Re: [Marxism] UN Syria Commission clears YPG/J and SDF of ethniccleansing charges

[Michael Karadjis via Marxism]

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Chris Slee, commenting on my claim that "Of course there was no use of 
"chlorine or cluster bombs" by any rebels in this report (and the 
entirely false accusation in a previous Amnesty
report that chlorine was sued against Sheikh Maqsud was based on one 
photo with some yellow dye smudged on it)", quotes the Amnesty report:
"There are also **allegations** that members of armed groups attacking 
Sheikh Maqsoud **may have** used chemical weapons. A local doctor told 
Amnesty International that on 7 and 8 April he treated six civilians and 
two YPG fighters for symptoms including shortness of breath, numbness, 
red eyes and severe coughing fits. Several of the victims, he said, 
reported seeing yellow smoke as missiles impacted. A toxicologist 
consulted by Amnesty International, who viewed video-clips of the 
apparent attack and reviewed the doctor’s testimony, said the patients’ 
symptoms **could be** the effects of a chlorine attack. A subsequent 
statement purportedly issued by the leader of the Army of Islam armed 
group said that a field commander had deployed an **“unauthorised 
weapon”** on Sheikh Maqsoud and that he would be held to account".

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/syria-armed-opposition-groups-committing-war-crimes-in-aleppo-city/

Not sure that the only cause of “shortness of breath, numbness, red eyes 
and severe coughing fits” is the use of chemical weapons. Lots of “may”, 
“could” etc in this report for very good reason. Ask the residents of 
Ghouta about effects of chemicals.


The trouble with the bit about a Jaysh Islam leader disciplining a 
northern field commander (JI is almost entirely a Damascus-based group) 
for use of “weapons not authorized for use in these types of 
confrontations” is that JI specified it was referring to “modified Grad 
rockets, not chlorine: 
https://twitter.com/islamalloush0/status/718121743949414403. The PYD 
folk who continue to use this unclear statement to assume he meant 
chemical weapons know very well about this clarification, but just use 
it anyway. Well, everyone lies in war, I suppose.
I will be referring to Chris’ important points about JI sectarianism in 
a longer post about the nature of revolution.


Nick Fredman chose not to respond to my post about how laughable it was 
for him to put regime crimes and rebel crimes on a par, instead simply 
repeating points I had shown were wrong. Rather he writes:


“The idea that the abuses documented in this report by the PYD-led 
movement and the rebels are comparable is laughable. The former is 
accused by not looking after everyone properly it moves for military 
reasons, of conscription — without mentioning the YPG/J are volunteer 
forces and conscripts are strictly adults who only serve in the civil 
defence HXP —

and the abuse of one young man who refused conscription.”

The report that I read, just for this most recent period, included the 
continued prevention of return of substantial numbers after the Minbij 
offensive last year, but even more seriously, from Suluk, which the YPG 
took over, and violently expelled the inhabitant, in May 2015; the 
expellees living under “dire humanitarian conditions” who did not 
receive the necessary assistance (the part Nick will admit); the 
demolition of houses of expellees, pillaging of their property and 
cutting down their olive trees (rings a bell); further confiscation of 
computers and telephones from residences, “in addition to burning down 
some individuals’ properties” during the sacking of Aleppo; expulsion of 
residents of Heisha where they were “ordered to leave the area by SDF 
troops, some of whom went house to house demanding that civilians leave 
on threat of punishment” and who “continue to live in dire conditions, 
lacking even basic necessities;” the forcible conscription of child 
soldiers (despite Nick’s assurances that the YPG/SDF doesn’t do this – 
we should believe only what we want of the report presumably); the 
torture of one 17-year old who refused this non-existent conscription 
(Nick says “abuse” while the report says the minor was “both physically 
and psychologically tortured during interrogation, while blindfolded”); 
and the imprisonment of other “boys aged 13 to 17 years.”


Dress it up how you like Nick. It sounds qualitatively similar to rebel 
crimes. Yet Nick writes:
“Rebels — with the worst being Jabhat Fatah al-Sham but others 
implicated as well — are

accused of widespread indiscriminate attacks on civilians”

Yes, I made the point that this is widely condemned by revolutionary 
circles, but this is “shooting back” from the bombed, besieged, starved 
ghettos under daily aerial 

Re: [Marxism] Didn't Patrick Cockburn say the war in Syria was over?

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 3/19/17 10:20 PM, Chris Slee via Marxism wrote:

Or they could link up with the Rojava revolutionaries and continue to fight for 
a non-sectarian democratic revolution.


