Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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Mark Lause, who has supported the Green Party earlier and longer than
anyone I know, admits that his local operation is a piece of shit and hopes
it's different somewhere else. John Reimann points out that the Green Party
2016 ticket was a nest of Assadists and that he should have paid more
attention. Someone pointed out that the Occupy forces are occupying Bernie
for Prez, not Howie. Michael M points to the already catastrophic Trump
impact on climate and the wholesale unleashing of the extractive sector.
Louis offers 150-year-old tactical advice from guys who went on to destroy
the International they said everyone should support, and they destroyed it
for tactical reasons. At least Mark finishes with "Get the Democratic
nomination for a socialist and then we'll talk." But he leaves himself the
out that Sanders may not be a socialist in his definition, otherwise why
not say "get the democratic nomination for Sanders" and then we'll talk.

So far none of this makes any difference. The people currently committed to
voting independent in 2020 are betting that Sanders can't win the
nomination, or they think it wouldn't matter if he did. I think he can and
I think it does. I like Louis' straightforward trashing of calling for a
labor party (the one political constant of every Trotskyist organization)
but the Green Party is just a slightly less stinking corpse in the middle
of the road. To think otherwise is nostalgia.
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Re: [Marxism] Furr

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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Furr contacted me privately to assure me that Timothy Snyder's book is
utterly fictional and that NONE of his charges against Stalin are true. I
wrote him back and asked about the underlying documents containing hundreds
of admissions by various Soviet officials, that the Katyn massacres were
organized by them and the whole thing approved by Stalin. These documents,
first translated in English in this book are not some sort of mea culpas
imagined after the fact but the actual paperwork that accompanied the
massacres as they were decided upon and unfolded. Michael Meerpol's hazy
recollection is accurate afaik.

I recognize that Louis considers Snyder suspect and perhaps he is but that
doesn't mean his book is bullshit through and through. I am not going to
buy and read either Furr or Cienciala because that's what review literature
is FOR. If Snyder, a bigshot professor at Yale, just idiotically quoted a
fabricated book of hundreds of documents released by the Russian
government, do you not think that someone in the academy would have noted
and commented, if only to make some waves?

The documentary book is Katyn, A Crime Without Punishment, Anna M.
Cienciala, Natalia S. Lebedeva, and Wojciech Materski, eds., New Haven,
Yale University Press, 2007.
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Re: [Marxism] Katyn

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Timothy Snyder cites the book below in his recounting of the Katyn (and
associated) massacres.

Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment (Annals of Communism Series)

https://www.amazon.com/Katyn-Without-Punishment-Annals-Communism/dp/0300195478/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=katyn%3A+a+crime+without+punishment=1566587658=gateway=8-1

It is a documentary history drawn from Soviet sources made public in the
wake of the demise of the USSR.

I would like to know if anyone has read it or if Grover Furr has attempted
to refute it. There were no negative reviews on Amazon.
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Re: [Marxism] A matter of prestige – John McInally’s Blog

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Louis, don't bother. It's just another Trotskyist pretend thing. Their big
jump was the Kshama Sawant election which propelled them to be an org of
1000+ with a sitting activist Councilmember.

Kshama is a serious force, a person of character with a great deal of
charisma, and I can only say she deserves much better than SAlt. They have
frittered away most of what they once had. We will know tonight after the
first ballots are counted how she will come out of the primary, but I would
be astonished if she didn't get 1st or 2nd and advance to the general in
Nov. Some people are starting to come around her campaign and remember this
is a city council primary so the electorate is not necessarily riveted.
She's running a pretty excellent campaign.

You can, IMO, judge how well SAlt was able to integrate this new thousand
people by assessing their leadership: in the wake of this ten-fold growth,
their national leadership expanded by exactly one person, Kshama. It is a
case of having a tiger by the tail. I hope she can survive them but we all
know how sects inoculate their members, although as an office holder K is
almost uniquely among Trotskyists subject to the reality of the world. It
keeps you sharp.
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Re: [Marxism] Socialist Alternative just sent me this

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Sorry, I forgot to put this subject on my last post.
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Re: [Marxism] (no subject)

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Mark wrote: "It looks pretty self-explanatory. The folks who scorned the
idea of
supporting the Greens because they weren't "socialists" now seem to be
sharing their contributors list with the Democrats."

I don't get this at all. It seems that you missed the main message of the
article, which is that the writer is endorsing Kshama Sawant. The context
mentioned is an all-out assault on Sawant by the billionaires of Seattle,
but not just her. Also, notably, Lisa Herbold (my councilmember) is under
the gun. This is notable because Herbold, a first term councilmember, has
spent time and political energy trying to distance herself from the
socialist Sawant even though they mostly agree on policy. This article is
saying that this has done Herbold no good, that the rich are gunning for
her, too, and urges Seattleites to respond by supporting both of them.

Now, while Herbold is a Democrat, Sawant is not. The author's statement of
the Democrat's position on endorsing other parties is accurate, and she
supports ending that. Since it is not, within the 37th District Democrats,
lawful to endorse Sawant, Hagopian does not propose it, but you have to be
blind to not get that she would if she could.

The other thing that matters, that any Democrat and many many others in
Seattle would know, is that Amy Hagopian is a long-time leader of the DP in
Seattle, has held party positions, so the writer has potentially more
weight and influence than the average writer for the South Seattle Emerald.

There is no need to share a list of contributors since all campaign
contributions in the State of Washington must be disclosed very quickly and
Sawant has famously refused any corporate or PAC money. In her first
election she refused a check from David McDonald Photography, a local
powerhouse.

I have been spewing anti-Leninist-party invective for some time now so I
hope I don't have to explain my disdain for Socialist Alternative, but I
will say that Sawant has made a gigantic difference in Seattle, from the
fight for $15 Now, cop accountability, the millionaire's tax and much
beside. I attribute this mostly to her outstanding personal leadership
qualities, which are manifest. I support her re-election.
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Re: [Marxism] The Insect Apocalypse Is Coming: Here Are Five Lessons We Must Learn

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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The most important thing I've learned so far from "The Uninhabitable Earth"
by David Wallace-Wells (a book I unreservedly urge everyone to read) is
that there are many, many apocalypses approaching by a huge number of
vectors at very different speeds. They seem to have in common an
accelerating pace, which of course is terrible news.

I used to imagine that there would be a "thing" that would scourge humanity
so deeply that current civilization falls; it's now clear that it's a bunch
of things of course including bugs.

Nothing short of the wholesale mobilization of all people stands a chance
of ameliorating the coming apocalypses sufficiently and quickly enough that
the surviving mangled rump of humanity may not descend into utter
barbarism. The fundamental reasons for this are two. First, the objective
tasks demand almost unbelievably speedy changes in how everyone does
everything, changes that have not in the main been figured out yet AFAIK.
Second, such mobilization will never happen unless it is self-mobilization
because no one will put up with the shit to come if they haven't had a fair
say in how it ought to go.

It is ridiculous to demand that this group, that segment, some class, or
our nation (whatever any of those things might mean ffs) take the lead; we
have to unite with whoever gets right now the scale of effort required
right now.

Since there has never been a situation even remotely like this anyone who
thinks they have it figured out is IMO an ideologue.

Doesn't leave me with much, eh? Just my instinct for a righteous struggle,
which is happily tickled these days by people all over the globe finding
the will and the way to fight and win, like the US' teachers. Who knew,
huh? My sense is that the largest appearance of this generalized desire to
fight, which we have all commented on and maybe been a part of since
Occupy, is currently in the Bernie campaign. I hope it's clear that this
isn't the vehicle I would have chosen but very smart people have noted you
don't get to choose that. The kids in the streets worldwide last month on
climate change was an equally notable pole, we don't have to pick and
choose among our obvious allies.
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Re: [Marxism] Grand alliance

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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I believe John Reimann way overstates it here:

I'm not sure if it is all that different in the two countries.

Syria is in the grip of a totalitarian monster whose only program,
literally, is "Assad or we burn the country." Within *days* of the first
peaceful demonstrations, that politely asked Assad to fix things, the
security forces were shooting scores and hundreds of protestors at peaceful
demonstrations. There is nothing like this in Venezuela. The country, at
least the part that Assad controls, is ruled by the secret police, of which
there are more than a dozen agencies. Rule by the secret police is the sine
qua non of a totalitarian regime. Plus Assad has overseen the deaths of
over 500,000 Syrians.

