Syria uses tanks to stop protesters

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/20115117374683547.html


Army tanks have shelled a residential district in Homs, according to a rights campaigner in the city, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, to end a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.
"Homs is shaking with the sound of explosions from tank shelling and heavy machine guns in the Bab Amro neighbourhood," Najati Tayara, said.
Ban, the UN secretatry general, urged Syria on Wednesday to halt mass arrests of anti-government protesters and to heed calls for reform.
Ban also said that UN humanitarian workers and human rights monitors must be allowed into Deraa, as well as other cities so as to assess the situation and needs of the civilian population.
"I urge president Assad to heed the call of the people for reform and freedom and desist from the mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators, and to cooperate with the human rights monitors," Ban told a news conference in Geneva.
"I am disappointed that the United Nations has not been granted access yet to Deraa and other places," he added.
Assad initially responded to the unrest, the most serious challenge to his 11-year grip on power, with promises of reform. He granted citizenship to stateless Kurds and last month lifted a 48-year state of emergency.
But he also deployed the army to crush dissent, in Deraa, where demonstrations first erupted on March 18, and then in other cities, making clear he would not risk losing the tight control his family has held over Syria for the past 41 years.
http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images/2011/4/21/201142114812843621_8.jpg The EU is to look at fresh sanctions this week against Syrian Assad's regime after already honing in on his inner circle, Catherine Ashton, the EU diplomacy chief, said on Wednesday.
Fresh sanctions
Asked by members of the European Parliament to explain why Assad's name was not on a list of 13 Syrian officials (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/201151083236550487.html) hit by European Union sanctions, Ashton said "we started with 13 people who were directly involved" in cracking down on protests.
"We'll look at it again this week," she added.
"I assure you that my intention is to put the maximum political pressure that we can on Syria."
Speaking to the New York Times, a powerful cousin of the president said the Assad family was not going to capitulate.
"We will sit here. We call it a fight until the end... They should know when we suffer, we will not suffer alone," Rami Makhlouf, one of the 13 people targeted by additional sanctions, told the newspaper.
Makhlouf, a tycoon in his early 40s who owns several monopolies, and his brother, a secret police chief, have been under specific US sanctions since 2007 for corruption.
Suhair al-Atassi, a rights campaigner, said a demonstration broke out on Tuesday in Homs, despite a heavy security presence, after tanks stormed several neighbourhoods on Sunday and three civilians were killed.
"This regime is playing a losing card by sending tanks into cities and besieging them. Syrians have seen the blood of their compatriots spilt. They will never return to being non-persons," she told Reuters.
Demonstrators have shouted the name of Makhlouf as a symbol of graft in a country that has been facing severe water shortages and unemployment ranging from government estimates of 10 per cent to independent estimates of 25 per cent.
Makhlouf maintains he is a businessman whose companies provide jobs for thousands of Syrians. Most foreign journalists have been banned from Syria.
Presidential adviser Bouthaina Shaaban told a New York Times correspondent briefly allowed into the country that the government was close to re-establishing order after unrest it blames on "armed terrorist groups".
"Now we've passed the most dangerous moment... I hope we are witnessing the end of the story." Shaaban said.
Erdogan posters in Baniyas
Security forces have released 300 people detained in Baniyas and restored basic services in the coastal city stormed by tanks and troops last week, according to a human rights group.
Water, telecommunications and electricity had been restored, but tanks remained in major streets, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday.
Two hundred people, including pro-democracy protest leaders were still in jail, it said.
"Scores of those released were severely beaten and subjected to insults. A tank deployed in the square where demonstrations were being held," Rami Abdelrahman, the Observatory director, said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images/2011/4/17/201141785133763140_8.jpg Human rights campaigners said at least six civilians, including four women, were killed in raids on Sunni neighbourhoods and in an attack on an all-women demonstration just outside Baniyas on Saturday.
Until the uprising began, Assad - from the minority Shia Alawite sect - had been emerging from Western isolation after defying the United States over Iraq and reinforcing an anti- Israel bloc with Iran, increasing Syrian Sunni concerns.
Demonstrators in Baniyas had raised posters of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, who has had close ties to Assad, but has disputed the official Syrian account of the violence.
Erdogan said more than 1,000 civilians had died, and he did not want to see a repeat of the 1982 Hama violence or the 1988 gassing of Iraqi Kurds in Halabja, when 5,000 people died.
In southern Syria, four civilians in Tafas were killed as security forces widened a campaign of arrests, a human rights campaigner in the region said, adding that 300 people had been detained since tanks entered the town on Saturday.
What's going on in Syria? I've heard some suspicious allegations from the Syrian government that the protesters are just a bunch of few kids with guns, but every single fact coming out seems to contradict that. The only "evidence" they produced were "Confessions" from a couple of young men. They seem to be playing the same game as Bahrain, who accuses "foreign agendas" of trying to overthrow their government as a pretext to slaughter innocent people and clamp down on the masses. To back that up, the government releases a videotape of a couple of protesters alleging that the protests were organized by "foreign agents", as if the many thousands of people marching are all Mossad spies (?). I'd like to know what happened to these people who "Confessed"... in Bahrain, one of them turned up dead not long after this "confession" with signs of serious torture all over his body.

Of course this seems just despicable guilt by association designed to discredit any authentic challenge to the regime. Bahrainis fighting for their rights are all "Secret Iranian Agents", and any Syrian who doesn't like the government likewise is a "Secret Israeli Agent". Seriously? Are we returning to that old xenophobic playbook?

Either way, if there ARE armed people, state authority does have a right to stop them, but the state does not have a right to clamp down on unarmed, popular protests, especially from marginalized ethnic groups who have every right to express their demands in a peaceful way. Its clear that some of the protesters are using weapons and so on, but do they represent the majority of the protesters? The government is using the presence of a few armed individuals to basically imply that all the protests are working on behalf of foreign agendas, and not for the betterment of Syria. Likewise, I am sure many Bahraini shiite protesters did have links to Iran, but for the Bahraini government to use the presence of a few Iran-linked protesters to slander the broader movement is reprehensible.