Such a joke. PYD leader Salih Muslim said that Assad "may stay on during 
a transition period, during a period of dialogue between the conflicting 
parties." The Idi Amin and Pol Pot of Syria who has used poison gas, 
killed 13,000 prisoners in cold blood, bombed hospitals, whose goons 
castrated a 12 year old protester in 2011 and then dumped his body on 
his parent's doorstep should engage in "dialogue"? You might as well 
have a dialogue with a rattlesnake.


Insane.
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Re: [Marxism] Didn't Patrick Cockburn say the war in Syria was over?

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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This assumes a YPG interest in allying with Syrians against Assad, and also
assumes YPG willingness to work with other forces on a comradely basis,
neither of which they'd shown any proclivity toward.

On Sun, Mar 19, 2017 at 10:20 PM, Chris Slee via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
>
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Re: [Marxism] Didn't Patrick Cockburn say the war in Syria was over?

[Michael Karadjis via Marxism]

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Louis' and Tristan's thoughts on the nature of rebel groups and 
alliances are right on target, the fact that membership reflects much 
more who has better access to arms to money in such a desperate 
situation against such a massively armed state-terrorist enemy. This has 
been widely reported and analysed for years, and among those following 
the situation, is not even remotely controversial. The idiocy of shallow 
interpretation of events in actual revolutions, by those with a barrow 
to push, was highlighted when I was once analysing precisely this fact 
about the contradiction between much of the ranks and file troops of 
Nusra and its reactionary sectarian leadership, and Assad bootlicker Tim 
Anderson pulled a quote of mine out of context, which was explicitly 
referring to "many of the ranks" of Nusra, made up up one of his 
amoeba-brained 'memes' with my FB photo and a hacked off a half "quote" 
which tried to say I saw "Nusra" itself as "decent revolutionaries."


While that might be expected of the likes of Anderson, it is sadder to 
see such shallow analysis (without the slander of course) from some SA 
comrades writing here in recent discussion. But I'll leave that for 
another post.


Regarding this current rebel offensive in Damascus, which has linked two 
long-time rebel-held working class bastions in the Damascus suburbs, 
Jobar and Qaboun, there are three main components: Faylaq al-Rahman, 
Ahrar al-Sham and HTS (ie, the JFS-led new coalition) 
(http://en.eldorar.com/node/5159). Not involved in Jaysh al-Islam, which 
dominates certain parts of Ghouta (west Damascus working-class suburbs). 
Neither HTS nor Ahrar are very strong in this region, given the 
traditional strength of Jaysh Islam and Faylaq al-Rahman, but appear to 
be part of this same offensive. The Rahman legion is the known local 
force in Jobar and Qaboun.


Faylaq al-Rahman is a kind of FSA-soft Islamist fusion project, which is 
the main opposition force to the often overbearing Jaysh Islam in the 
region, with which it has regularly clashed 
(http://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/63376?lang=en). It is led by SAA defector 
Cpt. Abd al-Nasr Shmeir from Homs, who claims to be fighting for a 
non-sectarian future Syria (http://civilwaralsham.com/midsized). It was 
formed a a fusion of several groups, including the FSA 1st Brigade 
(https://beyondthelevant.com/2016/04/26/english-statement-first-brigade-in-damascus-has-fully-merged-with-al-rahman-corps/) 
and the soft-Islamist Ajnad al-Sham Islamic Union, which was itself 
formed on the basis of a more moderate interpretation of Islam than that 
offered by Jaysh Islam, and more in line with traditional Damascene 
Islam. It neds to be remembered that the "Damascus suburbs" where the 
revolution dominates are new working class and poor shanties surrounding 
Damascus, composed of hundreds of thousands of recent rural immigrants 
from the neo-liberally-devastated countryside, and soft-Islamist 
politics tends to reflect the traditionalism of these suburbs.


-Original Message- 
From: Tristan Sloughter via Marxism

Sent: Monday, March 20, 2017 5:18 AM
To: Michael Karadjis
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Didn't Patrick Cockburn say the war in Syria was 
over?


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Right, that is the case with nationalist jihadist militias that have
access to weapons. They still have to be fighting the same enemy.

It is also why FSA militias would fight along side Nusra. If an armed
group is making progress in fighting the regime and you sit it out, how
does that look to potential recruits? And has been a detriment to any
group accepting Western assistance:

"In the formation of strategic alliances, moderate armed groups face
restrictions due to their reliance on Western donors. As they cannot
formally participate in coalitions that include controversial groups
such as JAN, moderate armed groups have limited opportunities to
increase their military effectiveness through coordination with other
armed groups.[32] Yet, with every military success of coalitions in
which the FSA does not have a visible role, such as the takeover of
Idlib city, the image of moderate factions as a weakening force is
reinforced, making them less attractive to potential recruits."