Venezuela's was, IMO, a genuine popular revolution. It advanced for a time
with the overwhelming support of the poor, whom it attempted to serve.
Popular mobilization and nothing else saved the Venezuelan Revolution when
Chavez was jailed. John, in the past, has denied this, but as we know John
is very picky about his revolutions. In any case, Venezuela's revolution
reached further into the masses than Syria's ever did. For instance, there
never were, AFAIK, any popular institutions in Syria that organized people
to take charge of their own lives, even in the early Hafez Assad years.

Syria belongs with Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, and Cambodia under the
Kymer Rouge, not Venezuela.
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Re: [Marxism] The AnftiFa Antimonies, Part 1 | Washington Babylon

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OK, I'll be that guy that says it. You can't expect to learn much from
someone who mistakes the metal antimony for the concept antinomy in a
published article. And indeed after a good start characterizing antifa he
dribbles off into incoherence.
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Re: [Marxism] Syrian Kurds tell Washington they may join forces with Assad if US pulls out of Syria

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Patrick Cockburn on Counterpunch today said this "is to be hoped for."
Really he did.
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Re: [Marxism] American women of the far right

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In this article it's stated that 50% of white families in Mississippi owned
slaves around the time of the civil war. I find that hard to believe but
I'm sure there are people on this list who actually know, and I hope
they'll inform me. I did an internet query and quickly found that same
statistic repeated, but also challenged.

My recollection is that every person I've read who has written about
slavery in America has said that slaves were extremely expensive, on the
order of $800+ in 1860 dollars. So if 50% of Mississippi families owned
slaves, Mississippi must have been very rich, which I doubt.
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Re: [Marxism] Feminist site established to challenge gender self-ID legislation in New Zealand

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The nybooks article is behind a paywall.
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Re: [Marxism] A New Chapter in the Police Department’s Crackdown on the Left

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This is new only to people so demented they have forgotten yesterday, the
day before that and the day before that.
What would be new would be the acknowledgment -- and subsequent *planning*
-- by somebody, anybody, that since it has been true *forever* that cops
take the side of the rich, are happy to beat down, gun down or arrest
anyone who smacks of leftness and dares to enter the streets in protest,
*different tactics* are required from showing up completely unprepared for
the one-sided response from the state and bleating about how unfair it all
is.
You would think antifa, of all people, would get this, but what did they do
at the Republican Club's little party? They sent, or allowed to be sent, or
allowed to go, or missed the fact that three people went and after the
event provoked a larger crowd of Proud Boys and got the shit beaten out of
themselves. You may wait around for the explanation that will never come
from whoever was responsible for this idiocy, if you wish. What must their
discussions be like?
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Re: [Marxism] China Is Detaining Muslims in Vast Numbers. The Goal: ‘Transformation.’

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These are Gulags. They are straight out of the totalitarian playbook of
destroying all foundations of life and social being by seeing any kind of
attachment as a threat to the Party. It's a society run by the secret
police. Such purges are always tried out first on troublesome "alien"
forces, even if they are the actual indigenes. Scary.
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[Marxism] Is Russia Really “Fascist”? A Comment on Timothy Snyder | PONARS Eurasia

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I think the author is trying to assert the general prerogatives of
academics to do the analyzing of fascism so there is an element of turf
battle, and not a small one, in Laruelle's critique.

It appears that she nails Snyder on the issue of over-promoting Ivan Ilyin
as the ideologue of Putin's fascism, as well as just plain catching him
lying on several occasions. But over-promoting one specific brand of
fascism does not in itself refute the general charge of fascism. I believe
the analysis put forward by whoever wrote Ravings of a Radical Vagabond
(not an academic platform, I can assure you) shows in great detail that
Putin is aligning with all manner of fascist-minded people, not excluding
people we used to regard as sort-of comrades. Of course this does not prima
facie make him a fascist.

There were innumerable different brands of fascism grouped together in the
Nazi party. Hitler famously refused to have any discussion of the NSDAP's
original 1923 program of 25 points, stating that a bad program was better
than a discussion of program. Behind that statement was the reality that
major currents in the NSDAP supported "left" elements of that program,
including the nationalization of industry, the suppression of interest on
loans, the absorption of the SA into the Reichswehr and other items about
which Hitler either did not give a shit or was totally opposed to. They
were allowed to co-exist because Hitler found them useful, as opposed to
politically correct. When no longer useful, such people and their
particular and peculiar takes on what fascism ought to look like were
simply exterminated, as happened in the Night of the Long Knives.

So, although she nails Snyder, I don't think she makes her case. I would
have to read a bunch of her stuff to figure out more about this. I may find
this site useful as I try to find critiques of Arendt. If anyone gets this
far in this piece and knows of such material, I would appreciate a citation.
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Re: [Marxism] Mike Davis on Trumps America

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Davis writes:

"Trumpism on the outside, nursing the belief that the nation has been
stolen, could become truly dangerous especially if the leader conveniently
died and left his legend to others to manipulate."

I don't think Trump has to die. He would be much more effective outside
power, at this point, than inside it, as the bearer of fascism. This,
because he would not have to govern but could concentrate solely on the
counterrevolution that drove him and his people from power.

He has already established the Leadership Principle regarding himself; what
he requires is total personal loyalty to him, Donald Trump, as the only one
who embodies their deepest dreams of a white America, and that is what a
segment of white America gives him. This is the secret -- well, hardly a
secret -- of the bed-rock 40% approval rating. What if it were to drop to
30% or even 20%? Sure, that would represent a trend against him and his
followers, but the absolute number 20% represents is daunting, because that
means he can do anything, literally anything, and the more hateful the
better, without losing their support.  The pussy-grabbing remark and its
nothing-burger consequence for Trump was enough to convince me that we're
dealing with an out-of-the-ordinary figure.

Trump has already achieved what no other president -- or any public
political figure anywhere, for that matter -- has accomplished in our
lifetimes: an independent mass communication network that connects him
personally, instantly, and authoritatively to millions of followers. I
speak of Twitter, but if not Twitter, then something else. That genie is
out of the bottle. This channel will not go away with impeachment. If I
were impeached and convicted Trump I would treat impeachment like Hitler
treated the Weimar Republic, as a counterrevolutionary betrayal of MAGA, a
conspiracy based on lies in service to the multi-colored menaces
threatening *our* shores and way of life. That's what Hitler did for years.
I guess it would be possible, in the manner of Woody Allen's Sleeper, to
keep the Orange Hair as a sort of muppet thing or maybe relic and just take
over the Twitter feed. Who would know.
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Re: [Marxism] Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, superstar -- and what Engels would have said about her

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Most millemials go to college. Most everybody goes to college. There are
about 30,000,000 people between 18 & 24 and around 20,000,000 will go to
college at any one time. Most people who want a profession are forced to
have at least a master's degree through competition if not outright
requirements. Education has been supersized while simultaneously cheapened
intellectually, in a gigantic new tithe. God help the kid who gets to 18
without a sure sense of what she wants to do and what education she needs
to buy to do it with. And who the fuck has that? Nobody tells kids the
truth.
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[Marxism] Budour Hassan: "On The Allies We’re Not Proud Of: A Palestinian Response to Troubling Discourse on Syria

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https://wewritewhatwelike.com/2016/10/12/on-the-allies-were-not-proud-of-a-palestinian-response-to-troubling-discourse-on-syria/

This is one Palestinian writer's thoughts on what it means that
pro-Palestinian people and groups support Assad.
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Re: [Marxism] Labour can be Jo Cox?s party or Chris Williamson?s ? it cannot be both

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I agree fully with Tim Nelson's comments on John Reimann's contribution to
this thread.

Let's forget about the jejune discussion of whether Corbyn has slipped from
Anti-Zionism to antisemitism. This has been posed as the real issue because
it's something that Stalinists, and apparently John Reimann, are
comfortable arguing about. The real discussion should be Corbyn's, the
Labor Party's, and the Stop the War Coalition's views AND actions on Syria.
(Corbyn was Chairman of the Stop the War Coalition until elected as Labour
leader.)

Why? Because the Syrian Revolution, as an extension of the Arab Spring, is
the signal event of the 21st Century. It has ripped through what we used to
call the left, made certain Stalinists ally with certain Trotskyists, made
that claque ally with straightforward rightists, and generally upended the
comfort zone of a lot of people.

