Re: [Marxism] Leila Al Shami shouted down at Anarchist Bookfair by PKK supporters
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 self-appointed rep of the YPG/PKK is piggy-backing on statements by some spokespeople of those groups claiming that Syrian Arabs are all reactionary terrorists. The bourgeois leaders of both nationalities have been chauvinist toward each other, and this gets reflected in particularly nasty ways by the more stalinist members of the YPG/PKK. On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 10:23 PM, A.R. G 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. > * > > Can I ask, what's this argument about the Kurdish fighters? Are they saying > that anti-regime advocacy is somehow anti-Kurdish? What's the argument > there? > > - Amith > > On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 6:34 PM, Louis Proyect 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. > > * > > > > Today I was invited to speak at the London Anarchist Bookfair, an event I > > was excited to attend, to talk about the situation in Syria. > Unfortunately > > the event did not take place. We were shut down by a guy called Amir > Taaki > > (a British-Iranian who claims to be a developer of Bitcoin and someone > who > > apparently Forbes magazine considered ‘their top 30 under 30 list for > 2014’ > > as he had previously proudly told me by email) along with around seven of > > his friends (one dressed in full military garb, a real revolutionary > maybe?) > > > > Firstly, I would like to apologize to those who attended the event and > had > > wanted to learn about the situation in Syria, an issue of critical > > importance. Some had come from as far afield as Birmingham to hear myself > > and Robin Yassin Kassab speak. Unfortunately as we were about to begin, > > Amir and his friends stormed the event chanting “PKK”, “YPG” and accusing > > myself and Robin of being “fascists”, “Arab nationalists” and “supporters > > of jihadi groups such as Ahrar Al Sham which advocate stoning women to > > death”. I will not respond to the claims as anyone who is familiar with > > mine or Robin’s work will know they are absurd. And for those not > familiar, > > I refer you to our book ‘Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War’ > > (Pluto Press); make up your own minds. > > > > full: https://leilashami.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/london-anarchist > > -bookfair/ > > _ > > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > > Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt > > ions/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com > _ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/ > options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com > _ 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] Leila Al Shami shouted down at Anarchist Bookfair by PKK supporters
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. * Can I ask, what's this argument about the Kurdish fighters? Are they saying that anti-regime advocacy is somehow anti-Kurdish? What's the argument there? - Amith On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 6:34 PM, Louis Proyect 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. > * > > Today I was invited to speak at the London Anarchist Bookfair, an event I > was excited to attend, to talk about the situation in Syria. Unfortunately > the event did not take place. We were shut down by a guy called Amir Taaki > (a British-Iranian who claims to be a developer of Bitcoin and someone who > apparently Forbes magazine considered ‘their top 30 under 30 list for 2014’ > as he had previously proudly told me by email) along with around seven of > his friends (one dressed in full military garb, a real revolutionary maybe?) > > Firstly, I would like to apologize to those who attended the event and had > wanted to learn about the situation in Syria, an issue of critical > importance. Some had come from as far afield as Birmingham to hear myself > and Robin Yassin Kassab speak. Unfortunately as we were about to begin, > Amir and his friends stormed the event chanting “PKK”, “YPG” and accusing > myself and Robin of being “fascists”, “Arab nationalists” and “supporters > of jihadi groups such as Ahrar Al Sham which advocate stoning women to > death”. I will not respond to the claims as anyone who is familiar with > mine or Robin’s work will know they are absurd. And for those not familiar, > I refer you to our book ‘Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War’ > (Pluto Press); make up your own minds. > > full: https://leilashami.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/london-anarchist > -bookfair/ > _ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt > ions/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com _ 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] Fwd: If President Hillary Is Inevitable, Why Are Her Media Goons Still Attacking Jill Stein?
