[Marxism] Assad Daily Halloween

2014-11-01 Thread Michael Karadjis via Marxism

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#Assad Daily Halloween
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrIFRF_26ogfeature=youtu.be
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[Marxism] Fwd: Piketty and the Crisis of Neoclassical Economics | John Bellamy Foster | Monthly Review

2014-11-01 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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http://monthlyreview.org/2014/11/01/piketty-and-the-crisis-of-neoclassical-economics/
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[Marxism] Syrian’s Photos Spur Outrage, but Not Action

2014-11-01 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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NY Times, Nov. 1 2014
Syrian’s Photos Spur Outrage, but Not Action
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON — Wearing a blue hood to shield his identity, a former Syrian 
police photographer briefed a congressional committee over the summer on 
the photos he had smuggled out of the country to document the deaths of 
thousands of prisoners killed in President Bashar al-Assad’s jails. At a 
White House meeting, President Obama’s senior aides welcomed him as a 
man of uncommon courage who had revealed unspeakable atrocities.


But now the Syrian government’s most celebrated defector, who uses the 
pseudonym Caesar, is no longer optimistic that the United States has the 
will to stop the abuses that have shocked the conscience of the world.


His photographs have generated outrage but no fresh action against the 
Assad government. And instead of intervening militarily to support 
opponents of Mr. Assad, Mr. Obama is mounting airstrikes to defend 
Kurds, Yazidis and Turkmen in Syria and Iraq from the Islamic State.


“I completely understand how he came to the defense of two American 
victims killed by the extremist ISIS terror group,” Caesar said in a 
message earlier this month from an undisclosed location in Europe that 
was conveyed by the Coalition for Democratic Syria, a Syrian-American 
organization that sponsored his trip to Washington. “But I and millions 
of Syrians feel depressed when we see that the killer of thousands of 
prisoners is left unchecked,” he added. “I believe my cause demands 
action and a clear position by the president of the United States.”


Caesar’s complaint reflects a broader discontent within the moderate 
Syrian opposition that is posing a new challenge for the Obama 
administration’s strategy to counter the Islamic State, which is also 
known as ISIS or ISIL. While ruling out United States military 
intervention against Mr. Assad, the administration has committed to 
training thousands of opposition fighters in Saudi Arabia and Turkey so 
they can eventually defend territory in Syria that is wrested from the 
Islamic State’s control. But those fighters must come from the same 
constituency that has been increasingly troubled by the American 
reluctance to act more forcefully against Mr. Assad.


“There is a sense that there is discrimination against them, that the 
atrocities they are suffering at the hands of Assad are somehow less 
deserving than what is befalling other communities,” said Emile Hokayem, 
an expert on Middle East affairs at the International Institute for 
Strategic Studies. “For most of these rebels, Assad is the greatest 
evil, not ISIL. For the U.S., it is the opposite,” he said.


Robert S. Ford, a former American ambassador to Syria and a senior 
fellow at the Middle East Institute, said the administration’s twin 
policies of carrying out airstrikes to protect the Kurdish community in 
Syria while refraining from direct military support for Arab opponents 
of Mr. Assad might backfire.


“It will make recruiting harder for an American-trained force, and 
indeed, in the short term, might help ISIL gain recruits by helping it 
pose, however falsely, as defenders of Sunni Arabs,” Mr. Ford said.


The White House appears sensitive to the importance of Caesar’s role. 
Answering a letter Caesar sent in late July to the president, Mr. 
Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Benjamin J. Rhodes, wrote last 
week that the aim of the American program to train moderate opposition 
was to help it not only contend with the “barbaric threat of the Islamic 
State” but also to defend itself “from the brutality of the Assad regime.”


No one has done more to expose that brutality than Caesar. Described as 
mild-mannered and not particularly political, he has become a compelling 
element of the Syrian narrative because he emerged from the darkest side 
of the Assad government.