Also, why do international leftists like Chavez support Assad? Assad's government stinks like an old fashioned bourgeois nationalist dictatorship (all Baath parties ever seemed to produce, be it in Iraq or Syria). Better economic access for minority alawites, ethnic groups with "questionable" loyalties like Kurds are repressed (Assad offered stateless Kurds citizenship after DECADES as a "Concession" ...), and worst of all his government seems to have produced yet another unofficial monarchy, where the Assad family runs everything (apparently, Bashar Assad's brother is the leader of the unit responsible for a lot of the violent repression.) Is there something I'm missing here? It seems like high time Baathism was flushed down the toilet of history. On that note, the coverage on Telesur seems to have all but ignored the unrest in Syria, as if nothing at all was happening :thumbdown:

It seems that the utmost hypocrisy has arrived at the gates of NATO and ALBA alike. NATO backs the thugs in Bahrain, ALBA backs the thugs in Damascus. I wonder if history will remember both as opportunistic hypocrites when people look back at the "Arab Spring" decades in the future.

[Threetune]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/20115117374683547.html

... They seem to be playing the same game as Bahrain, who accuses "foreign agendas" of trying to overthrow their government as a pretext to slaughter innocent people and clamp down on the masses. To back that up, the government releases a videotape of a couple of protesters alleging that the protests were organized by "foreign agents", as if the many thousands of people marching are all Mossad spies (?). I'd like to know what happened to these people who "Confessed"... in Bahrain, one of them turned up dead not long after this "confession" with signs of serious torture all over his body.

Of course this seems just despicable guilt by association designed to discredit any authentic challenge to the regime. Bahrainis fighting for their rights are all "Secret Iranian Agents", and any Syrian who doesn't like the government likewise is a "Secret Israeli Agent". Seriously? Are we returning to that old xenophobic playbook? ...



What a piece of classic straw-manning on your part. And what a great service you‘re providing. As soon as we see your posts we know the imperialists are having a hard time organising their bullshit reactionary intervention in the growing revolution which they are desperately trying to derail with agents and provocateurs. Why would they do otherwise?

[Sword and Shield]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_oIAhQMTG-dU/S9_OgkmaYHI/AAAAAAAAEkU/3FU1rLqp-WY/s1600/revolution-hungary-1956-soviet-invasion-illustrated-history-pictures-images-photos-001.jpg

http://libcom.org/files/images/hungary-56-soviet-tanks-in-budapest-street.jpg

Yes! Finally! They've been nice to those liberals for too long! Send in the tanks!

[Threetune]

What is this about? Exactly.

[Red Future]

Looks like Hungary during the uprising in the 50s

[Threetune]

Yes I know that. But unless you want a communist revolution for the people of Syria, and a dictatorship of the proletariat, why would you want a revolution?
Answer: Simply to destabilise a truculent national bourgeois who are not playing the imperialist game by the US rules.

[Tim Finnegan]

What a piece of classic straw-manning on your part. And what a great service you‘re providing. As soon as we see your posts we know the imperialists are having a hard time organising their bullshit reactionary intervention in the growing revolution which they are desperately trying to derail with agents and provocateurs. Why would they do otherwise?

The Arab Revolutions have really brought out the twitching, tinfoil-hat paranoia in certain "leftists", haven't they?

[Return to the Source]

Good for Assad! Western collaborationists seeking regime change should be repressed.

A piece of advice: Stop using al-Jazeera for your news on Syria. Their coverage on the uprising is distorted to the point where you can't even sift through the bullshit. They literally took footage of a pro-government, pro-Assad rally and claimed it was an opposition rally, incidentally because the pro-Assad rally was bigger than any of the opposition's events.

[Sir Comradical]

^^ How do we know they're "western collaborationists"? That is the question.

[agnixie]

Good for Assad! Western collaborationists seeking regime change should be repressed.

A piece of advice: Stop using al-Jazeera for your news on Syria. Their coverage on the uprising is distorted to the point where you can't even sift through the bullshit. They literally took footage of a pro-government, pro-Assad rally and claimed it was an opposition rally, incidentally because the pro-Assad rally was bigger than any of the opposition's events.

Baath is a fascist party you idiot.

[The Vegan Marxist]

^^ How do we know they're "western collaborationists"? That is the question.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-us-syria-20110418,0,6334092.story

[The Vegan Marxist]

Baath is a fascist party you idiot.

Proof please?

[agnixie]

Proof please?

Third positionism, far right nationalism, totalitarianism, some social elements within a corporatist context, etc. Their ideological underpinnings are fascist with some strasserite-like syncretic elements.

All countries ruled by Baath have repressed left-wing movements for years, especially communists.

EDIT - I forgot, a palingenesis fixation. This is basically the key sine qua non element of fascism according to Paxton.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Third positionism, far right nationalism, totalitarianism, some social elements within a corporatist context, etc. Their ideological underpinnings are fascist with some strasserite-like syncretic elements.

All countries ruled by Baath have repressed left-wing movements for years, especially communists.

:laugh:

Is that why Communist parties in Syria aren't repressed by the Baath state, and are in fact leading members of the National Progressive Front and are represented in the People's Council of Syria?

[Sir Comradical]

Proof please?

It's basically an Arab version of Kemalism.

[Chimurenga.]

Damn. Some people are taking George Bush Sr.'s comparison of Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler too seriously.

The Baath Party in Syria (like in Iraq) is bourgeois nationalist and seem to be economically more like a European-style Social democracy/welfare state. There are clear differences between that and fascism.

[agnixie]

:laugh:

Is that why Communist parties in Syria aren't repressed by the Baath state, and are in fact leading members of the National Progressive Front and are represented in the People's Council of Syria?

If you knew history, you'd know it was suppressed under Nasser. You'd also know that they have severe restrictions on political operations, to the point where they're hardly operating at all as a party, instead being mostly an exercize in fake pluralism by Baath. I guess it's a notch better than being made outright illegal as was the case in the United Arab Republic and Iraq. :rolleyes:


Damn. Some people are taking George Bush Sr.'s comparison of Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler too seriously.

America sided with Franco who was also a fascist. I'm taking nobody's comparisons to Adolf Hitler seriously unless the ideological underpinnings are there, however, I would also note that Baath owes more to the kind of fascism found in Italy, Spain or France (one of their inspirations was Renan) than the one in Germany.

[Turinbaar]

Proof please?

The Baath party itself is not explicitly fascist, though its main ally in the National Progressive Front, and second largest political force in Syria, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, is explicitly Fascist, with a red swastika on its flag and everything. They are, along with Hezbollah, Syria's main imperial proxy force in Lebanon, and one of the more powerful factions in that country.

[Chimurenga.]

America sided with Franco who was also a fascist. I'm taking nobody's comparisons to Adolf Hitler seriously unless the ideological underpinnings are there.

'Twas a joke.


