Re: [Marxism] Between Regime and Rebels: A Survey of Syria’s Alawi Sect | by Elizabeth Tsurkov | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
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. * Most Alawis don't benefit from the Assad regime. Yet most do not support the rebels, because they fear the Sunni sectarians amongst them. The same is true of other religious minorities such as Druze and Christians. This is one reason why the democratic forces based in northern and eastern Syria talk of a "third way", separate from both the Assad regime and the rebels. The predominance of Sunni sectarian forces amongst the rebels was promoted by outside forces. Aid from Turkey and from government and private sources in the Gulf went disproportionately to Sunni sectarian rebel groups, contributing to their growing strength relative to secular rebel groups. In 2014 the Sunni sectarian Jabhat al-Nusra attacked attacked and crushed the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, a coalition of secular rebel groups in Idlib province. Some of the survivors of the SRF fled to Afrin and helped form the Syrian Democratic Forces. Nusra took over large parts of Idlib, including an area inhabited by Druze. The Druze were forcibly converted to Sunni Islam. This kind of sectarianism contributed to religious minorities viewing Assad as a lesser evil. This support, however grudging, helped Assad to survive. Chris Slee From: Marxism on behalf of Louis Proyect via Marxism Sent: Tuesday, 23 July 2019 6:44:42 AM To: Chris Slee Subject: [Marxism] Between Regime and Rebels: A Survey of Syria’s Alawi Sect | by Elizabeth Tsurkov | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books 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 is a small percentage of Alawis who benefited from the war, but the vast majority are poor and hungry,” Loubna,* a fifty-nine-year-old teacher, told me. “The Alawi community endures unprecedented pain and bereavement. You cannot even hear a child’s laugh, whole neighborhoods have no young men. Poverty, pain, and hunger are everywhere. People are broken.” Loubna is a member of the small, heterodox Alawi sect (also known as “Alawites”) that dominates the top echelons of Syria’s civilian and military leadership, including the ruling Assad dynasty. Loubna lives near the hometown of President Bashar al-Assad, Qardaha. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/07/22/between-regime-and-rebels-a-survey-of-syrias-alawi-sect/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/chris_w_slee%40hotmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Strait of Hormuz: Escalating Tensions between the US/UK and Iran
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. * *Strait of Hormuz: Escalating Tensions between the US/UK and Iran* */Drive the Great Powers out of the Middle East! But no political support for the reactionary Mullah Regime in Teheran!/* https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/escalating-tensions-between-the-us-uk-and-iran/ -- Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG (Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net) www.rkob.net ak...@rkob.net Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314 --- Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Andy Stern now union-busting
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 was a time when Andy Stern, then president of SEIU, was the great hope of the left. He was the great enlightened labor leader. It never exactly panned out that way and since he retired from SEIU, Stern is now making his money as a professional union buster. He's on the board of directors of the Broad Foundation, and is an official advisor to the "National Parents Union", which is also an education privatizing astro-turf group associated with the Walton Foundation. As for the current union leadership? “There must be some misunderstanding for a respected labor leader, who spent a good part of his life helping working people, to embrace a Walton-funded group dedicated to attacking them,” said Randi Weingarten of the AFT. Yes, there's a "misunderstanding" (if you want to call it that)... on the part of Weingarten, who also participates in, not helping working people, but keeping the most militant layer suppressed. The fact that Stern could turn to open union busting and the fact of the tepid response of Weingarten really shows where the present union leadership is at. See the full article on this here: https://splinternews.com/high-profile-labor-leader-has-a-new-gig-fighting-agains-1836597318?fbclid=IwAR0K-HvfxXvtKPGfBMdrD0JsbmfFAW7yBpllaB0fyrIGkPiNcPBuoI7fnbk -- *“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: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Re: Student presents thesis in underwear after professor says her 'shorts are too short' | 