sometimes i like to remind people (as if american conservatives don't do it enough, lol) that the US helped arm the USSR during WW2. i say this understanding that the KCK-affiliated organizations have abandoned the science of marxism-leninism/are capable of being wrong unlike stalin, and that daesh are not fascist, let alone imperialist - but i think the point remains. if the YPG want to accept support from the US, knowing that the US will later betray them, then hey, I think that's smart as hell. but let's ask some questions to help us reach an understanding of how to think about the YPG & daesh.
first, are daesh fascist? this term is used to describe daesh by both the pro and anti-YPG left. maybe it seems at first the wrong question to ask, and is totally irrelevant, but it opens an interesting avenue of discussion by making us ask some other questions.
we know fascism can be imposed by the first world onto the third world, so we can set aside the question of an alliance of the petty-bourgeoisie with the non-dominant sector of monopoly capital because, if the petty-bourgeoisie in the third world is being declassed, it is not by either the crushing phenomena of internal monopolization (it goes without saying that the continued reproduction of underdevelopment by imperialism hinders the 'organic' centralization of capital, and thus internal monopoly capital cannot emerge in the capitalist third world) or the shock of a sudden loss of monopoly access to oppressed nation markets (it goes without saying that iraq & syria ARE the markets in question). we can erase the centrality of internal class if one will; this is fair enough because, from what i've seen, daesh foot soldiers from iraq & syria are typically proletarianized peasants. if they're 'mercenaries', as is often alleged, then their price is low and they must be desperate. their leaders are typically professionals or former officers (petty-bourgeois), and foreign recruits are typically an alienated petty-bourgeoisie (Muslim convert failsons). thus the leadership and the rank and file have contradictory interests with regard to US imperialism. but this, again, isn't relevant at all. (what matters, as discussed below, is the dependence of the leadership on the rank and file remaining loyal.)
so what relationship does daesh have to US finance capital? this is the question that those who would seek to call daesh fascist or prove that they are agents of US imperialism would ask, and it is thus an important question. that is to say, are they "mercenary proxies" acting on behalf of a moribund US imperialism, as the namesake of this thread, molly klein, would imply? okay, let us say they are, without realizing it themselves. in their own words, they would disagree - and they wouldn't be claiming responsibility for terror attacks in Europe & America if this was not the case. US imperialism, to be expected, doesn't like it when its own agents target "it's" civilians.
does it then matter that they are an essentially 'homegrown' movement as they are, as Mr. Kerry in his own words admits, only 'indirectly' aided by the US, and *only insofar as they are dismantling, as far as we know, Syria and not Iraq*? remember that daesh began in iraq, achieved enough support to make them non-irrelevant after the US invasion, and *then* invaded syria. this is unlike a pinochet: a direct, foreign imposition of US imperialism. the purpose of pinochet was to prevent contradictions in Chilean society from being expressed in the internal class structure (i.e. to prevent the constitution of a national, 'patriotic' bourgeoisie and to hinder the development of a proletariat), and not along national lines, i.e. he represented a sort of "neocolonialist colonialism", evidenced by the fact that there were advanced elements of the proletariat in chile that were calling for the overthrow of allende - and not simply for supporting him against US imperialism.
moreover, what relationship does Iraq have to US imperialism? to understand their position in the capitalist world-system, one would need to analyze the role of the iraqi ruling class in facilitating the flow of surplus-value from Iraq, and especially their role in maintaining US hegemony vis-à-vis petroleum. are the maliki-ites and barzani-ites compradors or are they a patriotic national bourgeoisie? it seems that resistance axis-aligned sadrists believe that the government the imperialist press call "sectarian shi'a" is a puppet of US imperialism, whereas molly klein et al. believe that iraq's ruling class is a patriotic national bourgeoisie, aligned with russia, and russia is not imperialist. (i consider it to be obvious that the barzani clan act on behalf of US imperialism & turkish expansionism.) how about militarily? we know that the US directly aids the iraqi army, the so-called "sectarian shi'a militias" even, whereas the US has generally been either too afraid of turkey or of the kurds themselves to directly aid the YPG. i pointed out earlier that the SDF was created by obama to help manage the YPG. let us also address the issue of the 'homegrown' character of daesh. MIM wrote that popular, mass fascism, i.e. fascism which is not explicitly imposed by US imperialism, is a movement of the labor aristocracy. does it matter that iraq and syria do not have labor aristocracies and that this is the movement of proletarians/people in the process of proletarianizing, and a petty-bourgeoisie which is not in fear of declassing? as far as i'm aware, molly klein et al. do not uphold Third Worldism.