Caesar was photographing accident scenes for the military police when 
the Syrian conflict erupted. He and several fellow photographers soon 
found themselves photographing dozens of bodies a day, many of which 
displayed signs of torture.


Convinced that he was documenting war crimes, Caesar downloaded copies 
of the photos on thumb drives, sneaked them out of his office and 
transferred them to a hard drive, keeping a grisly record of the deaths 
for more than two years. But when asked to train a successor, he became 
alarmed that the government might be on to him, and he defected, taking 
a hard drive that he says documents more than 10,000 deaths.


Senior American officials say his account and the photographic record he 
has provided are credible.


“You see the evidence of broken 

[Marxism] The Omidyar-Taibbi split

2014-11-01 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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NY Times, Nov. 1 2014
At First Look Media, Personalities Prove Tough to Manage
By RAVI SOMAIYA and NOAM COHEN

When First Look Media, the journalism enterprise backed by the 
billionaire founder of eBay, Pierre M. Omidyar, started about a year 
ago, its mission was clear.


Mr. Omidyar would personally invest $250 million to build a company that 
would hold the powerful accountable. He paid lavishly to recruit 
adversarial reporters like Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, who had 
received classified documents from the former National Security Agency 
contractor Edward J. Snowden, and Matt Taibbi, who used a piercing wit 
and deep reporting to skewer most of Wall Street during his time at 
Rolling Stone magazine.


And then Mr. Omidyar tried to manage them.

Mr. Taibbi abruptly left First Look this week without ever writing a 
story. On Thursday, an unusual article appeared on The Intercept, a 
First Look-owned site started by Mr. Greenwald and others. It described 
a power struggle inside First Look between Silicon Valley executives 
“and the fiercely independent journalists who view corporate cultures 
and management-speak with disdain.”


Mr. Omidyar, according to people with knowledge of internal discussions 
at First Look who spoke on condition of anonymity, seemed not to realize 
what he had gotten into by hiring so many aggressive and competitive 
journalists and then trying to manage them largely from his home in 
Hawaii, with only sporadic visits to First Look’s offices.


The Racket, a so-far-unpublished digital magazine Mr. Taibbi was brought 
in to create, was envisioned as a modern version of Spy magazine, whose 
blend of satire and reporting skewered the establishment in the 1980s 
and 1990s. But it has so far been subject to the kind of muckraking it 
aspired to. As for its fate — and those of its dozen or so employees — 
it’s unlikely to continue as Mr. Taibbi envisioned it, people inside 
First Look say, though there is a desire to keep the publication in some 
form. Morale inside the company was damaged, these people said, and 
there is concern over retaining and hiring staff. Mr. Taibbi, meanwhile, 
has a feature article in the next issue of Rolling Stone, the magazine 
said on Friday. Representatives of First Look and Mr. Taibbi declined to 
comment.


The loss of Mr. Taibbi, a journalist with an avid following, is a blow 
to First Look as it tries to distinguish itself in a fiercely 
competitive and crowded start-up digital media market. Among others, 
Fusion, Vox and Quartz have been hiring reporters and editors with web 
experience. Medium, started by two of the founders of Twitter, is 
something between a publisher and a platform. And BuzzFeed and Vice have 
recently expanded their reporting ambitions and raised millions from 
eager investors. Even older companies like Bloomberg Media are seeking 
to revamp themselves with infusions of fresh talent.


First Look has been among the best funded and most promising of those 
sites. Mr. Omidyar’s $250 million investment matched the amount that 
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, paid for The Washington Post in 
August, and First Look’s first prominent hire, Mr. Greenwald, went on to 
win the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Mr. Snowden. It made 
significant noneditorial hires, including bringing in as its top lawyer 
the former general counsel of The New Yorker magazine.


The nearly 2,000-word article described Mr. Omidyar as a micromanager 
who personally approved reporters’ expenses and imposed a three-month 
hiring freeze just as they were building their staffs. The article also 
reported that a female employee had accused Mr. Taibbi of being 
“verbally abusive and unprofessionally hostile,” behavior that it said 
was perhaps motivated in part by her gender.


