[Marxism] Khashoggi murder shows world capitalist crisis
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. * *Growing attacks on capitalist democracy or "rule of law"; *Increasing tendency towards one-man rule; *Weakening of US imperialism and rise of rivals; *Possible fragmenting of Saudi royal family *Can a resurgence of the Arab Spring, starting in Saudi Arabia, arise from this situation? "The murder of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi represents another attack on capitalist democracy, but it is also much more than that: It represents a potential crisis in the Saudi regime and, therefore, a potential crisis for US imperialism in the Middle East. Here’s why:" https://oaklandsocialist.com/2018/10/21/khashoggi-murder-shows-world-capitalist-crisis/ -- *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black Jacobins" by C. L. R. James Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook _ 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] “Sochi didn’t succeed, it’s just that the weapons are hidden” (ANF)
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. * Michael Karadjis quotes SDF commander Ebu Omer Idlibi (Abu Omar al-Idlibi), who said: “They [Jabhat al-Nusra] proceeded to disband our forces because we fought ISIS and we were against putting the revolution on a jihadist path …. When we continued to fight ISIS, all terrorists came together under Turkey’s orders and attacked us. We were forced to leave Idlib.” Michael tries to cast doubt on Idlibi's account by saying that there was no presence of ISIS in Idlib province at the time when Idlibi's group was forced to leave the area (towards the end of 2014). Michael says: "Sheer fantasy. ISIS was driven root and branch from Idlib in January 2014 by the SRF and other rebel groups (including mainstream Islamist groups). There has been no ISIS since then in Idlib for them to fight alone; and all the other rebel groups in Idlib, including HTS, are mortally opposed to ISIS, despite this little groups claiming to be the unique heroes." In reality, there was a temporary revival of ISIS in Idlib in the second half of 2014, as a result of the greatly increased prestige and resources it gained through its capture of Mosul in June 2014. Aron Lund, in his article "Who are the soldiers of the Islamic State", says: "The Islamic State’s whirlwind successes in Iraq in June 2014 sparked a flood of new defections. Within days of the fall of Mosul, a group of FSA leaders in eastern Syria had defected, including the officers responsible for the FSA’s local ammunition stockpiles. Many members of the Nusra Front and the Islamic Front did the same, and so did a host of smaller factions and local clans who realized that the Islamic State was on the verge of taking over their region. Indeed, as all organized and armed opposition melted away, it didn’t take long until the Islamic State had cleansed the entire region of its rivals, leaving only pockets of resistance. "In the northwestern province of Idlib, the so-called Dawood Brigade (which was already very close to the Islamic State) also decided to jump on the bandwagon and sent a large convoy of fighters to the Islamic State capital of Raqqa. Stray groups of rebels are in fact arriving to Raqqa from Idlib even now, months later." http://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/57021?lang=en Given that ISIS was present in Idlib in the second half of 2014, there is no reason to doubt that Abu Omar al-Idlibi's group fought against it at that time. There is no reason to question his veracity. But he does not claim to have fought ISIS "alone", as Michael suggests. He says: "We and some forces like us fighting under different names were removed from Idlib in 2014 by terrorist forces. Jabhat Al Nusra attacked us as we were fighting the regime and ISIS". Thus it was not just Abu Omar al-Idlibi's group, but also "some forces like us". Chris Slee From: Marxism on behalf of mkaradjis via Marxism Sent: Thursday, 18 October 2018 7:07:17 AM To: Chris Slee Subject: Re: [Marxism] “Sochi didn’t succeed, it’s just that the weapons are hidden” (ANF) 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 article is correct in opposing the Sochi agreement, but other than that, it is the usual Apoist mish-mash of half-truths spun together to justify the SDF’s sectarian course. The writer is not from YPG, but from one of the microscopic non-YPG constituents of the SDF, "Liwa Shimal Demokratik" the article says, which is supposedly a local Idlib force. Therefore, the discussion about being involved in the revolution and fighting Assad and ISIS until 2014 is not suggesting that the PYD/YPG were fighting Assad until 2014 - they of course never did that - just this little group, which, until then, was presumably part of the larger FSA forces. The claim that Turkey and the "terrorist" forces it claims that Turkey backs had essentially squashed the life out of the Idlib theatre of the uprising by 2012 already is self-serving crap, indeed, Idlib was very much one of the key centres of the democratic revolution, and this claim is only made to justify the sectarian course towards the whole revolution adopted by the SDF leadership ie the YPG. “The forces who truly wanted democracy were removed from Idlib and disbanded. Idlib was turned into a gang central at the hands of Turkey.” This is sheer nonsense, especially as the writer seems to be saying this had already occurred
