IntenseDebate - louisproyect

6 years ago @ gaycitynews.com - Heterosexuality’s Ph... · 0 replies · +6 points

I enjoyed the film even though I don't care for Anderson particularly but this review is right on the money. (I am straight for what that's worth.) Perhaps if you interpret the film as a kind of latter-day version of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" with cloaked sexual identities, it would be plausible. But why would anybody want to make such a film today?

7 years ago @ Information Clearing H... - A Critique of ‘F... · 0 replies · -8 points

https://louisproyect.org/2017/04/17/going-postol-...

8 years ago @ Information Clearing H... - ISIS Has Nothing... · 0 replies · +1 points

How can anybody doubt it is William Blum? He wrote an article (https://williamblum.org/aer/read/141) on his own website that was structured in questions to himself. In the question below, he is getting at the idea that terrorist attacks are a form of retaliation at a system the perpetrators consider unjust. Note in his reply that he is fixated on fighters yelling "Allahu Akbar", a sure sign that he has lost the thread.

So does this mean that I support ISIS?

Absolutely not. I think they’re one of the most disgusting collection of supposed humans in all of history. But I’m surprised at how often those who are highly critical of them, and supportive of the movement to defeat them, are very reluctant to denounce ISIS as a religious force; this, apparently, would be politically incorrect. Shortly after the terrible November 13 events in Paris I was watching the French English-language TV station France 24, which presented a round-table discussion of what happened in Paris amongst four or five French intellectual types. Not one of them expressed a negative word about Islam; it was all sociology, politics, economics, psychology, history, Western oppression, etc., etc. Hadn’t any of them ever heard any of the perpetrators or their supporters cry out “Allahu Akbar”?

8 years ago @ Information Clearing H... - The White Helmet... · 1 reply · -9 points

What an idiotic "expose". It refers darkly to the fact that the White Helmets only operate in rebel (they call it terrorist) held territory. I mean, really. How stupid can you be? Rebel held territory is where the Syrian and Russian air forces drop bombs on apartment buildings. If the rebels had an air force, then you'd see the Baathist equivalent of the White Helmets operating in Damascus or the section of Aleppo that is under the control of Syria's Pinochet. You know, the guy with a mustache who was going to be profiled in Vogue Magazine and who got a red carpet treatment at Buckingham Palace.
http://media.philly.com/images/AP02121702673_600x...

8 years ago @ Information Clearing H... - Live from Damas... · 2 replies · -4 points

Not found it anywhere else? Haven't you looked at DissidentVoice, Moon of Alabama, Voltairenet, Infowars, CounterPunch or Consortium News lately? Assadist propaganda is a pandemic in the conspiracist wing of the Internet.

8 years ago @ Information Clearing H... - Live from Damas... · 1 reply · +1 points

http://www.juancole.com/2015/04/assad-relation-ha...

The Syrian regime no longer has any relationship with former ally Hamas and will never trust the movement again, Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview published Friday.

“There is no relation at all on the formal level or on the popular level,” the president told Swedish newspaper Expressen, adding, “I don’t think the Syrian people will trust them anymore.”

Assad alleged that the movement had allied itself with extremist militants fighting in Syria.

He said that recent events in Yarmouk refugee camp “have proved that part of Hamas, which is basically a Muslim Brotherhood organisation, supports al-Nusra Front.”

He added: “That’s why the leadership of Hamas is in Qatar now, calling (for) help … after ISIS (the Islamic State group) attacked al-Nusra and Hamas.”

8 years ago @ Information Clearing H... - Live from Damas... · 1 reply · -4 points

Here’s why: you need to understand elections in a constitutionally-created state, in which one party dominates, in terms of a strike vote in a trade union.

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Actually, trade union leaders, even the most bureaucratic, are not in the habit of killing or torturing members who disagree with them. This is generally a function of unions having democratic roots in a mass movement, even when they become top-heavy. For example, Jimmy Hoffa learned about organizing from a Trotskyist who had led a militant strike in Minneapolis. There is no difference in how Syria is run from Egypt under Sisi or Mubarak. In fact, the mass murder of peaceful Muslim Brotherhood protestors in Egypt is justified in the same way that Assad justifies barrel-bombing. It is necessary to stamp out Islamic extremism. You people think you are on the left? Your support for Assad is very close to Christopher Hitchens's support for the Shiite exclusionary government that George W. Bush imposed in Iraq except in this instance it is Russia muscle that is instrumental.

8 years ago @ Information Clearing H... - The Children of... · 0 replies · -4 points

Patrick Cockburn:

"In Syria since the turn of the century, for instance, the rural population and the urban poor no longer enjoyed the limited benefits they had previously received under an equally harsh but more egalitarian regime. By 2011, President Bashar al-Assad’s first cousin Rami Makhlouf was reported to be a dominant player in 60 per cent of the Syrian economy and to have a personal worth of $5 billion."

Juan Cole:

By 2004, Syria’s per capita gross domestic product was, in nominal terms, only $1,190 a year—half that of neighboring Jordan, a fourth that of Turkey, and a fifth that of Lebanon. Six years later, in 2010– on the eve of the outbreak of massive protests, the per capita GDP was still less than $3000 a year (124th out of 183 countries ranked), whereas neighboring Turkey’s was nearly $11,000 (61st), according to the International Monetary Fund. That is, in 2010 Syria was similar in this regard to Honduras and the Congo, whereas Turkey was more in the neighborhood of emergent economies such as Malaysia and Brazil. By the outbreak of protests in 2011, the poverty rate in Syria had climbed to something between 11 and 30 percent, depending on how it was measured.

8 years ago @ Information Clearing H... - European Civilization ... · 0 replies · 0 points

Sos we have finally come to this when the "anti-imperialist" left is circulating the nativism of Golden Dawn. It looks like the Brown side of the Red-Brown alliance has the upper hand.

8 years ago @ Information Clearing H... - West Medi... · 1 reply · -4 points

Sorry. Was this meant to prove that the NY Times was omitting the "fact" that rebels were shooting people trying to flee Madaya? If so, you sort of lost me there, Idiotland.

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