards, Andrew Stewart _ 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] Syria: New talks amid shifting alliances
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 1/16/17 8:06 PM, Chris Slee via Marxism wrote The latest article on Syria by Tony Iltis: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/syria-new-talks-amid-shifting-alliances Tony has the same indifference to backing up his assertions with references as Yassamine Mather: "The Syrian conflict became a magnet for Islamist extremists worldwide: veterans of other conflicts were joined by alienated youth from the West." Really? Except for ISIS and al-Nusra to a much smaller extent, this is not true. I say this because I answered the same charge a couple of weeks ago by someone else. It is really not that hard to do. This thing called Google works really well. You do a search on "Syria" and "foreign fighters" and you can see for yourself. I understand that the Greenleft is not the New Yorker Magazine with a staff of fact-checkers but Tony could have fact-checked himself. Of course, given that Tony is into smearing everybody in Syria except the PYD, I can understand why he didn't. _ 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: Suspect in Istanbul Rampage on New Year’s Is Captured, Turkey Says - The New York Times
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[Marxism] Syria: New talks amid shifting alliances
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 latest article on Syria by Tony Iltis: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/syria-new-talks-amid-shifting-alliances 'New international talks aimed at ending the Syrian conflict may be unlikely to succeed, but they do mark shifts in the alignment of competing forces 'ISIS is close to being defeated in Syria. In the wake of its defeat, the Rojava revolution has spread to become a revolutionary force in broader areas of northern Syria. Behind the SDF is the revolutionary system of "democratic self-administration" pioneered in Rojava. On November 30, the Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria - the areas under "democratic self-administration" - declared their system "to be a democratic solution for the future of Syria and a system to guarantee an exit from the current crisis and to prevent social collapse. "In addition, the administration experience we have achieved since the July 19 revolution that occurred with the participation of all peoples has posed an example for all of Syria." The Constituent Assembly changed the name of the federation from Democratic Federation of Northern Syria-Rojava, removing "Rojava". This emphasised that their aim is a democratic Syria, not Kurdish separatism. Stopping this democratic Syria is the aim that unites Erdogan and Assad and this will define the next phase of the conflict.' _ 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] Yassamine Mather on After Aleppo
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. * How's the rest of her column? Not having time to finish it, my skimming puts it in the "2011-12 was cool, after that everyone sucked" category. How seriously is she taken in the UK? (i.e. is it worth slogging through?) On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 6:36 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > 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 1/16/17 5:10 PM, Philip Ferguson via Marxism wrote: > >> >> https://rdln.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/after-aleppo-the-stakes-in-syria/ >> > > Pure undiluted garbage that has the gall to cite Robert Fisk as an expert > on Syria. Isn't Mather aware that he only reports from Syria embedded in > the Syrian army? Or maybe she does and doesn't let it bother her. > > http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/robert-fisk-wont-tell-truth-syria- > because-like-bashar-al-assad-he-fears-it-1575581 > > Things didn't begin well for Fisk regarding his coverage of the Syrian > revolution. In a 2005 article for The Independent, Fisk very aptly warned > of the dangers of journalists "embedding" with the British and US armed > forces during the Iraq war due to it undermining journalistic integrity for > the sake of security. > > Fast forward to 2012, however, at a time when the Assad regime, backed by > Iran and Hezbollah, had unleashed a war of annihilation against > revolutionary Syrians, and, in a reversal of his earlier appeals against > journalists sacrificing integrity for security, Robert Fisk decides to > embed himself right among the Assad regime forces in Aleppo and Damascus. > As other western journalists were risking their lives to report Assad's > massacres of civilians, including The Sunday Times' Marie Colvin, who was > killed by the Assad regime in what they called an accident, but which was > almost certainly not (one suspects that this is what journalists who report > the truth on Syria get, as opposed to those who simply push propaganda). > > As you'd expect, from Fisk's unscrupulous start in Syria, things went > downhill in terms of his coverage. At every major point of the war, Fisk > has trumpeted the Assad regime and Russian propaganda. In August 2012, > after the Assad regime had unleashed its death squads on residents of the > town of Darayya, a hotspot for protests against Assad and rebel activity, > murdering between 200-500 people, Fisk chose to peddle the absurd Assad > regime line that it was actually the rebels who committed the massacre. > > > _ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt > ions/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.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] Yassamine Mather on After Aleppo
