[Marxism] Fwd: Inside Assad’s Playbook: Time and Terror
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A former top diplomat explains Baathist strategy. http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/inside-assad-s-playbook-time-and-terror Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Israel is being defeated in Gaza as it was in Lebanon
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well, Lüko, this is not entirely accurate. There are some Irish and Puerto Rican's who might disagree. Secondly, it's a ridiculous statement anyway: that in the end the people win. Wowso? We're supposed to sit back and wait? So far the Palestinians have been fighting for almost 80 years (if we use the 1936 Uprising against the British as a starting date for Palestinian nationalism). It doesn't look like the Zionist state is going anywhere soon. I reject the idea that because it is perceived as inevitable that the Crusader state will be overturned that someone this makes everything ok...which is what you are implying. In fact nothing is inevitable. That most, but not all such states have been is not a guide for future results, at all. David Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Israel losing the media war
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.salon.com/2014/07/23/%E2%80%9Cthe_more_the_dead_the_better%E2%80%9D_israel%E2%80%99s_crumbling_media_war/?source=newsletter Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Thoughts on Palestine and Syria
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yes, I'm aware of his lack of principle on the subjects you've mentioned alongside Egypt. I mentioned him in regret that it's hard to find an anti-Zionist, anti-Assad analysis. Thanks for the blog! On Jul 24, 2014, at 3:16 PM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com wrote: Just remember, if you share Pham's post, what a dangerously unprincipled opportunist he is. For instance, his latest post is about the FSA disowning JAN (al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda group) for its atrocities -- yet Pham himself not that long ago was denouncing leftists who criticized JAN! Not to mention his hurrah for the Zionist attack on Syria etc. etc. etc. If you want a genuine anti-Zionist, anti-Assad effort, check out http://menasolnetus.wordpress.com/ and on Facebook the Syrian Revolution Support Bases group. On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 12:54 AM, Anas via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I have read Binh's recent article (http://notgeorgesabra.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/selective-internationalism-an-activist-disorder/) on the relation between Palestine and Syria and saw a statistic from FP that more than 700 people have been killed in Syria between Thursday and Friday (http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/07/21/overlooked_syrian_conflict_hits_new_death_toll_record?utm_content=buffer89172utm_medium=socialutm_source=facebook.comutm_campaign=buffer) Even facts like how Assad has substantially displaced more Palestinians than Israel has this year tend to be interpreted as apologetic for Israel. Fortunately, I had found this amazing line that seemed to really convey why the Palestinian struggle is famous in a recent article by Adam shatz.. This explanation can't be easily characterized as whitewashing Israel: Do you know why we are so famous? Mahmoud Darwish asks the Israeli writer Helit Yeshurun inPalestine as Metaphor. It's because you are our enemy. The interest in the Palestinian question flows from the interest in the Jewish question…. It's you they're interested in, not me!… So we have the misfortune of having an enemy, Israel, with so many sympathizers in the world, and we have the good fortune that our enemy is Israel, since Jews are the center of the world. You have given us our defeat, our weakness, our renown. As Darwish suggests, this concern for the Palestinians is not a matter of anti-Semitism, as Israel supporters claim, so much as it is a reflection of self-absorption: the Palestinians are important to the West because, through their oppression by Israeli Jews, they have become characters in a Western narrative. (I encourage you to read the full article. We should have more writers on the region like Adam Shatz, and less of Chris Hedges and Robert Fisk (and plenty others in zmag, counterpunch) who view the Middle East as a geopolitical entity that revolves around America.) I'm afraid by the time the Syrian question becomes popular, all Syrians would be dead already. And it will stay unpopular for as long as the players involved aren't Israeli Jews or Westerners* as Mahmoud Darwich, in the usual Palestinian acerbic wit, demonstrates. http://m.thenation.com/article/180663-writers-or-missionaries *As western jihadists going to fight in Syria garner more discussion in western papers of record and media than the victims of the war Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: A short history of the Syrian revolution | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://louisproyect.org/2014/07/24/a-short-history-of-the-syrian-revolution/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] On Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jul 23, 2014, at 3:54 PM, Clay Claiborne via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: It also means Russia shot down MH17 as part of its war of aggression against Ukraine and thus even though it be an accident it was manslaughter committed during the commission of a violent crime, meaning Russia should be charged with 298 counts of murder in the first degree by any laws I would respect. The NATO countries, of course, do not presently have the power to bring the Russian leaders to trial. Instead, the US and its allies are trying to bring pressure to bear through their control of the global financial system. The EU today adopted tougher sanctions in line with those adopted earlier by the Obama administration as part of a staged program designed to progressively squeeze the Russian financial system and cripple the economy. Do you support these efforts? * * * EU Tightens Screws on Russia By