En Passant

Australia does a thousands times more to Papua New Guinea and Nauru than what Turnbull et al are complaining China is trying to do to us through the likes of Dastyari.  Barnarby Joyce is even threatening New Zealand as part of this process.

Of course Chinese imperialism is a threat. US imperialism is our day to day reality.  But the main enemy is at home. Australian imperialism is the biggest enemy working people in Australia and the region have.

In a response to articles by journalist Max Blumenthal, Ashley Smith in Socialist Worker US challenges the view that the Syrian Revolution has been manipulated by the U.S. from the beginning. We must stand in solidarity with genuine liberation struggles from below, regardless of which imperial camp they are challenging. Our slogan is neither Washington, nor Moscow, nor Beijing, nor Damascus, nor Tehran, nor Riyadh, but self-determination for oppressed nations and international socialism.

As socialists we should argue for more money for the support of veterans and of course for the support of all people suffering mental illness, domestic violence , homelessness, poverty etc. Aborigines, victims of domestic violence, gays and lesbians, especially young gays and lesbians, refugees locked up in Australia’s concentration camps, for example, all have high levels of stress and anxiety, with PTSD and suicide rates well above average. Fund adequate services for them all. Make big business pay a fair share of tax to pay for these services. In relation to refugees, close down the mental illness camps. In relation to war, stop.

Ultimately however the only way to end war and its rotten consequences for all the combatants and all the peoples of the countries the West has invaded is to end the system that creates war – capitalism.

This is a research paper by Christine Buchholz (Die Linke member of parliament) and Frank Renken, translated by Ben Windsor and published on 21 September.

They say in part:

‘Nonetheless, it is the forces at the bottom of society, and not the top, that a left-wing politics must orientate on.

‘Ultimately it is only a revival of the democratic mass movements in the region that can offer a way towards peace and social justice.’

To read the whole article click here.

In the October edition of socialist magazine Solidarity, James Supple writes about the situation in Syria. He says in part:

‘We should oppose Russian, US and Australian bombing as well as all forms of foreign imperialist intervention.’

Later on he argues:

‘Assad is no lesser evil to Islamic State and similar rebel groups like the Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra. Like IS, the Assad regime also ruthlessly represses any political dissent, has targeted ethnic minorities and is waging sectarian war.

‘The solution to the nightmare in Syria can only come through a revival of the democratic movement that erupted in 2011.’

To read the whole article click here.

With Vladimir Putin’s Russia carrying out air strikes in Syria, Eric Ruder in Socialist Worker US explains the backdrop to the conflict and the consequences of this new stage in the violence.   RUSSIA’S INTERVENTION in the civil war in Syria marks the beginning of an ominous new chapter in a conflict that has already […]

We, socialists of Turkey and Syria, reject all political and military intervention of foreign powers to Syria; whether it is claimed against ISIS, Assad or the PKK. No to AKP-US intervention, victory to the Syrian revolution!

The last big demonstrations in Australia were against the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the lies of our leaders. Maybe it is time to organise protests against the next instalment of that madness, bombing Syria.

Eric Ruder in Socialist Worker US untangles the crisscrossing web of antagonisms in the Middle East and argues that ‘the latest military escalations by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia threaten to further destabilize a Middle East in which open hostilities and humanitarian disasters have multiplied, from Libya to Yemen, and Syria to Iraq .’

When Tony Abbott condems the murder by the West of the 1.5 million Iraqi civilians who died as a consequence of the US led invasion in 2003, then we can ask Hizb ut-Tahrir to condemn Islamic State barbarism.