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[Marxism] Fwd: Analysis: The Fifth Corps and the State of the Syrian Army — Syria Deeply
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[Marxism] Fwd: The Neoliberal Stranglehold on the American Public University
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[Marxism] Fwd: How a UN health agency became an apologist for Assad atrocities | Middle East Eye
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[Marxism] Workers Say Andrew Puzder Is ‘Not the One to Protect’ Them, but He’s Been Chosen To
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, Jan. 16 2017 Workers Say Andrew Puzder Is ‘Not the One to Protect’ Them, but He’s Been Chosen To By JODI KANTOR and JENNIFER MEDINA At first, Andrew F. Puzder’s California story sounds like one of the state’s sunny dreams come true: Midwestern lawyer stumbles into burger business, nurses storied chain back to health, wins industry plaudits and record profits. But Mr. Puzder became an outspoken critic of his adopted state because of its vigorous workplace regulations. The mandatory rest breaks required by California made no sense, he felt, leaving restaurants understaffed when a rush of customers came in. His company paid millions of dollars to settle class-action lawsuits that accused it of cheating workers. He spoke out against labor laws intended to benefit hourly workers like the ones who serve shakes and mop floors at Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, the chains he runs. “California has gone really from being this golden state, the state of opportunity, to being a kind of nanny state,” he said in 2009. “You can’t be a capitalist in this state.” In the months before California passed a law last year raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2022, many business leaders kept their objections discreet, but Mr. Puzder was blunt: “How do you pay somebody $15 an hour to scoop ice cream? How good could you be at scooping ice cream?” he asked. Now Mr. Puzder is relocating his corporate headquarters to Tennessee — and planning his own move to Washington, to become President-elect Donald J. Trump’s labor secretary. His nomination is moving slowly, with confirmation hearings pushed back indefinitely, allowing Democrats and labor advocates to prepare a drumbeat of questions: Can the head of a company accused of shortchanging workers serve as their champion? Does Mr. Puzder want to lead the Labor Department, or dismantle it? Will he enforce rules his company has been accused of violating? How will Mr. Trump make good on his vision of capitalism that is unfettered by regulations, yet also helps those left behind? Guadalupe Urrustieta, 47, said that when he was a manager at two Carl’s Jr. locations north of Los Angeles, he was routinely asked by supervisors to make his employees work through unpaid meal breaks without compensation, so that labor costs would not go up. He said he also had to work several hours a week without pay. “I left the company because I didn’t agree with a lot of the things that were happening,” Mr. Urrustieta said. To him, Mr. Puzder is an improbable labor secretary, “not the one to protect workers.” The company headed by Mr. Puzder, CKE Restaurants, says its practices follow the law. “We have a very strict policy of compliance with California wage and hour laws and cannot comment on unsubstantiated allegations of current or former employees,” said Charles A. Seigel III, executive vice president and general counsel. Mr. Puzder, who declined to be interviewed for this article, argues that his efforts to reward workers in more entrepreneurial ways were stymied by rigid California laws. He has said that he may support smaller minimum-wage increases, but that over all, the free market is better than the government is at helping people. “Andy Puzder has firsthand experience saving and creating thousands of jobs, and he has an extensive record of fighting for workers,” the Trump transition team said. “As secretary of labor, he will be able to apply his business successes in a way that will benefit all Americans — growing wages and creating opportunity.” But Mr. Puzder’s appointment, already inspiring protests, could set off a national clash. In recent years, a resurgent workers’ rights movement has helped win an employer mandate for health insurance and stronger enforcement of overtime rules nationwide, and paid sick and family leave at the local and state levels. Mr. Puzder, opposed to some of those policies, could lead a backlash by business owners saying the new rules have gone too far. If employers are required to do too much, he told Business Insider recently, they may replace some workers with machines. “They’re always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case,” he said. Mr. Puzder entered the fast-food world almost by chance. A lawyer with a canny, strategic streak, practicing commercial trial law in St. Louis, he had a sideline in anti-abortion activism, writing a legal argument that helped inspire a 1986 state law that declared that life began at conception and prohibited the use of stat
