[Marxism] Fwd: Crimean Leader Vows to Address Tatars' Concerns, While Also Threatening Deportation | News | The Moscow Times

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Crimean Leader Vows to Address Tatars' Concerns, While Also Threatening 
Deportation

The Moscow TimesSep. 22 2014 21:28 Last edited 21:29
Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov has promised to address the concerns of 
the peninsula's ethnic Tatar minority, while in the same breath 
threatening to deport them if they "pit people against each other on 
inter-ethnic grounds."


Aksyonov's comments, published in an interview with Kommersant on 
Monday, came amid flaring tensions following official raids on Tatar 
properties in the peninsula last week.


The snap inspections were only the latest in a series of signs of 
friction between regional authorities and the Tatar population since 
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in March, a move leaders of the 
Crimean Tatar community have condemned.


full: 
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/crimean-leader-vows-to-address-tatars-concerns-while-also-threatening-deportation/507562.html


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[Marxism] No to US airstrikes on Syria and Iraq! All support to popular movements in Syria and Iraq!

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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No to US airstrikes on Syria and Iraq!
All support to popular movements in Syria and Iraq!

A statement by Syrian Revolution Bases of Support

As the US once more beats the drums for its “war on terror” we affirm our
opposition to US/coalition airstrikes on Syria and Iraq. Such imperialist
intervention will only lead to propping up the sectarian occupation regime
in Iraq and the genocidal Assad regime in Syria. It will further pave the
way for expanding US economic and strategic interests in the region (namely
exploiting resources and supporting the Zionist State).

Obama’s move towards airstrikes comes following the assassination of
American journalists and the persecution of minority communities
(Christians and Ezidis) by the Islamic State. Such acts highlight the
barbarity of the Daesh fascists but we question why Obama was not equally
moved by the deaths of the countless Muslims who have been the primary
victims of the Islamic State or the death of Syrian Muslim journalist
Bassam Raeis who was executed by Daesh in August to no global outrage. The
biggest terrorist threat remains the Assad regime which has killed
thousands through daily barrel bombing of civilian neighbourhoods, chemical
massacres, starvation sieges and torture. Such double standards show that
humanitarian motives do not drive US intervention or international concern.

Airstrikes cannot defeat Daesh as they are spread through civilian areas.
They would result in heavy collateral damage. Only boots on the ground
(which the US has not offered and which have been rejected by the FSA) can
defeat the Islamic State. The Syrian rebels, including Kurdish fighters,
have been the ones fighting Daesh for the past year, know the local
geography, terrain and people, and are the best placed to strike a real
blow to the Islamic State. But to do this they must be provided with the
weapons they need.

Attacking ISIS without toppling the tyrant Bashar Al Assad will only lead
to exacerbating sectarian divisions in the region. Assad has been
responsible both directly and indirectly to contributing to the growth of
the IS, and until recently has not attacked ISIS positions focusing instead
on attacking the FSA and civilians. Assad is now begging to be a partner in
the US coalition, seizing the chance to gain international legitimacy. Any
action seen as allying with Bashar Al Assad will lead to a backlash and
exacerbate sectarian tensions. This fits well with America’s ‘divide and
rule’ policy. We see in Iraq that the US is allying with the criminal
government which is dropping barrel bombs on civilian neighbourhoods
(recently committing a massacre at a school in Falluja) and using sectarian
militias which are carrying out atrocities. The US has also focused its
rhetoric on the Islamic State ignoring that popular elements (as well as
remnants from the Baathist regime) are also rising against the Iraqi
government. The US insistence that Malki steps down, but not doing the same
for Bashar, again shows double standards.

Whilst we oppose US/coalition airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, we are appalled
by the position of sections of the “anti-war” movement and
“anti-imperialist” left which have rallied around tyrannical states instead
of supporting the Syrian popular uprising against both Assad and Daesh and
for freedom from tyranny. It should be highlighted that the largest foreign
intervention so far in Syria has been from the imperialist State of Russia
and Iran which have provided massive military, economic and political
support to the Assad regime to continue carrying out atrocities against the
Syrian people.

The grassroots forces of the Syrian Revolution have shown over and over
again their willingness and ability to resist in battle – and often to
defeat – any reactionary armed force, be it regime or reactionary
“Islamist.” How else explain, after three and a half years of genocidal
attacks, the continued mobilization and self-organization for daily
survival of liberated towns and neighborhoods throughout the country? We
reject the calls of the pseudo-Left to rely upon condescending saviors,
whether in Washington or Moscow, in Damascus, Tehran or Riyadh. The
steadfastness of the Syrian Revolution originates in the regionwide
revolution of which it is an integral part – a revolution which on most
fronts is now in retreat, but whose renewed advance depends in no small
part on support, politically and materially, for the grassroots Syrian
Revolution.

