Free Syria areas have repeatedly demonstrated solidarity with Ukrainians fighting their common enemy, but have had to carry on their fight, for freedom and to avert extermination, without the international support their struggle has deserved.
Bashar al-Assad
Down with Putin’s war on Ukraine!
February 27, 2022No to war on Ukraine! The capitalist system in crisis ever veers toward war. Putin is not so much the exception but the embodiment of the ongoing shift in world politics, signaling the future this system holds if left unchecked. The destruction of democracy and the move to the Right, which Putin has aided, helps set the stage for that nightmare.
Daraa and Free Syria
September 22, 2021In Daraa, the birthplace of the Syrian Revolution, resistance has continued. Fifty Syrian revolutionaries and their families were forced to leave the city to join other revolutionaries in the Free Syrian enclave in the country’s northwest.
Taliban reconquest shakes alliances, challenges Left
September 12, 2021The Taliban’s reconquest of Afghanistan has shaken world politics and challenged the Left to respond in a revolutionary way. In the absence of truly liberatory revolutionary movements, what looms to fill the vacuum is not only a reinvigoration of fundamentalist political and military movements but the reactionary maneuvering by Russia and China, refugee-scapegoating parties, and repression of social movements on the model of Syria’s Assad and Burma’s Tatmadaw—all of which have been flourishing under the U.S. permanent “war on terror.”
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2021-2022: Part IV. The reach for fascism
September 1, 2021Fascism has been cultivated by rulers fearing revolution and enabled by the normalization of genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda and Congo, and Syria–and by the philosophical void on the Left, a substantial part of which is still accepted as “Left” despite ideological confusion that aligned it with genocides in Syria and Bosnia.
Afghanistan turmoil shakes world politics, challenges Left
August 21, 2021The Taliban’s reconquest of Afghanistan has shaken world politics and challenged the Left to respond in a revolutionary way. In the absence of truly liberatory revolutionary movements, what looms to fill the vacuum is not only a reinvigoration of fundamentalist political and military movements but the reactionary maneuvering by Russia and China, refugee-scapegoating parties, and repression of social movements on the model of Syria’s Assad and Burma’s Tatmadaw—all of which have been flourishing under the U.S. permanent “war on terror.”
Solidarity with Palestinians needed as state powers scheme
July 1, 2021The brief, dirty war that broke out May 10-21 between the Israeli government and Hamas, the Islamist group ruling Gaza had many reactionary consequences.
The people of Myanmar unite against the military coup
May 8, 2021Defying Burma’s coup has provided time for the forces of old revolutionaries, youth, workers and women to work out what they are fighting for, beyond deposing the military caste that has ruled them, and an opportunity to bridge long-time divisions between the Burmese-speaking majority and the peoples long fighting for self-determination.
World in View: The Syrian Revolution can’t be killed
It has been said, “The Revolution is an idea; you can’t kill an idea.” The thousands who gathered in Idlib city on March 15, the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the Syrian Revolution, lived that truth.
World in View: EU contradictions
January 30, 2021There is danger of neo-fascist parties gaining or taking control in several European countries including Germany, France, The Netherlands and Italy.
World in view: Belarus thaws in a world in flames
August 29, 2020President Alexander Lukashenko, “Europe’s last dictator,” has ruled Belarus for 26 years. His time may be up, as hundreds of thousands of protesters have filled the streets of the capital, Minsk.
World in view, July-August 2020: Syria’s problem is Assad, not sanctions
July 1, 2020The lie of a Syrian “renaissance” has disappeared and discontent manifested even in regime-controlled areas. Assad blames U.S. sanctions, but the problem isn’t sanctions. It’s genocide.
IV. What to do in the face of compounding crises—medical, economic, political, and the philosophic void
April 30, 2020Draft thesis for discussion about where the world is heading, and what to do about it from a revolutionary standpoint. Part IV: In the absolute opposite of today’s society, one based on freely associated labor instead of slavery to capital’s production for production’s sake, we can leave behind pervasive misery, precarity and antagonism, and self-development and cooperation can flourish, as can a rational relationship to nature. We can see the beginnings in self-organization from below and the ever-growing rejection of capitalism. Against the large part of the Left that focuses on the power of the state to combat disasters, we must bring out the self-activity of masses in motion and not disarm ourselves by separating mass struggles from dialectical philosophy of revolution.
