Tuesday, July 31, 2018
The Slow Death of Alex Jones and the American sickness he represents - Hate Speech is not free speech - it has a cost paid for by its victims.
Democracy and Class Struggle says there is no free speech issue around Alex Jones as there is no free Speech issue around Tommy Robinson and those deceived into believing so had better return to reality of the hatred and pain these two cause.
Whether it is the families of the Sandy Hook victim's or the harassment of victims of Gun violence it all part of the daily hate that comes from Alex Jones InfoWars.
The Islamphobia of Tommy Robinson also has its victims.
But the biggest insult is that these bigots promote their hate under the guise of "free speech".
Hate speech has victims and it certainly is not free - it has a cost the victims pay it.
TRUMP ASKS FOR INFOWARS TRANSCRIPTS - LOL
1967 After the Defeat, The Arab Left on the Offensive
JUNE 1967, AN ENDLESS SIX-DAY WAR
ORIENT XXI JUIN 1967, UNE GUERRE DE SIX JOURS QUI N’EN FINIT PAS NICOLAS DOT-POUILLARD
The defeat of the Arab armies in June 1967 did not immediately lead to the rise of the Islamist movements.
During a brief period, the left filled the political void. In November, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) came into existence, led by the National Liberation Front (NLF) which had been fighting the British since 1963. In June 1969, it was the Marxist wing of the NLF which took over the young Republic. While the Arab armies were in a sorry state, a red dawn was rising.
1967 was a “strange defeat”.1 On the one hand, the collapse of the Arab countries following their defeat by Israel was redolent of the 1948 Nakba: many Palestinians went into exile. On the other hand, there was a sweeping radicalization of the left. A new cycle of protest began in the Arab world where the struggle of the Vietnamese had a powerful echo. Aden might just be a second Cuba.2 China appeared less ossified than the USSR: the cultural revolution of 1966 was being carried out by the youthful Red Guards. In the Arab world, the radicalization of the left after the 1967 defeat was also promoted by young people who looked to Europe. Thus the May 1968 events in France were studied closely by Tunisian, Lebanese or Palestinian students in exile, who soon made contact with the “Maoist” Gauche prolétarienne (GP).
CENTRALITY OF THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION
This radicalization of the left had been brewing since the mid-sixties.3 In 1965, Ba’athist activists in Syria founded the Arab Revolutionary Workers Party led by Yassine Hafez and Elias Morqos, two intellectuals working towards a synthesis of Marxism and Arab nationalism. Within the Ba’ath party itself, a group of young officers led by Sala Jedid fomented a coup on 23 February 1966. It was now the left wing of the Ba’ath party that held the reins of power in Damascus, at least until I970, when Salah Jedid was ousted by Hafez Al-Assad, his Defense minister.
In Lebanon, a “new left” arose in 1965. Three young students, Fawwa Traboulsi, Waddah Sharara and Ahmad Beydoun founded Socialist Lebanon (Lubnan Ishtiraki), which sought to define an alternative to the Chinese and Soviet paths to socialism—the Moscow-Beijing split was consumed—while a Leninist Current (al-Tayar al-linini), soon to become the Union of Lebanese Communists, gradually broke away from the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP). In Tunisia, the Groupe d’études et d’action socialiste (GEAST) and the review Perspectives had been criticizing Habib Bourgiba since 1963.
With the 1967 defeat, the radicalization of the Left gained momentum throughout the Arab world. This was the time of the “new left” (al-Yassar al-jadid). However, we must not be misled by this designation : any comparison with the French new left—Jeunesses communistes révolutionnaires, Union des jeunesses communistes marxistes-léninistes—has its limits. For the most part, the Arab “new left” movements did not originate in communist parties but in Arab nationalism. They were concerned foremost with the issues of national independence and decolonization, and Palestine occupied a central position.
It was the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM) which was most deeply affected by the June 1967 defeat: its members, from the Gulf to Lebanon were prompted to give nationalism a Marxist twist and Marxism a nationalist twist. Within their ranks, the Palestinians were to play a key role.
Taking their ideas from a professor at the American University in Beyrouth, Constantin Zureik, the ANM had been led since the early fifties by a Palestinian in his thirties studying medicine in Lebanon, George Habash. Associated with him were Waddi Haddad, a Palestinian refugee from Safed and Hani Al-Hindi, a Syrian having fought against the Zionist militias in 1948 with the Phalanges of Arab Sacrifice (Kata’eb al-Fida al-arabi). The ANM had Nasserite sympathies and during the fifties and sixties it spread to Lebanon, Syria and Yemen and took part in the struggle against the British in South-Yemen from 1963 to 1967.
However, the Arab defeat of June 1967 led the ANM to revise its strategy completely. The hopes placed in Nasser’s Egypt were dashed. This was the second disappointment experienced by ANM militants after the breaking up of the United Arab Republic created in 1958 by Syria and Egypt. Within the Palestinian national movement, George Habash had to deal with Yasser Arafat’s rival Fatah, which was the first to launch armed struggle against Israel in 1965, from bases in South Lebanon and on the Jordanian border. It now became necessary to focus on Palestine and rely less on the Arab regimes for support.
FROM TUNIS TO ADEN
The 1967 defeat had a paradoxical effect on the ANM, which gradually fell apart. However, its various national branches gave birth to political entities which would have significant roles to play in the future.
In December 1967 George Habash and Waddi Haddad founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP): the time had come for a “people’s war of liberation” partly inspired by the Maoist model.
The reference to Marxism-Leninism became a keynote: in Lebanon, ANM activists, gathered around Mohsen Ibrahim, founded The Organization of Lebanese Socialists (OLS) in 1969.
A year later, they created the Organization of Communist Action in Lebanon (OCAL): this symbol of the new left associated former members of the ANM and Socialist Lebanon, defectors from LCP who had formed the Union of Lebanese Communists, plus some Maoists and Trotskyites.
It was a new left profile that would be hard to imagine in Western Europe. During the civil war that started in April 1975, the OCAL, which no longer exists today, formed an alliance with Kamal Jumblatt, the Druze leader of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and with the Communist Party. Later it was among the organizations that founded the Lebanese National Resistance Front (Jammul) in the summer of 1982 to resist the Israeli invasion.
During the Lebanese civil war, the OCAL had close links with the Fatah and Nayaf Hawatmeh’s Marxist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The OCAL also had other rival formations on the far left, such as the Arab Socialist Action Party founded in the mid-seventies by Lebanese supporters of Habash’s PFLP.
While Palestine occupied a central place in the emergence of the new left, another fascinating experiment was taking place in Yemen and Oman. Since 1969, the National Liberation Front had established a socialist regime in South-Yemen, modeled after the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Soviet republics.
The People’s Democratic Republic of South-Yemen provided a rear base for the Palestinian organizations. In Oman, since 1963, the Dhofar Liberation Front had been fighting Sultan Taimour, backed by the British. With the support and influence of South-Yemen, the Omani guerrilla moved towards Marxism and took the name Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf.4
And finally the new left movement spread to the Maghreb as well. While in Algeria the NLF was firmly in command, having eliminated since 1965 the leftist, “self-management” faction led by Ahmed Ben Bella, it was in Morocco and Tunisia that protest movements developed, especially on campuses.
The Moroccan movement Forward ( Ila-l-Amam) was founded in 1970, while in Tunis Le Travailleur tunisien had replaced the Groupe d’études et d’action socialiste (GEAST) since 1969.
