Category Archives: Palestine

by | November 14, 2017 · 11:18 PM

A Motto of the Alt Left, Via Liberation Theology

La gente, unida! Jamas sera vencido!

The people, united! Will never be defeated!

– An old Castroite Marxist revolutionary chant from Central America and South America, with roots back especially to the great Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the FMLN in El Salvador (who I used to buy guns for), the URNG in Guatemala, probably the ELN in Colombia, and probably the great FARC in Colombia.

All of these movements except the FARC were “Christian Communists” or “Catholic Communists.” Most of the rank and file guerrillas all the way up to the leadership were Catholics. In Nicaragua, leader Daniel Ortega was and still is a practicing Catholic and one of the top leaders of the Sandinistas was Tomas Borge, a Catholic priest. The ELN was led by a former Catholic priest named Camilo Torres, who traded his frock for an AK-47 and led a guerrilla group in the mountains of northwestern Colombia. He was killed soon after he started the ELN in 1964. The ELN has never renounced its Catholic roots and is a de facto “Catholic Marxist” organization.

 

The Eastern Catholic Church or Eastern Orthodox have been much more progressive than the  Catholic hierarchy, but that was not so at the  beginning of the century when the Cheka executed over 12,000 top ranking Orthodox officials in first several years of the Revolution. The Russian Orthodox Church or at least many believers are quite leftwing these days. They often hobnob with Communists, Leftists and even monarchists. Even the monarchists are pretty leftwing in Russia today.  Russia is a place where everyone is leftwing. There is no Right in Russia. Well actually there is,  but the Right has only 10-15% support. Putin’s party is defined as “Russian conservatism” but Putin says he still believes in the  ideals of Communism and socialism which he regards as very similar to the Biblical values of the Russian Orthodox Church. This marriage is not unusual and high ranking Church officials even today regularly make pro-socialist and pro-Communist remarks. Sort of ” Jesus as a Bolshevik” if you will. Stalin himself was studying to be a priest in a sen\minary of the Georgian Orthodox Church when he gave it up to be a full-time bank robber/revolutionary.  The thing is that you cannot understand Stalin at all until you understand his deep background in the Orthodox religion. Although Stalin called himself an atheist, he remained deeply Orthodox in  his mindset until he died. He ever revived the Church during and after the war for patriotic reasons. Stalin was very much a social conservative and his social conservatism was deeply inflected by his Georgian Orthodox seminarian roots, which he never renounced.

The Orthodox Christian churches of the Arab World have always been leftwing, along with the Church in Iran and Turkey. George Habash, founder of the Marxist PFLP in Palestine, was a Greek Orthodox. Many of the rank and file even of the PFLP armed guerrilla have always been Orthodox Christians. The Greek Orthodox SSNP in Lebanon and Syria are practically Communists. Interestingly, this was the first group to widely use suicide bombings early in 1982 and 1983 in the first years of the Lebanese Civil War. Most of the first suicide bombings, up to scores or hundreds in first few years, were by Communists, often Christian Orthodox Communists. Many of these suicide bombers were even women. It was only later that the Shia adopted the technique.

The man who created the Baath Party, the Iraqi Michel Aflaq, was an Orthodox Christian. The party had Leftist roots as an officially socialist party. Tariq Aziz, high-ranking member of Saddam’s Baath party, was an Orthodox Christian and a Leftist. Assad’s party in Syria is a Leftist party. Most Syrian Orthodox Christians are strong supporters of Assad, the Baath Party and Leftism. Recently the Syrian Defense Minister was a Christian.

The few Orthodox Christians left in Turkey are typically Leftists.

Many Greek Orthodox are Leftists. Serbian Orthodox laypeople and hierarchy long supported Milosevic, who was a Communist.

The Russians who violently split away from Ukraine in the Donbass were so Leftist that they called their new states “people’s republics.” Most of the leadership and the armed forces are Orthodox Christians. The armed groups had priests serving alongside in most cases. They often led battlefield burials for the troops.

There are deep roots of this sort of thing in Russia. Tolstoy is very Christian in an Orthodox sense, but he is also often seen as a socialist. Dostoevsky’s work is uber-Christian from an Orthodox point of view and he is not very friendly to radicals. However, before he started writing, he was arrested for Leftist revolutionary activities and sentenced to prison in Siberia. Most of his colleagues were hanged and Dostoevsky only barely escaped by the tip of his nose. Dostoevsky was not very nice to the rich either. No Russian writer of that time was, not even Turgenev. The rich destroyed 19th Century Russia. Anyone with eyes can see that. It would have been hard for any artistic heart above room temperature to not hate the Russian rich and feel sympathy for the peasantry. Turgenev’s first books were paeans to the Russian peasantry, and he was raised on an estate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Filed under Catholicism, Central America, Christianity, Colombia, Economics, El Salvador, Eurasia, Europe, Greece, Guatemala, Iran, Iraq, Latin America, Lebanon, Left, Literature, Marxism, Middle East, Nicaragua, Novel, Orthodox, Palestine, Politics, Regional, Religion, Revolution, Russia, Serbia, Socialism, South America, Syria, Turkey, USSR

by | October 2, 2017 · 12:10 AM

How Al Qaeda Was Born

Although the Muslim Brotherhood is officially opposed to Al Qaeda and tends to take a legalist and democratic approach to obtaining power, the organization is nevertheless very radical and many radical Muslims gravitate to the MB as the only game in town. In turn, as they radicalize in the MB, the more radicalized people spin off  to Al Qaeda, ISIS and other radical jihadi groups.  Then some of the Al Qaeda people spin back into the Brotherhood, this time hiding their radical views.