I would also note that Baath owes more to the kind of fascism found in Italy, Spain or France (one of their inspirations was Renan) than the one in Germany.

Please explain.

[agnixie]

'
Please explain.
I'll try to dig this up, but I spotted a few comparisons with Renan's nationalism (which, while not fascism, also had strong influences on fascism) - I admit it's possibly a bit more tenuous than a direct link (Mussolini was, after all, not the only political leader to quote Renan), but that and anti-marxism sounds a bit more like conservative nationalism with some modicum of state interventionism (Bonapartisme, basically) than like a workers' state, degenerate or not.

[gorillafuck]

Is that why Communist parties in Syria aren't repressed by the Baath state, and are in fact leading members of the National Progressive Front and are represented in the People's Council of Syria?I can't believe it's not a workers state!

[Chimurenga.]

They are, along with Hezbollah, Syria's main imperial proxy force in Lebanon, and one of the more powerful factions in that country.

Not really.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Syria

The centrists and one of the CP factions are much more powerful in Syria.

[agnixie]

Not really.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Syria

The centrists and one of the CP factions are much more powerful in Syria.

Their parliamentary delegation is small, but they're the second largest party in the country by membership.

EDIT - I really love how it's all an imperialist onslaught. Clearly there's invisible nato bombs and planes. Additionally, I find hilarious that the whole "SALAFIS!" scream of the third-positionists is turning out to be a regime lie.

Oh yeah, fun fact, I was curious; the membership of the sole allowed union in the country is just about a third of a million strong (I expected it to be more than just about 2% of their workforce) and is basically an adjunct of Baath. That's not very Leninist of them.

[Os Cangaceiros]

People who get trampled on relentlessly by the state often resist, and sometimes violently. Resistance can mean "protracted people's war" out in some remote spot in the world's periphery, or it can mean a young man setting himself on fire in North Africa after the cops spit in his face and confiscated his livelyhood. I find it really hard to imagine that these conditions don't exist in Syria, or even that they're much better than in other parts of the world, despite the threat of neoliberal "shock treatment" that hangs over Syria's head like the proverbial Sword of Damocles if the progressive despots who helm the "national bourgeoisie" were to fall.

We can either believe that or believe that it's a salafist conspiracy, or (as one article stated earlier on this board) that commandos from surrounding Arab states are driving into Syria and massacring everyone, and these forces/"saboteurs" are behind the unrest. Or that "liberals" have somehow gathered up an insurrection that's totally divorced from the rage that stretched from Morocco to Iraq, driven by an economic situation that's stifled them to low wages that can barely buy basic commodities and rampant unemployment, and at regimes that have perpetuate this condition. Regimes like Assad's, where you can be an opponent of the regime and wake up in some fucking prison, on the wrong end of a club or an extension chord.


China used tanks to dispel "protesters"

Were they not really protestors?

[Sasha]

Of course not, they where all liberal neo-con salafist cia-agents...
Anti-imps, the Glenn Beck's of the left.

[Return to the Source]

The two Syrian communist parties are part of the ruling National Democratic Front. They're key players in the government and organize independently of Baath. Why would they support a "fascist" regime?

[agnixie]

The two Syrian communist parties are part of the ruling National Democratic Front. They're key players in the government and organize independently of Baath. Why would they support a "fascist" regime?

They have significant restrictions on organization since the 80s. Also, party communism, as shown in post-soviet Russia, hasn't been free of derivation.

[Turinbaar]

Not really.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Syria

The centrists and one of the CP factions are much more powerful in Syria.

They would be kept small in the syrian parliament, they and the baath party began as rivals over the issue of Arab Nationalism, versus the syrian empire envisioned by the SSNP. They were allowed into parliament in 2005, mostly because of their large membership (wiki says about 100,000), and the Assad family's growing sympathy with them. Their main function for the Baath party is as a proxy force in Lebanon.

[gorillafuck]

The two Syrian communist parties are part of the ruling National Democratic Front. They're key players in the government and organize independently of Baath. Why would they support a "fascist" regime?Because they're traitors.

Syrias not fascist but it's a fully fledged capitalist state

[danyboy27]

There is a communist party in china too, and they are running the show.
does that mean anything? not really.

[Sentinel]

Topic split -- Discussion on the Tiananmen Massacre moved to the History forum. Link (http://www.revleft.com/vb/tiananmen-massacre-split-t154641/index.html?t=154641)



Is that why Communist parties in Syria aren't repressed by the Baath state, and are in fact leading members of the National Progressive Front and are represented in the People's Council of Syria?


They clearly are as 'communist' as the National Progressive front is 'progressive' then.. :lol:

[Omsk]

Poor tanks,they get all the blame..:(

[Qayin]

When will revleft start restricting these nutcases

[Omsk]

When will revleft start restricting these nutcases

? Again with the whole restricting business..

[Crux]

What a piece of classic straw-manning on your part. And what a great service you‘re providing. As soon as we see your posts we know the imperialists are having a hard time organising their bullshit reactionary intervention in the growing revolution which they are desperately trying to derail with agents and provocateurs. Why would they do otherwise?

You side with the murderous regime? My what a suprise.
And those who say communist parties are not repressed in Syria just do not have cluewhat you are talking about. That the legal parties support the regime is a prerequisite for them being legal.

[danyboy27]

You side with the murderous regime? My what a suprise.
And those who say communist parties are not repressed in Syria just do not have cluewhat you are talking about. That the legal parties support the regime is a prerequisite for them being legal.


Like in china.

[Threetune]

Like in china.

It’s uncanny how the desperate and hard-done-by mood of the bourgeois news media is reflected in many of the ‘lefts’ posts on here.

The sneering sarcastic and lying exaggerations they aim at anyone who doesn’t get in step to ‘support’ the latest provocation against Syria, is a direct reflection of the difficulties imperialism is having stamping its fascist authority on the planet in the name of “freedom and democracy”.

Social democrats, liberals, anarchists, and Trotskyites are again mired in imperialist intrigue right on cue, as the economic crisis takes another lurch into warmongering mayhem, just as the second international infamously did at the start of WWI.

They are left with little to do now, but blame everyone except bankrupt fascist capitalist imperialism, preferring to ramp-up the propaganda campaign for the inevitable attacks on Iran, North Korea and ultimately China.

The workers movements everywhere will be well rid of this lot. “Better fewer but better” as Lenin correctly said.

[danyboy27]

It’s uncanny how the desperate and hard-done-by mood of the bourgeois news media is reflected in many of the ‘lefts’ posts of on here.