The new organization bore a dual relationship to Arab nationalism and to Marxism. Some of its members came from the Ba’ath party: the Chebbi brothers, Ahmed and Issam, the first of whom would become minister of regional development in the first transitional government which followed the fall of Zinedine El-Abidine Ben-Ali in January 2011.
The young Tunisians protesting the rule of Habib Bourgiba were also influenced by French “Maoism”. Le Travailleur tunisien actively supported the Palestinian struggle5 and some of its members trained with Palestinian organizations in Lebanon. It also arabized its Marxism: French, the usual language of its review Perspectives tunisiennes, was gradually abandoned.
These new left movements which emerged following the Arab defeat of June 1967 did not necessarily cleave to the European model. Of course the “working class question”—and that of the peasantry—loomed large in Lebanon in the late sixties, and in the early seventies there were major strikes in the Ghandour factory in Beirut and among the tobacco workers, while the austerity policies adopted in Egypt after the June 1967 defeat were fought by taxi drivers and textile workers among others.
But it was definitely the Palestinian revolution, the vanguard of the Arab revolution, that played the key role in the emergence of these new left movements, which often came out of the Arab nationalist movement rather than the Communist parties. Frequently tied to the USSR, these were deeply affected by the June defeat and also went through a period of leftist radicalization.
THE COMMUNIST PARTIES’ STRATEGIC SHIFT
Since the mid-sixties, student activists—but also the younger officers—were more inclined to look to the NMA and the Ba’ath party than to the various CPs, and this was because the latter had long been paying the price of their alignment with the Soviet Union. For indeed, the USSR had accepted the plan to divide Palestine in November 1947 and recognized Israel, Stalin’s priority having been to weaken the British position in the Middle East.
Israel’s occupation of the Left Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai in the summer of 1967 was a game changer for the communist parties. They distanced themselves from the recognition of Israel and pledged support to the Palestine resistance movements. It was the CPL that made this strategic move first and most clearly. Its general secretary Nicolas Chaoui published several articles in the Party press calling for Communists to step up the fight against Israel.
The second CPL Congress in July 1968 was devoted to the re-foundation of the Party: a new, younger, leadership was elected. Undertaking a radical self-criticism, the Party became more responsive to the issues of Arab unity and recognized the central role of the Palestinian question in the “Arab liberation movement.” The Third Congress in January 1972 sent out a call for unity, no longer addressed to the Arab Communist Parties alone but to all “progressive” forces: the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Arab Socialist Union which had absorbed the Egyptian Communists since 1965, the Yemeni National Liberation Front, the Iraqi and Syrian Ba’ath parties. Not only did the CPLdenounce Israel but also Saudi Arabia and other “reactionary regimes.” And among the class alliances advocated, it recognized the presence of “anti-colonialist elements within the petty bourgeoisie.”6
The post-1967 years were also marked by the rise of armed struggle against Israel: the Lebanese Communist party did not merely ally itself with the Fatah and the PLO. In 1970, it founded the Partisan Forces (Quwat al-Ansar) of South Lebanon, with the support of the Syrian, Jordanian and Iraqi Communist parties.
As for the Syrian Communist Party (SCP) led by Khaled Bagdash, it had allied itself with the Syrian Ba’ath party since February 1966, and joined Salah Jedid’s government. Its third congress in June 1969 also approved the principle of armed struggle against Israel.
However, after 1970 when Hafeez Al-Assad took power, the SCPfollowed to the letter the policies of the Syrian Ba’ath—including the latter’s June 1976 decision to fight the PLO in Lebanon. A Party for Communist Action in Syria, founded that same year, challenged the SCP’s line and called for the overthrow of the Assad regime.
Prior to 1967, there had been two reasons for the decline of communist influence in the Arab world. First of all, their alignment with the Soviet policies concerning the division of Mandate Palestine: the MNA and the Ba’ath Party had largely outflanked them on this issue. And second of all, their underestimation of the importance of Arab unity: by opposing the creation of the United Arab Republic, they had also alienated many young officers and students who were sympathetic to a rhetoric of Arab unity and wanted to move beyond the nation states crated by the former colonial powers with their mandate system. After 1967, there came a major shift, whose main beneficiary was the Lebanese Communist Party. Through its alliance with the Palestinians but also with the new left embodied by the Organization for Communist Action in Lebanon, it became a key player in the Lebanese civil war after 1975, and in the resistance to the Israeli occupation of South-Lebanon after 1978
.
WHAT REMAINS TODAY OF THE POST-67 ARAB LEFT?
In 2017 the new left movements which arose after the 1967 defeat have run out of steam. The OCAL and Le Travailleur Tunisien have disappeared. The People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen collapsed at the beginning of the nineties.
The Party of Communist Action in Syria, which in 2011 advocated a moderate opposition to Bachar Al-Assad and opposed armed rebellion, nevertheless lost its chief leader, Abdel Aziz, who “disappeared” on the highway to the Damascus airport in September 2012, kidnapped by governmental security forces.
Yet there are a few survivors. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has its MPs on the Palestinian Legislative Council and can still attract tens of thousands of supporters to its rallies in
Gaza.
The Lebanese Communist Party is still very much alive: it has small grassroot bases in South Lebanon and the Bekaa valley, some labor union support and it did quite well in the May 2016 local elections. In Tunisia the MPs of the Popular Front and Workers’ Party are the heirs of Le Travailleur Tunisien.
Unlike the French “May 68”, the Italian equivalent is often described as “creeping”, with a high point in the second half of the seventies. The post-67 radical movements in the Arab world can also be called “creeping”: no “big nights,” no general strikes or coordinated revolution, but a “strange defeat” which initiated a cycle of civil unrest and armed revolts which lasted over a decade.
In challenging the Arab regimes or opposing Israel, the new left stole the march on political Islam by a good many years. But the red cycle gradually died out: the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the rise, throughout the eighties, of Islamist organizations—from the Hezbollah to Hamas and including the Tunisian Movement of Islamic Tendency (Ennahdha)—pulled the carpet out from under the radical left, most often at the time by appropriating parts of their anti-imperialist agenda.7
So what remains of that period? Political formations in Lebanon, Palestine and Tunisia steadfastly maintain their heritage. Social movements which occasionally revive those old demands: an intellectual heritage too, and a politics of memory, of a somewhat melancholic cast, with documentary films, a patient archiving of photographs and posters from the golden age of the PLO or the publication of former activists’ memoirs. While waiting for better days.
BY NICOLAS DOT-POUILLARD
1Bloch, Marc (1968) [1946]. Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940 [L’Étrange Défaite]. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
2Chris Kutschera, « L’étoile rouge pâlit-elle à Aden ? », Le Monde diplomatique, October 1982.
3On the history of nationalist and left-wing movements in the Arab world since 1948, see the authoritative collection of essays edited by Muhammad Jamal Barout: Al-Ahzab wa-l-Harakat wa-l-Tandhimat al-Qawmiyya fi-l-Watan al-‘arabi (Nationalist Parties, Movements and Organizations in the Arab Homeland), Centre d’études pour l’unité arabe, Beyrouth, 2012 (in Arabic).
4Jean-Pierre Viennot, « La guérilla du Dhofar entre dans une nouvelle phase », Le Monde diplomatique, August 1972.
5Nicolas Dot-Pouillard, « La Tunisie et ses Palestine. De Habib Bourguiba à Umran Kilani Muqaddami », IFPO, 29 June 2012.