It is not well known, but Hamas is nothing less than the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood. The MB is illegal in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Qatar. They led an uprising in 1982 in Syria where 30,000 people were killed. The survivors went to Europe and also to Saudi Arabia where they met up with Egyptian MB members who were working and teaching in the Kingdom. These MB religious folk were then in turn influenced by the allegedly quietist Wahhabism, the official doctrine of Saudi Arabia. The MB religious teachers then supercharged Wahhabism while Wahhabism itself radicalized the MB teachers in terms of Islamic doctrine. It was this mixture of the Ikhwan and Wahhabism that eventually morphed into bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. From and around Al Qaeda all sorts of other radical jihadi groups emerged, especially in Iraq and Syria. Most of the groups in Syria are either Al Qaeda linked or inspired or if not, are not a great deal different from Syrian Al Qaeda, now called Al Nusra.

Another origin of Al Qaeda was in Egypt where as above, the MB served as a nursery of sorts for Islamic radicals. Radicals kept spinning off the MB and forming more radicalized splits. Sayed Qutb was one of the first, and Al Qaeda is simply Qutbism writ large. He was executed by Nasser in the 1950’s.

Another split occurred in the late 1970’s, when another radical group spun off of the MB and evolved into various factions. One of these factions developed the Qutbist notion that the entire Muslim world was now living in a state of jahaliyya or pre-Islamic ignorance. The entire society of Muslim Egypt was tainted by infidel and anti-Islamic influences. Some of these people dropped out of society and went to live like hermits in caves in the desert. They saw the entire society as corrupt and evil, so they had no alternative but to completely drop out of it and live in isolated hermitage like early Christians.

It was here that Zayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian eye surgeon and bin Laden’s 2nd in command, got his start. He developed some followers in the city he lived in and he eventually dropped out of society and went to live in caves with the rest of the radicals.

Around this time, a lot of these radicals got wrapped up in plot to assassinate Anwar Sadat, mostly for the crime of making peace with Israel. The assassins, of which there were several, were ex-MB members who had spun off from the group. About 1,000 radicals were rounded up after the assassination. Al-Zawahiri was one of them. There is footage of a wild-eyed Zawahiri in a crowded jail cell with ~40 other men. He is gripping the cell bars and shouting along with many others.

After his release, Zawahiri went on to form the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. This and several other very radical jihadi groups waged war on the Egyptian state in the early 80’s. Zawahiri’s movement, which had ~1,500 members, was crushed by the state. Jihadis were taken out into the Egyptian desert, tied to a pole and left there. It didn’t take long for them to perish from lack of food or water. In this way, the movement was crushed. Zawahiri fled Egypt and may have taken up with bin Laden in Sudan for a while.

The remains of Islamic Jihad combined with the nascent Al Qaeda forming in the Kingdom via the mixture of Egyptian and Syrian MB and Saudi Wahhabis to form the nucleus of the early Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda got increasingly radicalized during bin Laden’s stay there. Finally both men went to Afghanistan for the Afghan jihad which radicalized huge numbers of Muslims all over the world, mostly in the Arab World. As they fought in Afghanistan, they become increasingly radicalized. Zawahiri had always argued for fighting the “near enemy” first – the secular Arab regimes, but bin Laden’s radical theory was to switch from a war only against the near enemy to a war against the “far enemy,” which bin Laden called the US for its support for Israel and the secular Arab dictatorships.

The MB is hated and outlawed in Qatar and Saudi Arabia more on the grounds of rivalry than anything else. Qatar and the Saudis see the Ikhwan as a threat to royal power. After a military coup overthrew the elected MB government in Egypt, the new leader Sisi has formed a major alliance with the Saudis and the Qataris. The Saudis have responded by flooding Sisi’s government with oil money.

In Jordan, most of the Parliament is made of the MB members, which is one reason why the powers of the Parliament have been severely limited by the King.

The MB is quite active in north Lebanon near Tripoli where Lebanon’s 20% Sunnis live. These people have become increasingly radicalized and are now engaged in open warfare with Alawis living in some of these cities. Some of these Sunnis also seem to have gone to Syria to join up with the jihadi groups. The MB in this part of Lebanon is known for its dislike of Lebanon’s Shia and Hezbollah.

The MB was formed by Hassan Al-Banna, an Egyptian schoolteacher, in 1922. It is one of the oldest radical Muslim groups in the world.

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Filed under Afghanistan, Africa, Alawi, Asia, Egypt, Geopolitics, History, Iraq, Islam, Islamic, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Middle East, Middle Eastern, Modern, North Africa, Palestine, Politics, Radical Islam, Regional, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Shiism, South Asia, Sunnism, Syria, Terrorism, USA

by | August 28, 2017 · 10:56 PM

Male Homosexuality in the Arab World

Tata writes: Maybe you could help me understand a phenomenon. In the Middle East and especially in the Gulf countries, homosexuality is punishable by the death penalty and decapitation. Paradoxically, I have often heard that the Arabs of the Gulf have many homo relations between them because they do not have access to women. It seems that it is rampant in the Gulf, and apparently the fear of dying does not stop them.

But I read a bizarre story about a Gulf prince who got caught in a fight in a gay nightclub in London with his lover. This guy is a hypermasculine Arab man, and he doesn’t look gay. But maybe Arabs have too much testosterone and are always horny, that’s why they put a tent on the head of their women and could fuck anything. I don’t know, it’s just a reflection.