now for the YPG. does the YPG accept support from, and cooperate militarily with, the US? this is true. but so does iraq, which molly klein et al. regard as pure enough to support. does the YPG expect future support from the US when the war is over? no, and this isn't unimportant. does the YPG consider itself to be an enemy of the government of syria, if in words if not in action? yes, unfortunately - but they also regard the "rebels" and daesh as the greater evil.
is the YPG objectively aiding in the dismantling of Syria by seizing territory? hmm, territorially, is "Northern Kurdistan" part of "Syria" or does it belong to the Kurdish nation? this question is best not left WhiteBoys on the internet, but i think the Kurds of Rojava have strong feelings on this. moreover, has the YPG even seized any territory that was de facto controlled by the Syrian Government? while one could say "this is like al-nusra taking territory from daesh, both are illegitimate", the difference is that the YPG will go to the negotiating table with the syrian government and neither daesh or al-nusra will.
but how about militarily? who are the YPG fighting? they're fighting "rebels" and daesh, not the government, and have only ever done so sporadically and for short periods of time (with no transfer of control of territory resulting from these 'battles'). does the YPG militarily cooperate with the Syrian Arab Republic/Army? has the Syrian Arab Republic materially aided the YPG? does russia aid them in various ways? ding ding ding, yes. afrin canton would not still be around and the aleppo offensive would not have succeeded if this was not the case.
ok, you say, but when the "rebels" and daesh are taken care of, will the YPG fight the SAA on behalf of US imperialism? one can never predict the future, but i doubt either sides want to continue fighting when this war is over. YPG isn't nearly as strong as their supporters think they are, and we know that the SAA has been beaten down hard by this war. russia's seeming willingness to, for instance, get the Syrian Arab Republic to drop the 'Arab' in the name, implies that there will be post-war negotiations to get the Kurds to remain.
and then there's the issue of Turkey. Will the US abandon Turkey as a NATO ally if it is really in danger of being split apart by the PKK and HBDH? Will the US quietly allow the Rojava Revolution to "spread" into Turkey? The Turkish nationalists are quite accurate in claiming that the PKK and YPG are different in name only. If Turkey decides to crush the Kurds of Rojava once daesh are out of the picture (and believe me, this is extremely likely), who will the US support? you'd have to be nuts to claim they wouldn't go with turkey.
okay. let us say that both daesh & the YPG are proxies of US imperialism anyway. how come 99% of the YPG's battles have been against daesh or other "rebel" groups and not the government of Syria? wow, the long con! the imperialists must be ingeniously playing both sides! (in reality, just as capitalists can't think beyond the single business cycle, or the single cycle of Department II infrastructural construction, the imperialists are actually fairly clueless. even when they do try to plan for the long-term, when things don't then go according to plan, they typically do not react as one would expect ingenious and cunning PlannersOfEvil would.)
we see here that molly klein et al. are, in fact, anti-semites. from what i've seen, a great deal of their work is spent dealing with identifying and discussing covert operations, cultural PYSOPs, calling pisspiggrandad a USAID/Zionist/CIA agent, calling the YPG an "ethnonationalist militia" (marxists dont commit to an ontology of ethnicities, and to deny the Kurds are a nation is chauvinism), associating non-Israeli Jews with Israel (while Israel may claim to be the "protector of all Jews", this does not make a non-Israeli Jew axiomatically an agent of Israel, and to suggest otherwise is pure anti-Semitism), etc. conspiracy theorism is, by its nature, anti-semitic. why do i say this? it is the logic of what klein et al's beliefs are reducible to: "the syrian body would be healthy if it wasn't for the intrusion of foreign Zionist agents on behalf of a foreign government". this is even a sort of orientalism - all Syrians are the same and internal contradictions cannot even emerge under the project of ba'athism! the only issue, again, in an otherwise harmonious society is the intrusion of a hostile alien parasite. and anti-semitism is by it's nature irrational: just as it only makes sense for the anti-semite that the Jews are Bolsheviks, big "globalist" capitalists & petty hucksters and usurers, so it makes sense for the anti-semite that the CIA is behind daesh, the YPG and the coup in turkey! they even draw upon as evidence to support their views - not only with regard to syria, but on other things - what is clearly fascist propaganda, and get twitter likes, etc., from neo-nazis. when you call everyone you dislike a Zionist, believe that the Jew Soros is pulling the strings of the color revolution in Romania, that protesting against Trump is objectively playing into the ruling classes hands, i'm sorry to say, but like attracts like.