6Tareq Y. Ismael and Jacqueline S. Ismaël, The Communist Movement in Syria and Lebanon,University Press of Florida, 1998.
7Nicolas Dot-Pouillard, « De Pékin à Téhéran, en regardant vers Jérusalem : la singulière conversion à l’islamisme des ?maos” du Fatah », Cahiers de l’Institut Religioscope, no. 2, December 2008.
Monday, July 30, 2018
Trump ready to meet Iran's president with 'no preconditions'
Democracy and Class Struggle says while we supported negotiations between North and South Korea including the United States as there was a good basis for negotiations - especially with the new Government in South Korea.
Democracy and Class Struggle cannot see any reason for direct negotiations with Iran as there is nothing to negotiate - in fact Trump sabotaged any basis for negotiations by withdrawing from the JCPOA and by his billigerent anti Iranian and Pro Israel statements.
We must also remember the Bolton and Pompeo statements on Iran.
We see this statement from Trump as continued duplicity of USA preparing to attack Iran while talking peace.
Is Trump planning to strike Iran next month? Here’s what you need to know by Darius Shahtahmasebi is a New Zealand-based attorney and political analyst
Democracy and Class Struggle says Russia and China need to send a strong unambiguous signal to the United States to stop the attack on Iran both overt and covert,
Russia sent mixed signals at the Helsinki Summit as we have already pointed out.
The perfidious geo politics of Russia aiding USA and Israel while "defending" Iran is dicing with death and destruction - as the arsehole in the Whitehouse is going to get pissed and we will all pay the price of his trantrum.
A recent report claims the American President is looking to bomb Iran in yet another violent act of international aggression by the US.
At the end of last week, a bombshell report released by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) claimed that the Trump administration is readying to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities as early as next month, further claiming that Australia may assist in identifying possible targets.
The report cited senior figures within the Australian government, Australia being one of the key players in the so-called Five Eyes intelligence alliance which also includes the UK, Canada and New Zealand.
The report followed an infamous, all-caps tweet from Trump himself, in which he threatened Iranian President Hassan Rouhani that he will “suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before.”
US ‘prepared’ and may strike Iran next month – reports
Never mind that just the act of publishing this tweet alone is a clear violation of Articles 2(3) and (4) of the UN Charter, particularly the part that reads
“All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”,
but the fact that the mainstream media decided not to hold these dangerous actions to account is concerning (though not surprising).
The report also followed US Defence Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s meeting with Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop earlier that same week in California for the annual Australia-United States Ministerial Consultation (AUSMIN) talks.
Since the report’s release, Mattis openly denied the veracity of the story and its contents, describing it as “fiction.”
“I have no idea where the Australian news people got that information,” Mattis told reporters while being quizzed on the report. “I’m confident it is not something that’s being considered right now, and I think it’s a complete — frankly, it’s — it’s fiction.”
Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also dismissed the report, saying that he had “no reason” to believe that an attack was imminent, further calling the report “speculation.
”
Even Trump has repositioned his verbal attack on Iran, stating to a convention in Kansas City that “I withdrew the United States from the horrible one-sided Iran nuclear deal, and Iran is not the same country anymore…We’re ready to make a deal.”
So is the report a fabrication? Is it speculation, based on the ill-informed word of anonymous senior government officials? Or is it another stunt taken right out of Trump’s newly released playbook on how to deal with adversarial states?
Bear in mind that reports also previously emerged claiming that the Trump administration had been weighing up a limited strike plan on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), all the while Trump’s Twitter feed was engaged in a war of its own with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, following which no such strike ever eventuated.
Not long after, the Trump administration and the North Korean leadership then agreed to begin a route on a diplomatic pathway, to which much credit was given to Donald Trump himself. Starting to sound a bit familiar?
Either way, we don’t know at this stage what to expect tomorrow, let alone next week or next month. With someone like Donald Trump at the helm, all bets are off the table. Even if we should expect a strike to be imminent, it seems there is little that can be done to prevent the attack before it is launched as the rest of us simpletons sit and wonder how beautiful that chocolate cake really is.
So let’s talk about what we do know instead.
We know that Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the Iranian nuclear accord, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May of this year.
We know that in doing so, he warned all countries to stop buying Iranian oil by November 4, this year, reimplementing the sanctions that the JCPOA was supposed to have lifted off Iran’s shoulders.
We know that there is little Europe can do to bypass these sanctions to maintain its economic relationship with Tehran, even if it tried.
We also know that in response to these looming sanctions, Tehran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which 30 to 35 percent of the world’s maritime oil trade passes.
We know that Iran is technically within its right to do so, and considering even a partial closure would be enough to rattle the global financial markets this threat should not be taken lightly, especially as desperation appears to plague Iran’s economic situation.
Aside from developing its own cryptocurrency, there is little hope for Iran to bypass Washington’s economic warfare without threatening the US or its allies in the process.
According to CNN, the US is now considering the military options available to them to keep these vital waterways open, most likely using its proxy forces to do its bidding on its behalf, such as Saudi forces. Even Iran’s ally, China, has essentially warned against Iran’s pending closure of the passage, even as it has carried out joint naval exercises near the Strait with Iran in the past.
US has to ‘give up sanctions addiction’ – Iran says it can show why
We also know that Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri has warned that Washington’s economic offensive is only a prelude to the real goal of the Trump administration, being a military attack.
We know that a military attack is most likely on the table in some way, shape or form, as Donald Trump appointed infamous mad man John Bolton as his national security advisor, who promised a regime change would take place in Iran by the end of this year. This is the same mad man that wrote an op-ed in the New York Times entitled“To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.”
We also know that the US is planning to revive the so-called “Arab NATO” in an effort to directly confront Iran, with the White House openly confirming that it has been devising the concept of the alliance with its “regional partners now and have been for several months.”
Currently known as the Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA), its entire purpose appears to act as a buffer against “Iranian aggression, terrorism, extremism,” according to a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council.
That’s right – Iran, currently bombing or invading no one, as well as being one of the most heavily engaged entitiesdefeating terror groups such as ISIS, is somehow the source of aggression, terrorism, and extremism in the Middle East region which actively needs confronting.
Tying these developments together is an incident that took place relatively quietly last Thursday, which saw a huge tanker with a shipment of oil from Saudi Arabia bound for Egypt damaged by a missile attack from the northern Bab el-Mandeb strait in the Red Sea which was launched by Yemen’s Houthi.
Western media, in tandem with Saudi and Israeli media, have labelled the Houthi as an Iranian proxy. However, as I have pointed out consistently over the years, there is actually very little concrete proof of any extensive Iranian involvement in Yemen despite this relentless propaganda. Regardless, it should be clear where this rhetoric is headed in the long run.
We know that if the US cannot get to Iran directly, it has devised a plan to scale back its influence throughout the Middle East. We know that the US has taken over one-third of Syria, including some of its most strategic areas, as a means of countering Iran’s expansion in the region.
We also know that this has been the goal all along underpinning Washington’s involvement in the country, under the disingenuous guise of fighting ISIS.
According to CENTCOM commander U.S. Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the US military base in al-Tanf, Syria, provides opportunities for the US to indirectly influence Iranian activity “by the pursuit of our ongoing operations.”
How long, exactly, will America’s illegal operations in Syria run for, and to what extent will the US seek to disrupt Iran inside Syria?
We also know that commander of the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who also retorted against Trump’s anti-Iranian rhetoric, has the US worried that Iran may deploy Shi’ite militias to Iraq to strike US troops stationed there.