The Revolution's enemies have caused the greatest human migration since
World War II, and this in turn has helped to fuel the nationalist plague
sweeping right-wing parties into or close to power throughout Europe.

I am close to concluding that Syria has become a totalitarian state in the
sense that Arendt uses that term: a state based on absolute subjugation of
the population through terror of the secret police with the goal, not of
world conquest (as with Hitler and Stalin) but of conquest of his own
country even at the cost of the total destruction of that same country. As
the secret police themselves say it in their graffiti, "Assad or we burn
the country."

This horror has been ignored by most of the world for 7 years. That's way
longer than the entire arc of Hitler's Final Solution. Not just
governments, but many so-called leftists have refused to aid or even
verbally defend the Syrian Revolution. Yassin al-Haj Saleh, as close to
being the spiritual father of the Syrian Revolution as anyone living, drips
with contempt when he discusses Western leftists' sellout of Syria's
revolution.

Foremost among the UK's apologists for Assad and his genocidal regime has
been the Stop the War Coalition, of which Corbyn, as noted, was Chairman.
This piece of shit former antiwar organization once refused to allow a
pro-revolution Syrian speaker AT A DEMONSTRATION ABOUT SYRIA. It has been
utterly silent about the crimes of the Assadists as their civilian victims
number half a million dead, 6 million displaced within Syria, and 5 million
who have fled Syria.

Arendt pointed out that the full flower of totalitarian violence against
the people is reserved for the time when all opposition has been
vanquished, all other potential leaderships exterminated, all popular
institutions no matter how benign smashed. Has this not been announced in
advance by Assad with his admission that ten of thousands of political
prisoners are dead, listed by name? With the announcement that there is a
list of two million more to be dealt with still in the files of the secret
police? With the announcement that over 100,000 supposedly loyal-to-Assad
families are suspect?

How has this escaped the attention of the leader of the Labour Party? The
man  John Reimann thinks should be the next Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom? Is it because Corbyn is, as Reimann avers, "confused" about Syria?
This is not even vaguely possible, unless by "confused" you mean prepared
to sell out an actual, real, ongoing revolution because you are a Stalinist
hack who assumes any evil committed by your leaders is 1) OK, or 2)
regrettable but just the price of doing the people's business.

It appears to me that John Reimann has stumbled here bcause he thinks class
trumps everything and has therefore decided that Corbyn's victory is so
vital that what anyone can see is a historical betrayal, even himself in
better days,  becomes mere "confusion" when it appears in someone Reimann
thinks bears the mantle of labour.

As a seasoned revolutionary, Reimann ought to be familiar with the idea of
critical support. I know I am, and I think it ought to be applied to Corbyn
by explaining up and down the length of the Labour Party that he is not
confused, but consciously selling out the Syrian revolution because he is
enslaved to Stalinist ideology, and that the consequences of that are and
will be deadly to the Labour Party. I say this provisionally because I am
sick and tired of reading ignorant rants from Brits about American
politics, especially and because I agree the newly won ranks of the Labour
party deserve the same level of attention that DSAers in the US require,
which is to find a way to go through the experience with them so they will
listen to you. I admit to having no idea of how to do that 

Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] The Ritchie Boys | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

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bad link
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Re: [Marxism] The Coming Worm Apocalypse Should Terrify You

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Ken Hiebert, unfortunately, you are hopelessly out of date despite being
correct historically and etomologically. The most recent actual decimation
I'm aware of followed the unsuccessful May Uprising of 1919 in which a
barracks of Red solders was decimated by Freikorp goons. Nowadays it is
synonymous with massacre.

I also lament the loss of the real meaning of unique in the morass of
impossible qualifiers: really unique, highly unique, most unique, more
unique. But then we have all kinds of words for things that cannot be, for
instance the sentence "It is inconceivable that...", a sentence that
contradicts itself when uttered.

I am not happy with "I will try and explain this to you" as a meaningless
substitute for "I will try TO explain this to you."

You got me started!
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Re: [Marxism] SyrianObserver.com: Jamil al-Hassan: Any and All Opposition Will Be Eliminated

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I don't recognize the name of the writer, and I'd appreciate any
information anyone on the list has about him. I say this because there are
a number of direct quotes in the article, which is about a speech given to
very high-ranking military and intelligence officials of the Syrian regime,
so I cannot but wonder how accurate the quotes are.

This is a very scary article on its own terms. I'm pretty sure one of the
reasons someone might want it to get out, from a regime-friendly point of
view, would be to discourage refugees from returning to Syria. I believe it
would be a mistake to think this is just bullying and posturing, although
it is those things.

Arendt makes the point that it is characteristic of totalitarian regimes
that the full implementation of mass terror does not begin until all real
enemies have been eliminated. It has previously occurred to me that Assad's
meets the primary requirement Arendt ascribes to totalitarian regimes, that
they have no permanent goal beyond world conquest, if you allow that
Assad's total conquest is of his own country.

In the Syria Observer article the Chief of Air Force Intelligence notes not
only the 3 million already prepared cases against Syrians considered
opponents of the regime, but says right out that a Syria of 10,000,000
tractable people is preferable to 30,000,000 rabble & terrorists, the
latter of which he defines as anyone they regime dislikes. Then he mentions
the 150,000 rich families that have also made their way onto the list.

Since "the list" can include people who have never spoken against the
regime, it is clear that absolutely random killings will follow; this is
another key element of totalitarianism, that everyone must fear for their
life AT ALL TIMES, regardless of their actions and even unvoiced thoughts,
in order for utter subjugation to be the normal state of being.

We are watching a state where the only effective ruling entities are the
secret police announce there will be no end to the war against the people
of Syria.
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Re: [Marxism] Soviet studies

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I'm not a scholar but a long-ago former member of the SWP-RMC-RSL-IS
currently studying the fuck out of fascism because you know why.

This book is of interest because, among other aspects of this giant topic,
I am pursuing Hannah Arendt's thesis that Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia
under Stalin were both totalitarian states. I haven't gotten there yet but
clearly the Eastern Europe countries' post-WWII fate, under Stalin at
pretty much the height of his powers, is worthy of study in this regard. So
therefore, will be the propaganda in this book.

It is also of theoretical interest in my other current interest, which is
the death-agony of the existing left and the rise of the red-brown current.

The Kirkus Review of 1945 is among the most nauseating things I've ever
read so the book should be great.

I will be happy to return it to you or send it along to the next person.
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[Marxism] Sorry! Bad Title. Should have been: Re: Antifa Activists Are Freaking Out About a Proposed 'Unmasking' Law

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[Marxism] http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/acknowledging-the-contradictions-of-socialism-in-the-other-germany/

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Louis' full-throated attack on antifa is based entirely on tactical
considerations, principally because antifa break up events they have
nothing to do with creating and in so doing expose many to police fighting
they had no intention of engaging in.

J20 is a perfect example. Some 4-5 people pled long ago and the hundreds
who made up everybody else -- the trials were dropped this week -- was
obviously a bystander.

I think there is a larger problem: in adopting political violence as a
tactic, even a countertactic, antifa do in fact, really, mirror the
fascists or protofascists or wannabe fascists.

They mirror them as follows: 1) willingness to engage in violence against
the other on sight; 2) costumery. You could call it uniforms. 3) Like the
fascists, antifa consider political violence to be their actual program.
They don't explain themselves to the wider public, they don't have a
newspaper, they don't have conferences open to the interested public. 4)
They are indifferent to civilian casualties caused by their fights because
casualties are a part of war. 5) They never apologize for their violence.

It worth thinking about public, unapologetic political violence was from
the very beginning a central tactic of the Nazis and they considered it
vital to their recruitment. Their propaganda was always accompanied by
violence, leading to their term "power propaganda". They were always always
willing to be more violent than their opponents, principally the Communists
and Social Democrats.

This is not a road to go down.
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Re: [Marxism] Acknowledging the contradictions of socialism in ‘the other Germany’

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And people wonder about how the red/brown convergence got its recent
resurgence going recently. I have never read anything so otherworldly about
the DDR.
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Re: [Marxism] How the Great Recession changed the job market forever for college grads

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Wow. English majors who code can get jobs. Sound advice!

I think what this means is more obvious: college education is vastly
oversold relative to the jobs market so 40% of graduates are slinging hash
AND making payments on huge student debt.

Now, true, no one makes them sign those loans. But it is unfair, IMO, to
make such vast sums (tens of thousands of dollars) available to consumers
who can't know what they are buying and are in few ways genuinely adult.