i want to make another point that is sometimes brought up by Marxists and pseudo-Marxists of any stripe only to be forgotten. when US imperialism, or Zionism, is at its most aggressive, this does not indicate that the imperialists are geniuses, but rather that they are wildly striking out. the TPP, for instance, represented the decline of the American Empire, i.e. a decline in the imperialist profit rate and thus the need to construct a tariff wall around China, and not a "Globalist plan" to enter a New World Order. while the imperialists looked very strong conquering Asia and Africa, and amassing huge armies, Lenin correctly pointed out that imperialism was the moribund phase of capitalism because it was the internal contradictions of capitalism forcing the bourgeoisie to employ this 'policy', and this 'policy' could only last for so long. in other words: violence is, after all, the way of expressing what one is unable to otherwise articulate in words. and as Lenin & Trotsky would point out in regard to the spontaneous violence of the Anarchists: this is the atomized violence of the defeated - a sign of the impotence of the Social Democratic movement. let us not be confused by the enemy and attribute the qualities of the genius to their actions... they're paper tigers.
The proletariat, unlike the philistine petty-bourgeoisie, demand a more systemic analysis of the social world, in order to get past the surface appearance of phenomena and to their essence. But in order to change the world, one must understand the world first. We, unlike the fascists, are not lazy intellectually. The fascists, in their lack of discipline, regard being passionate about political projects as "cringeworthy", and thus put an ironic distance (meme culture, "umadbro", "it's just a joke") between themselves and their politics. We instead demand discipline and owning up, before Universal Reason, to what we Post™. Again, it is within our material interest to understand the world - unless we are paper communists who have merely consumed this identity. If you are here to LARP, do not call yourself a communist because it is a betrayal of the geniuses of our tradition & a misuse of the super-profits your privileged petty-bourgeois existence depends upon. Molly Klein et al. seek the easy answers provided by anti-Semitism, they are just very good at concealing this fact.
another question unrelated to this thread but worth asking: is neocolonialism/globalization/contemporary mutipolarity actually the aufhebung of imperialism? to be honest, it's quite compelling for me to say yes. trump, le pen, brexit, etc., are a reaction by the 'national' petty-bourgeoisie against 'global capital' - "globalism" (alex jones)/"bourgeois internationalism" (MIM). capital today is indeed rootless, as it were. a Saudi oil tycoon can invest in NYC real estate in a Luxembourgish company, driving up real estate prices to the dismay of the settler labor aristocracy, without any issues posed by the government who acts on behalf of this same settler labor aristocracy, to capture for himself some super-profits stolen by American monopolies in the Third World, which then flow back to the KSA through the Cayman Islands tax-free, commanding the labor of Nepali migrant-slaves. however, this lends itself to terrible praxis, as platypus1917 shows. there's even some weird 'paradoxes'. is turkey an oppressed or oppressor nation? they're getting screwed by unequal exchange, no? i.e. their economy is structured to the benefit of the global metropoles? but what about what the PKK calls turkish colonialism in northern kurdistan? and even in a multipolar world, we might see the contradiction between US and japanese imperialism not express itself so long as china (another question: does social-imperialism exist?) is competing with the two for access to southeast asian markets. so more thought about contemporary imperialism and neocolonialism is required.
Edited by marlax78 ()
i tentatively supported ypg at aleppo but if u still back ypg despite evidence available now, consider how much of ur politics is just memes
the US' desired result for Syria is no different from Libya or Iraq- Eternal carnage between factions too diffuse to impede managed extraction of valuable commodities by the west.
the YPG's ideology is irrelevant so long as they help to prevent the country from uniting against imperialists
I see how he (marlax 78) came to his conclusions and he has better points than most pro YPG leftists, but I disagree
of course the SAA is reluctant to fight YPG- they were helpful at Aleppo and ISIS is immeasurably worse so SAA can freely reclaim territory from Daesh without fear of any reprisal, international or otherwise.. but when Daesh territory is taken by YPG the SAA would have to fight a "war of aggression" to reclaim it. end result is a Syria split down the middle, with loosened SAA control in the country's eastern half...with YPG as a virtually friendless nation which is totally dependent upon the US/ beholden to their whims
you can see why I think it is a bad outcome that would serve American imperialists moreso than any Syrian
don't expect Syria to go after the YPG, no. but we're doing fucked-up alchemy where ISIS takes Syrian territory, and then we take the ISIS territory, and then for some reason we're now the rightful permanent owners of a piece of Syria.