Just to paint a picture of the headache that Soleimani poses to the US, one should note that he has reportedly been designated as a legitimate target for assassination by the US and Israel for some time now.
Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, we know that the recent BRICS Summit, an economic thorn penetrating the backside of Washington’s warmongering foreign policy, also has its sights set on including Iran as an essential ally somewhere down the line. As far as the BRICS nations are concerned, an attack on Iran would most likely constitute an attack on the future of everything BRICS is trying to achieve.
In this context, Iran may have some familiar allies even as it is forced to withstand an unprecedented set of aggressive measures from the US and its lackeys. Either way you analyse this warpath we are on, the resulting scenarios are potentially catastrophic and far-reaching indeed.
A war with Iran might sound far-fetched and may indeed lead to some unfathomable consequences, but the groundwork for such a confrontation is being laid right before our very eyes and the corporate media is almost all but completely silent.
Whether or not a missile strike on Iran is looming on the horizon, Washington’s war with Iran has already begun in more ways than one, and appears to be set to escalate until the US can achieve the collapse of the Iranian regime through direct or indirect means.
SOURCE:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/434621-iran-attack-trump-australia/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notifications&utm_campaign=push_notifications
Sunday, July 29, 2018
US recognition of Israel’s claim over the Golan Heights in the making
Democracy and Class Struggle says The Golan Heights were discussed at the recent Trump Putin Summit as we pointed out at the time - exactly what was agreed and discussed is unknown - but we have strong suspicion that some deal is in the making or was done which was favourable to Israel.
This Report above further indicates the geo-political importance of the Golan Heights and we take the view the Golan Heights could trigger a new Middle East War as Syria and Iran will not silently see Israel get recognition of its claim to the Golan Heights whatever deal Russia may or may not have sanctioned at Helsinki.
India: Historic Eight Documents of Charu Majumdar
India: Historic Eight Documents of Charu Majumdar
Charu Mazumdar
Charu Majumdar (Bengali: চারু মজুমদার; 1918–1972) was a communist revolutionary from India. Charu Majumdar's life is a story of "riches to rags". Born in a progressive landlord family in Siliguri in 1918, he later joined the militant Naxalite cause. He also authored the historic accounts of the 1968 Naxalbari uprising and his writings have become the ideology which guides revolutionaries today
Our Tasks in the Present Situation (28th January, 1965 – First Document)
The Congress government has arrested one thousand communists during the last one month. Most of Central and Provincial leadership are in jail today. Gulzarilal Nanda has announced that he will not accept the verdict of the electorate (and he has not), and he has started telling absurd stories about guerrilla warfare. This offensive against democracy has begun because of the internal and international crisis of capitalism. The Indian government has gradually become the chief political partner in the expansion of American imperialism’s hegemony of the world. The main aim of American imperialism is to establish India as the chief reactionary base in South-East Asia.
The Indian bourgeoisie is unable to find any way to solve its internal crisis. The perennial food crisis, its ever increasing price level, are creating obstacles for the Five-Year Plan, and as a result of this, there is no other way for the Indian bourgeoisie to come out from this crisis excepting importing more and more Anglo-American imperialist capital. As a result of this dependence on imperialism, the internal crisis of capitalism is bound to increase day by day.
The Indian bourgeoisie has not been able to find out any other way except killing democracy, faced with the instructions of American imperialism and its own internal crisis. There were imperialist instructions behind these arrests, since the American police chief ‘Macbright’ was in Delhi during the arrest of the communists, and the widespread arrests took place only after discussions with him. By killing democracy there can be no solution of this crisis, and the Indian bourgeoisie also will not be able to solve this crisis. The more the Government will be dependent on imperialism, the more it will fail to solve its internal crisis. With every passing day, the people’s discontent will increase, and with every passing day, the internal conflict of the bourgeoisie is bound to increase.
Imperialist capital demands the arrest of communists as a precondition before investing; so also it wants a temporary solution of the food problem. To solve this food crisis, some steps to stop trade and profiteering in food are necessary, and it is for this that control is necessary. In a country of backward economy like India, this control invariably faces Opposition from a large section. This conflict of the bourgeoisie is not mainly a conflict between monopoly capitalists and the national bourgeoisie. This conflict is mainly between the trading community and the monopoly industrialists. In a country of backward economy, trade in foodstuff and essential commodities is inevitable for the creation of capital, and control creates obstacles in the creation of this capital, and as a result of that, internal conflict takes the form of internal crisis. India is a vast country. It is not possible to rule the 450 million people of this country by following a policy of repression. It is not possible for any imperialist country to take such a big responsibility. American imperialism is writing in death pangs, in keeping its commitment to those countries of the world which it has assured of giving aid. Meanwhile, an industrial crisis has developed in America. It can be seen from President Johnson’s utterance itself that the number of unemployed is increasing in the country. According to the official statement, four million people are absolutely unemployed; 35 million people are semi-unemployed and in factories also semi-unemployment is continuing. So the Indian Government will fail to suppress the ever-increasing discontent of the people. This attack on democracy will inevitably transform the people’s discontent into struggles. Some indication of the shape of the protest movement of tomorrow is available from the language movement of Madras. So, the coming era is not merely an era of big struggles, but also an era of big victories. The Communist Party therefore will have to take the responsibility of leading the people’s revolutionary struggles in the coming era, and we shall be able to carry out the responsibility successfully only when we are able to build up the party organisation as a revolutionary organisation.
What is the main basis for building up a revolutionary organisation? Comrade Stalin has said: “The main basis for building up a revolutionary organization is the revolutionary cadre.” Who is a revolutionary cadre? A revolutionary cadre is he who can analyse the situation at his own initiative and can adopt policies according to that. He does not wait for anyone’s help.
Our Organisational Slogans –
1. Every party member must form at least one Activist Group of five. He will educate the cadres of this Activist Group in political education.
2. Every party member must see to it that no one from this group is exposed to the police.
3. There should be an underground place for meetings of every Activist Group. If necessary, shelters for keeping one or two underground will have to be arranged.
4. Every Activist Group must have a definite person for contacts.
5. A place should be arranged for hiding secret documents.
6. A member of the Activist Group should be made a member of the Party as soon as he becomes an expert in political education and work.
7. After he becomes a Party member, the Activist Group must not have any contact with him.
This organisational style should be firmly adhered to. This organisation itself will take up the responsibility of revolutionary organisation in the future.
What will be the Political Education?
The main basis of the Indian Revolution is agrarian revolution. So, the main-slogan of the political propaganda campaign will be–make the agrarian revolution successful. The extent to which we are able to propagate the programme of agrarian revolution among the workers and the petty-bourgeoisie and educate them in it, to that extent they will be educated in political education. Every Activist Group should discuss the class analysis among the peasantry, the propaganda of the programme of agrarian revolution.
LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION
Make the People’s Democratic Revolution Successful by Fighting Against Revisionism (Second Document)
As revisionist thinking nestled in the Indian party for a long time, we could not build up a correct revolutionary party. Our primary task today is to build up a correct revolutionary party fighting uncompromisingly against this revisionist thinking.
(1) The first among revisionist thought is to regard ‘Krishak Sabha’ (peasants’ organisation) and trade unions as the only Party activity. Party comrades often confuse the work of peasants’ organisation and trade union with the political work of the Party. They do not realise that the political tasks of the Party cannot be carried out through the peasants’ organisation and trade union. But it should be remembered at the same time that the trade union and the peasants’ organisation are one of the many weapons for serving our purpose. On the other hand, to regard peasants’ organisation and trade union work as the only work of the Party, can only mean plunging the Party in the mire of economism. The proletarian revolution cannot be made successful without an uncompromising struggle against this economism. This is the lesson that com. Lenin has given us.