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. * Priceless, though a think a good bourbon or Irish or Scotch would be better than a cigarette Gary On Sun, Oct 30, 2016 at 12:48 AM, Louis Proyect 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. > * > > Attack editorials and smear pieces about Stein have been churned out by > Clinton-allied media like cheap t-shirts at a Bangladeshi sweat shop since > well before the Green Party convention, but lately, the frenzied attacks > are getting even louder and more desperate. Last week John Oliver, whose > employer HBO is owned by heavyweight Clinton contributor Time Warner, > dedicated an entire rant to punching down on third parties and their > supporters. Yesterday the Daily Beast, whose owner IAC is co-directed by > Chelsea Clinton herself, ran a hit piece on the good doctor hilariously > accusing her of having a “conflict of interest” because she has a standard > investment portfolio. > > I’m just going to type that out again because it makes my smug parts light > up with glee: a publication, controlled by Hillary Clinton’s daughter, ran > a hit piece on Jill Stein, for having a conflict of interest. > > My God that’s good. I need a cigarette. > > > full: http://www.inquisitr.com/3653684/if-president-hillary-is- > inevitable-why-are-her-media-goons-still-attacking-jill-stein/ > _ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt > ions/marxism/gary.maclennan1%40gmail.com _ 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] Fwd: Who are Syria's White Helmets, and why are they so controversial?
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 joint Russian-Assad regime campaign against the the White Helmets is not just fought with bombs and missiles. Russian and Syrian state outlets are circulating “information” meant to tarnish the volunteers as allies of terrorism, dedicated only to the assistance of jihadists. As President Assad told the Associated Press in September 2016: “They use different humanitarian masks and umbrellas just to implement certain agendas.” The theme has been eagerly taken up by those who view the Syrian conflict as a conspiracy of American “imperialism”. That the White Helmets receive assistance from the US government’s Agency for International Development – something they have not denied – apparently means they’re American puppets, even though they draw a range of support from around the world. The fundraising support they get from a PR firm somehow proof that they are the vanguard of a proxy war fought by a US military-industrial complex. Blogger Vanessa Beeley has switched her focus from Israel and Gaza to wage a vitriolic campaign against the White Helmets as “first responders for the US and NATO al-Nusra/al-Qaeda forces”. Never mind that the White Helmets explicitly stand against violence and extremism; ignore the absurdity of the idea that the US – which is bombing the jihadists of Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, and which has been in a misconceived “War on Terror” against al-Qaeda for a decade and a half – is suddenly allied with those groups. The sight of volunteers celebrating with rebels in the city of Idlib is apparently evidence that the White Helmets are “al-Qaeda”. Max Blumenthal, another writer who has challenged Israeli policies in Palestine, frames the White Helmets as “driven by a pro-interventionist agenda conceived by the Western governments and public relations groups that back them”. Never mind that the White Helmets’ “crime” is to call for zones protecting civilians; ignore their firm declaration that they don’t affiliate with any government or NGO. To Blumenthal, they are a Trojan horse for “70,000 American servicemen” to invade Syria. Having started the cycle of disinformation, Russian state outlets can complete it by citing “investigative journalists” such as Beeley and Blumenthal to deride the White Helmets as a “controversial quasi-humanitarian organisation” and – invoking the magnate George Soros as conspiracy master – a “Soros-sponsored” operation “cooking up lies”. full: https://theconversation.com/who-are-syrias-white-helmets-and-why-are-they-so-controversial-66580 _ 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] Leila Al Shami shouted down at Anarchist Bookfair by PKK supporters
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. * Today I was invited to speak at the London Anarchist Bookfair, an event I was excited to attend, to talk about the situation in Syria. Unfortunately the event did not take place. We were shut down by a guy called Amir Taaki (a British-Iranian who claims to be a developer of Bitcoin and someone who apparently Forbes magazine considered ‘their top 30 under 30 list for 2014’ as he had previously proudly told me by email) along with around seven of his friends (one dressed in full military garb, a real revolutionary maybe?) Firstly, I would like to apologize to those who attended the event and had wanted to learn about the situation in Syria, an issue of critical importance. Some had come from as far afield as Birmingham to hear myself and Robin Yassin Kassab speak. Unfortunately as we were about to begin, Amir and his friends stormed the event chanting “PKK”, “YPG” and accusing myself and Robin of being “fascists”, “Arab nationalists” and “supporters of jihadi groups such as Ahrar Al Sham which advocate stoning women to death”. I will not respond to the claims as anyone who is familiar with mine or Robin’s work will know they are absurd. And for those not familiar, I refer you to our book ‘Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War’ (Pluto Press); make up your own minds. full: https://leilashami.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/london-anarchist-bookfair/ _ 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] Fwd: If President Hillary Is Inevitable, Why Are Her Media Goons Still Attacking Jill Stein?