[Marxism] Fwd: Green Party Identity Question
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: [ufpj-activist] Fwd: [no-to-nato] English Communiqué of CNGN
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 1/16/17 10:10 AM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote: The National Coordination of the Committee No War-No Nato considers that demonstrating in Europe on January 21st, against the newly elected US President Donald Trump is tantamount to lending its support to the Obama administration which has transformed Europe into Nato’s first line of attack, nuclear matters inclusive, against Russia. Trump is charged with usurping the position that had been earmarked for Hillary Clinton, thanks to an operation ordered by the Russian President Putin. The «evidence» has been provided by the CIA, the most expert organization in the field of infiltration and coups d’etat. This is confusing. The no-to-nato website says this: http://www.no-to-nato.org/2017/01/press-release/ BERLIN – On the evening of January 20, as the new U.S. president takes office in Washington, D.C., Berliners will march to the Brandenburg Gate to speak out against the divisive politics of Donald Trump and political opportunists like him. Held in conjunction with allied demonstrations in Paris, London, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and elsewhere, the march will begin at the offices of German extremist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and end in front of the U.S. embassy on Berlin’s historic Pariser Platz. The event is being organized by The Coalition, a broad Berlin-based assembly of German, U.S. American, and international groups and individuals working to combat “Trumpism” and other hate-driven political currents before they do irreparable damage across the globe. Trump, the AfD, Marine Le Pen’s National Front, Geert Wilder’s Party for Freedom, and other extremists have introduced open racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia into national political dialogues. They demonize immigrants and religious and ethnic minorities, attack workers’ rights and trade unions, and reject the realities of climate change and the global economy. They fan national tensions, calling for a dangerous internal and external militarization of societies. _ 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: [ufpj-activist] Fwd: [no-to-nato] English Communiqué of CNGN
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. * UK "peace" coalition denounces anti-Trump demos -- Forwarded message -- From: Alice Slater Date: Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 10:06 AM Subject: [ufpj-activist] Fwd: [no-to-nato] English Communiqué of CNGN To: "abolition-global_coun...@yahoogroups.com ( abolition-global_coun...@yahoogroups.com)" < abolition-global_coun...@yahoogroups.com>, "abolition-cau...@yahoogroups.com" , "wbw-discuss...@googlegroups.com" < wbw-discuss...@googlegroups.com>, dis...@onlinegroups.net, Medea Benjamin < medea.benja...@gmail.com>, "ann Wright (annw1...@gmail.com)" < annw1...@gmail.com>, "ufpj-activist (ufpj-activ...@lists.mayfirst.org)" < ufpj-activ...@lists.mayfirst.org> Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: *From:* "Jean Toschi Marazzani Visconti" *Date:* January 16, 2017 at 7:40:10 AM EST *To:* *Subject:* *[no-to-nato] English Communiqué of CNGNN* *Reply-To:* "Jean Toschi Marazzani Visconti" CNGNN Communiqué of the National Coordination of the No War-No Nato Committee. Florence, 14 January 2017 The National Coordination of the Committee No War-No Nato considers that demonstrating in Europe on January 21st, against the newly elected US President Donald Trump is tantamount to lending its support to the Obama administration which has transformed Europe into Nato’s first line of attack, nuclear matters inclusive, against Russia. Trump is charged with usurping the position that had been earmarked for Hillary Clinton, thanks to an operation ordered by the Russian President Putin. The «evidence» has been provided by the CIA, the most expert organization in the field of infiltration and coups d’etat. The neo-con strategists, the architects of the campaign, are thus seeking to prevent a possible change in the course in US-Russia relations that the Obama administration has escalated to the level of cold war. The easing of the tension with Russia is a particular source for alarm both for Nato top brass, which has swelled in importance on account of the new cold war, and for groups in power in Eastern countries (notably Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic states) – which are counting on hostility vis-à-vis Russia to bolster the military and economic support they receive from Nato and the EU. This is confirmed by the fact that on 12 January, pursuant to a decision taken by the Obama administration, a US armoured brigade arrived in Poland and is empowering the lining up of Nato forces under US command. These [Nato forces] include troops from Italy, Eastern Europe, in an increasingly dangerous military escalation against Russia. In this context, the anti-Trump demonstrations [scheduled for] January 21st are transformed into a military stratagem. On the contrary, we must engage in an even greater mobilization to: ·liberate our countries from their subjugation to the United States, regardless of who its President may be; ·leave Nato; ·remove US nuclear weapons from our national territories. Translated by Anoosha Boralessa Information list of the network No to War - No to NATO www.no-to-nato.org, i...