In a statement attached to the article, Alex Pareene, The Racket’s 
executive editor, disputed that account and said he had never witnessed 
such hostility by Mr. Taibbi. First Look Media, he said, “repeatedly 
took incidents that should’ve been minor hiccups of the sort experienced 
at any media company or start-up and, through incompetence, escalated 
them into full-blown crises.” His account was supported by others at the 
company.


For industry observers, a clash between a low-profile billionaire and an 
iconoclastic reporter was hard to resist. Paul Carr, the editorial 
director of PandoDaily, a Silicon Valley news site, published part of an 
off-the-record conversation in which Mr. Carr accused Mr. Omidyar of 
editorial interference. First Look’s journalists deny that charge.


Others noted the inherent challenges in journalism start-ups that seek 
to 

Re: [Marxism] Defending white supremacy

2014-11-01 Thread Clay Claiborne via Marxism
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There are no white supremacists on the civil war either, and no defenders
of slavery. They all argue that it was about states rights, freedom and
being invaded. Generally speaking they argue along the lines that Mark
defended the defenders of the Alamo. But don't you dare call them white
supremacists. There are no white supremacists any more, maybe a few
self-declared racists, but no one else - these are all legitimate debates
about something else.

Been there, heard that a thousand times.

Clay Claiborne, Director
Vietnam: American Holocaust http://VietnamAmericanHolocaust.com
Linux Beach Productions
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 581-1536

Read my blogs at the Linux Beach http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/
http://wlcentral.org/user/2965/track

On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Jeff via Marxism 
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:

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 I found the posts on this history topic, which I had no previous exposure
 to, rather interesting. But I wish it could be discussed without raising
 the tone of the debate in terms such as:

 On Fri, October 31, 2014 17:38, Clay Claiborne via Marxism wrote:
 
  To make it even more clear. I said that those fighting at the Alamo were
  fighting for white supremacy. You said they weren't. If I am right, you
  are defending white supremacy.

 Well of course the latter conclusion doesn't follow, as I'm sure Clay
 would agree after thinking about it. While differing analyses of history
 certainly can reflect the ideologies of the respective analysts, one can
 never just assert such a relationship. And even if Clay could prove that
 Mark's views are exactly those of white sepremacists, that doesn't even
 prove those historical assessments wrong (very often those further on the
 right have a clearer view than liberals). Even if Mark is wrong and has
 the exact views of white supremacists (or whatever) I am quite sure that
 he does NOT defend white supremacy as attested to by all of his other
 views on various historical and political issues.

 We could have a more productive discussion if people don't make such
 charges, and especially if differing takes on historical questions are not
 automatically taken to reflect different world views or political
 positions on current issues. I know we all are tempted to do that during a
 heated argument. But to make such a valid charge, you would need to show
 how that person's conclusion flowed from the evil ideology or from flawed
 historical records, for instance. Let's try to keep the discussion more
 civil.

 - Jeff








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[Marxism] Fwd: Defending white supremacy

2014-11-01 Thread mtomas3 via Marxism
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 Original message 
From: mtomas3 mtom...@hotmail.com
Date: 11/01/2014  11:45 AM  (GMT-06:00)
To: Clay Claiborne clayc...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Defending white supremacy

Clay:Been there, heard that a thousand times.



I think this is the main problem, here, Clay; you're reading but you're not 
seeing. None so blind as he who will not see.

Here it is real short: You didn't understand what Mark wrote. You think that 
because you visited the Alamo, you somehow got englightened about the real 
intent of Texas war for independence and now if someone wants to elucidate 
further (that means to  provide more information), you think he is defending 
White supremacy? That's not even good movement politics never mind Marxist, 
never mind revolutionary politics.

This issue may seem arcane to you, but whether someone is expressing White 
supremacy in interpreting the Texas/U.S. war with Mexico is of Particular 
Importance to me. It is an issue NOT for tourists.