Re: [Marxism] The first YPG Statement on the Kashoggi killing
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. * There are several problems with this reply: 1) Stalinist Cuba was dependent on and opportunistic towards the USSR, a deformed workers state involved in a cold war with the imperialist powers. The YPG is dependent on and opportunistic towards US imperialism and the Saudi Kingdom, which are among the world's most reactionary powers. 2) Turkey shall be "the most powerful state in the Middle East apart from Israel". Leaving aside that the U.S. and Russia are certainly more powerful states in the Middle East, there are other states in the region which are certainly not less powerful than Turkey: Iran, Saudi Arabia (which pays the YPG) and Egypt. You simply take over the PKK/YPG narrative that Kurdistan is the starting point to understand the Middle East and to take positions. In fact, the Middle East and the world relations are the starting point to understand the Middle East (as well as Kurdistan)and to take positions. 3) Nevertheless, your comparison with Granma is not completely wrong: the Cuban Stalinists implemented the same opportunistic policy of following the interests of the Soviet foreign policy. The Stalinist parties in the West did the same. According to your logic, this can be excused because they were paid by Moscow. The YPG deploys the same logic - it just replaced the USSR with US imperialism. All this is the logic of political prostitution - serve those who are paying you. This has nothing to do with Marxism! In the end you have to decide: are you an Australian opportunist serving Kurdish nationalists who serve US imperialism or are you an internationalist Marxist? Am 20.10.2018 um 05:43 schrieb Chris Slee: Under attack from Turkey, the most powerful state in the Middle East apart from Israel, the Rojava revolutionaries are cautious about criticising Saudi Arabia, a state which might (for its own reasons) gave them a bit of aid. In this respect ANF reminds me of the Cuban paper Granma, which I used to read many years ago. Granma's international coverage was extremely inadequate because it never criticised any government that was willing to have friendly, or just non-hostile, relations with Cuba. This was a survival tactic for Cuba faced with the US threat. Chris Slee *From:* Marxism on behalf of RKOB via Marxism *Sent:* Saturday, 20 October 2018 1:27:00 PM *To:* Chris Slee *Subject:* [Marxism] The first YPG Statement on the Kashoggi killing 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. * Great, 17 days after the murder of Kashoggi and at the same time when Trump puts pressure on the Saudis to offer an "explanation", the "Rojava revolutionaries" manage to say something on one of the most important current events in the Middle East and world politics! But could we expect any criticism of the Saudi kingdom or MBS? Surely not! These are the YPG's friends and (surely) financier. How shameful for the "progressive" YPG and their "revolutionary" supporters in the world! *Pressure building over the Khashoggi incident * As claims that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the consulate can’t be hidden any more, the pressure is building on the Riyadh administration. ANF, 19 Oct 2018, https://anfenglishmobile.com/news/pressure-building-over-the-khashoggi-incident-30271 Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Arabia Consulate in Istanbul on October 2, and was never heard from again. The suspicions that Khashoggi was murdered in the consulate are all but certain at this point. The Saudi government hasn’t made any statements to this end as of yet, but many countries and institutions are upping the pressure against them. *ATTENDEES WITHDRAWING FROM THE ECONOMY CONFERENCE* As the pressure builds over the Jamal Khashoggi incident, the number of countries and institutions withdrawing from the economy conference titled Invest in the Future Initiative to be held in Riyadh next week is on the rise. The IMF, the World bank and many other institutions were to attend the conference at the presidential level, but have withdrawn. With this decision, several countries also withdrew from the conference. *TRUMP: IT IS CERTAIN THAT HE WAS KILLED, THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES* US President Donald Trump, after criticism that he didn’t exert clear pressure since the Khashoggi incident broke out, said it was “most
[Marxism] How a Garden for the Poor Became a Playground for the Rich - The New York Times
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[Marxism] FW: Québec solidaire prepares to confront a new government of austerity and social and ethnic polarization