I would totally have succumbed to the temptation to take on such eternal
debt for a few years of freedom but everyone knows I hate to work and
always have.

I was super-lucky that my first working class encounter was with drivers of
Teamster Local #206 in LA, who seemed to have great lives and made $6.44/hr
in 1971. It gave me a taste for unions.
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Re: [Marxism] Use of chemical weapons by Syrian rebels

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I'm still on a quest for a definitive written statement from the OPCW that
the Syrian regime bombed Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017. Mohammad Idrees
Ahmad, in an article here
,
links to another Al Jazeera article here

from October 26, 2017 on the Commission of Inquiry on the Republic of
Syria's forthcoming report, which Al Jazeera headlines thus: "Syrian Forces
Behind Khan Shaikhoun Gas Attack: UN Probe". However, I cannot find the
referenced report anywhere. What I did find was this written statement by
Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who is the chairman of the COI on Syria:

[Begin quote]

We stress that the vast majority incidents in which civilians are killed
and maimed involve the unlawful use of conventional arms, in particular
through indiscriminate aerial bombardments using cluster munitions and
explosive weapons in civilian populated areas. We have a duty under our
mandate, however, to document the unambiguously illegal use of prohibited
chemical weapons, in blatant violation of international law and attribute
responsibility accordingly. Reporting on such heinous crimes and human
rights violations is at the very core of our work. Silence is also a
statement and we cannot remain silent in such matters.

In several instances, Government forces used chemical weapons against
civilians in opposition-held areas, including in Khan Shaykhun (Idlib) on 4
April. In accordance with our well-established methodology, we gathered
extensive evidence including dozens of interviews, photos of remnants and
satellite imagery and concluded that Syrian aircraft dropped a sarin bomb
in Khan Shaykhun killing over 80 individuals, mostly women and children,
and injuring hundreds more.

This attack took place during a Syrian and Russian aerial campaign in
northern Hama and southern Idlib, which targeted medical facilities. As a
result, these facilities could not provide adequate assistance to victims
of sarin on 4 April."

[End quote]
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Re: [Marxism] Use of chemical weapons by Syrian rebels

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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I really hate exposing my own ignorance. But I am still not clear on what
exactly the OPCW said about who bombed Khan Sheikhoun, even after reading
the official statements on the OPCW website.

Everyone, even the Syrian government, acknowledges that sarin was used in
the attack on Khan Sheikhoun. The OPCW mandate on Khan Sheikhoun, according
to OPCW itself, was not to determine who dropped the sarin bombs, but was
only to determine if a chemical attack occurred.

"The FFM’s mandate is to determine whether chemical weapons or toxic
chemicals as weapons have been used in Syria; it does not include
identifying who is responsible for alleged attacks." The FFM (Fact Finding
Mission) then passed along its finding to "the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative
Mechanism (JIM), an independent body established by the UN Security Council
(Resolution 2235, 7 August 2015). The JIM’s purpose was to identify the
perpetrators of the chemical weapon attacks confirmed by the Fact Finding
Mission. The JIM’s mandate expired in December 2017."

So, it appears that the Joint Investigative Mechanism is the body that will
look into who dropped the sarin. But I cannot find any information about
what the JIM said about Khan Sheikhoun.

Any help greatly appreciated.
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Re: [Marxism] Why Are Left Activists Falling For Fake News on Syria? on Vimeo

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Other than keeping up with Stephen Zunes, if that's your thing, I don't
think there's much of value in this interview. Among factual errors, Zunes
says that rebels used chemical weapons although of course not as often as
the regime. I put out a general question and Michael Karadjis answered in
detail, in the negative. This is all part of Zunes tiresome "there are no
good guys routine." He elides completely all the things the US could do to
help Syrians, starting with MANPADs.

If I have done this correctly, Karadjis' careful and documented comments
should be here:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1092802860884552=703538499810992_id=1092806357550869_id=1524154396852092_t=feed_comment=notif
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[Marxism] [UCE] Oppose US bombing of Syria; oppose ALL bombing of Syria

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Not me.
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Re: [Marxism] "Tolerating racism"

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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OK, Jeff, revolutionary re-groupment is certainly a worthwhile goal that we
share. But please imagine having this same conversation with a
revolutionary from Syria. While your call for reasoned discussion is nice
and all that, people who support the Arab Spring view the current state of
affairs not as an unfortunate disagreement that may have, somewhere, racist
overtones or undertones, but as an outright betrayal of everything
revolutionaries are supposed to stand for. From their point of view,
western Marxists who have caved to Islamophobia (Jeff Mackler is the Trot
poster boy for this) have betrayed an actual, ongoing revolutionary process
that's as plain as the nose on your face in favor of a leaden ideology that
blinds them to the death of half a million human beings and shows no signs
of abating. Maybe they're not blinded. Maybe they wring their hands. So
revolutionaries are not going to re-group on your terms, because your
ideology has poisoned the well. Then you explain that it's really not your
ideology, but deviations from your true ideology that have caused the
problem, deviations that may have some hidden, occult strain of racism that
is invisible to its perpetrators, deviations that move them to call for
bombing the White Helmets, for instance.

The vast majority of people of the traditional left prefer Assad to the
Syrian revolutionaries. Now you come along and tell those sad-assed
revolutionaries that it's all just a mistake and please don't think of
those people as racists. Let me know how that goes.

On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 1:38 PM, Jeff <meis...@xs4all.nl> wrote:

> On 2018-03-29 21:42, David McDonald via Marxism wrote:
>
>>
>> Hard to know what planet Jeff lives on. It certainly isn't the one where
>> 100% of all Stalinists, most Maoists and many Trotskyists -- especially
>> the
>> supposedly sane clone of the 1980's SWP, Socialist Action -- exhibit
>> Islamophobia openly.
>>
>
> I agree with that, up to the word "openly". The influence of Islamophobic
> ideas on leftists is a problem which leads to bad positions. That is
> totally different from consciously embracing Islamophobia, saying and
> THINKING TO YOURSELF that you don't like Muslims. If it were just that,
> then things would be simple, since Islamophobes would identify themselves
> and they would be shunned from the left.
>
> I'm interested in uniting the revolutionary left, which sometimes means
> convincing others why their positions are wrong, and in some cases could
> even be classified as Islamophobic for instance. I believe in people's good
> intentions (why else would anyone work for revolution?) and I know leftists
> have the same ideals as me which is always against all racism. Where people
> have blind spots, we should discuss it out, and sometimes even discover our
> own blind spots. I'm on this list to win people over, not to drive them
> away when we have a disagreement. And that's what I think we are all here
> for. When I tell someone that their positions have Islamophobic
> implications or were subconsciously motivated by such prejudices, it is in
> order to lead them to views MORE in conformity with their anti-racist
> values. These people WANT to be anti-racist, as we all do, and I cherish
> that intention.
>
> So when I say that I don't think the left ever "tolerates racism," I'm
> talking about people's good intentions, not the unintended consequences or
> subconscious sources of their mistaken positions. I do not think that
> anyone on this list is consciously racist or antisemitic. In fact I'm quite
> sure that if anyone did express conscious racist feelings, they'd be kicked
> off the list, because that is so clearly antithetical to everything that we
> are about.
>
> - Jeff
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] "Tolerating racism"

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Hard to know what planet Jeff lives on. It certainly isn't the one where
100% of all Stalinists, most Maoists and many Trotskyists -- especially the
supposedly sane clone of the 1980's SWP, Socialist Action -- exhibit
Islamophobia openly.
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Re: [Marxism] The Young Karl Marx

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Well, you're the archive guy, David. But my volume 2 of Capital, which I am
looking at right now, says nothing about Engels translating Vol 2 of
Capital. It says "Extensive use has been made of the English translation of
the second volume of Capital, published by Charles H. Kerr & Co., Chicago,
1909." Mine is the standard 3-volume paperback boxed set that many of us
got back in the 70's. It's a reproduction of the Progress Publishers
edition.

Next I am looking at the Charles H Kerr blurb for the above-referenced
complete three-volume first English edition of Capital, and it also says
nothing about volumes 2 & 3 being translated by Engels. It does NOT
indicate who translated from the German. My thinking is that translation by
Engels would be a serious selling point, so I wonder why it is not
mentioned either by Charles H Kerr or by International Publishers.