Just trying to understand the makeup of the current offensive. I haven't
read any detailed reporting/surveys since 2016, and 

[Marxism] Fwd: America's Political Economy: Debating the Republican Protectionist Turn – ADAM TOOZE

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Adam Tooze responds to critics on question of whether Republican Party 
is truly protectionist.


https://www.adamtooze.com/2017/03/19/trump-trade-ii/
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[Marxism] Fwd: Defeat in Victory | Jacobin

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom did worse than expected on Wednesday. 
But there’s not much else to cheer in Dutch politics.


https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/dutch-netherlands-freedom-party-elections/
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[Marxism] Trump White House: Right Win Ideologues and Finance Capitalists

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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*‘“It would be interesting to see to what degree the New York liberals
change Trump and to what degree Trump changes the New York liberals.”’* So
spoke Newt Gingrich and, no, he was not talking about liberals like Bernie
Sanders or Barbara Lee. He was talking about the social liberals who
populate Wall St. vs. the far right ideologues like Bannon who are so
influential on Wall St.

This comment comes from an extremely interesting article in the Washington
Post – one that’s more than worth reading in full. The article describes
the relationship between Bannon and Priebus, on one side and Gary Cohn,
Trump’s chief economics advisor and Dina Powell, Deputy National Security
Advisor. Both Cohn and Powell are former executives at Goldman Sachs, and
according to the article they are close to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross,
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. As
such, a tug of war is going on within Trump’s White House between this
group – representatives of finance capital – the right wing ideologues.

Behind that lies the struggle between the mainstream of the US capitalist
class and the far right ideologues, first and foremost over trade policy,
but also over issues such as the relationship with Russia, and domestic
policies like mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, the building of
The Wall, etc. In general, the mainstream capitalists wish that Trump would
cool it a little bit, but as the article says, “For the most part so far,
the ideologues are winning.”

See rest of article here:
https://oaklandsocialist.com/2017/03/19/trump-white-house-ideologues-and-finance-capitalists/

John Reimann

-- 
"No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them."
Asata Shakur
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com and //
www.facebook.com/WorkersIntlNetwork?ref=stream
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Re: [Marxism] Didn't Patrick Cockburn say the war in Syria was over?

[Tristan Sloughter via Marxism]

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Right, that is the case with nationalist jihadist militias that have
access to weapons. They still have to be fighting the same enemy.

It is also why FSA militias would fight along side Nusra. If an armed
group is making progress in fighting the regime and you sit it out, how
does that look to potential recruits? And has been a detriment to any
group accepting Western assistance:

"In the formation of strategic alliances, moderate armed groups face
restrictions due to their reliance on Western donors. As they cannot
formally participate in coalitions that include controversial groups
such as JAN, moderate armed groups have limited opportunities to
increase their military effectiveness through coordination with other
armed groups.[32] Yet, with every military success of coalitions in
which the FSA does not have a visible role, such as the takeover of
Idlib city, the image of moderate factions as a weakening force is
reinforced, making them less attractive to potential recruits."

Just trying to understand the makeup of the current offensive. I haven't
read any detailed reporting/surveys since 2016, and their content was
based on 2014/2015 I think.

-- 
  Tristan Sloughter
  "I am not a crackpot" - Abe Simpson
  t...@crashfast.com
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Re: [Marxism] Didn't Patrick Cockburn say the war in Syria was over?

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 3/19/17 1:45 PM, Tristan Sloughter via Marxism wrote:


So it is the FSA? pro-Assad media is reporting the attacks are Tahrir
Al-Sham (Hetesh). Who my understanding had been doing more fighting
against then fighting alongside FSA formations than say former Nusra?
Even though HTS is still a "nationalist jihadist" org unlike daesh?



Sometimes I wonder if these various formations are reflective less of 
how one stands on sharia law and much more on access to weapons and 
funding. If I was a Syrian living in a town that was desperately in need 
of anti-tank weapons, I'd hide my Salman Rushdie novels, grow a beard 
and forsake alcohol to get my hands on something that could stop the 
Baathist killing machine in its tracks.

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Re: [Marxism] Didn't Patrick Cockburn say the war in Syria was over?