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. * > On Jul 22, 2019, at 8:44 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism > wrote: > > https://secure-web.cisco.com/1c5h0QRjdJw6LLag1V8pgH52AxLsya-PCQPAbdqKaWAzTaGDarZRFNqGm2VhCKPg6w-boYhphHVMUDkk57eHm-Y_9bGj9zcGXgCuE1v6akJM_95yYsjowR1cQ9cjqI0HM18p28VK5_kB5F2qLTqm2Rwk9_FOtHR1BH5WxGSjYSIr8kODDHIsrydcMSKp3_YjesW0P0Mv1v6R5IJV4qieNjLzLBYIduWjXWXVAGet0kD_g6Ytfce3LMyn1c-KbyRAR0oFxffF5clf_aLNM7vzmQRpfnKKYHtpgUbDSTmsXYhE6lpZqhBHpnlbV3sK-LkiwcgUB91R5tzlXY3jmHlHDx-wKBEp3bgPZfwfDb2QXN69Qx-y_HuaFZv9KYp2AbjqR/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Famericas%2Fstudent-thesis-presentation-underwear-cornell-university-new-york-a8348716.html It’s probably worth pointing out that this is from May 2018, but also — and more importantly — that 11 of 13 of Chai’s fellow students in the course signed a joint statement disputing her account of what happened that day: https://secure-web.cisco.com/1JzYkaIMm-R8bH6ewGUL6hlWhquiyxNlBUW3stuKqaWCYYdaFB5D6XSduT6lPtXssKNNgG14B7fh4RJty5isQ-6lLNOaSOEOBEKk97BGx0TMHSxr7DITwB3eZQBY3R7_mdTTZlq1xev8sFkVNHue3IxhUL-t9Mx0yg77OA0kmbgaqA449A9mRVvC41R29hlViRnU6RVvN1KsLfWFmlMxNLDpipNBcPFRnUBxaVqO24yVMX_dgJBFHBnnzk8uy0XlZ1zb1gWDF0YK61E7p7x3Da0q5hovEuzMY1pfs6pWiA4IV6VejvpIed-GKnDTyQsxe9cWNcUSpbEOeaurBgl-8beKhAQRSzEIfFK5nUqZ7AeeFtWxS2JAuWxpVtIWo7KzQ/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2018%2F5%2F15%2F17345144%2Fcollege-student-protest-letitia-chai-cornell-university-stripping-dress-code _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Paul Krassner, Anarchist, Prankster and a Yippies Founder, Dies at 87
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, July 22, 2019 Paul Krassner, Anarchist, Prankster and a Yippies Founder, Dies at 87 By Joseph Berger He was a prankster, a master of the put-on that thumbed its nose at what he saw as a stuffy and blundering political establishment. And as much as anyone else, Paul Krassner epitomized a strain of anarchic 1960s activism — one that became identified with the Yippies as they nominated a pig for president and rained dollar bills onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Along with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin and a few others, Mr. Krassner helped found that group. He was the founder and editor of The Realist, among the earliest underground humor magazines, one that was known for outlandish and raunchy cartoons and iconoclastic political and social commentary. Its contributors included Norman Mailer, Jules Feiffer, Terry Southern, Joseph Heller, Mort Sahl, Edward Sorel and Robert Grossman. With some very long breaks, it endured into the 21st century. Yet so naturally irreverent was Mr. Krassner that when People magazine labeled him the “father of the underground press,” he demanded a paternity test. In all, he helped propagate a certain absurdist sensibility that encouraged people like the cartoonists R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman and the comedian George Carlin to be more daring in mocking the insanities and hypocrisies of war, politics and much of modern life. Mr. Krassner died on Sunday at his home in Desert Hot Springs, Calif., his daughter, Holly Krassner Dawson, said. He was 87. She did not give a cause, but said he had been in hospice care. Mr. Krassner was writing freelance pieces for Mad magazine in 1958 when he realized that there was no equivalent satirical publication for adults; Mad, he could see, was largely targeted at teenagers. So he started The Realist out of the Mad offices, and it began regular monthly publication. By 1967 its circulation had peaked at 100,000. “I had no role models and no competition, just an open field mined with taboos waiting to be exploded,” Mr. Krassner wrote in his autobiography. The magazine’s most famous cartoon was one, drawn in 1967 by the Mad artist Wally Wood, of an orgy featuring Snow White, Donald Duck and a bevy of Disney characters enjoying a variety of sexual positions. (Mickey Mouse is shown shooting heroin.) Later, digitally colored by a former Disney artist, it became a hot-selling poster that supplied Mr. Krassner with modest royalties into old age. The Realist’s most famous article was one Mr. Krassner wrote portraying Lyndon B. Johnson as sexually penetrating a bullet wound in John F. Kennedy’s neck while accompanying the assassinated president’s body back to Washington on Air Force One. The headline of the article was “The Parts That Were Left Out of the Kennedy Book,” and it claimed — falsely — to be material that had been removed from William Manchester’s book “The Death of a President.” “People across the country believed — if only for a moment — that an act of presidential necrophilia had taken place,” Mr. Krassner told an interviewer in 1995. “The imagery was so shocking, it broke through the notion that the war in Vietnam was