(2) Some comrades think and are still thinking today that our political task ends with the launching of a few movements on demands, and they regard a single victory through these movements as a political victory of the Party. Not only has that, these comrades sought to confine the responsibility of carrying out the political tasks of the Party within the limits of these movements only. But we, the true Marxists know that carrying out the Party’s political responsibility means that the final aim of all propaganda, all movements and all organisations of the Party is to establish firmly the political power of the proletariat. It should be remembered always that if the words “Seizure of Political Power” are left out, the Party no longer remains a revolutionary Party. Although it will remain a revolutionary Party in name then, it will be actually reduced to a reformist party of the bourgeoisie.
When speaking of seizure of political power, some mean the Centre. They think that with the gradual expansion of the limits of the movement, our only aim will be to capture power centrally. This thinking is not only wrong; this thinking destroys the correct revolutionary thinking within the party and reduces it to a reformist party. At the World Trade Union Congress in 1953, the well-tested and well-established Marxist leader of China, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, asserted firmly that in the coming days the tactics and strategy of the unfinished revolution of Asia, Africa and Latin America will follow the footsteps of China. In other words, the strategy and tactics of these struggles will be area-wise seizure of power. It was not only that comrade and member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Party, but Com. Lenin also mentioned area-wise seizure of power in his writings. Above all, the working class in Russia gave a concrete proof of Lenin’s conclusion when they kept the town of Kronstad under seizure for three days. In the era of socialism, all the elements of area-wise seizure of power are present in our framework.
A burning instance of the fact that this is possible is the Naga rebellion. The main condition of this area-wise seizure of power is weapons in the hands of the revolutionary forces. To think of seizing power without arms, is nothing but an idle dream. Our Party has a very long history of struggles. We gave the leadership to the peasants’ and workers’ movements in the extensive countryside of North Bengal. Naturally, we shall have to examine and analyse the movements of the past and draw lessons from them and we shall have to move forward anew in the present revolutionary era.
Analysis of the concrete events and experiences of the Tebhaga Movement in 1946 and 1947
The participant peasants in this movement numbered about six million. It should be remembered that in the entire peasant movement this was a golden era. In the massiveness of the movement, in the intensity of emotions, in the expression of class hatred, this movement was the highest stage of class struggle. To help understand that stage, I am citing a few moving instances of that movement.
A day’s event:–
I was then living underground in the interest of the movement. I have personally witnessed the tide of the revolutionary movement. We have seen how a single little note made a man ten miles away come running like a mad man. On the other hand, we have also seen standing beside the husband, a newly wed young Muslim woman who was subjected to demoniac barbarous assault by the class enemy. I have heard the pathetic appeal of that unarmed husband–Comrade, can’t you take revenge? The very next moment, I have seen the intense hatred of the exploited against the exploiter; have seen that aweful spectacle of killing a living man in cold blood by twisting his throat.
Comrades, the above mentioned incidents demand from us some analysis.
Firstly, what was the historical reason as a result of which this massive form of that movement in those days could create intense hatred against the class enemy?
Secondly, what again were the causes which turned that vast movement into a failure?
First, it was the slogan of seizure of political power that created the massive form of that movement of those days, created the intense hatred against the class enemy. On the opposite side, it was this slogan that made the class enemy adopt his class role. It is the expression of this that we find in the barbaric rape of the young peasant woman and the beastly violent attack to smash the movement. On the other hand the peasants also did not hesitate to attack the class enemy.
This raises the question: Why couldn’t power be seized even after this ? It couldn’t be seized for one reason only–it was because the fighting people of those days looked to the centre for arms; we then lost faith in the path indicated by Lenin.
We hesitated in those days to accept that bold declaration of Lenin to carry forward the revolution by collecting arms locally and seizing power area-wise. As a result, the unarmed peasants could not stand up and resist in the face of arms. Even those who fought defying death had also to retreat finally.
The lesson that has to be drawn from the mistakes of those days is that the responsibility of collecting arms lies with the local organisation, not with the centre. So the question of collecting arms will have to be put up before every Activist Group from now on. ‘Dao’, knives, sticks–all these are weapons, and with their help at opportune moments, firearms will have to be snatched.
The events described above are manifestations of revisionist thinking in its theoretical aspect. Now, from the organisational point of view, those mistakes will have to be found out which were hurdles in the way of a correct leadership of the vast movements of those days, so that they may not find a nest afresh in the revolutionary Party.
To smash all those mistakes in the Party, the Party will today first have to establish its leadership over the mass organisations. For, a review of the history of the party over a long period would reveal that as a result of the revisionist thinking of regarding leaders of trade unions and peasant organisations (krishak sabha) as the real representatives of the people, the party was reduced to a party of a few individuals.
Because of this thinking, the party’s political activities became inert, and the proletariat also became deprived of a correct revolutionary leadership. All movements became confined within the bonds of movements on demands. As a result Party members became enthusiastic over a single victory and despondent over a single defeat. Secondly, as a result of overestimating the importance of this organisation, another type of localism is born.
Comrades think that the Party will suffer a serious loss if any comrade is shifted from his area and they take this as a loss to personal leadership.
From this localism another type of opportunism develops. Comrades think that their area is the most revolutionary; naturally nothing should be done here so that there is police persecution. Because of this viewpoint they do not analyse the political situation of the entire country. As a result, commandism develops and organisational and daily propaganda work suffers.
As a result, when there is a call for a struggle, they assert that they will not do any small work and commit adventurism. Naturally the question arises–what are the methods which help to get out of these deviations? What are those Marxist directives which become essential tasks for building up a revolutionary party?
Because of this thinking, the party’s political activities became inert, and the proletariat also became deprived of a correct revolutionary leadership. All movements became confined within the bonds of movements on demands. As a result Party members became enthusiastic over a single victory and despondent over a single defeat. Secondly, as a result of overestimating the importance of this organisation, another type of localism is born.
Comrades think that the Party will suffer a serious loss if any comrade is shifted from his area and they take this as a loss to personal leadership.
From this localism another type of opportunism develops. Comrades think that their area is the most revolutionary; naturally nothing should be done here so that there is police persecution. Because of this viewpoint they do not analyse the political situation of the entire country. As a result, commandism develops and organisational and daily propaganda work suffers.
As a result, when there is a call for a struggle, they assert that they will not do any small work and commit adventurism. Naturally the question arises–what are the methods which help to get out of these deviations? What are those Marxist directives which become essential tasks for building up a revolutionary party?
Firstly, all works of organisation of the future will have to be done as complementary to the Party. In other words, the mass organisations will have to be used as a part of serving one main purpose of the Party. For this reason, naturally, Party leadership will have to be established over the organisations.
Secondly, immediately from now the entire effort of the Party will have to be spent on recruiting newer and newer cadres and on forming countless Activist Groups consisting of them. It should be remembered that in the coming era of struggles, the masses will have to be educated through the illegal machinery. So every Party member from now on will have to be made habituated to illegal work.
To get used to illegal work, it is an essential task for every Activist Group to paste illegal posters. It is only through this process that they will be able to act as the bold core in leading struggles in the era of struggles. Otherwise, the revolution will be reduced to a petty bourgeois idle dream.