(it's this person: )
Thoughtful
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If they're legit just straight up US tools wearing leftist faces I guess it would be bad but even then there's still a strategic trade off with the fact that they're fighting rebel groups and not the syrian army and thus are a useful force at play in a catastrophic civil war that still isn't over let's not forget.
Anybody tempted to look into platypus1917 dot org be careful not to click on the Hoefler Text virus. I tried to look into what 'platypus1917' was and the top google hit is infected with a virus that asks you to install a font - do not click on it. Post-left blundered into a bot-net, surprise surprise.
ilmdge posted:this is what a pretty cool tankie twitter person said about not liking the ypg (in part in response to the above post)
let me reword what he's saying: it's acceptable for communists to liquidate the national question in service of an anti-imperialist realpolitik, if only temporarily. i consider this assertion controversial. my personal feeling, quite frankly, is one of uncertainty, but i consider my feelings on this question to be irrelevant, and that we'd need some sort of new comintern to figure this out based on the feelings of the masses in a particular context. we do know that the kurds would have risen, but we don't know if it would have been fruitless. what i can say, though, is that from a deontological position, such a position is unethical. think of that what you will.
Edited by marlax78 ()
marlax78 posted:ilmdge posted:this is what a pretty cool tankie twitter person said about not liking the ypg (in part in response to the above post)
let me reword what he's saying: it's acceptable for communists to liquidate the national question in service of an anti-imperialist realpolitik, if only temporarily. i consider this assertion controversial. my personal feeling, quite frankly, is one of uncertainty, but i consider my feelings on this question to be irrelevant, and that we'd need some sort of new comintern to figure this out based on the feelings of the masses in a particular context. we do know that the kurds would have risen, but we don't know if it would have been fruitless. what i can say, though, is that from a deontological position, such a position is unethical. think of that what you will.
any disagreement that the position of the first world left should be "hands off syria" in the event of that occurring? Or do you take the position that we should be vocal supporters of the destruction of the syrian state
marlax78 posted:ilmdge posted:this is what a pretty cool tankie twitter person said about not liking the ypg (in part in response to the above post)
let me reword what he's saying: it's acceptable for communists to liquidate the national question in service of an anti-imperialist realpolitik, if only temporarily. i consider this assertion controversial. my personal feeling, quite frankly, is one of uncertainty, but i consider my feelings on this question to be irrelevant, and that we'd need some sort of new comintern to figure this out based on the feelings of the masses in a particular context. we do know that the kurds would have risen, but we don't know if it would have been fruitless. what i can say, though, is that from a deontological position, such a position is unethical. think of that what you will.
I think giving it this much credit is not needed since realpolitik is really just a bourgeois ideology with no basis in reality. As you point out, that post is really just conspiracy theory where we already know what's going to happen because of the "balance of forces" leads to certain outcomes. There is no room for class, faith in the masses, or the mass line, it is simply a chess game where you are given entities that have attributes which lead to certain outcomes. They happen to be against imperialism but imperialism has no real meaning as a stage of capitalism, it's just the structure that gives the game rules. I often agree with what that analysis leads to even if I attempt to get there through Marxism but that response really shows the limits of left conspiracy and its ideal medium in twitter.
pogfan1996 posted:any disagreement that the position of the first world left should be "hands off syria" in the event of that occurring? Or do you take the position that we should be vocal supporters of the destruction of the syrian state
see:
Urbandale posted:what are we gonna do when the YPG and the Lion Assad start shooting at each other
the Ideologically Correct line will still be Hands Off Syria so this wouldn't really change much, other than you'll suddenly have to fight with all the squishies who're joining DSA/ISO/your local anarchist DIY crafts group who're arguing that the US should 'support the revolution'.
e: i should say, we're deluding ourselves with any line other than 'hands off syria' because we're powerless to 'support' any force. we can only oppose our own nation's imperialism. we can say "we support the syrian arab republic", but it's no more meaningful than when some alt-righter leaves a youtube comment saying "cant mossad the assad" or whatever
Edited by marlax78 ()
i tentatively supported ypg at aleppo but if u still back ypg despite evidence available now, consider how much of ur politics is just memes
i bet the ypg are fucking devastated that theyve lost the support of some ne'er do well on twitter
#CJTFOIR DCG MG Jones said that #SDF will most likely also liberate #Raqqa city and that it is up to SDF to decide whether #YPG takes part.