@no-to-nato.net To subscribe the list send an email to no-to-nato-subscr...@lists.riseup.net To unsusbcribe the list send an email to no-to-nato-unsubscribe@lists. riseup.net For sending information over the list use the address no-to-n...@lists.riseup.net ___ ufpj-activist mailing list Post: ufpj-activ...@lists.mayfirst.org List info: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/ufpj-activist To Unsubscribe Send email to: ufpj-activist-unsubscr...@lists.mayfirst.org Or visit: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/options/ufpj-activist/ acpollack2%40gmail.com You are subscribed as: acpolla...@gmail.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] Fwd: How Barack Obama paved the way for Donald Trump | Gary Younge | Opinion | The Guardian
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 time last year, fewer than four in 10 were happy with Obama’s economic policies. When asked last week to assess progress under Obama 56% of Americans said the country had lost ground or stood still on the economy, while 48% said it had lost ground on the gap between the rich and poor – against just 14% who said it gained ground. These were the Obama coalition – black and young and poor – who did not vote in November, making Trump’s victory possible. Those whose hopes are not being met: people more likely to go to the polls because they are inspired about a better future than because they fear a worse one. full: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/16/how-barack-obama-paved-way-donald-trump-racism _ 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: Stark inequality: Oxfam says 8 men as rich as half the world
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://bigstory.ap.org/article/5d9e1e86a28e4e62bda79ddea71c20be/stark-inequality-oxfam-says-8-men-rich-half-world _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Socialist Register 2017
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. * clip from article on the counterposing of economic issues to those of social justice, by Bill Fletcher - a longtime defender of working within the Democratic Party What passes for identity politics should actually be understood as social justice struggles that aim for consistent democracy and become, as a result, component parts of the larger class struggle. These are not battles around one’s identity. This is not self-indulgent activity by people who, for whatever reason, do not recognize the importance of economics. Identity politics, at least the way that it has been used as a term since the election, describes a politics that asserts the need for representation of historically marginalized and oppressed populations; and the representation of their issues. In that sense, what we are discussing is social justice and not something that should even be described as “identity politics.” It is more a politics of inclusion and for democracy rather than a politics of distinctiveness or uniqueness. Capitalism is founded on classes and class struggle. Class struggle takes place over the basic question of the control of the means of production, distribution and exchange and, more generally, the control over the social surplus. But if someone stops there one misses actually existing capitalism. Capitalist states do not exist as some sort of economic abstraction but are rooted in specific histories. Those histories include multiple layers of oppression, some inherited from previous social formations (and modes of production), and others developed specifically within the context of emerging capitalism. In both cases, however, these forms of oppression, e.g., patriarchy; racism, have become central features of the manner in which actually existing capitalism operates. http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/identity-politics-social-justice > On 1/16/17 6:06 AM, Gary MacLennan wrote: > >> Genuine question, Lou - why is Benn Michaels one of your least >> favored? I have been reading his stuff on identity politics and would >> value your thoughts on his work. >> >> https://louisproyect.org/2009/09/04/a-critique-of-walter-benn-michaels/ > > > _ 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: Davos: responsible capitalism | Michael Roberts Blog
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. * he official theme of this year’s forum is “responsive and responsible leadership”! That hints at the concerns of global capitalism’s elite: they need to be ‘responsive’ to the popular reaction to globalisation and the failure of capitalism to deliver prosperity since the end of the Great Recession and they also need to be ‘responsible’ in their policies and actions – a subtle appeal to the newly inaugurated Donald Trump as US president or Erdogan in Turkey, Zuma in South Africa, Putin in Russia and Xi in China. The WEF has been the standard bearer of the positives from ‘globalisation’, new technology, free markets, ‘Western democracy’ and ‘responsible’ leadership. Trump and other leaders of global and regional powers now seem to threaten that enterprise. But Trump is the result of the failure of the WEF project itself i.e. global capitalist ‘progress’. full: https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/davos-responsible-capitalism/ _ 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] Socialist Register 2017