The prince is in London, and there are no obstacles to have contacts with women, dozens of women if he want. He drives a Ferrari, he is rich, he is a prince, but he continues to go to gay nightclubs and avoids women? Why? Another rumor is of another prince from the Gulf who allegedly murdered one of his employees with whom he had gay relations. It seems that there is a mentality in the Gulf that if the guy is active rather than passive, he is not gay. Are these guys gay, bi or straight? Can a hetero sodomize a guy and be hetero nevertheless and continue to act full macho? I find this crazy and I do not understand this mentality.

I have heard that in the Arab World, you are not considered gay if you play the male role in gay sex. This is true in Morocco and Egypt at the very least. 20-30% of young Egyptian and Moroccan men have played the male role in gay sex. The guys who play the passive role are considered faggots. They are not necessarily persecuted though. It’s more that they are used sexually as a surrogate female by straight men.

William Burroughs and Paul Bowles lived in Morocco for years. Allen Ginsberg visited Burroughs in Tangier. I have also heard that Oscar Wilde went to Morocco with some other European gay men and had sex with teenage boys there. All of these men were basically gay. All of Burroughs neighbors knew that he was gay and was having sex with teenage street boys, but no one ever turned him in. I never heard the dynamics of the type of sex that Burroughs, Bowles and Wilde were engaging in with those Moroccan street boys. Apparently there was quite a bit of this going on in Moroccan society, and as long as you were very quiet about it, no one cared.

There is a lot of gay sex in Saudi Arabia. There are even quite a few of what could be termed gay bars. I am not sure of the sexual orientation of the men who are doing such things. Obviously if you prevent men from having sex with women, a lot of them are going to start screwing guys instead. That’s just the way men are.

Supposedly nothing is done about all of this gay sex in Saudi Arabia as long as they are very quiet and discreet about it. When they start getting loud about it, the authorities crack down. There were a number of arrests in Saudi Arabia recently at a gay wedding of two Saudi men getting informally married. There were female impersonators there, and the whole thing got out of hand pretty fast. The authorities raided the party and made a number of arrests.

Similarly, a group of gay men threw a wild gay party on board a boat on the Nile River recently. This was considered to be flaunting it, and these men were arrested, tried and sentenced to a few years in prison. The trial caused quite a fuss.

But I have heard that there are quite a few gay couples living quiet lives in Cairo. Everyone knows about it, and no one cares.

I read a recent article by a gay man who went to Egypt on vacation. He was on the Nile in Lower Egypt where he was renting boat boys to take him out on the river. He told how some of these teenage boys were openly propositioning him. Later he met with a gay couple living quietly in Cairo. Everyone knew about them, but it was accepted as long as they were discreet about it.

I read another piece by a gay man who went to Kuwait. He said Arab men of all ages were openly propositioning him. He was shocked at how open it all was. He went down to the beach at night, and he said there were all these gay men there cruising for sex on the beach, and quite a few of them were actually engaging in sex on the beach. No one was doing anything about it, but it all had to be kept on the down low.

Nevertheless, it is different in every country. The Shia take a very hard line against gay sex, and many gay men have been murdered in Iraq.

~8,000 gay men have been executed by the clerical regime in Iran.

In Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani issued a fatwa saying that gay men should be killed. After that, there were a lot of murders of Iraqi gay men.

Hezbollah is normally pretty liberal about the things that they allow under the rule, but they take a hard line on male homosexuality too. They don’t kill gay men in Hezbollah areas, but they do beat them up.

Male homosexuality is not accepted at all in Palestine, and gay men are often murdered in the Palestinian areas. Some have even sought refugee status in Israel as a result of this, and Israel did grant some of them this status. Male homosexuality is frowned upon in Syria and Lebanon, but there is quite a bit of it anyway. There are quite a few gay men among the Syrian refugees in Beirut, but they live in absolute terror as male homosexuality is frowned upon on Lebanese Islamic society.

They were also persecuted in Syria. I know of one case where gay men were arrested by Assad’s regime and imprisoned for a while. They were made to have sex with each other in front of Syrian police at the jail while the police sat back and laughed and ridiculed them. Of course, ISIS has been executing gay men in areas under its control, usually by throwing them off the top of tall buildings.

I know nothing about male homosexuality in Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Yemen, Jordan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Sudan or in the Islamic parts of Africa. Nor do I know much about it in the rest of the Islamic World, but I do know something about male homosexuality in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is quite a complex situation. Maybe for a later post.

I’m not much of an expert on gay rights because as a straight man, the subject does not interest me much.

However, it has long been rumored that the leader of Oman is a gay. He has never admitted it, but many think he is anyway. I understand that people in Oman don’t care much one way or the other about their ruler being gay.

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Filed under Afghanistan, Africa, Algeria, Asia, Egypt, Gender Studies, Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Man World, Middle East, Morocco, North Africa, Pakistan, Palestine, Radical Islam, Regional, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Sex, Shiism, South Asia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen

by | June 30, 2017 · 4:49 PM

The Deep Ties Between the Jews and the House of Saud Go Back Over 75 Years

Weizmann_-_Churchill_-_Boss_of_Bosses

In this comment, Churchill got Prince Ibn Saud to agree to let the British put the House of Saud in power in Saudi Arabia in order that they could control Mecca and Medina and to allow the Saudis to become “the Kings of the Arabs.” In recent, Ibn Saud would agree to let Weitzmann invade, conquer and usurp Palestine’s Arabs to create a Jewish Homeland.

It appears to be dated March 4, 1941, but the deep alliance between the British and the vile House of Saud goes way back before that.