— Konstantin Krammer (@KonstantinKlug) February 15, 2017
marimite posted:In a manner reminiscent of the Spanish Revolution, where international contingents of anti-fascists (including George Orwell) came together to support the revolutionaries in their fight against Franco.
I've been re-reading "Homage to Catalonia" and I don't know how you can read it as anything other than a dire warning about how stupid it was for people to go try to fight in Spain.
Orwell spends long passages talking about how his testicles were covered in lice. He complains with desperation about how stupid war is, you're running out into the fire of enemy machineguns because you think you see some wood you could collect because you're dying of cold. He got shot in the neck and almost died. In retrospect said the war was unwinnable, that they could have transformed the entire republic into an anarchist paradise and the fascists would have German planes. The only reason people think it's inspiring is because the old 'there's no such thing as an anti-war film.' It's like how new hires at Facebook get together to watch "The Social Network" in a group. If you read that book and think it's a good idea to do what he did, good luck with all that.
Gibbonstrength posted:The most widespread delusion that people have is the magical thinking that mental "support" for something plays a causal role in events. What does it even mean to say I support North Korea or the YPG or the Bolivarian Socialists? Or to go to an even deeper level of detachment from reality, whether I "support" someone now dead and completely unrelated to my own context, like Trotsky or Stalin or Mao or whoever. It requires me to believe that my thoughts are part of some broader mystical pushback. If you think like this you're fucked
yeah rootless ideology without meaningful expression in praxis will make you an alienated sadbro pretty fast. but thankfully, as usual and as always, the cure is to go outside and join a gosh darn organization
dank_xiaopeng posted:Gibbonstrength posted:
The most widespread delusion that people have is the magical thinking that mental "support" for something plays a causal role in events. What does it even mean to say I support North Korea or the YPG or the Bolivarian Socialists? Or to go to an even deeper level of detachment from reality, whether I "support" someone now dead and completely unrelated to my own context, like Trotsky or Stalin or Mao or whoever. It requires me to believe that my thoughts are part of some broader mystical pushback. If you think like this you're fucked
yeah rootless ideology without meaningful expression in praxis will make you an alienated sadbro pretty fast. but thankfully, as usual and as always, the cure is to go outside and join a gosh darn organization
organizations can easily go down the exact same path of declaring empty support for something that's never backed up in their activities. you can't harp on it all the time, but it's always good exercise during visioning or planning activities to whip organizations into shape by asking questions like "we supposedly support x, is the organization actually engaged in meaningful activity that supports x?"
shriekingviolet posted:organizations can easily go down the exact same path of declaring empty support for something that's never backed up in their activities. you can't harp on it all the time, but it's always good exercise during visioning or planning activities to whip organizations into shape by asking questions like "we supposedly support x, is the organization actually engaged in meaningful activity that supports x?"
totally. imo the rise of BLM has been a great way to winnow the garbage orgs from the good ones judging by the extent of support they've been willing to extend to the movement.
The other highlight was that this small talk attracted an even smaller picket of trots from the stop the war coalition waving the
tears posted:The other highlight was that this small talk attracted an even smaller picket of trots from the stop the war coalition waving the al-nusra free syra army flag and at one point an old guy with his slacks pulled up to his armpits tried to start a fight with a young trot 50 years younger than him
That's the key, isn't it. The idea that both sides are bad and how could you possibly defend Assad isn't just liberal naitive or making yourself politically impotent. It has real action behind it which is actually reactionary. Not everyone who decides the terms of debate should be for a liberal audience is disrupting anti-imperialist events, but they contribute to making that discourse the "acceptable" one which gives power to real wreckers and pro-imperialists and have the same effect as the fbi.
There's a kind of pragmatism on the left which believes that as long as you oppose your own imperialists, who cares what you think about things you have no power over? This a good pill for liberal idealists to swallow who can't fathom not having white mastery over the world but it's a compromise and cannot be substituted for real scientific analysis of the concrete interests of imperialism and combating flawed understandings of Russian and Chinese imperialism. i myself have been guilty of this when trying to appeal to liberals through logic, something you should never do.