I'm pretty sure I remember the name Wilhelm Wolff being associated with the
translation of Capital but I lack the energy to track it down. Now I am
going to message Lucia Pradella to see what she knows, she's been heavy
into the newly opened up original Marx writings for volumes 2 & 3.
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Re: [Marxism] The Young Karl Marx

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Jon Flanders: I'm sure you meant to say Engels prepared a bunch of Marx's
work for publication, not that he translated them. Offhand, I don't ever
remember seeing "translated by Frederick Engels".
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Ravings Of A Radical Vagabond » Blog Archive » An Investigation into Red-Brown Alliances: Third Positionism, Russia, Ukraine, Syria, and the Western Left

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This is an excellent article. It is replete with links to almost everything
discussed.

As far as I am aware, the information is accurate. The only exception I
found is that the author says Abdul Aziz, the anarchist inspirer of much of
the early community organizing of the Syrian Revolution, was killed by the
regime. The information I have from several sources is that Aziz died in
custody. This is really minor.

What is missing is treatment of the Trotskyist organizations. In a sense,
it's no surprise that Stalinists, for instance, would become supporters and
defenders of Assad: it's in their DNA, so to speak, not to worry about
breaking eggs when making omelets. Less understood in general is the
collapse of some major Trotskyist organizations, like Socialist Action on
this issue. Additionally, there is no discussion of Veterans for Peace, the
Fellowship of Reconciliation or other non-party formerly peace
organizations that have become Assadist, even though they are important in
transmitting pro-Assad politics. To put the question another way: how is it
that WWP/PSL and Socialist Action have become hegemonic in the former peace
movement. I'm sure everyone here remembers the fierce battles in 2002-2003
over the politics of the peace movement that left us with two major
coalitions, ANSWER and UfPJ, that were able to unite only once, on February
15, 2003.

This is not just an American situation. The Stop the War Coalition in the
UK, led by the SWP and with heavy input from the Labour Party (having
formerly been chaired by Corbyn), is wholly Assadist.
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The rise and fall of the 1979 Iranian Revolution: Its lessons for today | Socialist Action

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This is an ancient article, updated only to 2011 or so and says absolutely
nothing about the uprising unfolding right now. It's a pretty standard Trot
analysis, the kind of thing that makes people think that SA is what the SWP
would be like minus Barnes and therefore very comforting.

My guess is that the article is republished as a place-holder, so SA can
have something to say. I infer that there must be some resistance somewhere
within SA to just rolling out a tankie analysis.
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Re: [Marxism] Amazon's robotics

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We buy eggs from a farm that has the following setup. A large chicken coop
with some kind of loose flooring is mounted on wheels. It is pulled through
a field by a very very slow solar-powered computer-operated tractor. The
chicken poop falls through the bottom of the coop and fertilizes the field.
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Debunking the 3 Biggest Myths About Antifa

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"it appears that these groups have almost completely avoided any form of
violence that is lethal;"

>From the description of the photographer who helped stop an antifa
stomping, it won't be too long before someone of the Nazis is killed and
that will change the game.

I have been reading Shon Meckfessel's dissertation, available on the
internet. Shon often posts or forwards pro-antifa stuff on Facebook. To
show you how things have changed, Shon spends CHAPTERS explaining how
violence against property, as distinct from violence against people,
challenges all our liberal assumptions that lump all forms of violence
together.
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[Marxism] Right Wing rallies cancelled in wake of Boston mass protest

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http://gizmodo.com/pro-trump-rallies-in-36-states-canceled-will-be-held-a-1798299229?utm_medium=sharefromsite_source=Gizmodo_facebook
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Re: [Marxism] As Trump shores up Assad's genocidal regime, America's hard left is cheering him on

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John Reimann --

I have no idea who Michael is. I'm the guy who wrote what you quoted.

I apologize for mis-characterizing your political background. Won't do it
again.

I know a couple of guys up here in Seattle from Syria solidarity work who
seem to be close co-thinkers of yours, just guessing from cross-posts and
such, and they are from that background, although many many years ago. I
extrapolated from what I know of them to you.

Interestingly, I came to many of my conclusions about sect life after I
became really good friends, personally and politically, with a guy who was
with one of the pro-Albanian groups. What I discovered was that apparently
totally opposite sorts of politics -- let's call them Hoxhaite and
Trotskyite -- existed in organizations that were FUNCTIONALLY exactly the
same, with the exact same problems of lack of internal democracy, a
leadership with a death grip on power, yada yada yada.
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: As Trump shores up Assad's genocidal regime, America's hard left is cheering him on - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.com

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Michael writes:


   There are good reasons why the big majority
   of leftists from Trotskyist, semi-Trot (eg state-caps) and anarchist
   backgrounds have been fairly good on Syria.

I'm not so sure, and I would like to hear what you think those reasons are.

My research on Trotskyist groups on this question, which I admit is not
exhaustive even in the English-writing world, leads me to believe that this
poisonous trend crosses all sect boundaries.

Among the US Trot & semi-Trot groups only the ISO is actually good and
covers Syria consistently. Socialist Alternative, the sister group of the
Socialist Party (UK) has a crappy position and does not cover the issue.
Socialist Action is by far the worst I have come across, and it is the
sentimental favorite of numerous former SWP-US members because it seems to
resemble the pre-Barnes-cult SWP. SA's position is based on an extremely
narrow reading of Permanent Revolution that goes more or less along the
lines of "get a real working class and we'll talk."

On the other hand, as Marxmail subscribers know, the Oakland Socialists
have an excellent take on Syria despite having come from a Hoxhaite
background. Hoxha, you may remember, attacked both China and Russia (then
the Soviet Union) for insufficient Stalinism.

On the third hand is the intermediate position of like Joanne Landy and Sam
Farber who are clear on the crimes of Assad but cannot find anyone to
support and would not send a pen knife to Syria.

It is possible that I have mis-characterized something here, and, if so, my
apologies. I'm not really up for this sort of excavation anymore unless it
yields some immediate results.

I would say "Go figure" except there is no one but us and a large bunch of
Arabs who get this. Of the Not-Trotskyist type formations, I think that a
history of looking for or at least accepting the idea of "Third Camp" makes
it easier to see through to the actual Syrian Revolution.

The Arab Spring has altered the world. It requires revolutionaries in the
West to do more than try to apply lessons from the past. I am re-reading
"Orientalism" to try to get a handle.

Reading Wendy Pearlman's "We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled -- Voices
from Syria" I was struck by the first-hand accounts from different cities,
towns, and villages in Syria of the moment when the dam broke. In numerous
cases people gathered tensely and silently until finally someone broke the
spell and unleashed the fervor brimming up in everyone's heart with a cry
of -- not "freedom", that was the second utterance -- but "Allahu Akbar."
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[Marxism] Fwd: The Architect vs. the FBI: Frank Lloyd Wright at 150

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One of the Bay Area's most significant 20th Century architects was Bernard
Maybeck. He had a hand in the planning of the Berkeley campus, the Golden
Gate Bridge and the Palace of Fine Arts.

In response to the Berkeley fire of 1926 (? -- or so), in which a huge
number of the houses he had designed in the Berkeley hills were consumed,
he designed what is known as the Sack House, whose grounds became the
world-renowned garden of Roger Raiche and his partner David (have forgotten
last name), which I photographed extensively.

It was called the Sack House because Maybeck built it by dipping gunny
sacks into gunite (the form of concrete that is blasted on the sides of
swimming pools) and using those for siding. There was a beautiful view of
the Golden Gate bridge from the rooftop.
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Re: [Marxism] Parade organizers: Veterans can't march with pro-peace signs

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This is not even vaguely new, as anyone knows who remembers when the VFW
was the only voice, then later the only official voice, of veterans. What
is new is that substantial portions of VfP may well be marching with pix of
Bashaar Al-Assad, one of their heroes for standing up to the evil US empire.
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Mogannam-Syrias anti imperialist mask unveiling contradictions of the left.pdf

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I get a blank page that says no preview available.
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Remeasuring Stephen Jay Gould

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A good survey of Gould's accomplishments. Avoids discussing Gould's
toughest contributions to the debate about atheism and his final book, The
Structure of Evolutionary Theory, in which he attempts to place himself
firmly in the lineage of Darwin while denying the absolute primacy of
evolution thru natural selection as a process affecting only individual
organisms. An exceptionally difficult book for me to read -- I am still
fitfully at it after years. Gould's biggest flaw was self-indulgence in his
writing. He denied himself no byway.
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Torch-Wielding White Supremacists Rallied Against A Confederate Statue's Removal

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Another stage in the red-brown convergence, this time apparently the
initiative comes from right wing. It's one thing for shitheads like WWP/PSL
to love Putin, since they have been doing similar stuff since I was about
10, but a completely different thing for genuine right-wingers to CHANT for
Putin and Russia.