 

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Filed under Arabs, Britain, Europe, Geopolitics, History, Israel, Jews, Middle East, Middle Eastern, Modern, Palestine, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, Saudi Arabia, Zionism

by | June 4, 2017 · 2:38 AM

“Iran: Socialism’s Ignored Success Story,” by Ramin Mazaheri

Iran: Socialism’s Ignored Success Story

May 23, 2017

by Ramin Mazaheri

Iran just completed their presidential election, but this article will not discuss the candidates, the result or the political consequences.

I work for Iran’s Press TV, which essentially makes me a civil servant, and I think it is correct for me to not reveal who I voted for in order to preserve my independence within the government. I’m quite happy to work for “the people” instead of “a person” – as in private media – and I will support which ever candidate the people choose.

Why will I support Iran’s government, whoever is in charge? Truly, it is not for my paycheck.

I support Iran because I support socialism where ever I can find it, and Iran has socialism in abundance.

Iranian Socialism has been so successful at redistributing wealth to the average person; has safeguarded the nation’s security despite being ringed by US military bases and repeated threats; has grown the economy despite an international blockade; has produced a foreign policy motivated on political principles; and has fought against the divisive identity politics which undermine human solidarity.

I have actually seen Iran over the decades, unlike 99% of the journalists who claim to understand Iran, so you can’t dissuade me.

And I’m not even going to try to persuade you. This is not that article, either.

This article is to lay out for left-wing readers and supporters of socialism what should be crystal clear: Iran is a socialist nation. Even more than that: Iran is a socialist success story.

Iran, like all nations, has had its unique developmental history; of course we have been reading Marx just as long as anyone else, as well.

But the most convincing and simplest way I can put it to non-Iranians is this: Europe came to socialism through industrialization, theory and war, but Iran came to socialism through its religious and moral beliefs. The ends are the same, and that is all that should matter to anyone who is truly trying to promote socialism for the benefits it brings to the average person.

The Problem Is Not Us, It Is You

I repeat: The problem is not us, it is you…when it comes to looking at Iran’s contributions to socialism.

I believe that around 99% of Westerners have no idea at all what Iran is really like. Unfortunately, this total ignorance about Iran and the Muslim world is the historical norm in the West.

The greatest contribution of Middle East scholar Edward Said was that his book, “Orientalism”, definitively proved through historical scholarship that the West has never, ever, ever been favorable towards the Muslim world.

Not in the 8th century, when Muslims were occupiers of the Iberian Peninsula, not in the following centuries when Islam was an ideological competitor to Christianity; not in the 15th century, when the Ottoman Empire occupied the Balkans; not in the 19th century, when the Europeans occupied the Middle East & North Africa; not in 1916, when they redrew the borders for the West’s benefit; not in 1945, when they bombed countries like Syria which had fought on their side against the Germans and the Italians; not in the 1960’s, when their reaction to independence was neocolonialism; not in 1979, when they created the forerunner of the Taliban; not during 2 wars in Iraq, a war in Syria today, etc.

Said’s point was: Never has the West viewed or treated the Muslim world as equals, much less intellectual equals.

Given this history, why should us Iranians expect the reality of our high-achieving modernity to be accepted and admired?

LOL, believe me, I am over it! I write this to enlighten you, not me! I humbly hope that it works.

I will address the elephant in the room, and quickly: Yes, I assume that a large part of this prejudice is religious. Some Christians cannot accept that Islam promotes the most recent prophet of the monotheism which they both share.

Such religious prejudices are not my problem, and they do not blind my analysis of 2017 Iran.

No socialist believes in a “clash of civilizations” or “religious war”, anyway.

My point is not to criticize Europe for a lack of brotherhood with their fellow Abrahamic religion: My point is to criticize them in 2017 because most Westerners believe that that even the most leftist Iranian cannot even qualify as merely a “conservative social democrat”!

Can There Never Be a Muslim “Democrat” or an Iranian “Republican”?

The proof of this bias is the decades of Western support for the oppression of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian Revolution and any Muslim attempt to allow their religion into their politics. This is even though Christian Democratic parties governed Europe for decades after WWII, and it is absurd to think that the Christian dogma is not upheld and promoted in European politics today.

So, if Iranians cannot even be allowed to fulfill 19th century notions, why would the West accept that 2017 Iran can be even more truly leftist than the merely centrist ideology of European social democracy?

Of course, the average European cannot accept this, and this is why Western Socialists are aghast at my idea that Iran is an “ignored Socialist success story”.

The radical left of European Socialism, which seeks to destroy organized religion, is especially aghast, but they are a tiny minority and on the way out, thankfully. They do not realize that they have already been drastically tempered, if not ousted, in the still-Socialist countries they purportedly admire: Cuba is full of Santeria and Pope pictures, yin-yangy Confucianism is being promoted in China, etc.

But these Western radicals are a minority who simply cannot accept that spirituality cannot be rubbed out, largely because they see it as a choice or a social conditioning instead of a part of many people’s intrinsic nature (if not theirs). A modern Socialist must accept that this fight has already been fought and decided. The capitalists certainly advance as we chase our tails….

Even if leftist detractors can get past religion, they immediately will talk about Iran’s human rights faults.

I respond: Yawn yawn yawn African-Americans fill US jails; Muslims fill France’s jails; this is the centenary of the British-orchestrated Persian Famine, which killed 8-10 million people and actually made Iran the biggest victim of WWI, that is just one Western/capitalist inspired famine/death/human rights violation yawn yawn yawn.

I am not here to say Iran is perfect – only God can be – I am saying that Iran is absolutely no worse than the West. It is an undeniable fact that the current Islamic Republic of Iran has far less blood on its hands than most – and Iran has not invaded a country in 300 years!

Religion, human rights – these are all classic diversions from the facts presented against socialist societies, and Iran certainly is one.