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. * Attack editorials and smear pieces about Stein have been churned out by Clinton-allied media like cheap t-shirts at a Bangladeshi sweat shop since well before the Green Party convention, but lately, the frenzied attacks are getting even louder and more desperate. Last week John Oliver, whose employer HBO is owned by heavyweight Clinton contributor Time Warner, dedicated an entire rant to punching down on third parties and their supporters. Yesterday the Daily Beast, whose owner IAC is co-directed by Chelsea Clinton herself, ran a hit piece on the good doctor hilariously accusing her of having a “conflict of interest” because she has a standard investment portfolio. I’m just going to type that out again because it makes my smug parts light up with glee: a publication, controlled by Hillary Clinton’s daughter, ran a hit piece on Jill Stein, for having a conflict of interest. My God that’s good. I need a cigarette. full: http://www.inquisitr.com/3653684/if-president-hillary-is-inevitable-why-are-her-media-goons-still-attacking-jill-stein/ _ 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] Brazil’s MST begins solidarity olive harvest
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 Landless Rural Workers Movement, or Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), sent its yearly delegation to Palestine for the olive harvest in solidarity with farmers in the West Bank. http://alternativenews.org/index.php/headlines/234-brazil-s-mst-begins-solidarity-olive-harvest _ 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] Author of “When Skateboards Will Be Free” continues to milk his parents' SWP membership
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 Op-Ed, Oct. 29 2016 The Ultimate Protest Vote By SAÏD SAYRAFIEZADEH On Nov. 8 I will be going to the polls and voting, without hesitation or disinclination, for Hillary Clinton. But what a treacherous and unforgivable act this will be for my father, who will no doubt be supporting the only presidential candidate he believes has any chance of saving the United States from almost certain ruin: Alyson Kennedy. You have probably never heard of Alyson Kennedy until now, and neither have you heard of her running mate, Osborne Hart, unless you happen to be a member of the Socialist Workers Party, as my father has been for the past 50 years, or you happen to have passed in recent months a folding table on a city street and been handed campaign literature explaining that “the only way forward is to organize independent working-class struggles that point toward overturning the dictatorship of capital.” This is the exact sentiment, word for word, that my family subscribed to when I was growing up, a sentiment that can be traced all the way back to Marx, and that held great power over me as a child, and that holds some power over me still, but that seems to hold no power over almost anyone else, including the working class. It’s worth noting that Ms. Kennedy is a white woman, and Mr. Hart is a black man. But lest you think the Socialist Workers Party is opportunistically mimicking the Democratic Party, you should know that it has a long record of nominating women and nonwhite men for national office. Forty-four years before Barack Obama, there was Clifton DeBerry, and before Mrs. Clinton, there was Linda Jenness in 1972. The party once even nominated a man born in a foreign country and a woman under the age of 35, running together on the same ticket, neither of whom, needless to say, would have been constitutionally eligible to assume office if they had somehow managed to get elected. How many votes has any Socialist Workers Party candidate received? Sometimes a few thousand, sometimes tens of thousands, once 90,000, but that was 1976. No matter. The objective is not to amass votes but to participate in politics using whatever means the capitalist system has allowed so as to eventually be able to overthrow the capitalist system. To vote for a Socialist Workers Party candidate is not necessarily a “protest vote,” or at least not the kind we have come to associate with third-party candidates like Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, but rather it is a protest vote insofar as one’s entire existence is a state of protest — which was certainly true for my family. What was also true for my family was that there was no delineation between our political outlook and our home life. We disapproved of America and thus took little interest in its popular culture, including television, music and fashion, leaving us with a severely limited understanding of the society we were hoping to change. We seldom