This development is moving right along.
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: I Went Behind the Front Lines With the Far-Right Agitators Who Invaded Berkeley | Mother Jones

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My comment on this article, which I found posted on Facebook by Shon
Meckfessel, was "You lost the propaganda war and the war war."
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[Marxism] Shamus Cooke says stop whining about Assad on Counterpunch

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https://davidbyrnemcdonaldiii.com/?p=638
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Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action slides even further into tankiedom

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I agree that this sentence is the key:

"The defeat of imperialist intervention is the prerequisite for the Syrian
masses to organize their own independent class-struggle forces aimed at
fully meeting the needs and aspirations of Syria’s workers and farmers as
they strive in the future to build a socialist society."

And the key word is "prerequisite". BEFORE the Syrians bother to try to
meet their own needs as aspirations, they must rid their country of US
imperialism. Russian imperialism, now, that's OK. Russia and Iran, which
are vastly more responsible for the continued survival of the Assad regime
than the US, are not even mentioned in the statement.

This statement is exactly what the Syrians mean when they say that western
Marxists do not actually see them.

So clearly this red-brown convergence represents more than just Tankies.
Plus numerous former Hoxhaites have somehow come up with the correct
position on Syria and they wrote the book on tankiedom. Actually, I may
have to revise that opinion in the wake of something someone quoted from
Hoxha the other day in relation to the oppression little teeny workers
states faced from the USSR & Maoist China that sounded pretty good. But,
full disclosure, I don't think I'm gonna go down that rabbit hole.
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Re: [Marxism] wd: LIES of the Russian-Syrian regime story on Sarin gas debunked | We Write What We Like

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Ron Jacobs: science I don't like = propaganda. I would think you have been
channeling Jerry Condon but you did not use the word "diabolical."

While we're at it, Ron, is the epithet "right-wing jihadi" just overplus,
or is there in your cosmogony room for left-wing jihadis? Examples of the
latter would be helpful since I'm trying to grow my own army and need some
real badasses for the shit I have in mind. But then if you back off from
that and just called them plain old vanilla jihadis that would make your
discourse identical with that of Patrick Cockburn, Seymour Hersh and other
white men of your age and political sophistication.
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: "The Assad Regime is a Moral Disgrace": Noam Chomsky on Ongoing Syrian War | Democracy Now!

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Louis says Chomsky must have awakened. Nick Fredman says Chomsky is saying
more or less what he's said before.

I don't think Chomsky has awakened; I think he had to pee in the middle of
the night and stumbled to the bathroom and while there had a little twingy
thought about being on the wrong side and then went back to his coma.

You will note that Chomsky still gives the Syrian people no agency. He's
sorry they're dying so horribly but has no thought about what they might do
about that.

He casts a glance back restlessly to 2012, when, he says, there was a
chance to negotiate an end to the regime based on a Russian proposal but it
fell apart because no one in the West would go along with it, not the US,
not the Brits, not the French. But he doesn't say why.

Why is because the entire West fears the revolution more than it fears
Assad; because there is no, and has been no, straightforward way to rid
Syria of Assad without unleashing the forces of the revolution.

Now a lot of people think this is bullshit, that if there ever was a
revolution it has long since disappeared. But look at what happens when the
regime allows a cease-fire: people take to the streets in numbers and
demand the end of the regime.

This is a book closed with seven seals to Chomsky. Everybody's a jihadi to
him. Are we to be thankful that Chomsky, like Trump, thinks that Assad is
terrible? Frankly this is exactly the same sort of moralism devoid of any
politics that Chomsky has been serving up for 50 years.
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Re: [Marxism] reformists back Assadist forum

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Glad to hear that Tristan. There is an interesting meeting called Seattle
Socialism or some such happening next week (April 2) that combines the
efforts of DSA, SAlt, ISO and the new independent mayoral campaign of
Nikkita Oliver and the also new Peoples Party to hold a conference on,
well, Seattle Socialism.

I don't know! I'll let you know what happens. But it turns out that up at
UW, spontaneously, tabling to build the event *also* became joint tabling
and building between various socialist groups. Originally a big Oliver for
Mayor meeting conflicted with the conference but that was worked out by
having Oliver speak at the conference and Kshama Sawant speak at Oliver's
campaign event later that same day.
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Materialism alone cannot explain the riddle of conciousness | Aeon Essays

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Jim F: link to your work is broken.
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[Marxism] What Happened in Aleppo: Jacobin article by Joseph Daher

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Apparently the excellent interview with Yasser Munif posted yesterday by
Louis is not a one-off. This is an excellent article by Joseph Daher,
founder of the blog Syria Freedom Forever. Daher will be on tour in Feb in
some Canadian & US cities. Consult  the FB page Syria Solidarity
International Community News for info about the tour as it becomes
available.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/eastern-aleppo-syria-assad-war-russia-us-ypg-fsa/
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[Marxism] "Re: Fwd: If Assad Takes Eastern Aleppo He Will Think He’s Won the War"

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Also note the weird appearance of the Syrian revolution in a paragraph that
begins with the assertion that this "was always a civil war."
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Trump the Great — Paul Craig Roberts | Veterans News Now

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This strikes me as the real thing, fascism-wise, a full-throated attack on
the "oligarchs" connected with an appeal to support the "strong man" so he
can make it better "from above."

Roberts I don't care about so much, but the vets group is troubling. I know
that Vets for Peace in places has been overrun by the same Stalinoids who
are hating on Syria everywhere. They appeared in full ancientness at a
showing of The White Helmets in Olympia. I hope thy are not the same Vets
heading for Standing Rock.

There is clearly some money being put into this newspaper/website/zine,
Veterans News Now. Most vets groups I know of don't have a pot to pee in so
I am curious how such a website is organized.
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[Marxism] No Bomb Zone proposal from Syria Solidarity UK

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I agree with this proposal.

https://www.facebook.com/David-McDonalds-Syrian-Revolution-Page-703538499810992/
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Will the left hear the cries from Aleppo?

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Thanks for the quick response, Andy.

As to your points:

1. 90% of your critique is on NFZs, about which the only way to handle it
is as Ashley did, by detailing the positions and reasons of all sides.

I don't mind his detailing positions. That and numerous things in the
article are very good. I don't like the SW/ISO position that an NFZ is an
error, not just for Americans/western leftists, but for Syrians. I think it
is at the heart of an important political concession that reeks.
a. Did I get ISO's position wrong?
b. Is the ISO position on NFZ now identical to the Baathist Amen Corner
position or not?

You seem to think this a small thing, but consider what happens in the
event of an event. What will be the points of unity? Do you believe a
Syrian who calls for bombing the regime's airstrips to crater them (for
example) could get on the platform? Is this not going to reproduce the
situation in London where Syrians were prevented from speaking at a Stop
the War Coalition rally?

2. The 7th Camp. OK, you're right, only gettable by ancients like me. I
don't think I am seeing Schachtmanites in my soup but later for that (not
too much later IMO).

Thanks again for your helpful remarks.
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Will the left hear the cries from Aleppo?

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Dear Marxmailers: below is the text of an article I intend to publish
criticizing Ashley Smith's piece today in SW. Please respond quickly if you
think I am full of shit with your reasons, and thanks! Article begins:

This article represents a retreat from the Ashley Smith SW article
reprinted in Counterpunch on August 31.

In the first article Smith equates the imperialisms of the US and Russia in
Syria, saying neither is interested in helping the Syrian people. He
correctly, IMO, points out the essential quandry for the US, which is that
there is no way to preserve the Baathist regime without Assad. Russia, he
says, faces no such quandry since Syria is a long-standing client regime
going way back and stinging the US in Syria seems like a great idea to them.

OK. So far so good, kind of. I have reservations about certain
formulations, but those reservations make more sense as we watch Smith's
stance change so I will hold off for now.

In today's Socialist Worker article Smith goes a bridge farther: he opposes
the call for a no-fly-zone (NFZ):

"IT IS also true that calls for a "no-fly zone" have come from The Syria
Campaign and other voices organizing solidarity. *Socialist Worker* believes
such a call is mistaken--the U.S. empire would not enforce a "no-fly zone"
to stop the carnage in Syria, but to advance its imperial interests, and
would lead to greater violence.