being conducted by sane men.” Avery Corman, the author of “Kramer vs. Kramer” and other books, whose first essays appeared in The Realist, called Mr. Krassner “a cultural pioneer.” “The pieces he wrote himself and the material written by others were saying to people that what we’re told by the establishment and the media may not be true, may be distorted, and at that time that was not an accepted idea,” Mr. Corman said in a 2016 interview. “For young people trying to dope out what the world was like, being a Realist reader was a way of distinguishing yourself: ‘I’m not gullible, I’m skeptical.’” By the 1970s, The Realist was struggling financially and being published more haphazardly; for years it did not come out at all. In the mid-1980s it was revived as a newsletter. It ceased publication in 2001. Mr. Krassner was also the keeper of the legacy of one of his mentors, Lenny Bruce. He edited Bruce’s autobiography, “How to Talk Dirty and Influence People” (1965), and was nominated for a Grammy Award for his 5,000-word liner notes to a collection of Bruce’s nightclub routines, “Let the Buyer Beware.” Mr. Krassner in 2009. He once said: “It’s strange to be 70 and still identify with a youth movement. But I’d rather identify with evolution than stagnation.”CreditEric Reed/Associated Press Encouraged by Bruce, Mr. Krassner often took to the stage, delivering comic monologues at nightclubs like the Village Gate. He
[Marxism] Thread by @DanielDenvir: "How did white nationalism take over Republican politics and the conservative movement? And why did nativism—the demand to "send them back"—b […]"
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[Marxism] Between Regime and Rebels: A Survey of Syria’s Alawi Sect | by Elizabeth Tsurkov | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
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 is a small percentage of Alawis who benefited from the war, but the vast majority are poor and hungry,” Loubna,* a fifty-nine-year-old teacher, told me. “The Alawi community endures unprecedented pain and bereavement. You cannot even hear a child’s laugh, whole neighborhoods have no young men. Poverty, pain, and hunger are everywhere. People are broken.” Loubna is a member of the small, heterodox Alawi sect (also known as “Alawites”) that dominates the top echelons of Syria’s civilian and military leadership, including the ruling Assad dynasty. Loubna lives near the hometown of President Bashar al-Assad, Qardaha. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/07/22/between-regime-and-rebels-a-survey-of-syrias-alawi-sect/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Moderator's note
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 7/22/19 2:44 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: https://secure-web.cisco.com/1owzT-ckNDAJcDIY2NsW2mzunsnRe8Yx2_PKJ_esgU6t7QgK_bIIGgkfYS311VtU2ZxcSRcuxdfRxecMX-kGZ--g3h1yTQLbVCPybUUt7R-mhbUzMW0upbU9YiqwLk6Ngl-8qsuBdpBkhndAxUoer4eJKwDjopaEvA9rn5L8NR8XMGA90oiFJS8bbFibzxb1TK4kQ7BwNaa0LsWBy-27sGLICUCbwttYT7GnqKPcYjFMkwowYymXvOuJfEgbRfVXOjFLAzTDG4Sm5TT8IH8acF18i_AZdQeB3XW1Ql1L3EQvpo3yj-LPFruH_0BVLDo7SclCvaJ953sGd3FETGTOQpBpGjSZA2_hNxcT_8idk5d0YavzKTTMx9xxOEPrl4Ab7/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Famericas%2Fstudent-thesis-presentation-underwear-cornell-university-new-york-a8348716.html Reminder. This is only a warning. If you click the link above, you will be directed to the Cisco website and be allowed to proceed to the article if you click "yes". _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Student presents thesis in underwear after professor says her 'shorts are too short' | The Independent
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[Marxism] Tiny Apartments and Punishing Work Hours: The Economic Roots of Hong Kong’s Protests - The New York Times
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[Marxism] Exclusive: Ex-Russian arms tycoon quietly wields influence in British PM race - Reuters
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[Marxism] Exclusive: Ex-Russian arms tycoon quietly wields influence in British PM race - Reuters
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[Marxism] Cracks discovered during construction of Turkey's first nuclear plant | Ahval
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[Marxism] Scientists Debate the Origin of Cell Types in the First Animals | Quanta Magazine
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[Marxism] Jazz and Justice: A New Book on Racism and the Political Economy of the Music | Interview with Gerald Horne | Ajamu Amiri Dillahunt | AAIHS
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[Marxism] Uyghurs in China: 37 Signatures Are Worth a Thousand Words