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://tinyurl.com/y897vb7z Québec solidaires 10 members of the National Assembly, elected October 1, took their oath of office on October 17 in two parts. The oath of allegiance to the Queen, required by the British North America Act (now the Constitution Act) in order to take their seats in the Assembly, was conducted behind closed doors, presided over by the secretary of the Assembly. In a public ceremony held in the former chamber of the Legislative Council (the appointed upper house abolished in the 1960s) the 10 MNAs pledged their real loyalty to the people of Quebec. Then, to the acclaim of many supporters of Quebec sovereignty, both QS and non-QS, they promised to introduce a bill to abolish the oath to the Queen, described by the partys co-leader Manon Massé as anti-democratic and archaic. Although symbolic, it was an auspicious gesture reflecting Québec solidaires determination to present a real progressive alternative to the new government of the Coalition Avenir Québec, sworn into office the following day. A repositioning of Quebecs economic elite Winning 37.4% of the popular vote 25.8% of the eligible electorate, given the high abstention rate the Coalition Avenir Québec holds 74 seats, a comfortable majority of more than 60% of the 125 in the National Assembly. Once again, the undemocratic first-past-the-post electoral system produces a result quite unrepresentative of the voters choices. Doubts are widespread, therefore, that the CAQ will adhere to its pre-election pledge to institute some form of proportional representation which, had it applied to the October 1 results, would have held it to minority government status. There is less doubt, however, about how the CAQ will use its parliamentary majority to implement its unabashedly pro-business and ethnically divisive program. Founded seven years ago, the party is an amalgam of former Liberal and PQ supporters assembled around a core element, the former right-wing Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), which split from the Quebec Liberal party in the early 1990s in the wake of the demise of the Meech Lake attempt at constitutional reform. It supports some vaguely articulated form of Quebec autonomy but not independence. The CAQ is very much the instrument of François Legault, a former Parti québécois minister and before that a prominent businessman, founder and CEO of Air Transat. He personally selected the partys candidates. At least 32 of the partys deputies 43% of its caucus are from the business and managerial milieu.[1] And well over half of Legaults cabinet, announced October 18, are business people or journalists in mainstream or business media. The party is the product of a repositioning of the nationalist sector of Quebecs economic elite after the narrow defeat of the 1995 referendum on sovereignty, writes Bernard Rioux, an editor of the left-wing on-line journal Presse-toi à gauche. Successive PQ leaderships led the way, postponing their hopes for a sovereign Quebec to an indefinite future while aligning their party increasingly with neoliberal globalization, support of free trade and privatization of public enterprises, establishment of fee-based public services, reduced taxation of the wealthy, continued exploitation of fossil fuels and concentration of media ownership. Legault, having abandoned the PQ, simply aligned his new party with the federalism of the vast majority of the Québécois bourgeoisie, which sees the Quebec government as its prime instrument for gaining a strengthened role within the Canadian ruling class and through it with global capitalism. Full: http://tinyurl.com/y897vb7z _ 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] Mercantile Capitalism | 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. * Probably because British colonialism screwed their homeland so royally, Indian Marxists tend to be some of Political Marxism’s most vehement critics. Perhaps the best known of them is Jairus Banaji, who received the Deutscher Prize in 2011 for his “Theory As History: Essays on Modes of Production and Exploitation” that is available online. That year, Banaji’s book edged out Charles Post’s “The American Road to Capitalism”. I wish I could have listened in on the jury’s deliberations. Since I tend to see Banaji and the writing team of Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancioğlu (A henceforth) as occupying the same place ideologically in this debate, I was surprised to see Banaji’s broadside against “How the West Came to Rule” in the latest HM. I found most of his article extremely useful but had some of the same qualms as expressed by Anievas and Nişancioğlu in a reply to their critics. full: https://louisproyect.org/2018/10/20/mercantile-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
[Marxism] Israel lobbyists smear Khashoggi as terrorist so as to maintain Saudi alliance — and plans for Iran war
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[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-German]: Stoltzfus on Pine, 'Life and Times in Nazi Germany'
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Best regards,
Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message:
> From: H-Net Staff
> Date: October 19, 2018 at 11:14:41 AM EDT
> To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> Subject: H-Net Review [H-German]: Stoltzfus on Pine, 'Life and Times in Nazi
> Germany'
> Reply-To: H-Net Staff
>
> Lisa Pine, ed. Life and Times in Nazi Germany. New York, NY
> Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. 328 pp. $35.95 (paper), ISBN
> 978-1-4742-1792-7.