[Tristan Sloughter via Marxism]

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So it is the FSA? pro-Assad media is reporting the attacks are Tahrir
Al-Sham (Hetesh). Who my understanding had been doing more fighting
against then fighting alongside FSA formations than say former Nusra?
Even though HTS is still a "nationalist jihadist" org unlike daesh?

-- 
  Tristan Sloughter
  "I am not a crackpot" - Abe Simpson
  t...@crashfast.com
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[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-Diplo]: Robertson on Notaker and Scott-Smith and Snyder, 'Reasserting America in the 1970s: U.S. Public Diplomacy and the Rebuilding of America's Image Abroad'

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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Best regards,
Andrew Stewart 

Begin forwarded message:

> From: H-Net Staff 
> Date: March 19, 2017 at 12:29:34 PM EDT
> To: h-rev...@h-net.msu.edu
> Subject: H-Net Review [H-Diplo]:  Robertson on Notaker and  Scott-Smith and  
> Snyder, 'Reasserting America in the 1970s: U.S. Public Diplomacy and the 
> Rebuilding of America's Image Abroad'
> Reply-To: H-Net Staff 
> 
> Hallvard Notaker, Giles Scott-Smith, David J. Snyder, eds.
> Reasserting America in the 1970s: U.S. Public Diplomacy and the
> Rebuilding of America's Image Abroad.  Key Studies in Diplomacy
> Series. Manchester  Manchester University Press, 2016.  256 pp.
> $34.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-78499-331-3.
> 
> Reviewed by Brian R. Robertson (Texas A  M University, Central
> Texas)
> Published on H-Diplo (March, 2017)
> Commissioned by Seth Offenbach
> 
> In 1990, Peter N. Carroll titled his comprehensive history of the
> 1970s _It Seemed Like Nothing Happened: America in the 1970s_. While
> Carroll's study reemphasized that the 1970s was not merely a calm,
> tranquil decade following the tumultuous 1960s, it helped challenge
> popular conceptions of the decade. Several noteworthy books would
> follow, including Edward Berkowitz's _Something Happened: A Political
> and Cultural Overview of the Seventies _(2005) and Bruce Schulman and
> Julian Zelizer's _Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the
> 1970s _(2008). In the field of diplomatic history, numerous scholars
> of the period have previously focused on grand strategy--whether it
> be Raymond Garthoff's classic study _Détente and Confrontation:
> American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan_ (1994) or Jussi
> Hanhimaki's biography of Henry Kissinger, _The Flawed Architect:
> Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy _(2004). Yet, as
> _Reasserting America in the 1970s: U.S. Public Diplomacy and the
> Rebuilding of America's Image Abroad_ confirms, there is still much
> to be gained from studying American public diplomatic efforts in the
> 1970s.
> 
> Most of the essays within this volume begin during the height of the
> civil rights movement and against the backdrop of the Vietnam War in
> the mid-to-late 1960s. While many of them explore the Richard Nixon
> administration's and the United States Information Agency's (USIA)
> response to the turbulence of the 1960s, others more closely examine
> public diplomacy in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Watergate, and
> the Church Committee Investigations. What makes the volume even more
> intriguing is that part 1 of the collection emphasizes the United
> States' attempts to refine the nation's reputation, while part 2
> focuses on the world's response to US public diplomatic endeavors.
> 
> In the first essay of part 1, "Devil at the Crossroads," Nicholas J.
> Cull traces the development of the USIA from its creation during the
> Dwight Eisenhower administration to its termination in 1999. While
> several reorganizational attempts failed to separate public diplomacy
> from the State Department--most notably, the reform recommendations
> produced by the "Stanton Panel" led by Frank Stanton--USIA's
> inflexibility and tie to the Cold War ultimately led to its demise.
> As Cull writes, "U.S. public diplomacy has been trying to recover
> ever since. It is high time to reconsider Stanton's arguments for a
> radical rethinking of culture and exchange and once again consider a
> new beginning for U.S. public diplomacy to fit the needs of an
> increasingly independent world" (p. 37).
> 
> In addition to two excellent essays, "The Sister City Network in the
> 1970s" by Brian C. Etheridge and "The Exposure of CIA Sponsorship of
> Radio Free Europe" by Kenneth Osgood in part 1, Laura A. Belmonte
> ("USIA Responds to the Women's Movement, 1960-75") and Michael K.
> Krenn ("'The Low Key Mulatto Coverage'") analyze the USIA's portrayal
> of American women and African Americans. Belmonte documents USIA's
> remarkable shift--and the behind-the-scenes struggles and debates
> over how to present women and women's history--from portraying women
> as homemakers and consumers in the 1950s and 1960s to celebrating
> women's professional accomplishments in 1975. Krenn's conclusions are
> less sanguine, as the USIA attempted to conceal racial tensions by
> highlighting economic individualism and the "black capitalism"
> policies advocated by the Nixon administration. While such scholars
> as Dean Kotlowski in _Nixon's Civil Rights: Politics, Principle, and
> Policy _(2001) have written somewhat favorably on Nixon's civil
> rights policies, Krenn sees the emphasis on "black capitalism"

[Marxism] Didn't Patrick Cockburn say the war in Syria was over?