Iran Checks All the Boxes as a Socialist Nation and as Revolutionary Socialist

What are the key components of socialism? Let’s clarify our terms.

The first is leadership by an avant-garde party committed to defending the revolution: Iran certainly has this, and it crosses over Principlist/Reformist party lines.

The second is central planning of the economy: Whoever had won, they would be largely implementing the 6th Five-year plan (2016-2021). And there is also the “Resistance Economy” approach promoted by many, which is certainly anti-globalization.

The third is control over the media: This is mixed – I would say Iran does not really have this in the traditionally Socialist sense. Cuba has no private media, for example, while Iran has dozens of private newspapers and innumerable TV satellites. But Iran does have limitations, so let’s check this box.

The fourth is support for foreign liberation movements: When the history of Palestinian liberation is finally written, just as a now-free South Africa thanks Cuba for sending troops to Angola, will not Palestinians do the same for Iran’s decades of support? The same with Lebanon and now Syria, correct?

The fifth is democratically devolving as much democracy as possible in order to empower the average person: There is no doubt that Iran is the most vibrant democracy in the Middle East, and by a huge margin. The difference between Iran’s social-democratic procedures and guarantees in 2017 when compared with 1978 is obviously laughable. I write this from Paris, a nation in an 18-month state of emergency with no end in sight….

If your country has these five crucial components: Congratulations! You are in a socialist country!

A little bit more on each for the naysayers….

An Avant-Garde Party

Iran is a one-party system – that party defends the 1979 Revolution. China is a one-party system – promoting Chinese communism. Many would say that the US is a one-party system – promoting imperialist capitalism.

The difference between Iran & China and the US is that in the former their one-party systems are formalized, explicit and well-known; in the US it is informal, but just as strong, and maybe even stronger.

I don’t think this needs much further explanation but, for example, you cannot propose to end the Iranian Revolution and run for office. In France a presidential candidate in their recent election (Jean-Luc Melenchon) won 20% of the first-round vote by proposing to abolish France’s current 5th Republic.

Like all socialist countries, Iran is criticized for not having democracy but they do: it is simply within their own particular structure. Just as in the USSR, there was lively debate about how to advance their own system – should we following the right-wing model of socialism of Bukharin/Khrushchev or the left-wing model socialism of Lenin/Trotsky? – but there was no debate about deviating from their chosen national system, i.e. communism. When they did allow such debates under Gorbachev, Soviet Socialism was almost immediately subverted by capitalist reactionaries and consigned to oblivion.

Again, please examine the repression of communism in the US, South Korea, Greece, Italy, Chile, etc. for historical examples of capitalist “one-party systems”, which are definitely NOT avant-garde and promoting socialism….

The idea that Iran has no avant-garde party but is some sort of totalitarian structure governed by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is only expressed by those who are supremely ignorant about Iran. For the second presidential election in a row Hassan Rouhani won despite not seeming to be Khamenei’s preferred candidate, after all.

Central Planning of the Economy

I think I can illustrate Iran’s state of economic socialism with this anecdote: Back in 2013 all 8 presidential candidates were pushing for more privatization…not to promote capitalism, but because everything has already been nationalized for so long, LOL!

So Iran has already done the nationalizing, and maybe they need to do more? However, socialist countries have increasingly agreed that some revenue-producing businesses are needed to meet some of the basic needs of their people: North Korea has the Kaesong Industrial area, Cuba’s Port Mariel is giving some space to completely foreign-owned businesses, Vietnam and China have plenty of state-run capitalist enterprises, etc. The reality is that even producing things as simple as soap need some expertise, and very often only capitalist corporations can have that expertise.

That’s why the Iranian government went on a spending spree in 2016, but it was decidedly not your typical capitalism. (I do not want to appear to credit only the Rouhani administration because economic policy is produced by the entire government in 5-year development plans, as already noted.)

Iran was feted like a king in places like France and Italy because they were prepared to spend dozens of billions of euros. But what pleased me was how Iran spent: They demanded equal partnerships, joint ventures and technology transfers.

These are the ways in which foreign investment can be mutually beneficial and not exploitative – this was good for France too. I am not a dogmatic person who is absolutely against all capitalism, but I am against all exploitative capitalism.

My point is: It was a socialist spending spree, not a capitalist one. Iran did not just give money away; they did not waste money on vanity projects; this was not one billionaire dealing with another for their own benefit; they invested in Iran via long-term central planning, i.e. the socialist view of economic management.

This is not like France’s ruling “Socialist Party” recently selling off national industrial jewel Alstom to the United States’ General Electric: The French people got nothing for that. That was capitalism; that was globalization

Iran is not in favor of globalization – they are not even a member of the World Trade Organization, unlike 164 other countries. Some will say this is solely due to the opposition of the United States, but it is not: As many in Iran said during the election: membership in the WTO is against Iran’s principles…and these are socialist principles regarding the economy – there is nothing about the WTO in the Koran.

Control over the Media

It’s true you can’t have Charlie Hebdo in Iran – hardly a major loss –but Iran is certainly no Cuba.

Iran’s refusal to crack down on TV satellites which permit reactionary, anti-revolutionary channels like BBC Persian and VOA Persian (UK and US government-funded respectively) appears to be a dangerous fire which Havana will not tolerate. This tolerance does give Iran “human rights” credibility with the West – well it doesn’t, but it should!

I would suggest that Iran is simply confident that foreign propaganda cannot overwhelm the obvious successes of the 1979 Revolution. I imagine that Cuba feels that they cannot take chances, being just 100 kilometers from the USA.

Of course, Cubans simply laugh at Western propaganda channels like the US government’s pathetic Radio Marti. Cubans are supremely intelligent politically and, after all, their education programs are decades older than Iran’s.