Syrian Revolution Bases of Support

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Re: [Marxism] [Pen-l] Nobel Peace prize winning president heightens the prospects for nuclear Armageddon

[Marv Gandall via Marxism]

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On Sep 22, 2014, at 9:50 AM, Louis Proyect  wrote:

> As a sort of personal sidebar to this terrifying article…
> 
> NY Times, Sept. 22 2014
> U.S. Ramping Up Major Renewal in Nuclear Arms
> By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER

The article says “geopolitical” factors are behind this refurbishing of the US 
nuclear arsenal. But as part of the effort to boost the economy, the Obama 
administration also knows this to be, unfortunately, a more acceptable form of 
public spending for many Americans, particularly in states where the 
military-industrial complex is concentrated, than is public spending on 
infrastructure, green energy, or social services. According to the article, a 
panel commissioned by Congress declared the proposed expenditure unaffordable, 
so it’ll be interesting to see much pork is finally spread around.



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Re: [Marxism] No to US airstrikes on Syria and Iraq! All support to popular movements in Syria and Iraq!

[Marv Gandall via Marxism]

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On Sep 23, 2014, at 9:22 AM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism 
 wrote:

> A statement by Syrian Revolution Bases of Support

Is this one of the opposition militias or neighbourhood committees inside Syria 
or a coalition of either or both? No link or list of signatories to the 
statement was provided.



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[Marxism] Fwd: The cult of Leon Botstein | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://louisproyect.org/2014/09/23/the-cult-of-leon-botstein/

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[Marxism] Fwd: To Fight the Unpredictable Effects of Climate Change, We Need an Unpredictable Movement » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/23/to-fight-the-unpredictable-effects-of-climate-change-we-need-an-unpredictable-movement/

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[Marxism] Obama's air strikes in Syria - a first look

[Clay Claiborne via Marxism]

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/From Linux Beach in San Antonio:/


 Obama's air strikes in Syria - a first look
 



What follows is information that has come my way in the few hours 
since the United States and its five Arab allies - Saudi Arabia, 
Jordan, the United Arab Emirate, Bahrain and Qatar began air 
operations in Syria. Most of this information is /"unvetted"/ so I'm 
not vouching for it, but since it goes further and is almost certainly 
more accurate than the dribble being put out by CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC 
and their instant experts, I thought I'd share it with you.
*More...* 



I learned about the US air strikes in Syria after I got off work last 
night. I've put this to since then and now its off to work again. I hope 
there aren't too many errors.


Clay

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[Marxism] Ebola Cases Could Reach 1.4 Million in 4 Months, C.D.C. Estimates

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Sept. 23 2014
Ebola Cases Could Reach 1.4 Million in 4 Months, C.D.C. Estimates
By DENISE GRADY

Yet another set of ominous projections about the Ebola epidemic in West 
Africa was released Tuesday, in a report from the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention that gave worst- and best-case estimates for 
Liberia and Sierra Leone based on computer modeling.


In the worst-case scenario, Liberia and Sierra Leone could have 21,000 
cases of Ebola by Sept. 30 and 1.4 million cases by Jan. 20 if the 
disease keeps spreading without effective methods to contain it. These 
figures take into account the fact that many cases go undetected, and 
estimate that there are actually 2.5 times as many as reported.


The report does not include figures for Guinea because case counts there 
have gone up and down in ways that cannot be reliably modeled.


In the best-case model — which assumes that the dead are buried safely 
and that 70 percent of patients are treated in settings that reduce the 
risk of transmission — the epidemic in both countries would be “almost 
ended” by Jan. 20, the report said. It showed the proportion of patients 
now in such settings as about 18 percent in Liberia and 40 percent in 
Sierra Leone.


“My gut feeling is, the actions we’re taking now are going to make that 
worst-case scenario not come to pass,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the C.D.C. 
director, said in a telephone interview. “But it’s important to 
understand that it could happen.”


The figures in the C.D.C. report are based on data from August, but Dr. 
Frieden said the situation appeared to have improved since then because 
more aid had begun to reach the region.


The current official case count is 5,843, including 2,803 deaths, 
according to the World Health Organization.


The W.H.O. published its own revised estimates of the outbreak on 
Monday, predicting more than 20,000 cases by Nov. 2 if control does not 
improve. That figure is more conservative than the one from the C.D.C., 
but the W.H.O. report noted that many cases were unreported and said 
that without effective help, the three most affected countries would 
soon be reporting thousands of cases and deaths per week. It said its 
projections were similar to those from the C.D.C.


The W.H.O. report also, for the first time, raised the possibility that 
the disease would not be stopped but would become endemic in West 
Africa, meaning that it could become a constant presence there. The 
report from the C.D.C. did not discuss that possibility, but it is 
something that health officials have feared all along, and the reason 
they say help is needed so quickly.