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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"Situation is getting worse for Assad regime in Damascus City, these 
minutes. FSA rebels took control of some strategic points in the city.

They also cut the electricity and communications lines in the city.
For the moment, rebels are only 600 meters away from the Abbasieen 
square, which is the main landmark in the centre of Damascus City.

All universities and schools are closed in Damascus City.

4 Assadite tanks and 3 23-mm guns are destroyed, 65 Assadite fighters 
are killed since the clashes began this morning in Damascus City.
44 SAA personnel, including 9 officers, are captured by the rebels since 
this morning in Damascus.


Still no electricity in Damascus as the power station providing the city 
with electricity is under rebels’ control since this morning. (1 hour ago)


General Muhammed Hasan, in charge of SAA [corps] in Jobar district, 
killed by the rebels about 30 min ago.


Damascus streets in regime-held areas of the city are almost empty these 
minutes. Only cars and tanks.


15 SAA and Russian airstrikes on Damascus, but rebels still advance.
Rebels seized Mercedes office in Damascus, minutes ago. (27 mins ago)
4th VBIED action in Damascus City, 20 min ago, followed by new offensive 
against SAA forces.


Activists say the death toll for SAA rose to over 85.
Rebels detonated tunnel bomb under SAA headquarters in North Hama, 30 
min ago. Dozens of killed."


-- Tweet storm by Fuad Hudaverdiyev
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[Marxism] What Americans are thinking

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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I was aware that some right wing groups have set up their own phone service 
providers to advance their political agenda.
Today I caught an ad on MSNBC for credomobile which allows subscribers to 
donate to a variety of progressive causes.
The ad showed a No Pipeline placard, other placards with Feminism is Another 
Word for Equality, as well as Another Credo Member Against Racism.  Also seen 
more than once was the rainbow flag.
They believe there is a big enough market for this that it is worth their while 
to advertise on cable TV.
ken h

http://www.credomobile.com/lp/plans/plansv4.aspx?pc=404100_source=tv_medium=drtv_content=drtvlp_campaign=404100=8002610575;
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[Marxism] The Enduring Struggle, For Frederick Douglass, the work of democratic politics was never-ending.

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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The Nation, MARCH 14, 2017
The Enduring Struggle
For Frederick Douglass, the work of democratic politics was never-ending.
By Matt Karp


The Lives of Frederick Douglass
By Robert Levine

The Portable Frederick Douglass
By John Stauffer and Henry Louis Gates Jr., eds.

“AFTER FRED. DOUGLASS.—” barked an October 1850 headline in the 
Mississippi Free Trader, the state’s leading Democratic newspaper. The 
article below it went on to note: “We are very much pleased to learn 
that a party of Marylanders are in pursuit of the sweet pet and fragrant 
expounder of the white negroes of the North. He is a fugitive slave, and 
the intention is to reclaim him under the late Fugitive Slave Law.”


This was an outstanding antebellum example of what we have lately come 
to call “fake news.” After eight years as a fugitive, Frederick Douglass 
had been legally emancipated in 1846 when a group of British 
abolitionists collected funds to purchase his freedom. No party of 
Maryland slave-hunters was headed north to pursue him, even after the 
passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. The Free Trader wasn’t reporting on 
events; it was indulging in a kind of vicarious hate crime.


Yet in its mix of gossip, malice, and braggadocio, the Free Trader’s 
false report was characteristic of the opposition that Douglass faced in 
his lifetime of political struggle. For Mississippi’s Slave Power, 
Douglass presented an existential threat in two dimensions. First, his 
physical person, as an ex-slave turned celebrity abolitionist, was a 
dramatic personification of his radical belief in human equality. To 
adapt what W.E.B. Du Bois once said of John Brown, Douglass didn’t just 
use argument, he was himself an argument. Second, Douglass was feared 
because his oratory had dangerous implications: It might help generate a 
popular political movement against the slaveholding South. Thus the 
Mississippi Free Trader reserved equal scorn for the “white negroes of 
the North”—Douglass’s anti-slavery allies and the larger Northern public 
that they hoped to awaken.