>
> Reviewed by Nathan Stoltzfus (Florida State University)
> Published on H-German (October, 2018)
> Commissioned by David Harrisville
>
> Stoltzfus on Life and Times in Nazi Germany
>
> Lisa Pine, one of the most productive historians of everyday life in
> Nazi Germany, has published another marker in the historiography of
> ordinary Germans. Detractors have charged this alternative approach
> to "big man" and structuralist interpretations with undue celebration
> of "the man on the street." This collection of ten essays, rich with
> research and observations, helps demonstrate that history from below
> does not have to ignore other approaches. Especially when it relates
> the everyday to political decision-making, it adds dimensions and not
> just texture. Thus, it is especially well suited to the urgent task,
> in what might be a new populist era, of confronting ordinary persons
> with the question of how they contribute to the development and
> sustenance of autocracy, fascist or otherwise.
>
> _Life and Times in Nazi Germany_ asks how ordinary persons perceived
> and acted during such an extraordinary time as the Nazi period,
> raising questions about whether they considered their time to be
> extraordinary, and if so, when and why. While Hitler and his allies
> did not succeed in constructing a _Volksgemeinschaft_ according to
> their ideal, the degree to which they did gain and maintain support
> from the population as long as they were providing incentives for the
> majority--and at a horrendous price to others--casts a probing light
> on the learned habits of our species and its trajectories. Pine's
> introduction rightly emphasizes the pressures of social conformity
> and the terror of nonconformity when considering whether most Germans
> freely chose Nazism or were compelled by terror to accept it. Many
> must have found themselves somewhere in between, given the familiar
> urge to make life easier and more rewarding along with the simple
> lack of experience with resistance or even nonconformity. Resistance
> is also tremendously difficult given our propensity to rationalize in
> ways that comfort and align self-interest with the mainstream, as
> Victor Klemperer's diary points out. By the late 1930s almost all
> Germans could find something to support about the Nazi dictatorship
> so that, as Pine writes, dissent, complicity, and outright support
> often coexisted. Not surprisingly, considering the general human
> condition, Germans "were not equal to the situation," as Sebastian
> Haffner observed. Drawing on familiar habits, they tried "to ignore
> the situation and not allow it to disturb our fun ... to think about
> unpleasant things as little as possible."[1]
>
> The book consists of three parts: "Food and Health," "Lifestyle," and
> "Religion." Nancy Reagin, who has written on women's political
> organizations before 1933, offers real insights into the everyday
> life of "ordinary" Germans, in contrast to a few chapters that focus
> more on elites. She explores the dictatorship's efforts to convince
> Germans to embrace Nazism, using new food-processing and -storage
> technologies along with enticement, lack of choice, and exhortation,
> reaching the conclusion that Nazi efforts to reshape consumption and
> dietary habits "were largely successful" (p. 40). Although it
> considered women incapable of conducting politics, the dictatorship
> encouraged women to feel empowered by touting their efforts as
> critical to Germany's mission in the big, history-making world of
> men, war, and conquest ("cooking spoons" became "weapons" during the
> war). Reagin identifies the key role that looting from foreign
> territories played in propping up the German food economy and the
> paltry rations for Jewish Germans, although she did not find time or
> space to deal with sources on the privations suffered by foreign
> forced laborers. Looking back from the 1950s, most Germans remembered
> the Nazi prewar years as a "good" period, because they themselves had
> jobs and their own tables were sufficiently set. Pointing out that
> alcoholics were sterilized while drug addicts were rehabilitated,
> Jonathan Lewy's contribution, "Vice and the Third Reich," argues that
>
[Marxism] The Karl Marx of Music
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. * Article on Hans Eisler https://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/hanns-eisler-communist-composer-artist-brecht My own take: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/hanns_eisler.htm _ 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] On Jamal Khashoggi, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Saudi Arabia
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://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/10/19/on-jamal-khashoggi-the-muslim-brotherhood-and-saudi-arabia/amp/ _ 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] A Tool for Our Times: Legacies of Black Radicalism and Communism | Review of *Red International and Black Caribbean: Communists in New York City, Mexico and the West Indies, 1919-1939*, by M
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[Marxism] Putin says can't justify spoiling Saudi ties over Khashoggi affair
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. * Anti Imperialism in action Putin says can't justify spoiling Saudi ties over Khashoggi affair https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-politics-dissident-putin/putin-says-cant-justify-spoiling-saudi-ties-over-khashoggi-affair-idUSKCN1MS28S _ 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