Now, I am often the first to call White marxist/revolutionaries on their 
embedded racist education when they opine on many things, especially related to 
the struggles of people of color, which, of course, is most things. And Mark is 
among many with whom I have begged to differ on a range of questions. So, 
when I say that it is ridiculous to call him, or anyone, as defending slavery 
or White supremacy on this war because of what he expressed regarding the 
motives of Tejanos/Mexicanos or the Mexicans in relation to the White 
Texians, you should recognize that I would be among to look for it, catch it, 
and denounce it.


What Mark expressed about this war expresses exactly what is now playing out in 
real life in the Oasis of White Supremacy that is currently serving the racist, 
semi-apartheid rulers of the State of Texas; thinking that if they nod to 
Chicanos/Mexicanos on issues of commonality (you know, we are white when it 
serves them), we will come behind the most backward anti-working class of 
sentiments.


Understanding what is at stake in understanding the backdrop to this current 
problem is of paramount importance. You clearly have demonstrated you know 
Nothing of it.


Pay attention




Sent from Samsung tablet
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Re: [Marxism] Defending white supremacy

2014-11-01 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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On 11/1/14 1:01 PM, John Obrien via Marxism wrote:

While I certainly disagree with much of the recent views and
politics projected by Clay Claiborne, in his efforts to support
USA government policies in Libya, Syria and Iraq, etc. -


I see that O'Brien can't resist sliming Clay. Leaving aside Libya and 
Iraq, US policy in Syria has been non-interventionist--at least when it 
comes to the Baathist dictatorship. It is really difficult for me to 
understand at this stage of the game why people like O'Brien haven't 
been able to figure this out. Are they afraid to admit that everything 
they have written for the past three years is garbage? Maybe in the 
future they shouldn't allow their bias to get in the way of their 
understanding.

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[Marxism] Fwd: Piketty and the Crisis of Neoclassical Economics | John Bellamy Foster | Monthly Review

2014-11-01 Thread michael yates via Marxism
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Louis was kind enough to post a link to the article by John Foster and me in 
the November Monthly Review. We are proud of this piece. We think it avoids the 
dismissal of Piketty by some on the left because he is not a Marxist. And it 
also avoids the adulation others gave Piketty, as if he invented the study of 
inequality. We would love to get comments on the article. Here is an excerpt:
The second main justification of the system provided by neoclassical 
economics—the notion that capitalism promotes a kind of equality, at least in 
terms of the determination of earnings by the marginal productivity of factors 
(and individuals)—has shown itself to be just as false. As this has become more 
apparent neoclassical economists have sought to declare the whole issue out of 
bounds. Martin Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under 
President Reagan, replied to critics of the Robin Hood-in-reverse policies of 
Reaganomics by stating, “Why there has been increasing inequality in this 
country is one of the big puzzles in our field and has absorbed a lot of 
intellectual effort. But if you ask me whether we should worry about the fact 
that some people on Wall Street and basketball players are making a lot of 
money, I say no.”15 Likewise Robert Lucas, Jr. of the University of Chicago, 
the most influential macroeconomist of his day, was merely stating the dominant 
view of the profession and of the establishment as a whole when he opined in 
2004, “Of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the most 
seductive, and in my opinion the most poisonous, is to focus on questions of 
[income] distribution.”16
Feldstein’s and Lucas’s sharp dismissals of any concern over income and wealth 
distribution reflected the mainstream economic view that inequality is benign 
precisely because it can be attributed to different levels of marginal 
productivity and the corresponding different education and skill sets. In this 
accounting, a person’s income is simply a function of his or her productivity 
and willingness to work. People are poor because they are not very productive 
or because they have a weak attachment to the labor force as a result of their 
own choices. Productivity is driven in the main by the willingness of 
individuals to invest in their “human capital,” and the most important type of 
such investment is education. Attachment to the labor force depends on “leisure 
preferences” of individuals. This refers to the relative weight potential 
workers place upon the utility they will gain by buying the goods and services 
that an increase in income makes possible—while factoring in, through a benefit 
and cost calculus, the happiness they could have by not working, by choosing 
more free time. Thus those with high incomes are presumed to have invested in 
their human capital and have low leisure preferences, while for the poor the 
opposite is true.
Modern technology, in this view, has only made human capital more important. 
Many people have been left behind in the race to the top of the income 
distribution because they do not possess the knowledge that modern technology 
requires. Most mainstream economists do say that appropriate public policies 
could help reduce inequality, by, for example, making it easier for those 
without means to attend college. However, it would be dangerous, we are told, 
to reduce inequality too much—for example, through free higher education for 
all—because then individuals would not have an incentive to work hard and be 
productive. This would be to the detriment of the capacity of the economy to 
grow and thus to provide the extra income needed to distribute to those at the 
bottom. Equality is therefore self-defeating.
The Mad Hatter logic of neoclassical economics can actually be used to 
demonstrate that in perfectly competitive markets there can be no wage and 
salary inequality at all!17 Consider a woman making a career decision. Assume, 
as does the neoclassical economist, that she has complete knowledge of the 
wages and benefits associated with every occupation she is considering 
entering. She also knows the costs of the education and training necessary for 
employment in each occupation, as well as the income she will lose by not 
working while she is getting this schooling and training. Any particular 
negative aspects of an occupation, such as physical danger, are also known, as 
are their costs. What should she do? She will weigh the benefits against the 
costs of each occupation and pick the one for which the net benefits are 
highest.
Implicit in this scenario is a wage for each occupation that at least covers 
the 