The sneering sarcastic and lying exaggerations they aim at anyone who doesn’t get in step to ‘support’ the latest provocation against Syria, is a direct reflection of the difficulties imperialism is having stamping its fascist authority on the planet in the name of “freedom and democracy”.

Social democrats, liberals, anarchists, and Trotskyites are again mired in imperialist intrigue right on cue, as the economic crisis takes another lurch into warmongering mayhem, just as the second international infamously did at the start of WWI.

They are left with little to do now, but blame everyone except bankrupt fascist capitalist imperialism, preferring to ramp-up the propaganda campaign for the inevitable attacks on Iran, North Korea and ultimately China.

The workers movements everywhere will be well rid of this lot. “Better fewer but better” as Lenin correctly said.
No.
This is just a fact, having communism in the name of a group or association is meaningless if their action are not coherent with what they actually represent.

supporting a governement or a political party beccause the word socialist and communist are inserted in their name is utterly moronic.

[Return to the Source]

Look at Sentinel's response to my observation that the two Syrian communist parties are members of the ruling coalition:


They clearly are as 'communist' as the National Progressive front is 'progressive' then.. :lol:

All s/he can muster is a rhetorical turn of phrase and a smiley face icon. That's cute.

[Threetune]

No.
This is just a fact, having communism in the name of a group or association is meaningless if their action are not coherent with what they actually represent.

supporting a governement or a political party beccause the word socialist and communist are inserted in their name is utterly moronic.

Supporting the reactionary rebs in Libya and the imperialist backed agitators in Syria, Iran, and China etc,etc, with the pretence of siding with “freedom and democracy” is not only “moronic”, it is the desperate last stand of the anti-communist hiding behind ‘left’ rhetoric.

[agnixie]

Supporting the reactionary rebs in Libya and the imperialist backed agitators in Syria, Iran, and China etc,etc, with the pretence of siding with “freedom and democracy” is not only “moronic”, it is the desperate last stand of the anti-communist hiding behind ‘left’ rhetoric.

Yes, trade unionists against the Chinese corporatist party are obviously reactionary... :rolleyes:

[DaringMehring]

It’s uncanny how the desperate and hard-done-by mood of the bourgeois news media is reflected in many of the ‘lefts’ posts on here.


Actually, I and I think many others, had actually thought about Syria and its regime before these events, forming the opinion that Syria is a capitalist state with a bigger role for the state in the economy than usual, and so no support to Syria. I don't prefer one capitalism to the next, even if the national bourgeoisie of one country opposes another.



Social democrats, liberals, anarchists, and Trotskyites are again mired in imperialist intrigue right on cue, as the economic crisis takes another lurch into warmongering mayhem, just as the second international infamously did at the start of WWI.


Your analogy is stupid. The second international supported the various national bourgeoisies (if anything your position is what does this, supporting the Syrian bourgeoisie). The correct line was defeatism of all national bourgeoisies, not picking the one that was best poised to counter British-American or Russian imperialism and supporting it.



They are left with little to do now, but blame everyone except bankrupt fascist capitalist imperialism, preferring to ramp-up the propaganda campaign for the inevitable attacks on Iran, North Korea and ultimately China.


Again willfully ignorant. Who has been supporting Imperialist intervention? Many people might oppose the regime in Syria or Libya or wherever, might even support the rebels/oppositionists, but to claim they are in favor of Imperialist attack? Not just that, agents of the propaganda campaign for Imperialist attack. Gimme a break.



The workers movements everywhere will be well rid of this lot. “Better fewer but better” as Lenin correctly said.

Don't you wish you could go back to the day when people could be purged for failing to support the preferred capitalists. Too bad that road led to... gasp.. capitalism.

[Turinbaar]

Supporting the reactionary rebs in Libya and the imperialist backed agitators in Syria, Iran, and China etc,etc, with the pretence of siding with “freedom and democracy” is not only “moronic”, it is the desperate last stand of the anti-communist hiding behind ‘left’ rhetoric.

The willingness to label everyone a traitor or a conspirator, especially whole swaths of people dissatisfied with stagnated and elitist cliques and dictators ruling their country, is a much more clear and apparent sign of the moronic desperation of the so called "anti-imperialist" left.

[Threetune]

Actually, I and I think many others, had actually thought about Syria and its regime before these events, forming the opinion that Syria is a capitalist state with a bigger role for the state in the economy than usual, and so no support to Syria. I don't prefer one capitalism to the next, even if the national bourgeoisie of one country opposes another.



Your analogy is stupid. The second international supported the various national bourgeoisies (if anything your position is what does this, supporting the Syrian bourgeoisie). The correct line was defeatism of all national bourgeoisies, not picking the one that was best poised to counter British-American or Russian imperialism and supporting it.



Again willfully ignorant. Who has been supporting Imperialist intervention? Many people might oppose the regime in Syria or Libya or wherever, might even support the rebels/oppositionists, but to claim they are in favor of Imperialist attack? Not just that, agents of the propaganda campaign for Imperialist attack. Gimme a break.



Don't you wish you could go back to the day when people could be purged for failing to support the preferred capitalists. Too bad that road led to... gasp.. capitalism.


Unfortunately your argument misfired in the wrong direction entirely, because you accepted without checking, the proposition that my posts are in “support” of one capitalist side against another.
You are a good example of the ‘lefts’ who will jump on any gossip and spread it, as long as it fits your anti-communist prejudices. And that’s what “agents of the propaganda campaign for Imperialist attack” as you say, are reliant on.
Do your homework next time before showing off.

[danyboy27]

Supporting the reactionary rebs in Libya and the imperialist backed agitators in Syria, Iran, and China etc,etc, with the pretence of siding with “freedom and democracy” is not only “moronic”, it is the desperate last stand of the anti-communist hiding behind ‘left’ rhetoric.

The people who hate the authoritarian syrian governement are not some kind of monolithic bloc of capitalist or muslim extremist, this is much more complicated than that, just like in any uprising.

Nobody here is giving their unconditional support to all the people who are fighting against the Syrian governement.

[gorillafuck]

It's funny how the most staunch people who are supposedly opposed to "liberals" are complete and total liberals when it comes to socialists making concessions to capitalism and even participating in the facilitation of capitalism in states which don't even claim to be anti-capitalist.

[Reznov]

It just keeps escalating.

In solidarity with the people of Syria!