Thirdly, it is through these active organisations that the Party will be able to establish its leadership over the mass organisations. So from now on we shall have to help the members of the Activist Groups so that they can fearlessly criticize the leaders of the mass organisations, and their work.
Fourthly, the work of the mass organisations will have to be discussed and decided upon in the Party before it is implemented in the mass organisations. It should be remembered here that the policies of the mass organisations have been wrongly practiced so long in the Party. To hold discussions on Party decisions is not called democratic centralism. This thinking is not in accordance with Marxism.
And from all this thinking the conclusion has to be drawn that the Party’s programme will be adopted from below. But if it is adopted from the lower level, then the correct Marxist way is not implemented; in all these activities there inevitably is bourgeois deviations.
The Marxist truth of democratic centralism is that the Party directive coming from higher leadership must be carried out. Because the Party’s highest leader is he who has firmly established himself as a Marxist through a long period of movements and theoretical debates. We have the right to criticise Party decisions; but once a decision has been taken, if any one criticizes it without implementing it, or obstructs work, or hesitates to implement it, he will be guilty of the serious offence of violating Party discipline.
As a result of having this idea of Party democracy as that of a debating society, the road for espionage inside the Party is thrown open. Naturally, the revolutionary leadership of the Party then becomes bankrupt and the working class is deprived of a correct revolutionary leadership. This petty-bourgeois sort of thinking inside the Party leads the Party on to the verge of destruction. And this is the manifestation of petty-bourgeois thinking inside the Party. Their comfortable living and attitude of undisciplined criticism reduces the Party to a mere debating society. This thinking becomes a hurdle in the path of building up a Party of the proletariat–strong as iron.
Fifthly, the undisciplined life of the petty-bourgeoisie draws them towards undisciplined criticism; that is, they do not want to criticize within the limits of the organisation. To get rid of this deviation, we should remain conscious of the Marxist viewpoint regarding criticism. The characteristics of Marxist criticism are: (1) Criticisms must be made within the Party organisation, that is, at the Party meeting. (2) The aim of criticism should be constructive. That is, the aim of criticism is to advance the party from the point of view of principles and organisation, and we must always be vigilant that there is no unprincipled criticism within the Party.
Come, comrades, in the present revolutionary era, let us complete the People’s Democratic Revolution by fighting uncompromisingly against revisionism.
LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION
Artificial Intelligence and Future of Socialism - Professor Buzgalin
Democracy and Class Struggle says Buzgalin is correct about direction of society you cannot reach communism by expansion of market/commodity economy but by its limitation just as we argued in Marxism Against Market Socialism - revisionists misunderstand and misinterpret the New Economic Policy in Russia in 1920's to reach revisionist conclusion about expansion of market under socialism.
Comrade Wu Bing in China exposed this revisionism of the Chinese leadership on NEP.
https://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.com/2008/08/economic-policy-and-attacking-leninism.html
Also study Deng Yuan Hsu and Pao Yu Ching on the importance of direction from socialism to communism
http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/WIST.html
https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2018/04/do-you-trust-your-computer-artificial.html
https://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.com/2018/05/artificial-intelligence-and-planned.html
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Who is America ? Sacha Baron Cohen when the abnormal appears normal - Welcome to Trump's America
The Year is 2018 the country is the United States - let this go in the archive so that sometime in the future people will have evidence of insanity of a significant portion of its population.
Mikheyev: Looming Showdown Between Iran and US is a Golden Opportunity for Russia
Democracy and Class Struggle says this view of Mikheyev was before the Trump Putin Summit and the tacit deals on Iran - Russia is playing a clever great game aiding America and Israel while "defending" Iran. Geo-politics in the 21st Century is as ugly as it was in the 20th and 19th Century.
Are you better Off Today ? Have you ever seen the rain
The Trumpets are sounding you are better off today - GDP growth and averages hide the oppression of the working man who is not an average which is always skewed towards the top 20%.
No conjuring tricks from Trump - this song calls him out - Are You Better Off Today ?
Trump in Trouble - The Trouble Deepens - Trump Drowning - the Mueller Report will sink him
Democracy and Class Struggle says the Teflon is wearing thin after so many attempts to make things stick.
The "Teflon" Don will go down like we have always said.
He has taken longer to wear down than we originally thought due the psychotic loyalty of those he is only to ready to throw under the bus.
It has also illustrated the profound racial sickness of certain parts of United States capitalist society -a sickness that may ultimately cause the internal collapse of the United States,
Historians will date that internal collapse from the Trump Era as a "frantic" attempt to preserve US hegemony that failed.
Larry Wilkerson on the Trump Putin Summit
Democracy and Class Struggle says Larry Wilkerson says in a back handed way the Trump Putin Summit was wasted and useless.
We do not agree with Colonel Larry Wilkerson - from the Israeli point of view it was a victory and they were very loud in its praise of Summit and there were tacit agreements and accommodations from Russia over Golan Heights and Syria and Iran.
In fact from what we can glean Putin did not defend Iran with any conviction and has facilitated an attack on Iran,
Russia has spoken about removal of Iranian forces from Syria.
We do not think that Colonel Larry Wilkerson is ignorant or stupid and why he did not point to the fact that this meeting had made a War with Iran more likely - would invalidate the meeting completely - a meeting between two men facilitating a war on another country is not something to be welcomed or supported.
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Andrei Nekrasov Film - The Magnitsky Act - Behind the scenes
This is truely a story of our times. If your story fits an agenda it can have miraculous results - the truth is more modest but will it expose Browder in the end.
Nekrasov's film "Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes" produced in Norway by Piraya Film, supported by a number of European film funds and the public Franco-German TV network Arte TV and completed in 2016, caused a major controversy.
The film alleges that western politicians and media were misled by [Bill Browder], a U.S. born investor and campaigner, into believing that the Russian tax consultant Sergei Magnitsky had been persecuted and killed for exposing corruption.[4]
Bill Browder’s version of Magnitsky’s life and death has been widely accepted across the world, and became the basis for legislations and sanctions in a number of countries, first of all the U.S.[5]
The premiere of Nekrasov’s film at the European Parliament, scheduled for April 26 2016, was stopped at the last moment.[6]
A TV broadcast in Germany and France and film’s public screenings were cancelled due to Browder’s legal challenges.[4]
According to Browder and some media the film was promoted by a group of Russian patriots which included Natalia Veselnitskaya.[7]
Over Browder's objections, the Newseum in Washington held a screening in June 2016 hosted by American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.[5]
Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)'s office actively promoted the screening, sending out invitations from the office of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats, which Rohrabacher chairs.[7]
SOURCE: Wikipedia
WE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO SEE THIS FILM
Who Will Stop Trump From Taking Us Into War With Iran? by Medea Benjamin
Donald Trump may be taking us to war on Iran and those who should be trying to stop him—from Congress to the grassroots—are too obsessed with Russia to even pay attention. Trump is well aware that a war with Iran would be a good diversion from his domestic and Russia travails, and could even help Republicans in the November elections. In 2012, when President Obama was down in the polls, Trump tweeted: “Looks like he’ll have to start a war or major conflict to win. Don’t put it past him!” So we certainly shouldn’t put it past Donald Trump.
On July 22, just after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had wrapped up a speech in which he compared Iran’s leaders to the Mafia, Trump sent out this threatening tweet, in all caps, to Iran’s President Rouhani. “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!