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 1/16/17 6:06 AM, Gary MacLennan wrote: Genuine question, Lou - why is Benn Michaels one of your least favored? I have been reading his stuff on identity politics and would value your thoughts on his work. comradely Gary https://louisproyect.org/2009/09/04/a-critique-of-walter-benn-michaels/ _ 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: Desperate Assad conscripting 50-year-olds as beleaguered Syrian regime forces halved by deaths, defections and draft-dodging
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. * Interesting article. The fact that the so-called "Syrian Arab Army" (SAA) has been reduced to a skeleton, and that the armed forces that seized Aleppo were largely from the global Shiite jihad organised by Iran, which detachments from Iran, Iraq (the US-armed Iraqi army, err, Shiite militia), Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc, is widely known by clear-sighted observers; and even they couldn't have seized Aleppo from its Syrian population without the massive terror unleashed by the invading Russian imperialist airforce. The SAA is commonly nicknamed the "Syrian Afghan Army", after the large numbers of desperate Afghan Hazara refugees in Iran forcibly conscripted by the regime. Far from heading an Arab nationalist regime, as the Baath Party may have been about half a century ago (note: living half a century in the past is, sadly, a common problem around parts of the left), the regime is a pure satrapy of Russia and Iran, while the country is divided up under the regime's watch. Russia has indicated it is staying forever, is expanding and upgrading its air and naval bases, and in exchange for saving the regime (for now) has extracted a fully colonial treaty from the regime. It's main interest is the Alawite-dominated coast, where its bases stand. Iran and its global jihad has control of Aleppo and the Qalamoun region linking Damascus with the Lebanese border, a region from which hundreds of thousands of Sunni have been ethnically cleansed by the regime and Hezbollah, as Hezbollah now believes the "road to liberating "Jerusalem" runs through Qalamoun, Damascus, Daraya, Madaya, Homs, Aleppo, and everywhere else Arab kids can be slaughtered. Turkey, with Russian support, controls a section of northern rural Aleppo along the border, which it is now filling with Turkish nationalists, Grey Wolves etc, as the AKP accepts Assad rule and wants the region, with a significant Turkmen presence, to empty many of the 3 million Syrian refugees into, the AKP's reversal of policy on both Assad and the refugees symbolised by its current alliance with the Turanian nationalist MHP. Beyond that region, from Kobane to the far north-east is run by the PYD party-state; just to remind the Arabic populations within this region who rules, giant pics of Ocalan, a Kurdish leader from Turkey, not Syria, dominate the region, including the entrance to mostly Arabic Tal Abyad. Strongly backed by the US air-force and US special forces, this PYD-run region also sports 2-3 US air-bases. In the south, the once mighty FSA Southern Front, which controls much of Daraa, has been forcibly demobilised by the US and Jordan, turned from a major anti-Assad force to a force maintaining a one-sided "ceasefire" with the regime whose role is to protect the Jordanian border from ISIS (simple: advance against Assad, arms and support cut off; advance against ISIS or attack Nusra, get weapons). Israel of course will maintain its theft of the Golan, as guaranteed by the Assad regimes the last 43 years; and now guaranteed even more by Netanyahu's two best friends, Putin and Trump. Still, I wonder why the article, and so many like it, write things like this: The opposing powers brokering peace talks later this month in Kazakhstan look set to carve Syria up into different zones of influence. Mr Assad would keep Aleppo, which is important to Iran as it serves as a supply route from Tehran to Hizbollah in Lebanon, as well as coastal regions where the Russians have bases. Aleppo cannot serve as a supply route from Iran to Hezbollah, any more than all the other volumes of fiction about Iran trying to maintain its "land connection" to Hezbollah, via an Assad-ruled Syria, make sense. Geographically, it is pure nonsense. The Syria-Iraq border is controlled by Kurdish forces, on both sides, in the north, and by the Islamic State further down. Even if IS were completely destroyed - an unlikely short-term scenario - the Syria-Iraq border on both sides is solidly Sunni and hostile to the Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian sectarian regimes. Iranian weapons get to Hezbollah via Damascus airport, via Iraqi airports (which the US supervises). Until 2011, they were flown to Damascus via Turkish airports. -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect via Marxism Sent: Monday, January 16, 2017 10:04 AM To: Michael Karadjis Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Desperate Assad conscripting 50-year-olds as beleaguered Syrian regime forces halved by deaths, defections and draft-dodging _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your o