The power of the antebellum slaveholding class, after all, resided not 
only in its direct domination of black slaves, but in its ability to 
divide and exploit an even larger multiracial working class. Douglass 
knew how well this system worked from bitter personal experience: As a 
hired slave in Baltimore, he was assaulted by white dockworkers with 
bricks and handspikes. Yet he remained clearheaded about who benefited 
from this racial violence. As he wrote in 1855: “The slaveholders, with 
a craftiness peculiar to themselves, by encouraging the enmity of the 
poor, laboring white man against the blacks, succeeds in making the said 
white man almost as much a slave as the black slave himself…. Both are 
plundered, and by the same plunderers.”


To uproot these plunderers required democratic organization in both the 
North and South. The obstacles were enormous, Douglass knew, for he 
seldom underestimated the tenacity of American racism—the prejudices and 
powers wielded by those Americans “who happen to live in a skin which 
passes for white.” Nevertheless, the basic premise of his career was 
that slavery and white supremacy, for all their fearsome might, could be 
defeated through a political struggle that transcended racial and 
regional divisions. Only a broad popular movement, led by an 
abolitionist vanguard but embracing “the masses at the North,” could 
overthrow “the slave-holding oligarchy” and establish a government truly 
devoted to liberty and equality for all.


Douglass had no patience for those in the antislavery camp who argued 
for withdrawal from a hopelessly tainted Union, or for the abandonment 
of a hopelessly degraded democratic politics. “If I were on board of a 
pirate ship,” he declared, “I would not clear my soul…by jumping in the 
long boat, and singing out no union with pirates.” Instead, 
abolitionists must dig in and fight, trusting in their ability to build 
a democratic alliance against slavery across the free states. “[T]he 
slaveholders are but four hundred thousand in number,” he noted, “and we 
are fourteen millions…we are really the strong and they are the weak.”


For Douglass, political effort without radical moral principle was 
futile, doomed to a slow, unwholesome demise amid “the swamps of 
compromise and concession.” But moral courage without political 
engagement—­and without movement-building—was equally barren. “If there 
is no struggle, there is no progress,” Douglass declared in 1857. The 
apothegm is justly famous as a defense of left-wing agitation, but it is 
worth remembering that both of its keywords received 

[Marxism] Learn How You Can Resist Police Militarization

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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Most interesting to me is the graphic that comes with this article, with its 
explicit naming of capitalism and patriarchy as well as white supremacy.  This 
could be an expression of the growing bond between the Palestine solidarity 
movement and the anti-racist struggle in the US.
Last year there were links established between the US Campaign for Palestinian 
Rights and Black Lives Matter.
ken h

http://uscpr.org/learn-can-resist-police-militarization/
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[Marxism] Fwd: Korea: corruption, cults and chaebols | Michael Roberts Blog

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Koreans have decided to impeach their President Park Geun-hye over 
corruption charges.  Last Friday the country’s top court upheld an 
earlier impeachment vote, officially ousting Park Geun-hye, South 
Korea’s first female leader, from office. This follows months of 
protests by South Koreans alarmed at claims of bribery, 
influence-peddling and even shamanistic cult rituals in the presidential 
Blue House. The demonstrations were more than 1m strong. An impeachment 
motion easily passed the legislature.


Park is the most unpopular South Korean leader since the country became 
a democracy in the late 1980s. The scandal ensnared senior government 
officials and business figures, including Lee Jae-yong, the acting head 
of Samsung, who denied bribery, corruption and other charges at the 
first hearing in his trial last week.  Samsung apparently  donated 43bn 
won ($40m) – more than any other firm – to the foundations run by the 
president’s confidant, Choi Soon-sil.


Choi is the Rasputin to Korea’s Park. She is the daughter of a South 
Korean Shamanistic–Evangelical cult leader, Choi Tae-min. Her ex-husband 
is Park’s former chief of staff Chung Yoon-hoi and dressage athlete 
Chung Yoo-ra is their daughter.  Samsung allegedly gave millions of 
euros to fund Choi’s daughter’s equestrian training in Germany. Choi is 
in detention, accused of using her close ties with Park to force local 
firms to “donate” nearly $70m (£60m) to her non-profit foundations, 
which Choi allegedly used for personal gain.


full: 
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2017/03/19/korea-corruption-cults-and-chaebols/

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