”
Trump’s twitter tirade was in response to comments by President Rouhani warning that a U.S. war with Iran would be the “mother of all wars” and that Trump should not “play with the lion’s tail,” and earlier comments implying that if U.S. sanctions stopped Iran from exporting oil, Iran could close down the Strait of Hormuz, a slender waterway at the mouth of the Gulf through which 20 percent of the world’s oil is shipped.
Trump’s explosive tweet was reminiscent of the “fire and fury” comments he directed toward Kim Jong Un before he started negotiating with the North Korean leader, but it’s unlikely that this Twitterstorm will be the prelude to talks with Iran.
In the case of Korea, South Korea was pushing for talks and there was no significant U.S. lobby trying to stop them. With Iran, both Saudi Arabia and Israel have been trying to suck the U.S. into their decades-old feud with Iran. They both opposed the Iran nuclear deal. Israel has been advocating for the U.S. military to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, even though Israel has several hundred nuclear weapons of its own and Iran has none. Saudi Arabia insists that Iran is spreading terrorism throughout the region, even though the Saudis have spent billions of dollars spreading their intolerant version of Islam, Wahhabism. And let us not forget the terror of the Saudi bombing of Yemen, which has led to the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophe.
Lobby groups from AIPAC to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies have also been stoking the conflict. So has the dissident group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). The MEK, a cult-like group that has killed Iranians and Americans alike and was on the U.S. terrorist list until 2012, is hated inside Iran for having sided with Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran in 1980.
In recent years, the MEK has spent lavishly (with what is rumored to be Saudi money) to acquire political support from liberals like Howard Dean to conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, both of whom were key speakers at the group’s May gathering in Paris. But the MEK’s most influential cheerleader is John Bolton, who has spoken at their meetings eight times, for which he was well compensated. Bolton considers the MEK a legitimate opposition movement even though they have absolutely no base of support inside Iran.
Trump delighted this dangerous melange of Iran opponents by withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal on May 8, despite Iran’s compliance with its side of the bargain, as continuously certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In defiance of the deal’s five cosponsors—Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia—the Trump administration unilaterally restored sanctions, which will go into effect in two waves during August and November.
The devastating sanctions not only prohibit U.S. companies from doing business in Iran, but will also punish foreign companies and banks. Despite efforts by European governments to shield their companies, the companies themselves—from oil giant Total to airplane manufacturer Airbus—do not want to take the risk and are already pulling the plug on trade deals they had negotiated with Iran. The value of the rial has plummeted this year by 40 percent. With the economy reeling from sanctions and the threat of war, along with mismanagement and corruption, Iranians have taken to the streets in protest.
The administration’s goal now is to cut off the Islamic Republic’s ability to export oil, its prime source of revenue and foreign exchange. These particularly crippling sanctions will go into effect on November 4.
The Trump administration believes that its policy of choking Tehran economically and supporting internal dissent can topple the government. “We are now very realistic in being able to see an end of the regime in Iran. The collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran is around the corner,” Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giulian shouted triumphantly to the cheering crowd at the June 2018 gathering of the MEK’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
An overthrow of the regime, with no entity ready to take over, would not only lead to chaos internally but could quickly spread throughout the region. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its allies, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, are ready to attack both Israel and U.S. troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and on the myriad of military bases surrounding Iran. The Iranian government has already threatened to block oil shipments, a move that could rock the entire global economy.
Many Iranians we talk to desperately want to change their government, but not with U.S. intervention. They look around the region in horror, seeing how U.S. militarism has contributed to massive chaos, misery, and death in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Palestine. They believe their best option is internal reform.
As a group of prominent Iranian-Americans stated in an open letter to Secretary Pompeo, “If you truly wish to help the people of Iran, lift the travel ban [although no Iranian has ever been involved in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, Iran is included in Trump’s Muslim ban], adhere to the Iran nuclear deal and provide the people of Iran the economic relief they were promised and have eagerly awaited for three years.
Those measures, more than anything, will provide the Iranian people with the breathing space to do what only they can do—push Iran toward democracy through a gradual process that achieves the benefits of freedom and liberty without turning Iran into another Iraq or Syria.”
Before all hell breaks loose with the Trump wrecking crew taking us into a cataclysmic conflict with Iran, Congress and the American public better get their heads out of the Russiagate sand and rush to stop them.
Editor’s note: The U.S. State Department listed Iranian opposition group MEK, or the Mojahedin-e Khalq, as a terrorist group from 1997 to 2012. Then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton removed MEK from the list after a lobbying effort by pro–regime change groups inside the United States.
On July 19, peace activists Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold of CODEPINK attempted to meet with officials from the MEK at the organization’s office in Washington, D.C An MEK member was not receptive to speak to them.
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Why Does the West Hate Putin ? Prof. Alexandr Buzgalin
Democracy Class Struggle says Putin has passed his sell by date and should make way for revolutionary socialist forces who will defend Russia against West - the system Putin has put in place will not survive him personally - a third collapse of the Russian State will come about if Russia depends on a market economy.
Russia has limited time to construct a defensive socialist economy and as long as Putin defends a market economy it is historic time lost -preventing the Russian Economic Renaissance which is necessary to Russia's existence. It is short sighted bourgeois politics.
Buzgalin may have some good ideas and some bad but he knows that Russia's existence is dependent on a return to the socialist road Putin does not.
However Putin hatred in the West has been taken to new heights by the Magnitsky Affair and how who this was created visit here :
It is a paradox that Browder's Crony Capitalism is the enemy of Putin who defends Oligarchic Capitalism
SEE ALSO
https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-market-economy-fails-russian.html
(Why) Capitalism Degenerates Into Fascism When the Precarious Ally With the Powerful to Dominate the Powerless - Umair Haque
Democracy and Class Struggle knows the history of fascism and proto fascism and its data set but we are also aware there are some new elements arise in the Fascism of the 21st Century and we think this article by Umair Haque who is a progressive but no revolutionary communist points us in direction we should look to find the new elements.
(Why) Capitalism Degenerates Into Fascism
When the Precarious Ally With the Powerful to Dominate the Powerless
You’d be kidding yourself like American pundits are if you haven’t observed by now that America’s having something like a classic proto-fascist meltdown.
Demagoguery, demonization, scapegoating, camps, “animals!,” “vermin!,”and parallel institutions?—check, check, check.
So. Here’s a tiny question. Does capitalism have a tendency to degenerate into fascism? After all, it must be a mighty coincidence indeed that America’s the most capitalist society in human history even calling an ambulance will cost you a few thousand dollars (yes really, people of the world) —and it’s also the first one since the 1930s to melt down like this.
I’m going to put it like this. Capitalism degenerates into fascism when the precarious ally with the powerful to dominate the powerless.
Those who feel entitled to, but deprived of, power—instead of reforming a society so that everyone has more, and truer powers, rights, freedoms?—lick the boots of the powerful, in order to dominate and subjugate the powerless.
I’ll explain all that?—and it might be tough reading, so feel free to skip around, mull things over, and of course you are most welcome to disagree with me.
The way that the story of capitalism declining into fascism used to be told is that essentially, that capital, always starved for more profit, which is always in relative decline, therefore needs more and more force to subdue labour with.
Until at last, people are in camps (more or less enslaved) while their de facto owners plunder the homes which once belonged to them.
But this story the old one while it has a ring of truth, also seems to leave much out.
I think by now we can glean deeper truths, perhaps, too. So I will tell you a new story, or a new variant on the old one, maybe and you judge if it carries any water.