Iran, like Cuba and China, bans pornography. I note that such respect for sexuality and for women is a very basic tenet of Socialism. If your utopia includes unfettered access to porn I suggest that you are a libertarian, and not a socialist.

I remind again that the media glasnost implemented by Gorbachev was a major driver in the catastrophic implosion of the Russian Revolution. To privatize media means, necessarily, that you are giving those few people rich enough to actually start newspapers the chance to promote their obviously capitalist worldviews.

I, for one, am not about to cry over the lack of published capitalist, imperialist, sexist, racist, regressive anti-revolutionary nonsense, and neither are most Iranians. As sad as the Dutch may be about it – Iran is not Amsterdam!

Support of Foreign Liberation Movements

Some will say that Palestine is just a “distraction” from Iran’s own problems. Nonsense – this is a point of pride to all Iranians. This is a point of admiration for Iran from the entire Muslim world, just as it is a negative point for much of the Western world.

This is another way Iran is revolutionary Socialist country: they support oppressed countries on the basis of ideology. Perhaps Iran is not the “Mecca of Revolutionaries” which Algeria was in the 1960’s, but let’s agree that the rate and scope of revolutionary movements worldwide are at a much lower level today, sadly.

Russia may support Syria, for example, but it appears more for Moscow’s self-interest and the idea of national sovereignty – which is the idea of national self-interest – rather than a moral-based ideology.

Call Iran the same as Russia – no insult there – but you cannot deny that Iran supports Palestine for reasons which are clearly to the detriment of their own success, i.e., they do it out of solidarity and morality. Were Iran to recognize Israel they would surely have the international dogs called off them…but Iran is a revolutionary Socialist society, as you are hopefully agreeing with by now.

Iran is also an anti-racist society, like all modern socialist societies.

They constitutionally protect minorities, with parliamentary seats for Armenians, Assyrians, Christians and Jews, despite their small numbers. Iran may not promote them, but their tolerance of local languages like Azeri and Kurdish far exceeds that of many minorities in Western Europe. Iran accommodates the 5th-largest number of refugees in the world, while French authorities put up gates and even ‘’anti-migrant boulders’’ to deny refugees even the barest shelter.

When it comes to religion they are extremely tolerant of ancient Iranian Zoroastrianism and all of the pre-Prophet Muhammad Abrahamic religions. Any religion after Prophet Muhammad? Well…it is an “Islamic” Revolution, after all.

This is perhaps a pedantic point but an important one on a verbal, Foucauldian level: Has there been any “revolution” in the world since WWI which was not “socialist”? I can’t think of any, because without a socialism component it cannot be a revolution – it can only be a continuation of the capitalist/feudalist/bourgeois status quo, or a military coup.

Empowering People

The two fundamental tenets of socialism are redistribution of wealth and empowering the average person so that they can reach their full potential. Dismantling the social roadblocks thrown up by capitalism against the non-wealthy has clearly been a major goal of the Islamic Revolution, and I can quite easily prove it has been achieved with a tremendous amount of real-world success.

Since 1990 – when the West’s attack dog of Iraq was beaten off – no country’s Human Development Index has improved more than Iran’s, with the lone exception of South Korea.

Everyone should take notice, especially Socialists, as it is we anti-capitalists who prize human development – not economic development – above all.

That’s why I’m going to leave the Human Development Index as the only proof of success. For me, I have so many other econometrics, anecdotes and personal reflections to prove that Iran has succeeded in creating a new, better, modern society that to do so is quite boring.

Bottom line: It is obvious that I do not have to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Despite the tremendous amount of opposition, violence and propaganda, Iran has advanced the most in the past 3+ decades.

I say “the most” because, unlike South Korea, Iran has done this without 30,000 US troops currently on its soil; it was not preceded by decades of brutal dictatorship which slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people (mainly leftists); and they did not collaborate with the Americans in the division of their nation which currently causes the greatest possibility of thermonuclear war.

Iran didn’t get to #1 as many others did: by capitalism and imperialism.

Iran’s recent election had a 73% voter turnout rate, ranking it #12 in the world. Unlike many of these other 11 countries, Iran does not compel citizens to vote. There is obviously tremendous support for the Iranian system from the Iranian people because…they are not blind to success, I would say!

The hardest thing to get people to do when it comes to socialism (or Iran) is to think realistically: Nobody can achieve “perfect” socialism. No country has 100% voter turnout. No country has zero human rights violations.

But for Iran you have add on another layer of misconception: Many of the “restrictions” in Iranian society predate 1979 by centuries: women were largely wearing the hejab before then; unmarried people, especially young women, also lived at home before 1979; alcohol could send you to prison then and now.

My point is: Iran is a culturally conservative nation, and it was like that long, long before 1979. You will have to simply trust me that Iranians don’t need a government to make them want to live in a society which appears conservative to modern Western standards.

Again, Iran is not Amsterdam, LOL! Maybe you can talk about the royal court in Shiraz in the 14th century as being a hotbed of drunken poetic reveling, but this is does not reflect the reality of life for the average person.

Only an Iranian will agree quickly with this statement and move on: Take away the 1979 Revolution and you would still have many of the same rules in place – they would just be enforced informally.

I will, lastly, put it this way: Take away the mullahs, and you still have to deal with my grandmother!!!!!

But to believe that the government has not empowered people since 1979…well, back then the average woman had 7 children, was illiterate 70% of the time, and the UN was not calling its health care system “excellent”.