[Marxism] Fwd: Defending white supremacy

2014-11-01 Thread mtomas3 via Marxism
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Sent from Samsung tablet

 Original message 
From: mtomas3 mtom...@hotmail.com
Date: 11/01/2014  12:21 PM  (GMT-06:00)
To: Clay Claiborne clayc...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Defending white supremacy

Mark chimed in to say I was wrong, it was about fighting slavery in Texas 
because they raised the 1824 flag or some such. 


Like I said, you didn't really read what he said or his further explanation. 
You really want to speak of disgusting distortions? It? They raised the 
1824 flag? What and who are these pronouns?


Here are some nouns: Texians and Tejanos are not th same people: Texians were 
(and their spawn today are) the oppressors, Tejanos--in the main, but not all 
to be historically accurate--are the oppressed. They had different motives 
and they remain being played out today.


O'Brien: wow. Now here's an example of liberal guilt playing out as historical 
accuracy.  Clay demonstrates he didn't even GET Marks's point and all of a 
sudden some guy jumps to his defense providing accurate statements about 
succession, or, as Clay expresses, or some such.


Y'all want to play race cards or do you actually want to end racism?




 Original message 
From: Clay Claiborne clayc...@gmail.com
Date: 11/01/2014  12:04 PM  (GMT-06:00)
To: mtomas3 mtom...@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Defending white supremacy

. You think that because you visited the Alamo, you somehow got englightened 
about the real intent of Texas war for independence and now if someone wants 
to elucidate
That is quite the disgusting distortion that has now been repeated twice on 
this list.

I commented after visiting the Alamo that they made know mention of WHAT I KNEW 
ALREADY  - That the fight at the Alamo was about bring slavery to Texas

Mark chimed in to say I was wrong, it was about fighting slavery in Texas 
because they raised the 1824 flag or some such.

Clay Claiborne, Director
Vietnam: American Holocaust
Linux Beach Productions
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 581-1536

Read my blogs at the Linux Beach

On Sat, Nov 1, 2014 at 11:43 AM, mtomas3 mtom...@hotmail.com wrote:
Clay:Been there, heard that a thousand times.



I think this is the main problem, here, Clay; you're reading but you're not 
seeing. None so blind as he who will not see.