Revolution in Permanence in Syria, After the Uprisings
March 22, 2020Review-essay (longer version) on the book ‘Syria After the Uprisings: The Political Economy of State Resilience’ by Joseph Daher. With a combination of ruthless criticism and consistent solidarity, the author situates the Assad regime and Syria’s three counter-revolutions into a broader trend of global neoliberalism.
World in view: In Syria, righteous hours expose evil years
March 17, 2020Free Syrians continue to fight the regime and Russia, and regime supporters keep pressing for genocide. They cannot coexist.
Review of Joseph Daher’s ‘Syria After the Uprising’
Review of the book ‘Syria After the Uprisings: The Political Economy of State Resilience’ by Joseph Daher. The author situates the Assad regime and Syria’s three counter-revolutions into a broader trend of global neoliberalism.
Editorial: Trump after impeachment
March 8, 2020In the aftermath of Trump’s impeachment trial, impunity and purges rage while checks and balances failed. Armed with a philosophy of freedom, the opposition to Trump and to the capitalist system that spawned him would give Trump the challenge that fellow politicians could not.
World in View: Revolution and genocide in Idlib, Syria
January 21, 2020If there are any two realities that absolutely compel human solidarity, it is the two that are manifest in Syria today—revolution, the human struggle for freedom against oppression—and genocide, the absolute negation of humanity.
‘For Sama’: video as Syrian revolt
November 17, 2019A report on a speech by documentary filmmaker Joshka Wessels, who talks about the book “Documenting Syria”.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2019, Part Two
Readers’ Views on permanent revolution and the dialectic, and voices from behind bars
Chicago meeting: THE SYRIAN REVOLUTION OF FREEDOM AND DIGNITY VS. COUNTER-REVOLUTION AS TEST OF WORLD POLITICS
November 11, 2019We will discuss not just the needed critique to those on the Left who defend Bashar al-Assad, but also the pragmatic philosophy that underlies the broader Left. The resulting search for a new orientation in the Syrian revolution demands a dive into dialectical philosophy.
World in View: Trump doctrine for a changed world
November 4, 2019Trump’s Oct. 23 speech on Syria lays out his counter-revolutionary vision of a changed world including his intention to reorient the U.S.’s PYD allies in line with world capitalism.
World in View: Sudan and Syria test revolutionaries
September 2, 2019Gerry Emmett writes on the crossroads reached by the Sudanese Revolution, with the accord between the revolutionary Forces for Freedom and Change and the genocidal Transitional Military Council signed on Aug. 4. He sees a parallel between the Left’s response to the Sudanese Revolution and the Syrian Revolution.
Editorial: Stop Assad’s genocide!
June 27, 2019Free Syrian revolutionaries are being pushed to the limit. But humanity is being put to the test.
World in View: The genius of the Sudanese revolution
May 6, 2019The brilliant Sudanese revolution is another in a line of rebellions against reactionary rule.
Chicago vigil for Syria
March 26, 2019Participant report of a Chicago vigil in solidarity with the Syrian people against Assad.
World in View: Prisoners of Rukban
March 13, 2019In the Rukban camp along the Jordan/Syria border, at least 41,000 displaced Syrians, including women and children, are suffering the ravages of winter weather, hunger, lack of medicine, and the terror of being threatened by the forces of the genocidal Bashar al-Assad regime.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2019, Part 1
March 11, 2019Readers’ Views on: workers strike back, genocide and Facebook, Mauritius victory, Syrian Revolution under fire, “55 Steps,” debating yellow vests, women’s struggles, and why read News & Letters.
Genocide in Idlib
February 24, 2019In-person report from Idlib province, Syria.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2019, Part 1
February 3, 2019Readers’ Views addressing: challenging fascism across all borders; charter teachers strike; pitfalls of bourgeois politics; women on the march; prison strikes big and small; and the racist criminal injustice system.
Essay: How dead thought failed Syrian revolution’s living history
January 28, 2019The Syrian Revolution has been the physical and intellectual battlefield that defines our time. As early as 2012 it was clear that what happened in Syria would determine the next stage of world history.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2018
December 14, 2018Readers’ Views on: Capitalism vs. the Planet; Anti-Semitism’s Inhumanity; Kavanaugh Travesty; Youth Rock!; Freedom Movements vs. Fascism across the Globe; Catholic Church Crisis; Voices from behind Bars
Discussion article: The Left’s response to Syrian genocide
October 7, 2018A U.S. activist in Syria solidarity criticizes the broad Left’s failure to practice revolutionary solidarity and outlines the dangerous political consequences.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2018: Part 2
September 29, 2018Readers’ Views Part 2 takes up: the needed return to Marx’s Humanism, and Voices from behind prison bars.