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. * *37 Signatures Are Worth a Thousand Words* */On a letter of 37 states, including Muslim countries, sent to the United Nations defending China's treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang/**//* /By Michael Pröbsting /// https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/37-states-defend-china-s-treatment-of-uyghurs/ -- Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG (Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net) www.rkob.net ak...@rkob.net Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314 --- Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Agriculture: The Worst Mistake Humans Ever Made
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. * More important than the evils or otherwise of the invention of agriculture is, where to from here? Hunter-gathering did have an impact (extinction of megafauna - including in Australia) and, as Mark pointed out, even in America, it did deplete native species like bison. In New Zealand, the moa were extinct within a very short time (only a few hundred years) of the first human arrivals. And we've had this discussion before. But, despite vast traditional knowledge, neither hunter-gatherers nor early farmers, knew what longterm impact they were having or would have over an extended period to the extent that we now know about their experience or our own. We can't survive as hunter gatherers with our current population and I doubt many of us would want to. The necessary knowledge now exists though to farm in an efficient and sustainable manner, feed the world and retire a lot of existing farmland, which means our planet can be a much more pleasant place, not just for us, but for currently endangered species. The issue is political, not technical. Is that solution possible under capitalism? Possibly, but I wouldn't count on it. How though do we build a movement that makes clear that the urgent need of the planet can best, and permanently, be resolved by a socialism? John On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 11:16 AM Ratbag Media 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. > * > > I'd be very wary about ruling that 'agriculture' is/was an advance on > hunter gathering. Aside from the fact that both systems so often > co-exist in the same region (such as Central America during the time > of the Maya culture), in places like New Guinea agriculture was > embraced initially 7,000 – 10,000 years ago. > http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p53311/pdf/history.pdf > But it used to be argued that across the Torres Strait --despite the > example -- Australian aborigines chose not to farm, when in fact they > were the first farmers on the planet. > Indeed, when you look at the phenomenon of agriculture it all depends > on what is at hand in way of plants...and access to water. > And how you manage it. > Across the Mediterranean, it's tempting to rule that the agricultural > protocols that grew out of the Fertile Crescent were an ecological > disaster. A feature that even Frederick Engels noted.This was the > price paid for successive civilisations. > Was it the wheat and olives or was it the plough? > Similarly, you cannot separate the supposed difference between the > agricultural and 'hunter gatherer' lifestyle without reference to > changes in climate.Nor can you infer that the 'hunter gatherer' didn't > know what their patch of existence was capable of. > In that sense 'agriculture' isn't so much an 'invention' but an extension. > A different approach to stewardship. > The real question, I guess, isn't so much the invention of > agriculture, but the invention of surplus. > In my region -- in Gubi Gubi country -- it is very clear that the land > was bountiful and the culture rich. That there was no reason to > ratchet up the demands made of the landscape. > Disaster struck, of course, and I can stand on the beach here and look > out to where that tragedy began -- where the Brits first arrived to > this place then invaded. > But let's get this clear: aside from the gun, what savaged the Gubi > Gubi economy was disease. Then the dispossession. > What's happening now -- across Australia -- is an attempt to embrace > Aboriginal landcare practices. This may be as a small movement at the > moment but with fire management, for instance, there is a major > deference. There is also a major debate growing around the traditional > practice of indigenous management of river systems. > You can't live in a land for 60,000+ years without knowing what's what. > Indeed, there is no future -- no future -- for Australian agriculture > without learning -- and applying --from the Aboriginal tradition of > what was supposedly 'hunter gathering'. > > dave riley > > > > > > dave riley > . > > _ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/johnedmundson4%40gmail.com -- The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common But leaves