President Obama’s promise last week to send 3,000 military personnel to 
Liberia and to build 17 hospitals there, each with 100 beds, were part 
of the solution, Dr. Frieden said. He said the Defense Department had 
already delivered parts of a 25-bed unit that will soon be set up to 
treat health workers who become infected, a safety measure he said was 
important to help encourage health professionals to volunteer. He added 
that aid groups were flooding into the region and setting up treatment 
centers.


The W.H.O. reported on Wednesday that a new treatment center had just 
opened in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, with 120 beds for treatment 
and 30 for triage. Patients were already lined up at the door.


The report from the C.D.C. acknowledged that case counts were rising 
faster than hospital beds could be provided. It said that in the 
meantime, different types of treatment would be used, based in homes or 
community centers, with relatives and others being given protective gear 
to help keep the disease from spreading.


The United States government is also sending 400,000 kits containing 
gloves and disinfectant to Liberia to help families take care of 
patients at home. The kits reflect the recognition that even the most 
ambitious new program will not be able to add hospital beds fast enough 
to keep up with the disease.


At least one aid group working in Liberia is already shifting its focus 
to teaching people about home care and providing materials to help. Ken 
Isaacs, a vice president of the aid group Samaritan’s Purse, said, “I 
believe inevitably this is going to move into people’s houses, and the 
notion of home-based care has to play a more prominent role.” He said 
there could be 100,000 or more cases by the end of 2014.


“Where are they going to go?” Mr. Isaacs asked. “It’s too late. Nobody’s 
going to build 100,000 beds.”


Though providing home-care kits may seem like a pragmatic approach, some 
public health authorities said they were no substitute for beds in 
isolation or containment wards.


But Dr. Frieden said that home care had been used to help stamp out 
sma

[Marxism] Ukraine’s Neglected and Battered Army Inspires Citizens to Pitch In

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(Reading the Kagarlitsky left, you would get the impression that the 
Ukrainian army was a threat comparable to Hitler's Wehrmacht, filled 
with battle-hardened neo-Nazis. This article should disabuse anybody 
still in touch with reality of that idea.)


NY Times, Sept. 23 2014
Ukraine’s Neglected and Battered Army Inspires Citizens to Pitch In
By CARLOTTA GALL

DNIPROPETROVSK, Ukraine — Well-wishers mill around the entrances of the 
two main hospitals in this city in east-central Ukraine — men who greet 
friends with hugs and backslaps or share a cigarette, women who arrive 
to visit the wounded, sorting food parcels and pouring cups of sweet tea.


Inside the two hospitals, one civilian-run and one military, the medical 
staffs are busy treating dozens of wounded Ukrainian soldiers, 
casualties of the six-month war with Russian-backed separatist rebels in 
the restive provinces to the east. As those casualties have mounted, 
citizens and support groups for wounded soldiers and their families have 
begun to rally behind their long-neglected, resource-starved army in a 
rush of patriotic feeling.


According to the support groups’ tally, more than 800 soldiers have been 
killed in the conflict so far.


“We don’t have an army,” said Andrei Karnysh, a veteran of the border 
guard and the chairman of a regional support group, who was visiting the 
wounded in the military hospital. “These boys were sent on buses, with 
rifles and just 30 bullets each,” Mr. Karnysh said. “No body armor, 
nothing.”


Soldiers and veterans interviewed say the armed forces are understaffed, 
undertrained and underequipped as they confront a much bigger and 
stronger opponent: not the separatist rebels, but the Russian forces 
behind them, with their superior firepower. The Kremlin denies taking 
any role in the fighting, but almost every soldier interviewed here 
spoke of direct encounters with Russian troops.


“They were shooting at us like they were on a firing range,” said 
Viktor, a reservist with his arm in a sling. He gave only his first 
name, saying, as most other soldiers did, that identifying himself to a 
reporter would be against regulations. Viktor said he was wounded Aug. 
29 as Ukrainian forces tried to retreat through a prearranged safe 
corridor, but came under withering fire from Russian troops anyway.


Another soldier, who said he had just returned after four months in the 
Donetsk region, complained that “there are no supplies in the army.” 
“There were no good flak jackets, weapons or equipment,” the soldier 
continued. “We did not see the American supplies that have been given, 
or medical supplies. It was difficult to get medicine.”


Mr. Karnysh said that in the 23 years since independence, successive 
Ukrainian leaders had let the armed forces decline and even sold off 
some of their equipment. Budgets became so tight that he and his friends 
collected contributions to pay for serving paratroopers to make one jump 
during training.


“We are civilians, and we are gathering money so the army can shoot,” he 
said.