Today, the birthrate is 1.7 children per woman, the overall literacy rate is 93% and the right-wing Washington DC-based think-tank the Brookings Institution runs dumbfounded articles with headlines like “Are Iranian Women Overeducated?”.

All in 30+ years…and have you thought it was capitalism that did it?!

Socialists Who Ignore Iran Are Not Really Socialists At All

Do you still want to think that Iran is a country solely motivated by religious radicalism and not the ideals of socialism? Well, then I place you on the right and the left, and that is the point of this article.

It is bad enough that the right (capitalists, imperialists) not only co-opt Socialist ideas as their own (social security, Medicare, Medicaid, affirmative action programs, welfare, free schooling, free nurseries, etc.), but it is laughable when the left refuses to see the leftism in Iran because it does not fit with their preconceived, totally inflexible notions.

Any true Socialist/Communist should realize that attacking Iran is doing a capitalist’s job for them.

And how can someone who proclaims to be a “leftist” have the exact same interpretation of Iran as a right-wing capitalist does?

Again, it is simply laughable that Iran is “not” what it really is.

But this is what always happens: Chinese communism “is not really communism”…despite having 1-party rule, a state-run economy, control over the media, support for Vietnam and North Korea, and the 2nd highest HDI improvement from 1970-2010.

North Korean communism is just a “cult of personality”…despite expelling the Japanese, resisting the Americans, maintaining their independence, security and high-level of education. Cuba is just the Castro dictatorship and, again, not communism.

This is all anti-socialist propaganda – for capitalism there can never be ANY “Socialist success story”.

You remain adamant that you do not want to implement all the principles of the Iranian Islamic Revolution in your country?

Fine, it is your country to decide for as you like. Like I wrote, no worries – Iran hasn’t invaded in 300 years and it sure seems like our military is necessarily focused on defense.

But just because you disagree with some aspects of the 1979 Revolution I encourage you not to throw the baby out with the bath water. I remind you that I needed only one fact to prove that Iran has been improving at a rate which is essentially the best in the world over the last 3 decades – how far below Iran does your country rank, hmm?

I write this article because practically no media in the English language will ever pursue the links between Iran and socialism. We leftists know this not just anti-Iran bias, but a much larger anti-Socialist bias.

However, it is truly suicidal to ignore the left-wing successes in Iran because, even if you reject some of them, Iran has clearly found MANY modern solutions to our MANY modern problems: surely some of them can be of use to you, right? Is Iran ALL wrong?

Of course not – only Satan can be all wrong.

Therefore, I advise those fighting against capitalism and imperialism: Please afford Iran a bit more respect and interest than you would afford Satan!

And Now I Take Our Victory lap

I can only laugh at those who say Iran’s revolution has failed!

“Oh really? Who was the puppet that was installed? Who was the king that was restored? What is the name of the popular democratic revolution which replaced the peoples’ one of 1979, because I have not heard of it and I still see many familiar faces from 1979?”

The revolution has succeeded, and I am not sorry to say so.

Not that I care about your opinion – this is for YOUR own benefit: YOU will not win socialism, anti-capitalism or anti-imperialism in your country if you cannot learn from the successes of others.

But sadly, your inability to recognize socialism in Iran imperils all of us, because the people worldwide cannot win in the long term if even like-minded leftists cannot stick together to work against fascism, capitalism and racism.

But Iran, Cuba, China, etc. – we can win enough of these things for ourselves, at least.

We are doing just fine – steady as she goes, eh? All thanks to central planning, as the capitalists veer from crisis to crisis, with the 1% sucking up a greater percentage every time. Our election had huge participation rates, as usual, dwarfing the European cultures who probably want to claim they invented voting, along with everything else. Asia has heard it all before….

For the non-Western readers: I know that the vast majority of you already support Iran. I have talked with too many of you over my life – I know better. I also know that for us “field slaves” we have to give that impression in order to survive, sometimes, or at least to avoid annoyances.

Anyway, many Westerners appear to misunderstand Socialism completely: they don’t realize it is intrinsically a global idea; they think the Franco-German-Russian (European) variety is the only one. More Eurocentrism blinding them to reality, and necessarily limiting them….

But I look across the West and I see nothing but leftist failure after leftist failure: The fall of communism in Russia, the breakup of Yugoslavia, the obvious absorption of “left” parties into the dominant right-wing parties, the rise of austerity, the advance of globalization at the expense of national interests….

So the next time you look at Iran, you should applaud it as a rare socialist success. Iranians will certainly keep living their path of creating modern socialism, Inshallah.

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television.

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by | April 19, 2017 · 8:55 PM

Only White People Are Smart Enough to Make Desalinization Plants

I watched a documentary about water in Israel, and Israelis said that if they gave the Palestinians permission to drill into the water below their land that the Palestinians would completely dry up the water reservoirs within 20 years. Whereas Israelis, a more civilized and intelligent race, used science and figured out how to turn salt water into fresh water. So Israelis, instead of destroying the environment by idiotic drilling, figured out how to solve their water problem naturally.

It’s the same thing in North India, these dumb fucking animals just keep drilling deeper and deeper until one day, the water will simply be gone.

Brown people are too fucking stupid to understand that if they destroy the environment, they will all die.

Whites are the only race intelligent enough to be environmentally friendly. So if whites do not stop the brown races from destroying the environment, we are all going to die. It is White people’s duty to save the earth from these dumb brown savages who will literally rape and destroy the environment if they are not stopped.

First of all, the Israelis drill that groundwater a lot too. Why haven’t Jordan, Syria, and the North African states drilled out all their water?

Incidentally, I live in the Central Valley of California, which is mostly large farms owned almost exclusively by White people. Extremely conservative White people. They are doing exactly the same thing that the Israelis accuse the Pallies of doing.