celebrated holidays, we were impervious to advertising, and when the Pittsburgh Steelers, my hometown team, went to the Super Bowl, I was not permitted to watch. Yet for a family — and a political party — so hermetically sealed off from American culture, we were certain that we had our finger on the pulse of the country, offering as certain inspiration to the average American citizen the paradigms of the Russian and Cuban revolutions. And when we were rebuffed by the average American citizen, which was often if not always, we felt validated, as it confirmed the purity of our ideas. But it never made us wonder if our methods, be they the Marxist rhetoric we employed or the candidates we nominated, were really used in the spirit of engagement. A few weeks ago I was walking through Greenwich Village in Manhattan when I passed a folding table of a Communist organization, the name of which I did not catch, but which shared with the Socialist Workers Party the notion that the forthcoming election was a meaningless choice between “the twin parties of capitalism and imperialism.” Standing in front of the table was an elderly woman, about the same age as my parents, trying to appeal to the people on the street, none of whom seemed interested. I realized I had been operating under the naïve assumption that, given the stark contrast between Mrs. Clinton and Donald J. Trump, the broad Communist brush strokes would have been set aside, at least this time around. I also recalled a story from a friend who had grown up in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and who, years after he had left the group, had passed a woman selling its Watchtower magazine. Momentarily gripped
[Marxism] Fwd: A Starting Point for Politics | The Nation
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. * (From Bruce Robbins's review of a new bio of Stuart Hall. This business about the state being "a site on which ruling-class policies can be contested and crucial concessions won" obviously has a relationship to the Syriza fiasco. What does it mean to "contest"? Does it mean voting for Hillary Clinton or does it mean to organize a march on Washington to protest nativist immigration policies? I doubt that Gramsci would have ever written the kind of articles that Adolph Reed has written in the name of Marxism.) Although Gramsci appears only toward the end of these lectures, he is clearly the book’s hero. One suspects that Hall has delayed his appearance because, as an activist-theorist in the same vein as Hall, Gramsci believed that before outlining the tactics and theory of political action, one must first explain the conditions that determine whether these ideas will succeed. For Gramsci, the willingness to consider the possibility of the left eventually seizing power doesn’t come from an optimism of the will (which was not even Gramsci’s phrase); it comes from a “soft” but politically empowering position that the left takes toward the state. In Gramsci’s view, the state isn’t simply a coercive instrument of the ruling class, but also a site on which ruling-class policies can be contested and crucial concessions won. Hall agrees: It is bad politics to think of the welfare state as “really just a ruse of the capitalist class” when “millions of people struggled for it, struggled to win from the State what was owed them, and continue to engage in political struggles to enlarge that aspect of the State.” Cultural studies isn’t famous for its attention to the state, but that is where Hall finally points it: “What sense can be made of these struggles if we talk about welfare as if it were just a clever way in which the capitalist class continues to exploit workers?” https://www.thenation.com/article/the-radical-life-of-stuart-hall/ _ 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] Greenwald on Syria-- a Takedown
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 10/29/16 6:24 AM, Greg McDonald via Marxism wrote: https://pulsemedia.org/2016/10/28/sympathy-for-the-devil-exorcising-greenwald-and-assad/ Everything that Idrees Ahmad writes is true but it should not detract from the fact that as editor of the Intercept Greenwald has been responsible for the inclusion of Murtaza Hussain as contributor whose views are totally opposed to Greenwald's. If every other magazine was this inclusive, the case for the Syrian revolution would have been a lot easier to make. _ 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] Greenwald on Syria-- a Takedown
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://pulsemedia.org/2016/10/28/sympathy-for-the-devil-exorcising-greenwald-and-assad/ _ 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
