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On Friday, July 14th at the Solidarity Center in NYC, Stephen Gowans
will be speaking on "Washington's Long War in Syria", his new pro-Assad
book. Solidarity Center is the HQ of the International Action Center,
the antiwar front of the Workers World Party, a group that emerged out
of the Trotskyist movement in the fifties after the founder decided to
back the Soviet tanks rather than the Hungarian workers in 1956. They
are essentially Stalinists--much more so than the Communist Party.
Among the sponsors of the meeting is something called UNAC, the United
Antiwar Coalition, that has a steering committee that is a mixture of
WWP'er Sarah Flounders and independent Stalinists like Phil Wilayto.
But the largest party representation is from Socialist Action, a tiny
sect led by Jeff Mackler. After splitting from the SWP, Mackler and
other party veterans formed SA in the early 80s to rebuild a purified
Trotskyist group. It has failed abjectly but like the group it split
from, it soldiers on in the foolish notion that it is to the USA that
Lenin's party was to Russia. Mackler is on the steering committee as is
Marilyn Levin and Christine Gavreau, who like Mackler are in their
seventies. This is definitely not a formation that is going to compete
with the DSA for fresh blood.
Gowans is a piece of work. With a straight face, he writes things like this:
The US Library of Congress country study on Syria refers to “the
socialist structure of the government and economy,” points out that
“the government continues to control strategic industries,” mentions
that “many citizens have access to subsidized public housing and many
basic commodities are heavily subsidized,” and that “senior regime
members” have “hampered” the liberalization of the economy.
https://www.liberationnews.org/syrias-uprising-in-context-html/
Meanwhile, Bassam Haddad, no friend of the Syrian rebels, wrote this:
By the late 1990s, the business community that the Asads had created in
their own image had transformed Syria from a semi-socialist state into a
crony capitalist state par excellence. The economic liberalization that
started in 1991 had redounded heavily to the benefit of tycoons who had
ties to the state or those who partnered with state officials. The
private sector outgrew the public sector, but the most affluent members
of the private sector were state officials, politicians and their
relatives. The economic growth registered in the mid-1990s was mostly a
short-lived bump in consumption, as evidenced by the slump at the end of
the century. Growth rates that had been 5-7 percent fell to 1-2 percent
from 1997 to 2000 and beyond.
After Bashar al-Asad succeeded his father in 2000, the architects of
Syria’s economic policy sought to reverse the downturn by liberalizing
the economy further, for instance by reducing state subsidies. Private
banks were permitted for the first time in nearly 40 years and a stock
market was on the drawing board. After 2005, the state-business bonds
were strengthened by the announcement of the Social Market Economy, a
mixture of state and market approaches that ultimately privileged the
market, but a market without robust institutions or accountability.
Again, the regime had consolidated its alliance with big business at the
expense of smaller businesses as well as the Syrian majority who
depended on the state for services, subsidies and welfare. It had
perpetuated cronyism, but dressed it in new garb. Families associated
with the regime in one way or another came to dominate the private
sector, in addition to exercising considerable control over public
economic assets. These clans include the Asads and Makhloufs, but also
the Shalish, al-Hassan, Najib, Hamsho, Hambouba, Shawkat and al-As‘ad
families, to name a few. The reconstituted business community, which now
included regime officials, close supporters and a thick sliver of the
traditional bourgeoisie, effected a deeper (and, for the regime, more
dangerous) polarization of Syrian society along lines of income and region.
http://www.merip.org/mer/mer262/syrian-regimes-business-backbone
None of this ever entered the ideological cocoon of the Marcyite wing of
the American left that now includes Socialist Action. Indeed, nothing
that took place within Syria held even the slightest interest for them.
These are people who get their ideas from ZeroHedge, Moon of Alabama,
Global Research, Information Clearing House and other bottom-feeding
click-bait outlets of the lunatic left.
Sad, really.
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