When Russia annexed Crimea and pro-Russian separatists began staging 
protests in eastern Ukraine in March, the Ukrainian armed forces proved 
largely incapable of handling the threat. Since then, the army has 
called up thousands of additional recruits, and it has been joined in 
the field by volunteer paramilitary battalions. Many of them were 
angered by the loss of Crimea and inspired by the protests in Kiev, the 
capital, that overthrew President Viktor F. Yanukovych in February.


Yet these efforts have resulted not in a unified force, but in a motley 
collection of units of widely varying ability — the volunteer National 
Guard formations under the Interior Ministry and the regular army units 
under the Ministry of Defense — with only a weak central command structure.


That lack of cohesion cost the Ukrainian forces dearly in late August.

Sgt. Maj. Igor Tchaikovsky, 47, an army veteran who joined the volunteer 
Donbass battalion, said a lack of proper equipment and backup had cost 
his unit dearly, with about 50 men killed, 40 wounded and 110 taken 
prisoner when they withdrew from the town of Ilovaysk on Aug. 29.


“We got the order to leave, and were told there was a corridor,” 
Sergeant Major Tchaikovsky said. “We made our column with civilian cars; 
we don’t have military vehicles or heavy guns. We had a big civilian 
truck loaded with wounded, and pickups and small cars.”


After traveling 18 miles, he said, the column came under attack from 
Russian artillery and antitank grenades. “We managed to scatter and 
started fighting,” Sergeant Major Tchaikovsky said. “Normally, volunteer 
battalions function like police. This fighting was not something we 
should be doing.”

[Marxism] Fwd: How Harvard Exercises Power » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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The Professor & the President: Who’s the Bully?
How Harvard Exercises Power
by SUREN MOODLIAR

It began with a call from his distraught daughter, writes Harvard 
professor Ricardo Hausmann. On national television, Nicholas Maduro, 
Venezuela’s president, had threatened the good professor with a legal 
investigation. And the professor’s daughter was worried. So too were the 
Harvard Crimson, whose editorial staff challenged President Maduro’s 
alleged “bullying,” and the Boston Globe, which promptly published a 
Hausmann missive. Lest one fears for the professor’s wellbeing, he 
assures us that he is free and unafraid, adding that he has “the 
protection of the U.S… the protection of Harvard.” Now we can all feel 
good, the USA’s robust free press, together with its august academic 
institutions, and the state itself, appear to be standing for academic 
freedom and empowering a lowly professor to speak truth to presidential 
power. Closer scrutiny suggests that quite the opposite may be true.


full: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/23/how-harvard-exercises-power/

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[Marxism] US strikes in Syria

[Anas via Marxism]

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http://www.maysaloon.org/2014/09/us-strikes-in-syria.html

'Last year many of those same people cheered with joy that strikes against the 
Assad regime were averted after he used chemical weapons against the Syrian 
people. Since then the death toll in Syria has risen to over 200,000. But they 
have nothing to say about that. They've been too busy spending the last year 
basking in the warm glow of their own self righteousness. Since then Assad and 
his Shiite allies have managed to push back the Free Syrian Army (without ever 
challenging ISIS seriously) and ISIS has emerged from a fringe lunatic group to 
a lunatic messianic state controlling an area larger than the size of England. 
The non-interventionists are responsible for this turn of events, and they are 
responsible for the rise of ISIS. They offered no solutions, only obstacles. 
They don't have a position you can criticise. They just insist that nobody have 
a position either, that Syrians die for the principles of somebody else; 
somebody who can rubber-stamp the revolution and say, "Yes, y
 ou're a bonafide revolution and we approve of you", and say to them, "We will 
sing your praises in post-graduate Middle East courses across the Western world 
for all time, and write books about your sacrifices". '

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[Marxism] Workers World Party leader in Ukraine to support 300 years of Great Russian chauvinism

[jay rothermel via Marxism]

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Workers World Party leader Greg Butterfield is known for his Tumblr F***
Yeah Marxism-Leninism. It is a page infamous for its indiscriminate and
unconditional support for  Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Like Workers World Party itself, Butterfield has spent the last year
promoting the Moscow catspaw Borotba as a supposedly working class,
socialist organization.

Butterfield and his party have gone from purely literary opposition to the
struggle of the oppressed Ukrainian nationality for national sovereignty.
Butterfield is now on the ground in Crimea.

I'm sure he will not be visiting any members of the oppressed Tartar
nationality while there. Instead, he will carry out the party line of
calling for the defeat of an oppressed nationality.

Butterfield's article:
Meet Borotba http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/09/23/meet-borotba/

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[Marxism] guns and the southern freedom struggle - what's missing in the history books

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/09/23/guns-and-southern-freedom-struggle-whats-missing-when-we-teach-about-nonviolence

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