Consider the rise of the alt right. It’s a proto-fascist movement by any other name. Dehumanization, scapegoating, violence, the submergence of the individual within the group-check, check, check. But why? Why would a bunch of dorks and nerds, basically?videogamers and incels and comic-book collectors, basically suddenly become something like vicious little fascists? Do you see how weird it is, when you really think about it?
Think about the incels for a second. They’re funny, and they’re pathetic but they’re also proto fascists. They’d like nothing more than a society where women, who are inherently “whores” and “bitches”, are under the thumb of a kind of brotherhood of men—who allocate the bodies of those women in such a way as to satisfy the “greater good”, at least according to the men’s sexual appetites, one woman for every man. In that way, the women, too are “purified”?—they’re honorable, because they’re not acting against the interests of the collective of men.
Do you see how weirdly fascist this all is?
Now. The question is why these guys—these nerds and dorks—would delve down the rabbit hole and recreate fascism without even knowing it.
Don’t you find that striking? Somehow, there’s a weird set of socio-economic pressures that seem to have shattered their minds apart. What are those pressures?
The answer is that they are losers. They don’t have the things they expected—not just sex, of course, but what sex is a means to for them: the power, status, rank, respect that comes from being part of a tribe of men who control women’s bodies.
So they are losers of a special kind—losers who expected to be winners. Who felt entitled—to women of course, but more truly, I think, what they think sex represents to other men just like them—power and status. Losers who expected some level of status, power, rank, and respect to simply accompany them throughout their lives. And yet, somehow, they don’t seem to have enough of it.
The key word is “enough”. It’s not that they have none - they’re not losers in the absolute sense. They have plenty of power and status. After all, incels and alt-rightists are dorks and nerds of a specific kind: white ones, usually.
Below them sit millions of young black and latino men?—not to mention women - who don’t share the privileges that the white ones appear to take for granted. So they’re losers of a very special kind?—?losers who expected to be greater winners than they are.
But why would that be the case? Why would they feel entitled to more power, status, rank, and respect than they have?—?and why would the amount they have, which is still quite a bit, socially speaking, not be enough? The answer must lie in their expectations. Those expectations can only come from history. So the answer must be something like: they saw their grandfathers and fathers live lives in which these things seemed to materialize almost effortlessly. Women, relationships, sex—and the power and so on which other men accorded them as a result.
Now we are getting somewhere. We have found that the sudden, violent turn of young white men, towards fascism, is driven by a kind of relative collapse in social rank, status, and power.
It is in that sense they are losers —they are not living the lives they expected to live. But why not? Has the number of women in society suddenly decreased? Are there more men? Of course not. The answer must lie somewhere beyond demographics.
The answer, which has never occurred to these young men, these losers, is that society itself is growing short of power. Not just for them—but for everyone. And that is because power is being concentrated at the top. It’s being taken away from everyone?—?women, minorities, the young, the old, the poor—and flowing towards a tiny group, at the very top: that is what growing inequality really means.
These young men don’t see any of that, though. They think they are the only victims in a society being robbed and cheated of the power to obtain what they expected to have (even if it was foolish to want it in the first place). And so they lash out viciously, trying to preserve what power they can for themselves. But do you see the bargain they are making?
They are the precarious allying with the powerful to dominate the powerless.
And all that is how capitalism degenerates into fascism. It’s hard to see —my parable isn’t quite clear yet —so let’s zoom out. It’s not the absolutely powerless, the dirt poor who are the fascists—at least the ardent, bellowing true believers. It is the imploded middle class. The ones who expected to be powerful?—?but aren’t. If we think about American proto-fascism, it’s the people who expected to be living the American Dream—but aren’t—who are the Trumpists, not the dirt poor inner cities.
But that American Dream always had a dark side, too. Who was gay in it? Were black people living in those suburban neighborhoods? What ethnicity was the maid, the carwasher, and the gas station attendant? Do you see how even being in a secure middle class means being at the top of a little social heirarchy? How being “middle class” means that you have, above all, a certain kind of power, which is what “stability” must also mean, in a certain sense?
So what happens if you lose all that? The powerless one never expected to be on top of anyone. But what about the guy in the middle, who did? What happens when he or she finds themselves without as much power as they expected to have? Then, my friends, you probably turn to those who promise to give you that power by force. At the precise moment you probably should be asking: “wait?—?am I the only one who’s growing powerless? Is power over other people what I should be after, anyways? Is that kind of power what’s causing this meltdown in the first place?”
A middle class, you see, is one of the great inventions of modernity. It never really existed before, at least in a relatively stable sense, until the birth of modern democracies. Modern democracies, of course, were accompanied by capitalism. But capitalism, in turn, creates winners and losers, which threatens to destabilize the whole project of a modern society, by undoing that middle class, unless it’s reined in.
When capitalism creates too many losers, and not enough winners?—?when it becomes predatory, in other words, and a tiny number “win” by making everyone else “lose”, as is the case in America today?—?then the spark for fascism is lit. Some losers expect to be losers?—?they always have been. But some are new losers. And it’s those new losers, the precarious, who make a strange and stupid choice. Instead of bringing down the winners, they lick the winners’ boots?—?as long as the winners promise to give them the power to sit atop the people they expected to dominate again. It might not make sense morally, and it might be ethically foolish?—?but it’s perfectly rational when you think about it.
That’s what the incels and the dorks and nerds of the alt-right are really doing, after all. They felt entitled to a certain amount of power, status, and rank. They didn’t get it.
But they also didn’t see that no one did — everyone’s lot in life is declining in a stagnant economy, and that means that society should probably be reformed so everyone’s life improves.
And so instead of changing the system for the benefit of all, they chose to lick the boots of a set of domineering bullies, who promised them just the power to dominate those they’d expected to. Bang!
The recreation of the essential bargain of fascism, all over again, in weird little internet communities. How strange. How sad. How absurd.
That’s a lot, and it’s very, very abstract, so let me try to simplify the lesson. Capitalism creates winners and losers.
When the winners are many and the losers are few a broad middle class, lording it over an entrenched poor, serving a tiny number of rich - then the system is stable.
No, of course, even that is not “fair” it is just stable. But when capitalism becomes predatory, then the losers begin to outnumber the winners.
The once stable middle class, which expected a middling level of dominance, collapses. They aren’t as powerful as they expected to be. And rather than reform the system so that everyone is powerful and prosperous again, they choose, instead, to ally with the tiny number of predatory winners —granting them dominance, as long as they themselves are granted the privilege to dominate, by force, all the people they expected to. Minorities, gays, immigrants, refugees —if they are just regular middle class people. Women —if they are incels. And so on.
I think the answer is very clear by now. Capitalism does indeed have a tendency to degenerate into fascism.
The winners take more and more for themselves —but that makes everything more precarious, more precarious, by creating more and more losers, until ultimately, the system folds in on itself.
But in a perverse way —the more powerful of the losers lick the boots of the winners, in order to gain to what they were always promised, to subjugate the weakest among them.
And in that way, nobody really asks the question: what might happen if we all had not just power over each other, but power in, through, and with one another - to live decent and beautiful and sane lives?
Do you see how subtle and strange it is, the way capitalism folds in on itself, ultimately Not with a bang - but with something more like an explosion that crescendoes back into an implosion.
That is a great lesson America’s collapse is teaching the world. The question is if the world is learning it.
Umair
July 2018
SOURCE:
https://eand.co/why-capitalism-degenerates-into-fascism-8d978c013e20
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