[Threetune]

The people who hate the authoritarian syrian governement are not some kind of monolithic bloc of capitalist or muslim extremist, this is much more complicated than that, just like in any uprising.

Nobody here is giving their unconditional support to all the people who are fighting against the Syrian governement.

Yes, but what revolutionary Marxist-Leninists are there in the uprising who are struggling for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat internationally ? – that’s the test. Why would you want to “support” anything else on the off-chance that they may be a bit ‘left’ or ‘workers’ or ‘students’ or ‘women’ or a ‘minority’ who just might turn into communists with a fair wind, at a time when crises racked imperialism is on the prowl for new theatres of war to demonstrate its power to intimidate anyone who will not do its bidding?

Be honest, this is again an attempt by you to smuggle in to the debate the notion of ‘phantom’ progressives who “might” exist in all this without any evidence that they do.

Imperialist, Zionist subversion is not a phantom and needs defeating.

[Crux]

Supporting the reactionary rebs in Libya and the imperialist backed agitators in Syria, Iran, and China etc,etc, with the pretence of siding with “freedom and democracy” is not only “moronic”, it is the desperate last stand of the anti-communist hiding behind ‘left’ rhetoric.
Even the legal communist parties have faced censorship and repression in Syria, even while being a part of the government coalition. But no matter seeing as you line up behind the bourgeois leaders in Iran and China as well, and you call this farce "anti-imperialism". All these regimes imprison and execute communists and attack worker's rights, so it would seem you're the anti-communist using left-rehtoric to try and cover up your position here.

[Rafiq]

It's basically an Arab version of Kemalism.


No, the Ba'ath party has fascist roots, actually.




:laugh:

Is that why Communist parties in Syria aren't repressed by the Baath state, and are in fact leading members of the National Progressive Front and are represented in the People's Council of Syria?

Although this is true, it doesn't change the fact that the Baath party has fascist roots.



Proof please?

Again, it's undeniable that the Ba'ath party started out as a party built on the model of the Nazi party. You just cannot deny that, not for this, TVM.

[Thirsty Crow]

It's funny how the most staunch people who are supposedly opposed to "liberals" are complete and total liberals when it comes to socialists making concessions to capitalism and even participating in the facilitation of capitalism in states which don't even claim to be anti-capitalist.
I'm sorry, you meant - class traitors?

"Communists" supporting a political organization notorious for its history of repression and outright slaughter of *gasp* communists, that's just fucking precious.

[Sword and Shield]

The willingness to label everyone a traitor or a conspirator, especially whole swaths of people dissatisfied with stagnated and elitist cliques and dictators ruling their country, is a much more clear and apparent sign of the moronic desperation of the so called "anti-imperialist" left.

All it means that real leftists, many of us non-Westerners, choose to dismiss the Western liberals who claim to be "leftists". Such Western pseudo-leftists cheer a rebellion that aims to open up its country to Western capitalist plundering.

[Tim Finnegan]

All it means that real leftists, many of us non-Westerners, choose to dismiss the Western liberals who claim to be "leftists". Such Western pseudo-leftists cheer a rebellion that aims to open up its country to Western capitalist plundering.
I'm ever baffled by the willingness of the Gaddafite crowd to assign monolithic characters to heterogeneous movements, while at the same time being able to offer no more than awkward mumbling and half-formed excuses when anybody observes the decidedly homogeneous pro-capitalist of the regimes that they are so moved to endorse. One would almost think that they're protecting ever so slightly... :rolleyes:

[Sword and Shield]

while at the very same mumbling half-formed excuses when anybody observes the decidedly homogeneous pro-capitalist of the regimes that they are so moved to endorse.

I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I've never referred to Gaddafi's or Assad's governments as heterogeneous...

[agnixie]

All it means that real leftists, many of us non-Westerners, choose to dismiss the Western liberals who claim to be "leftists". Such Western pseudo-leftists cheer a rebellion that aims to open up its country to Western capitalist plundering.

The countries are already open to capitalist plundering. There was no need to depose the regime for that, they were quite happily cooperating, and the leaders lining their pockets.

[RadioRaheem84]

So I am assuming that the left should support these protests too?

Even though there are more than likely neo liberal elements waiting in the wings to steer the movement right-ward.

I don't blame the anti-imperialist crowd being skeptical of the protests but being supportive of Assad, no way. To take the word of the media about these protests is equally ridiculous.

Al-Jazeera as a source? Lord, no.

I'm waiting this one out.

[Tim Finnegan]

So I am assuming that the left should support these protests too?

Even though there are more than likely neo liberal elements waiting in the wings to steer the movement right-ward.
Further right than the Ba'ath Party, though? That'd certainly be a feat and a half... :rolleyes:

[Turinbaar]

All it means that real leftists, many of us non-Westerners, choose to dismiss the Western liberals who claim to be "leftists". Such Western pseudo-leftists cheer a rebellion that aims to open up its country to Western capitalist plundering.

So you reinforce your wild fratricidal slanders against everyone else with illegitimate claims to your own superior radicalism (partly on the non-sequiter basis that you aren't western), all in the defense of the plunderous Assad status quo...typical.

[agnixie]

So I am assuming that the left should support these protests too?

Even though there are more than likely neo liberal elements waiting in the wings to steer the movement right-ward.

I don't blame the anti-imperialist crowd being skeptical of the protests but being supportive of Assad, no way. To take the word of the media about these protests is equally ridiculous.

Al-Jazeera as a source? Lord, no.

I'm waiting this one out.

Could we have proof of these neoliberal elements before you guys start screeching against people trying to bring down a right-wing bonapartiste party who is quite happily selling the country to neoliberalism to begin with. Because the Salafi thing turned out to be wrong, and from what I got from relatively local people, the opposition seems to include not only bourgeois liberals, but members of the revolutionary left and even Nasserist pan-arab nationalists.

So, I'm waiting. But I'm not holding my breath.

Entertainingly, there is some funded opposition, mostly from Baathist defectors who, like the late soviet apparatchiks, seem to have no problem trying to remain on top under a new regime. They seem to include the butcher of Hama. Then again, the US has called for reforms, which implies they sort of are trying to keep the syrian regime in place. From a realpolitik point of view, Assad is more likely to keep the region stable, and that's no matter the rhetoric he toys with, than a bourgeois democracy or a communist state knocking at Israel's door for the Golan.