Here it is real short: You didn't understand what Mark wrote. You think that 
because you visited the Alamo, you somehow got englightened about the real 
intent of Texas war for independence and now if someone wants to elucidate 
further (that means to  provide more information), you think he is defending 
White supremacy? That's not even good movement politics never mind Marxist, 
never mind revolutionary politics.

This issue may seem arcane to you, but whether someone is expressing White 
supremacy in interpreting the Texas/U.S. war with Mexico is of Particular 
Importance to me. It is an issue NOT for tourists.

Now, I am often the first to call White marxist/revolutionaries on their 
embedded racist education when they opine on many things, especially related to 
the struggles of people of color, which, of course, is most things. And Mark is 
among many with whom I have begged to differ on a range of questions. So, 
when I say that it is ridiculous to call him, or anyone, as defending slavery 
or White supremacy on this war because of what he expressed regarding the 
motives of Tejanos/Mexicanos or the Mexicans in relation to the White 
Texians, you should recognize that I would be among to look for it, catch it, 
and denounce it.


What Mark expressed about this war expresses exactly what is now playing out in 
real life in the Oasis of White Supremacy that is currently serving the racist, 
semi-apartheid rulers of the State of Texas; thinking that if they nod to 
Chicanos/Mexicanos on issues of commonality (you know, we are white when it 
serves them), we will come behind the most backward anti-working class of 
sentiments.


Understanding what is at stake in understanding the backdrop to this current 
problem is of paramount importance. You clearly have demonstrated you know 
Nothing of it.


Pay attention




Sent from Samsung tablet

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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Defending white supremacy

2014-11-01 Thread Mark Lause via Marxism
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Some of these commends are definitively idiotic in their way.

If people can freely make up whatever position they want to ascribe to
somebody, there's no need for that person to even bother writing a fucking
word on the subject, is there?  :-)

If someone want to draft me into the army of the Texians or Confederates or
Nazis or whateverr, I don't see any reason I have to be there for it.

Ta-ta.

ML
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[Marxism] Fwd: M. Junaid Alam: presente! | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

2014-11-01 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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http://louisproyect.org/2014/11/01/m-junaid-alam-presente/
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[Marxism] Fwd: Alternative Futures for Syria: Regional Implications and Challenges for the United States | RAND

2014-11-01 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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I told you so.

Regime collapse, while not considered a likely outcome, was perceived 
to be the worst possible outcome for U.S. strategic interests.


http://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE129.html
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[Marxism] Rojava’s autonomous cantons: What a revolution looks like | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

2014-11-01 Thread glparramatta via Marxism

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/A YPJ fighter (right) next to a very similar picture of a female 
fighter in the Spanish revolution in the 1930s. The comparison is apt. 
The presence of such a high proportion of female front line fighters is 
evidence of a profound social transformation that has been happening in 
liberated Rojava and  within the Kurdish revolutionary movement./


By *Tony Iltis*

November 1, 2014 -- /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ 
-- On November 1, protests were held worldwide in solidarity with 
Kobanê. Protests took place in most countries on every continent. Even 
in Afghanistan, protests were organised in six cities by left-wing 
anti-occupation groups.


After withstanding more than six weeks of intense siege by the terrorist 
group that calls itself “Islamic State” (IS), Kobanê (also called 
Kobani), a small majority-Kurdish town on the Syrian side of the border 
with Turkey, has become one of the most well-known places on the planet.


The defenders of Kobanê mostly belong to the Syrian-Kurdish militias, 
the Peoples Defence Units (YPG) and Womens Defence Units (YPJ). The YPG 
has both male and female fighters. The YPJ is, as its name suggests, all 
female. Despite having held three cantons in Rojava as liberated zones 
since July 2012, until recently these militias were as obscure as Kobanê 
itself.


However, the besieged town’s resistance, and its increasing significance 
in the new, vaguely defined and open-ended Western air war against IS, 
has brought these fighters to the world’s attention.


Full article http://links.org.au/node/4129
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