But the calls for a "no-fly zone" have to be understood in the context of
the desperate circumstances that exist in Syria today. The primary motive
of Syrians who want the U.S. to patrol the skies is for *someone* to put a
stop to the slaughter of people in Aleppo and other besieged cities and
areas of the country. It is completely understandable that such a demand
would gain ground as the Assad regime and Russia are blowing up hospitals,
schools and even humanitarian relief convoys

.

And even so, other Syrian revolutionaries and solidarity activists
*don't* support
a "no-fly zone." They see the U.S. for what it is: a counterrevolutionary
force that wants to preserve the status quo, with Assad or without. And
they recognize that a "no-fly zone" would escalate the war, lead to more
bombing, kill more innocent civilians and create an even worse situation
for the popular movement.

Moreover, truth be told, the U.S. is not about to impose a "no-fly zone" in
Syria anyway. Blumenthal and others are making the mistake of believing
Hillary Clinton's rhetoric during an election campaign--something that
Wikileaks
and her own track record of saying one thing and doing another

has
taught us is profoundly mistaken.

The Obama administration and allies such as British Foreign Secretary Boris
Johnson are using the threat of a "no-fly zone" as a bargaining ploy to
push for more talks. Thus, after all the rhetoric and posturing about
Russia's escalating air war, Obama sent Kerry on yetanother meaningless
mission to Switzerland to negotiate a cease-fire

with
Vladimir Putin and various regional powers. Of course, this failed.

Actually implementing a "no-fly zone" would risk full-scale war in Syria.

Several years ago, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Martin E. Dempsey gave
a presentation to Obama that estimated as many as 70,000 U.S. military
personnel would be needed

to
take out Syria's anti-aircraft system and then carry out a 24-hour no-fly
operation."

Suddenly everybody's a military tactician. Now there are Syrian
revolutionaries who call for a no fly zone and Syrian revolutionaries who
don't. I guess it's dealer's choice for the ISO & Socialist Worker. This
circumstance allows them to ratify the position of the rest of the left,
that it is impermissible to call for military action by the US imperialism
because it is imperialist. Of course they disagree about the *reason* for
not calling for a NFZ, and I hope that makes them feel better.

Please note that this is beyond leftish squeamishness. It's not just the
left that ought not call for a NFZ, but the Syrians in Syria getting
bombed, too. Why?

"IT IS also true that calls for a "no-fly zone" have come from The Syria
Campaign and other voices organizing solidarity. *Socialist Worker* believes
such a call is mistaken--the U.S. empire would not enforce a "no-fly zone"
to stop the carnage in Syria, but to 

Re: [Marxism] Mike Whitney article

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Ken, you're punching well below your weight here. Whitney is a notorious
windbag who shrieks depending on which rag he read last.
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Political Defamation Campaign Targets Rescue Workers in Syria

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Amith asks what accounts for the change in tone in Franklin Lamb’s piece
today

(10-15-16) and I would add his earlier piece

of 10-7-16, also on Counterpunch.



That earlier piece was actually a rather strange endeavor that makes sense
to me now that today’s piece informs it.



What was noticeable in Lamb’s 10/7 piece is the lack of Baathist Amen
Corner politics, rather than anything specific politically. The piece is an
extended argument for the existence of enormous war crimes in Syria, and
Lamb bothers to build his case with a painstaking account of how such law
came to exist, came to be applied to civilians, how it is examined and
under whose authority. Lamb explains the definition of such war crimes and
argues for the existence of thousands upon thousands in Syria. He says he
was brought to this by personal observations in Aleppo.



Lamb names no names, chooses no sides in this article, says that
accountability will be the job of the investigators. Nevertheless, the mere
enumeration of the kinds of war crimes Lamb calls to be investigated
includes many things only the regime could do.



Today’s piece goes well beyond that. It is an extended and passionate
defense of the White Helmets clearly written by one who has been there,
watched them work, knows their moral character and cannot abide the lies.
The grotesque, unbelievable --  yet believed by millions – lies, for
instance, that the White Helmets carry the bodies in, bury them, then dig
them up for the cameras.



Well, as said before, respect to the guy. This is a very important change
of view because Lamb is a long-time on-the-ground observer and reporter and
has weight. That’s what made his stuff before so depressing. Moreover, he
has picked, in my opinion, the absolute best issue around which to explain
the complexity of Syria: The White Helmets.



It is the best issue for the following reasons:



1. It is current and its currency will not go away. It may change, but
it won’ t go away.

2. It is important because the story is simple. The White Helmets are
honorable people doing, as they say, an unbelievably depressing job in a
horrible situation with the constant threat of their own death. Or, they
are murderous propaganda operatives and wannabe video stars cynically
manipulating a gullible crybaby western audience. What’s nice about this
Manichean choice is that there are *facts*. Lots of them. And that people
*care*. And that the Baathist Amen Corner is *deeply, deeply* committed to
an otherworldly view that is obviously bullshit, has no possible credence
and was never intended to convince anyone of anything, but just to be one
of those litany of lies piled on top of another pile of lies in the normal
Stalinist manner of piling it on until the pile of poop is so mountainous
that even its erosion washes away the truth. Just wave a little Patrick
Cockburn or Seymour Hersh perfume and it will smell good even to Noam
Chomsky. Btu this time they have picked a very bad issue.

3. It is therefore possible to build big, broad (all within reason,
local limitations, etc) events *materially* supporting Aleppo that also
*educate* about Syria and bring it home to the Amen Corner.

4. Once the Baathist Amen Corner is publicly nailed on *this* issue we
will create a better hearing for the case that the global left needs to be
re-forged from scratch.



Comment appreciated.
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Re: [Marxism] Assadists strike back with statement

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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Note: This post answers a private question from a list member about
signatories to the evil Syrian Solidarity Movement statement but the 3rd
paragraph is of general interest.

If you scroll down on the Syrian Solidarity Movement website you will find
it. I made a error earlier and thought this was current, but it's actually
a year old. Mega more bad on Counterpunch for that!

Anyway, you have to go through a few screen to get to this piece of shit
because it is in fact so old, but there are signatories there. But again it
is old news and probably not worth digging into. I would wait for a more
current response.

More I think about it, the less I like Counterpunch's role in this. They
have effectively, if underhandedly, provided an immediate (glossy!
counterrevolutionary!) response to the wonderful statement On The Allies
We're Not Proud Of: A Palestinian Response to Troubling Discourse on Syria,
thus attempting to deny the Palestinians' statement the news cycle it
deserves. This POS Counterpunch re-post comes up BEFORE the Palestinians'
statement on Google. Look and learn, comrades, this is war.

On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 10:16 AM, Ken Hiebert  wrote:

> I did not see a list of those who signed.
> ken h
>
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Re: [Marxism] People's Forum on BRICS

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The Syrian Question defines politics in the 21st Century.

It re-raises the question of Stalinism, which for a long time was so
apparently irrelevant that Louis embargoed the discussion of Trotsky/Stalin
off the front page here.

Old alignments are falling apart. The most sensitive to the fatal embrace
of Stalinism on this question -- besides the Syrian revolutionaries
themselves -- are the best of the Palestinians, who say: please include us
out:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdFSTpAOCdPRU5e1iP11GDrWPu5pXrdVMzGumApRGd8lil2jQ/closedform

It is all on the table and a new breed of revolutionaries may rise.
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[Marxism] Assadists strike back with statement

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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The Assadists have published their own statement with list of signers on
Counterpunch (at least):

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/22/the-global-war-on-syria-statement-of-palestinian-groups-and-individuals-in-the-occupied-homeland-refugee-camps-and-the-diaspora/

This is possibly the worst thing Jeffrey St Clair has ever done. Someone
who is a signatory to the *real *global solidarity movement with Syria
statement ought to submit it to Counterpunch so they can't say they didn't
have a chance.

The real thing:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdFSTpAOCdPRU5e1iP11GDrWPu5pXrdVMzGumApRGd8lil2jQ/viewform?c=0=1

The real thing minus signatories but with explanatory updates from Muftah,
a highly recommended Syrian source, commentary by Sarah Moawad:

http://muftah.org/statement-palestinian-activists-solidarity-syrian-revolution-sparks-backlash/#.WAD5mJMrKHo
.