[danyboy27]

Yes, but what revolutionary Marxist-Leninists are there in the uprising who are struggling for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat internationally ? – that’s the test. Why would you want to “support” anything else on the off-chance that they may be a bit ‘left’ or ‘workers’ or ‘students’ or ‘women’ or a ‘minority’ who just might turn into communists with a fair wind, at a time when crises racked imperialism is on the prowl for new theatres of war to demonstrate its power to intimidate anyone who will not do its bidding?

Be honest, this is again an attempt by you to smuggle in to the debate the notion of ‘phantom’ progressives who “might” exist in all this without any evidence that they do.

Imperialist, Zionist subversion is not a phantom and needs defeating.

I am really honest, i think we dont have all the information on what going on right now, the only thing i know for sure is that, the syrian governement is acting like a bunch of reactionary dickhead that will not hesitate to chop head to remain in power, and the ''marxist-leninist'' communist party of syria dosnt seem to have any problem with that, at all.

i have seen angry crowd sick of their autocratic dictator, i have seen crowd supporting that verry dictator, each crowd have their reason to either condemn or support this regime.

i dont have a complete knowledge on exactly who organize those protests, why and how, and neither do you.

All i know for a fact is that, the big buisnessmens of Syria always loved assad and its bunch verry much, and Assad really dont mind having private corporation exploiting the labor and lives of Syrian worker.

Kentucky fried chicken and Coca cola have a long term relationship with Assad governement, just look at the damn billboard in downtown damascus.

http://cdn.wn.com/pd/40/6a/663adc0954cd2216a96a762f7132_grande.jpg
''communist'' party of Syria my fucking ass.

[RadioRaheem84]

Could we have proof of these neoliberal elements before you guys start screeching against people trying to bring down a right-wing bonapartiste party who is quite happily selling the country to neoliberalism to begin with. Because the Salafi thing turned out to be wrong, and from what I got from relatively local people, the opposition seems to include not only bourgeois liberals, but members of the revolutionary left and even Nasserist pan-arab nationalists.

So, I'm waiting. But I'm not holding my breath.

Entertainingly, there is some funded opposition, mostly from Baathist defectors who, like the late soviet apparatchiks, seem to have no problem trying to remain on top under a new regime. They seem to include the butcher of Hama. Then again, the US has called for reforms, which implies they sort of are trying to keep the syrian regime in place. From a realpolitik point of view, Assad is more likely to keep the region stable, and that's no matter the rhetoric he toys with, than a bourgeois democracy or a communist state knocking at Israel's door for the Golan.

I have heard the calls for reform from the US and they're proving to be just talk, as I read more reports about the US and Israel funding Syrian opposition.

I want to know just what stability you believe Syria is maintaining when it funds Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iraqi opposition to US occupation?

Also, why are you guys painting Assad to be a right wing Pinochet type? This isn't to win him cool points, but the regime is far from fully liberalizing, and the economy remains overwhelmingly state owned. So, I would think the US wouldn't mind opposition that called for more neo-liberalization, even though the state has already capitulated to some privatization.

The Assad regime is just bourgeois nationalist, nothing more, nothing less.

Why follow the opposition blindly? I just choose to be more skeptical and critical.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Assad's Syria is a bourgeois nationalist regime. Okay. It obviously differs from other bourgeois nationalist regimes such as those in Bolivia and Venezuela. These governments, while capitalist, were created from working class and peasant struggle. They are being impelled to move left by struggle from below. Chavez and Morales should be very critically supported by socialists. Not Assad or Qaddaffi.The Assad regime has been a bureaucratic/military patronage network from the get go. That is the important difference.

When a country is breaking into mass rebellion, which in turn is bloodily crushed, quite obviously something is not right with the ruling regime.Its inconceivable that a rebellion such as that going on in Dara'a is being fueled by US propaganda or money. Obviously a lot of people hate Assad.Why reserve judgement on this?

Louis Proyect and Stratfor both have interesting analysis of the state system in Syria.

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/category/syria/
(A good critique of the leftist "anti-imps")

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110504-making-sense-syrian-crisis

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Raheem-Pinochet stayed in power in part by not fully privatizing assets that Allende had nationalized, like the copper industry (the biggest in Chile, which is to this day still state owned). Bourgeois dictatorships often use state ownership in certain areas to disguise the nature of the regime, and allow a minimum level of public welfare to stave off dissent. So Assad having a few nationalized companies doesn't mean much.

Also, I havent heard that Syria provided sufficient state support for insurgents ... I have heard that before, but only ever unsubstantiated propaganda from rightwing sources.

[Threetune]

Even the legal communist parties have faced censorship and repression in Syria, even while being a part of the government coalition. But no matter seeing as you line up behind the bourgeois leaders in Iran and China as well, and you call this farce "anti-imperialism". All these regimes imprison and execute communists and attack worker's rights, so it would seem you're the anti-communist using left-rehtoric to try and cover up your position here.

Your lies and distortions are getting more and more desperate and silly as imperialism runs into difficulties with its provocations and staged ‘popular uprising’ in Syria, Libya, Iran, and China, and ‘at a location near you’ soon enough. Just as a matter of interest are you paid in Euros, Dollars or the local currency?

[Threetune]

The willingness to label everyone a traitor or a conspirator, especially whole swaths of people dissatisfied with stagnated and elitist cliques and dictators ruling their country, is a much more clear and apparent sign of the moronic desperation of the so called "anti-imperialist" left.

What are you babbling on about? Why are you addressing this to my post? Can you read for yourself instead of running on gossip?

Imperialism is starting a fascist US lead World War because of its terminal economic ‘overproduction’ (of capital) crisis. Syria, like Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya is part of that war front. Iran, North Korea, and China will all resist better if we can get the idea (theory) of imperialist defeat back on the agenda of revolutionary workers movements everywhere.

The Revolutionary working class has two choices: 1) Imperialist slavery and unending wars etc, or 2) Proletarian dictatorship, the long disciplined struggle without capitalism for EVERYONE’S survival and development.

[Sentinel]

Look at Sentinel's response to my observation that the two Syrian communist parties are members of the ruling coalition

All s/he can muster is a rhetorical turn of phrase and a smiley face icon. That's cute.
You responding to my observation that so called communist parties sitting in coalition with the uncrowned king of Syria likely don't have the working class' best interests at heart with a personal attack hardly makes it less true.

My reply might have been short, but that was really all there was to say. But if you really need further explanation, agnixie already put it pretty well: 'they have severe restrictions on political operations, to the point where they're hardly operating at all as a party, instead being mostly an exercize in fake pluralism by Baath'. This being the case goes without saying for anyone that wants to see the truth.