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Gibbonstrength posted:The most widespread delusion that people have is the magical thinking that mental "support" for something plays a causal role in events. What does it even mean to say I support North Korea or the YPG or the Bolivarian Socialists? Or to go to an even deeper level of detachment from reality, whether I "support" someone now dead and completely unrelated to my own context, like Trotsky or Stalin or Mao or whoever. It requires me to believe that my thoughts are part of some broader mystical pushback. If you think like this you're fucked
The origin of lot of these debates come from real local differences though, like first world anarchists using the YPG to legitimate themselves or first world social democrats doing the same with their South American counterparts (if you could call them that). Like I don't think it would be so intense without flagrant opportunism from these types. Though of course there's opportunism on the other end as well, who use the very specter of opportunism to make cults around themselves. But the point is that saying one supports one movement or the other can have practical effects, from distinguishing one's own to point of view from others to demonstrating consistency in one's theoretical outlook. Obviously one can focus on these debates in an unhealthy way, but that's not always the case.
cars posted:in my experience first world social democrats are at least as likely to denounce South American pinkists (Lula, left-wing Peronists/Kirchnerites, etc.) as "corrupt" and "oppressive" alongside the rightist liberals who bring charges against them, probably moreso than using them as justification for themselves
You're right. Was mostly thinking thinking of Jacobin's welcoming of "Chavistas" which rang hollow for that reason.
Gibbonstrength posted:The most widespread delusion that people have is the magical thinking that mental "support" for something plays a causal role in events. What does it even mean to say I support North Korea or the YPG or the Bolivarian Socialists? Or to go to an even deeper level of detachment from reality, whether I "support" someone now dead and completely unrelated to my own context, like Trotsky or Stalin or Mao or whoever. It requires me to believe that my thoughts are part of some broader mystical pushback. If you think like this you're fucked
nobody thinks it plays some causal role idiot, other than to serve as a voice of opposition in the midst of constant PR campaigns to sway the american public opinion. it's important to determine what you critically "support" to help formulate policy positions based on past history and current events, so that you know what the hell you're going to do in the future or in the direct present. which is why it's largely possible to determine what kind of shit views someone holds today, and how they're conducting themselves in their current context, by knowing if they "support" trotsky or stalin or whoever. it's something worthwhile to consider. for the record i despise trotsky, and uphold the grand legacy of stalin and the north korean people, and i have the best views, the greatest, you won't find anyone with better views than me.
marimite posted:You're right. Was mostly thinking thinking of Jacobin's welcoming of "Chavistas" which rang hollow for that reason.
yeah i think we'll maybe see a shift on this as left radicalism spreads.
aerdil posted:Gibbonstrength posted:The most widespread delusion that people have is the magical thinking that mental "support" for something plays a causal role in events. What does it even mean to say I support North Korea or the YPG or the Bolivarian Socialists? Or to go to an even deeper level of detachment from reality, whether I "support" someone now dead and completely unrelated to my own context, like Trotsky or Stalin or Mao or whoever. It requires me to believe that my thoughts are part of some broader mystical pushback. If you think like this you're fucked
nobody thinks it plays some causal role idiot, other than to serve as a voice of opposition in the midst of constant PR campaigns to sway the american public opinion. it's important to determine what you critically "support" to help formulate policy positions based on past history and current events, so that you know what the hell you're going to do in the future or in the direct present. which is why it's largely possible to determine what kind of shit views someone holds today, and how they're conducting themselves in their current context, by knowing if they "support" trotsky or stalin or whoever. it's something worthwhile to consider. for the record i despise trotsky, and uphold the grand legacy of stalin and the north korean people, and i have the best views, the greatest, you won't find anyone with better views than me.
i dont understand how a position on stalin would influence your organising. im not talking about the correlation between liking stalin and having cool non-retarded views. thats fine. im asking, how exactly does a position on stalin (were the purges a good idea, were the five year plans a good idea, did he over-bureaucratize the USSR, etc) relate to our circumstances at this moment? nobody is going to be faced with the same context/problems as stalin or the USSR, so im critical of the position that it really matters for revolutionary practice.
"Effectively, Kurdish residents are able to reach the isolated Sheikh Maqsoud district in Aleppo city while family members of SAA troops stationed around Hasakah and Qamishli can visit their relatives for the first time since 2012.
With trade flowing between Kurdish-held and Syrian-held areas of the country for the first time ever, the SAA and SDF are also supporting each other militarily on the battlefield in eastern Aleppo due to the aforementioned parties sharing common foes; namely, the Turkish Armed Forces and ISIS."
https://mobile.almasdarnews.com/article/damascus-opens-trade-route-kurds-northern-syria/
Edited by SparksBandung ()