MATTHEW DALTON and LAURENCE NORMAN Wall Street Journal July 24 2014 BRUSSELS—The European Union is moving to place sanctions on a range of Russian economic sectors, EU diplomats said on Thursday, in what would be a significant escalation of the bloc's efforts to isolate Moscow for its alleged support of rebel groups in eastern Ukraine. The EU also added new names and companies to its sanctions list, including senior officials from Russia's security services, and prepared to place oligarchs close to the Russian leadership on the list as well. Thursday's moves, which came after all-day negotiations among EU ambassadors in Brussels, show that European nations are overcoming some of the political divides that have tempered the bloc's response to the Ukraine crisis. […] The EU on Thursday added 18 entities to its sanctions list, including the separatist groups People's Republic of Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republic and some half a dozen Crimea-based companies that benefitted from the Russian annexation of the region, the diplomats said. Also targeted were 15 individuals, including senior officials from the Federal Security Service, or FSB. The head of the FSB is one of the people added to the sanctions list, EU diplomats said. Those sanctions, which include a ban on travelling to the EU and an asset freeze, are expected to take formal effect on Friday evening. The proposals for broader economic sanctions, described in a document distributed to member states and seen by The Wall Street Journal, include trade and investment restrictions and a prohibition on listing Russian financial instruments on European markets or exchanges—measures that could hit Sberbank, Russia's largest bank and one of Europe's biggest financial institutions. The measures also include trade restrictions on arms, on technology used by the Russian military and on goods used for unconventional oil exploration. * * * EU to weigh far-reaching sanctions on Russia By Peter Spiegel in Brussels Financial Times July 24 2014 EU diplomats will weigh sweeping Russian sanctions on Thursday that include a proposal to ban all Europeans from purchasing any new debt or stock issued by Russia’s largest banks, according to a proposal seen by the Financial Times. The sanctions measure, contained in a 10-page options memo prepared by the European Commission and distributed to national capitals, also proposes barring the Russian banks from listing new issues on European exchanges, preventing them from using London or other EU stock markets to raise funds from non-Europeans. The proposal would not initially include a similar prohibition for Russian sovereign bond auctions out of fear the Kremlin could retaliate by ordering an end to Russian purchases of EU government debt, the document states. But it would still be far more extensive than sanctions imposed by the US this month which only targeted two Russian banks, Gazprombank and VEB, since the EU proposal would hit all banks with more than 50 per cent public ownership. […] The options paper, which was sent to national capitals on Wednesday night, for the first time shows how extensive the preparations are in Brussels to move towards sweeping penalties that could cripple the Russian economy. “Restricting access to capital markets for Russian state-owned financial institutions would increase their cost of raising funds and constrain their ability to finance the Russian economy, unless the Russian public authorities provide them with substitute financing,” the document reads. “It would also foster a climate of market uncertainty that is likely to affect the business environment in Russia and accelerate capital outflows. “ The existence of the document – titled “Outline of an initial package of targeted measures in
[Marxism] The one-sided war on free speech in Australia
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Free speech is important in Australia, but apparently only when you express conservative ideologies, writes John Passant in New Matilda. https://newmatilda.com/2014/07/25/one-sided-war-free-speech Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Ilya Budraitskis on the sentencing of Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == “Trial” Ilya Budraitskis July 24, 2014 OpenLeft.Ru Udaltsov: four and a half years in prison. Razvozzhayev: four and a half years in prison. “You were paid to come here, right?” the girl in uniform at the entrance to Moscow City Court asked out of habit. Then came the long hours of standing with sympathizers, acquaintances, and strangers listening as the sentence in the trial of Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev was read out. The Bolotnaya Square case is only two years old, but it seems a whole lifetime has passed. Slurring the words, Judge Alexander Zamashnyuk and his henchmen took turns reading out the full version of the idiotic detective story, a puzzle whose pieces have finally fallen into place: long-cherished dreams of violent revolution, the heady atmosphere of the Movement for Fair Elections, the connection with Georgian intelligence and clandestine seminars on how Maidan was organized (then it was still the previous Maidan), the columns of “anarchists and nationalists” on May 6, 2012, in Moscow, the “riots,” with all their participants and “hallmarks.” The absurd picture of a conspiracy, which just recently provoked laughter, now finds support and understanding in the eyes of the frightened and brutalized “new Putin majority,” who seemingly think it is nice everything ended on May 6, 2012, and that the prison sentences and frame-ups are the price that must be paid for perpetual Russian stability. Like the other Bolotnaya Square prisoners, Sergei Udaltsov is no longer a symbol of a movement that served its purpose but something much more than that. He is a reminder that resisting, dissenting, and undermining the false unity of the people and the state continue to be historical possibilities. Free Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev! Published at: http://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/ilya-budraitskis-trial/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