My remarks:

This is another beginning of the battle of Syria. The Assadist statement is
put out by the Syria Solidarity Campaign. One big weakness is that the home
page for the statement, so to speak, is also home base for all the other
crap the Assadists propagandize, including their call to NOT give the White
Helmets the Nobel Peace Prize. If properly highlighted, that ought to help
ordinary Americans and other westerners figure out who stands where.
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[Marxism] White Helmets fundraising

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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Here's a chance to give our own Nobel Prize to the White Helmets. Goal is
$1,000,000, same as the Nobel except it won't be blood money.

https://peoplesmillion.whitehelmets.org/act/peoples-million/?error_paypal=Sorry%2C+your+donation+couldn%27t+be+processed.=wbtw
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: When Aleppo Falls, Will International Humanitarian Law Still Be Relevant?

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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I think I remember seeing a move in this direction in something he wrote no
long ago. I had pretty much given up on him.

The insistence on pursuing international law does seem to point at Assad.
Who needs an international tribune to condemn ISIS.

So now that's two decent articles, including the one by Ashley Smith.

BTW, I hope everyone enjoyed Vanessa Beely's screeching at Blumenthal
yesterday. She isn't about to let him in the club based on such namby-pamby
writing. First she wants to know: why he did not attribute to her facts
that came from her? It may not have occurred to her that such an
acknowledgement might not help and that plagiarism is better than hitching
to her wagon.

Next, what about the righteous evidence of the hero Mother Agnes, who
exposed that the rebels had gone to the coast, kidnapped 1500 Alewites,
transported them back to Ghouta and slaughtered them in a feeble attempt to
blame the regime for their own mass murder? How could Blumenthal pass up
that gem? Obviously he is a softie, needs to toughen up.
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Re: [Marxism] Art of the Syrian Revolution

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Extremely powerful.

http://lithub.com/war-in-translation-giving-voice-to-the-women-of-syria/
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Re: [Marxism] Art of the Syrian Revolution

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https://www.facebook.com/SaraqebWalls/
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Re: [Marxism] Riad Alarian responds to Max Blumenthal on FB

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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Here is the text from my FB post. I took Michael Karadjis' advice from this
thread and posted the following:

Call for a discussion:

To All Supporters of the Syrian Revolution

We need to do something visible in the world that will help in the fight
against Assad's regime.

We need to identify ourselves to ourselves so we can gauge our strength and
plan quickly but carefully to add our weight, whatever that may be, to the
fight.

As a first step I suggest something on the order of a conference organized
around "Save Aleppo" or a similar idea that inserts us into the public
discussion, draws fire from the Amen Corner, and tries to shape the public
discussion. In a private email to me the following was suggested:

"I think that we should kick around the idea of a worldwide teach-in on
Syria that would be streamed on the net as a Skype-based (or some other
appropriate technology) event that could feature some of the leading voices
such as Gilbert Achcar, [...] Danny Postel, and most of all Syrians both in
country and abroad."

I think this is a great idea. Especially "most of all Syrians both in
country and abroad." Depending on what number and sort of allies we find,
it is easy to extend this idea to even more popular methods of reaching
people, such as benefit concerts.
First things first. Let's find ourselves. If you are sympathetic please
like this post and share it. Tag the people you especially want to reach.
Then let's talk about specifics.

That's the post. If you're interested let me know in any fashion and when
this gets off the ground you will be invited to the discussion. I'm David
McDonald in Seattle, that will be enough to find me on Fb.

David
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[Marxism] Riad Alarian responds to Max Blumenthal on FB

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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Yes. I totally support that idea. I think a bunch of the radical Arabs we
see on FB would go for this. To give such people a voice is revolutionary
work.

If people are willing, we might consider framing this as a "Save Aleppo"
effort or some such and attempt to, in addition to the above, make a
fundraising effort for the White Helmets that would allow us to approach
various artists (Musicians) and immeasurably broaden the appeal of the
event. Think of al all-day political meeting as suggested above followed by
a more public, widely advertised effort for a cultural event. Maybe we
could get that fantastic Arab hip-hop group I saw on one of the videos
--Idrees Amaad (?).

Within reason, I am willing to work more or less full-time on this for a
while.

I would really like to hear one or more of the most ferocious Syrians who
responded to Max Blumenthal yesterday tell him from a broad podium that his
name will not be uttered nor remembered.

I think the ISO will help. Conferences are almost the only thing they are
good for, but their politics on this are correct. Weird to me that the
Schachtmanites and the Hoxhaites are the tendencies that get this. We have
wings of both in Seattle, but nevermind.

Of course there will be tension between efforts to broaden and the desire
of some broader forces for a less pointed approach than our dagger to the
throat, so serious political acumen will have to be brought to bear to help
us beat back the politics of but keep in those broader forces. In other
words, coalition work. Some compromise is inevitable unless we wish to talk
to ourselves but we are seasoned organizers.

We will need money. Go Fund Me leaps to the mind. Sometimes initial
fundraising helps you know where to go next so a Go Fund Me would in itself
be an organizing effort.

Time is of the essence.

David
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Re: [Marxism] Riad Alarian responds to Max Blumenthal on FB

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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Yes. I totally support that idea. I think a bunch of the radical Arabs we
see on FB would go for this. To give such people a voice is revolutionary
work.

If people are willing, we might consider framing this as a "Save Aleppo"
effort or some such and attempt to, in addition to the above, make a
fundraising effort for the White Helmets that would allow us to approach
various artists (Musicians) and immeasurably broaden the appeal of the
event. Think of al all-day political meeting as suggested above followed by
a more public, widely advertised effort for a cultural event. Maybe we
could get that fantastic Arab hip-hop group I saw on one of the videos
--Idrees Amaad (?).

Within reason, I am willing to work more or less full-time on this for a
while.

I would really like to hear one or more of the most ferocious Syrians who
responded to Max Blumenthal yesterday tell him from a broad podium that his
name will not be uttered nor remembered.

I think the ISO will help. Conferences are almost the only thing they are
good for, but their politics on this are correct. Weird to me that the
Schachtmanites and the Hoxhaites are the tendencies that get this. We have
wings of both in Seattle, but nevermind.

Of course there will be tension between efforts to broaden and the desire
of some broader forces for a less pointed approach than our dagger to the
throat, so serious political acumen will have to be brought to bear to help
us beat back the politics of but keep in those broader forces. In other
words, coalition work. Some compromise is inevitable unless we wish to talk
to ourselves but we are seasoned organizers.

We will need money. Go Fund Me leaps to the mind. Sometimes initial
fundraising helps you know where to go next so a Go Fund Me would in itself
be an organizing effort.

Time is of the essence.

David

On Tue, Oct 4, 2016 at 5:51 PM, Louis Proyect <l...@panix.com> wrote:

> On 10/4/16 8:43 PM, David McDonald via Marxism wrote:
>
>> We have some people with authority on our side. We could come up with a
>> mighty list of speakers, especially if we employed Skype or similar
>> technology to make it an international thing.  Or your idea. Or whatever.
>> But it's time. The Amen Corner would go apeshit.
>>
>> David McDonald
>>
>
> I think that we should kick around the idea of a worldwide teach-in on
> Syria that would be streamed on the net as a Skype-based (or some other
> appropriate technology) event that could feature some of the leading voices
> such as Gilbert Achcar, who I am quite close to, Danny Postel, and most of
> all Syrians both in country and abroad.
>
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: What Next in Syria?

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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Following leads from Louis and others, I have recently found very ample
evidence and explanation for why the Free Syrian Army and the country-wide
upsurge (rising to the level of insurrection in some places) the FSA came
out of essentially disappeared from the pages of almost every publication.
There is a materialist reason for all this that emerges from the
more-closely-observed accounts of people who were in Syria or in close
touch with people in Syria, and it is available to anyone who digs in a
little. www.qunfuz.com has excellent links.

It cannot be said too often: please take a look at "Burning Country" I wish
the book were available on Counterpunch. If subscribers would read it, it
might do a lot of good, but you can find it here:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_2_15?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks=burning+country=burning+country%2Caps%2C371
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Re: [Marxism] Smear campaign against Jill Stein by Democratic Party hack

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/its-time-for-black-people-to-break-the-two-party-system/
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[Marxism] reading list request

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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I'm working on a piece about rents skyrocketing in Seattle (and elsewhere,
of course) and I would appreciate some guidance about sources reflecting a
Marxist understanding of how rent works. Thanks!
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