Editorial: Stop the coming slaughter in Idlib!
September 17, 2018News & Letters editorial taking up how in Syria, attacks are intensifying upon the three million Syrians, mostly civilians, trapped in Idlib province and how so many in the Left have failed them.
Idlib: Syria’s 21st century concentration camp
September 10, 2018Syria’s Idlib province faces imminent slaughter by Russia, Iran, and Assad regime forces, which have already made it into the model of the 21st century concentration camp. We call upon all of humanity to oppose this and to demand protection for these millions whose only “crime” was to fight for freedom against a fascist regime.
Stop genocide against Syrians
July 25, 2018Free Syria activists gathered in Chicago on June 8 in a vigil opposing the ongoing genocide against civilians who are ignored by most of the world.
Turkey’s Erdoğan tightens authoritarian rule
July 21, 2018With his victory in the June 24, 2018, presidential election, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has consolidated his one-man rule of Turkey’s 80 million-plus population. He had already eliminated the office of prime minister and created a powerful executive presidency.
Editorial: Trump-Kim ‘peace’ threatens masses
July 18, 2018Marxist-Humanist analysis of the Trump-Kim summit and G7 summit shows Trump is not charting a path to world peace but rather toward a more openly brutal world order. .
Hershu Habeel, a story by Najm Aldin Samman
May 11, 2018Hershu Habeel is a story by Syrian Najm Aldin Samman that attempts to show the the extent of Syrians’ love of their homeland, and the genocide that is happening in Syria at this moment.
Readers’ Views, May-June 2018
May 10, 2018Readers’ Views takes up: women’s liberation, youth in the battle, Blacks vs. racism, border cop thugs, Middle East struggles, and voices from behind bars.
III. The reality and the myth of contemporary capitalism
May 5, 2018We look at the world economic situation that must be changed: the role of state-capitalism, labor, climate change, the law of value, exploitation, alienation, and revolution and counter-revolution in Syria.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2018-2019: Fighting Trump and his fascist allies in practice and theory
May 1, 2018Part I of the Draft Perspectives Thesis: Trump’s war show.
The real threat of war reflects Trump’s extremeness as a product of failing capitalism, which is not an aberration but an index of the nature of U.S. capitalist imperialism.
World in View: Syria and International solidarity
March 12, 2018As this is being written, Russian and Assad regime war planes continue to pound the working-class communities of East Ghouta. Every idea of human solidarity, every faith or philosophy, is being tested.
#2ndDayofRage4Syria in Chicago
January 30, 2018On the Second Day of Rage for Syria, Chicago, like several cities across the world, held a demonstration in solidarity with the people of Syria fighting for freedom and against their genocidal ruler, Bashar al-Assad.
Iranian workers, youth reach for new radical beginnings
January 28, 2018The recent uprisings in Iran start where the 2009 revolt left off. This analysis focuses on the rebellious working-class youth as well as the interconnections to the Arab Spring, Vladimir Putin’s interference, Donald Trump’s racist agenda, and the philosophic-historic significance of the Bosnian and Syrian struggles against genocide.
Editorial: Save the Rohingya, stop the genocide!
November 12, 2017The genocide against the Rohingya in Burma (Myanmar) by the Buddhist majority is egged on by the military as well as by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. .
Rising U.S. racism challenges all freedom movements
September 2, 2017A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the history and meaning of the rising of the right-wing neo-Nazi white supremacist movement, its relationship to President Donald Trump and his administration, and its challenge to the freedom forces arrayed against it who are fighting for a humanist world. .
Fascism declares civil war in Charlottesville, Virginia
August 13, 2017Analysis of the violent invasion of Charlottesville, Va., the significance of the broader advance of fascism, and the opposite to it in human forces and reason.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2017, Part 1
July 2, 2017Readers’ Views on Philosophy and Revolt vs. Trumpism; Trump and the Left; Injustice to Immigrants; Anti-Woman, Anti-Labor Uber; ACT UP; From Iran; To Mexico; Why Read News & Letters?