I have to agree with one criticism of yours though, using the laughing smiley was wrong. I should have used the crying one, because this stuff is truly fucking tragic, people that should be fighting for a democratic society, that should be the beacon of light in the darkness, acting as lapdogs of a dictator. That's really depressing, you know.

As for your, what I perceive as, doubt about me being a trotskyist ('self-described'), well.. I'm, a member of the second largest trotskyist international, CWI, if that means anything in the context. And our position is naturally to without doubt condemn the regime of Assad.

I don't personally like the term trotskyist that much, though, but rather prefer orthodox marxist as that really is what we are (and Trotsky was).

I'm using it as it's the common label for us, though.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

What are you babbling on about? Why are you addressing this to my post? Can you read for yourself instead of running on gossip?

Imperialism is starting a fascist US lead World War because of its terminal economic ‘overproduction’ (of capital) crisis. Syria, like Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya is part of that war front. Iran, North Korea, and China will all resist better if we can get the idea (theory) of imperialist defeat back on the agenda of revolutionary workers movements everywhere.

The Revolutionary working class has two choices: 1) Imperialist slavery and unending wars etc, or 2) Proletarian dictatorship, the long disciplined struggle without capitalism for EVERYONE’S survival and development.

This is partly true but wrong in details.I agree w/what is highlighted. But this isn't a "fascist" world war, we have to be careful with terminology. What we are seeing is the decomposition of capitalism in extremis.National capitalist states Iran, China, Afghanistan, etc will resist better, can only resist this by movements led by their working class, not by their corrupt kleptocratic military/bureaucratic regimes busy massacring and torturing their own people.

Are Assad, Qaddaffi, Mugabe, Kim, Achmanidijad, Hu capable of resisting imperialism? Of course not.They may appear superficially to be "on the other side" of imperialism but a correct Marxist analysis, an analyisis of economic interdependence and capital flows makes it obviou these regimes are just as much a part of global capitalism and imperialist dynamics as is the US.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I would have severe criticism of them of, but the original "anti-imperialist" leaders-Tito, Nasser, Nehru, Sukarno, Zhou Enlai, Ben Bella, etc. were of a vastly higher stature than the current group of Third World "nationalist" leaders upheld by the PSL.The classic Third World leaders, whatever their faults, stood for something, they were products of a military/bureaucratic class but they were also the product of working class and peasant struggle. "Leaders" like Mugabe, Qaddaffi, Kim,Assad, etc are military/bureaucratic thugs, nothing more, nothing less. To even mention them next to the original post war anti-imperialist leaders is a desecration to their memory.These individuals and their kleptocratic torture regimes are not capable of moving their societies forward, quite the opposite.

[agnixie]

Funny factoid, I learned today there were actually 3 syrian communist groups, not just the two official ones.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I have heard the calls for reform from the US and they're proving to be just talk, as I read more reports about the US and Israel funding Syrian opposition.

I want to know just what stability you believe Syria is maintaining when it funds Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iraqi opposition to US occupation?

Syria has had a somewhat confused relationship with Muslim/pro-palestinian groups in Lebanon (including Hezbollah) over the course of the last few decades. Syria's role in the triangle involving Lebanon (Hezbollah, Syria, Iran) seems to be one of reigning in the group's impulses at times, although Hezbollah is much more of a moderate organization now than it once was back in the 80's. I'm not sure what Syria's role in the Iraqi insurgency is. I do know that Syria has projected a strong anti-Israel stance, though.

In any case, this is all speculation on our parts. None of us really know what's being thought of at the upper echelons. There's some evidence that the Pentagon was involved in training some of the same activists who would later be involved in the January 2011 revolts in Egypt, a puzzling development considering that Mubarak was one of the bulwarks of stability in the region for the USA and Israel. There was another article posted earlier on this site about how the Pentagon was also connected somehow with supplying weapons to Mexico's narco-paramilitaries, despite giving the Mexican government billions to crack down on them. Who knows. *shrug*

[RadioRaheem84]

Raheem-Pinochet stayed in power in part by not fully privatizing assets that Allende had nationalized, like the copper industry (the biggest in Chile, which is to this day still state owned). Bourgeois dictatorships often use state ownership in certain areas to disguise the nature of the regime, and allow a minimum level of public welfare to stave off dissent. So Assad having a few nationalized companies doesn't mean much.

Also, I havent heard that Syria provided sufficient state support for insurgents ... I have heard that before, but only ever unsubstantiated propaganda from rightwing sources.

Wait, are you seriously suggesting that Assad = Pinochet? Just because the Chilean economy relied on Codelco to survive a bank crisis in 82 doesn't make Pinochet a bourgoise nationalist in the slightest!

And Assad doesn't just have a few nationalized companies, but a well more than half the economy is nationalized. They just introduced private banking in 01 for crying out loud!

What kind of analysis is this?

And regardless if Syria is backing the insurgency in Iraq, it is certainly backing Hezbollah.

[Crux]

Your lies and distortions are getting more and more desperate and silly as imperialism runs into difficulties with its provocations and staged ‘popular uprising’ in Syria, Libya, Iran, and China, and ‘at a location near you’ soon enough. Just as a matter of interest are you paid in Euros, Dollars or the local currency?
Yes, yes I am getting filthy rich from feeding a pathetic little troll like you on the internet. Your sense of self-importance must almost as large as your intelectual dishonesty. So why do you shut your eyes tight as soon as anything pokes a little hole in your western exotism fantasy of despotic regimes? I see you haven't shipped off to fight for Gathafi in Libya yet. Please do.

[Crux]

Funny factoid, I learned today there were actually 3 syrian communist groups, not just the two official ones.
Are you thinking of the Party of Communist Action? Our paper interviewed one of their members in exile. There are more than one banned communist rganisation in Syria though and the two legal ones, it must be said for benefit of their ML-backers on here, were originally one org but split over support for Gorbachev.

[agnixie]

Are you thinking of the Party of Communist Action? Our paper interviewed one of their members in exile. There are more than one banned communist rganisation in Syria though and the two legal ones, it must be said for benefit of their ML-backers on here, were originally one org but split over support for Gorbachev.

That was the one I heard about, I figure they must not be the only left-wing movement banned.

[Threetune]

This is partly true but wrong in details.I agree w/what is highlighted. But this isn't a "fascist" world war, we have to be careful with terminology. What we are seeing is the decomposition of capitalism in extremis.National capitalist states Iran, China, Afghanistan, etc will resist better, can only resist this by movements led by their working class, not by their corrupt kleptocratic military/bureaucratic regimes busy massacring and torturing their own people.

