Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

Much of the left in the US is basically taking the same position that Donald Trump is taking regarding Syria. As the New York Times reports: Trump’s position is “that the United States …

Source: Trump, Assad and the US Left

Please help the people of Aleppo, just like we helped the people of Kobani. Oh, hang on, Aleppo? Kobani? Oh, that’s right. In Kobani they were Kurds. Civilised, secular, “progressive”, feminists, even green warriors apparently. They were like “us.” “We” (western imperialists and western … “anti-imperialists”) understand them. Therefore, they deserved to be saved from ISIS beasts, said the imperialist leaders, and their “anti-imperialist” echo in unison. Aleppo? Facing a fascistic enemy that has massacred twenty times as many people as ISIS fascists could ever manage, is not full of Good Kurds. It is full of Arabs. And we all know what western imperialist leaders, the far-right, neo-Nazis, Trumpists, racists, and “left-wing anti-imperialists” think of Arabs, especially when they live in Syria. They are all backward, blood-thirsty, barbaric, “jihadis” and “head-choppers,” *all* of the above categories tell us, yes, the left-fascists just as emphatically as any of the others. So those men, women and children, schools hospitals, markets, every sign of life, are not deserving like Good Kurds are. Indeed, the left-fascists are now all over social media, in unison with their far-right co-thinkers, expressing their great joy with the victory of the most violent, most mass-murderous counterrevolutionary massacre of our era, expressing how happy they are that a fascist regime with an airforce, backed by an imperialist state invading with its airforce, have together bombed a whole country to pieces for 5 years, but moreover have bombed 300,000 people cramped into east Aleppo for months with every conceivable weapon of mass destruction except nuclear, ripping children to pieces on a daily basis, destroying hospital after hospital till none left.

Source: Save Aleppo! Oh, hang on, Aleppo is not Kobani …

Over recent weeks we have seen a major advance by the forces of the Syrian regime and its allies into opposition East Aleppo, in the wake of a protracted and devastating bombardment of the city. Th…

Source: The Fall of East Aleppo: Strategic Gain or Pyrrhic Victory for Assad?

Syria and the Left Split by: Jesse M. Zimmerman “Western leftists know almost nothing about Syria, it’s society, it’s regime, it’s people, it’s political econom…

Source: Syria and the Left Split

This document was the final official communication between myself and members of the Socialist Alternative Executive Committee before the Austin branch formally voted to split from the formation an…

Source: Last Statement to Socialist Alternative Leadership

The world revolves around Palestine, or so I thought until 2011. The Palestinian cause, I argued, was the litmus test for anyone’s commitment to freedom and justice. Palestine was the one an…

Source: How the Syrian Revolution has transformed me

On Friday March 4, 2016 massive popular demonstrations throughout the liberated areas of Syria occurred under the slogan “The revolution continues”. More than 100 protests were recorded on this day, according to various opposition figures. In the demonstrations, protesters were chanting the original songs of the revolution: “The people are one and united”, “Death rather than humiliation”, “The People want the downfall of the regime”, “The Syrian people want freedom”, “Revolution for dignity and Freedom”, etc….The spirit of the beginning of the revolution could be felt with democratic and non-sectarian slogans, and as a protester wrote on his placard: “the doors of the peaceful revolution reopen”. The Syrian revolutionary flag was seen everywhere. It is interesting to note that salafist djihadist military forces and their symbols were absent from these popular demonstrations, while Jabhat Al-Nusra soldiers organised a small demonstration against the massive popular demonstration in in the city Ma’aret al-Naaman, Idlib, and chanted slogans against democracy and secularism, and for an Islamic state. They also told the demonstrators on the squares to wear the full niqab as real men go to fight on the military front.During the past week, protests against the Assad regime were also organised in Aleppo, Damascus countryside (Daraya and Dhumeir), Da’el and the countryside of Quneytra. As a protester said in the besieged town of Daraya, “Of course we’re going to seize this opportunity (to protest) because the rest of the time there were constant barrel bombs and shelling”. In the free neighborhood of Aleppo, mass demonstration erupted the second day of the truce, chanting: “The people want the downfall of the regime”. Another protest occurred in Aleppo countryside, Al-Atareb, on February 27, demanding for opposition military factions to unite under the Free Syrian Army banner, and express their solidarity with the villages that are being bombed amid the truce, while calling on the Jabhat Al Nusra to exit their city. Civilians and activists in Al-Atareb declared during the preparation of the Friday protest their will to revive the peaceful Syrian revolution, which demanded freedom and justice and dignity according to them. Many protesters across the country express a similar will to encourage peaceful demonstrations as a way to come back to the spirit of the revolution.

Source: The Revolution continues chant the Syrian revolutionaries

Truck Drivers in Russia Urgently Need Your Solidarity In Russia, despite crackdowns against independent labour union activists, a group of truck drivers organized themselves in mid-November of last…

Source: Striking Russian Truckers: A Call for Solidarity