Are Assad, Qaddaffi, Mugabe, Kim, Achmanidijad, Hu capable of resisting imperialism? Of course not.They may appear superficially to be "on the other side" of imperialism but a correct Marxist analysis, an analyisis of economic interdependence and capital flows makes it obviou these regimes are just as much a part of global capitalism and imperialist dynamics as is the US.


Oh, another one wanting to draw fine distinctions between capitalism and fascism with hair-splitting, flea-cracking politically-correct shop-bought “terminology” that looks on the world of imperial blitzing in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, with “extraordinary rendition” kidnapping, prison camp torture chambers and pompously tells us it’s not fascism.

“Where are the funny uniforms and Nazi flags?”

Have you ever seen an American football game with the latest pop diva bellowing the ‘Blood Splatted’- oh, sorry - ‘Star Spangled Banner’ over the screaming warplanes and the howling mob? They make Nuremburg look like amateur knight.

What? “no death camps”?

Take your pick of any of the hell-holes across South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East all festering pits of poverty, ignorance, disease and routine violent death and that’s before the inmates bang into the long arm of the law and the prison camps proper, just like the death traps in the US itself, reserved for the poor black workers or the Brit dungeons in occupied Ireland “Not fascism”?! Are you aving a laugh?

But you go ahead, wag your snotty finger at Syria and Libya as if they were the course of it all. And whatever you do don’t advocate the dictatorship of the proletariat and the long struggle needed to suppress all capitalist exploitation everywhere.

[agnixie]

Oh, another one wanting to draw fine distinctions between capitalism and fascism with hair-splitting, flea-cracking politically-correct shop-bought “terminology” that looks on the world of imperial blitzing in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, with “extraordinary rendition” kidnapping, prison camp torture chambers and pompously tells us it’s not fascism.

“Where are the funny uniforms and Nazi flags?”

Have you ever seen an American football game with the latest pop diva bellowing the ‘Blood Splatted’- oh, sorry - ‘Star Spangled Banner’ over the screaming warplanes and the howling mob? They make Nuremburg look like amateur knight.

What? “no death camps”?

Take your pick of any of the hell-holes across South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East all festering pits of poverty, ignorance, disease and routine violent death and that’s before the inmates bang into the long arm of the law and the prison camps proper, just like the death traps in the US itself, reserved for the poor black workers or the Brit dungeons in occupied Ireland “Not fascism”?! Are you aving a laugh?

But you go ahead, wag your snotty finger at Syria and Libya as if they were the course of it all. And whatever you do don’t advocate the dictatorship of the proletariat and the long struggle needed to suppress all capitalist exploitation everywhere.

You're being a transparent troll. By your argument about the super bowl, every country in the world is fascist, especially your beloved third positionists and the Soviet Union.

[Threetune]

You're being a transparent troll. By your argument about the super bowl, every country in the world is fascist, especially your beloved third positionists and the Soviet Union.

What’s a “transparent troll”?

There is nothing anywhere that compares in scale and intensity to the in-your-face national chauvinism and triumphal militarism at a ‘sporting event’, to that of the US super bowl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpCFpYLPw74

“Bombs bursting in air... “ There are plenty around the planet know all about that. Not least in Nagasaki and Hiroshima! Its freaky fucking facism, that’s what it is, Black president or not.

[agnixie]

What’s a “transparent troll”?

There is nothing anywhere that compares in scale and intensity to the in-your-face national chauvinism and triumphal militarism at a ‘sporting event’, to that of the US super bowl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpCFpYLPw74

“Bombs bursting in air... “ There are plenty around the planet know all about that. Not least in Nagasaki and Hiroshima! Its freaky fucking facism, that’s what it is, Black president or not.

Yes, troll, definitely a troll. Clearly a song written about the war of 1812 could have pre-figured Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Also, the atom bombs did less damage than the fire bombing of Tokyo, and "fighting fascism is imperialism" is a really hilarious new tune from you. Just go away.

[Threetune]

Yes, troll, definitely a troll. Clearly a song written about the war of 1812 could have pre-figured Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Also, the atom bombs did less damage than the fire bombing of Tokyo, and "fighting fascism is imperialism" is a really hilarious new tune from you. Just go away.

“Bombs bursting in air... “ ? Hiroshima and Nagasaki? No? never mind, just keep telling porkies.

[Tim Finnegan]

You're being a transparent troll. By your argument about the super bowl, every country in the world is fascist, especially your beloved third positionists and the Soviet Union.
At this point, I am pretty sure that he's just getting his talking points from punk lyrics that he doesn't understand (http://youtu.be/KAIUf_SYpwE). It's about the only explanation I can think of that makes much sens.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Wait, are you seriously suggesting that Assad = Pinochet? Just because the Chilean economy relied on Codelco to survive a bank crisis in 82 doesn't make Pinochet a bourgoise nationalist in the slightest!

Not at all! I was just using Pinochet as an example of a government which uses state ownership in certain areas to reduce social conflict stemming from the capitalist nature of the broader economy. Not that they are the same.


And Assad doesn't just have a few nationalized companies, but a well more than half the economy is nationalized. They just introduced private banking in 01 for crying out loud! Yes, but history seems to indicate that these privatization drives by nationalist authoritarian governments are a one-way street. It seems the Syrian government has been moving towards a more heavily privatized economy for a while, albeit slowly. Perhaps the protests are in part a manifestation of that change? After all, the al jazeera story says the protesters were angry at capitalists connected to the government (which is worth mentioning ...If there are wealthy monopolists who are connected to the government, then capital has already begun to seize hold of the state.)

Also, some state-owned firms can become incredibly corrupt ... it's not like the money from exchanging the surplus necessarily goes to the people or the workers ... it often goes to important bureaucrats and managers of these companies. Worse, often people coming from pro-state sectors of society have more opportunity to find work in state firms. This may be the case in Syria, where from my understanding Alawite Shiites have far more presence in business and state firms than people of other ethnic groups (though ive also heard not all alawite tribes benefit from this), and protesters have complained about state preferences for Alawites (much as Shiites in Bahrain complained of greater opportunity for Sunnis).


And regardless if Syria is backing the insurgency in Iraq, it is certainly backing Hezbollah. Maybe, but that's different. Hezbollah may be an anti-Israel resistance movement, but it also gives Syria a lot of influence over Lebanese politics.