They are drilling that groundwater like there’s no tomorrow. The levels keep dropping and dropping, and soon there won’t be any more to drill, and they will all be screwed. We have been yelling at the farmers about this forever now, and all they do is scream back and tell us to shut up. We are trying to regulate the groundwater with state regulations which is the only way to stop this mess because capitalists are suicidal, and farmers are all capitalists.

All capitalists will destroy everything longterm in search of that short-term buck. Right now the capitalists are blowing up the whole climate of the world, and they won’t stop because if we did stop them, they wouldn’t get as much money. So capitalism is so insane that the capitalists are deadset on blowing up the whole climate with devastating effects for and possibly ruining the whole planet because saving the planet would mean making less money.

California to this day has the least regulated water in the nation. Even rightwing states in the West have heavily regulated water laws, as it should be. Even “liberal” Governor Jerry Brown has totally caved in to Big Agriculture. Big Ag runs the state. Some water regulations are proposed, but they are very weak and not due to take place for several years. It’s madness. Meanwhile every year the idiotic farmers drill deeper and deeper. The ground is now sinking in many parts of the Valley due to excessive water withdrawal.  They’re like an alcoholic on the bottle. They can’t quit and will keep pumping until the whole mess blows up. I cannot put into words how much I hate these farmers out here. They’re basically the worst humans on Earth as far as I am concerned.

Furthermore, Brown people are definitely capable of building desalinization plants. The very brown people of the Arabian Peninsula such as Saudis, Kuwaitis, Qataris, Emiratis, Bahrainis, and Omanis have all invested very heavily in desalinization plants. There are more desalinization plants in Arabia than anywhere else on Earth, especially than that (((shitty little country))). So Brown people absolutely can do this.

I assume the Pallies would like to do this, but there’s no way (((certain people))) would ever let them build a desalinization plant. In fact, in Gaza, they have a sewage treatment plant that works well, except that (((some people))) keep bombing it and blowing it, so it’s out of commission for long periods of time. Just about any major infrastructure the Pallies build is going to be bombed or blown up by Jew know who. I wonder why they build anything.

Desalinization plants are not exactly rocket science. If they were, the Arabians could never have built them.

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by | March 13, 2017 · 7:11 AM

All Enemy Rebels Have No Agency

The US, NATO and our allies always insist that any anti-Western rebel group has no agency. They’re all just puppets being pulled by the evil Putin or the ayatollahs or whatever. They have minds of their own. They lack desire, needs, wants, goals and willpower. They are all silly pawns who obey their masters in some other country who push them around like chess pieces. They  have no more agency than a robot.

But the other side does it too. The Left claims that the Syrian rebels are mercenaries paid by the US. The truth is that radical Sunni Salafists have come from all over the Arab World to fight the Shia heretics ruling Syria. It’s all part of the Sunni-Shia Civil War breaking out all over the region. And 70% of the rebels are Syrian Sunni Muslims. Only 30% are from outside Syria, but those are not puppets either. They are anti-Shia fanatics who want to put in Islamic Law.

In the Ukraine, the US claims that everything was fine until the evil Russians came in and stirred things up. In other words, the Donbass rebels have no agency. They are just puppets pulled by Putin. But why would anyone agree to be a puppet for some other country. The truth is that the Donbass rebels rose up on their own due to a Nazi coup fomented by the CIA and the US State Department.  Russia opposed them rising up all the way. They wanted a federalized state instead.

For a long time, Russia refused to aid them and only stepped in when they were on the verge of defeat, and the native Russians in the area were getting massacred. Polls consistently show that 94% of Donbass people do not want to be part of Ukraine. Of course, anti-US polls are always inaccurate because fear and other spooks and bogeymen. All populations polling in a direction the US doesn’t like are literally living under Josef Stalin’s rule and they are terrified to poll against whatever the government tells them to. Cuz you know they might get sent to the gulags. And get a bullet from an NKVD firing squad. Because you know anti-US populations have no agency. They all love America, and they only reason they poll that way is fear and other spooky bogeymen.

Putin doesn’t have 87% support, he has 0% support. Russians are terrified of Putin and if you answer a poll question wrong, Putin’s friend Beria will put a bullet in your head. Or you go to Siberia. Or Putin starves you to death in a new fake terror famine like the last one. Because you know Putin is the spooky USSR. He’s really Stalin. Stalin never died, you know. He just reincarnated as Putin The Evil.

You realize things were much worse under Yeltsin and 20X more journalists were killed under Yeltsin? Russia was much more authoritarian under Yeltsin than it is under Putin. But Yeltsin had 6% support. Oh well, hand wave, but Putin’s a dictator. Yeltsin? That pickled liver was Our Man in Moscow. How could he be bad. Everyone  who is pro-US has a halo over their head, didn’t you know that? No really.

The Crimeans rose up on their own. The Crimeans were always a part of Russia or the USSR. There never was any country called Ukraine. It sprung up for the first time in 1991 and claimed it owned the Crimea. The Crimeans oppose being part of Ukraine from Day One and they even passed a number of resolutions saying that they were not a part of Ukraine.

Basically they never agreed to be part of Ukraine. When the US fomented a coup and the new Nazis came in and said they were joining NATO and throwing Russia out of their base in Crimea (presumably to turn it into a NATO base) Putin had to act. He had no alternative. There was no way he could lose his warm water port and allow NATO to set up a naval base right next door. Nor could he allow NATO to take Ukraine and set up an army right on his doorstep. Polls done by Western polling groups have consistently found that 87% of Crimeans support the annexation.

But see, the US and NATO claims that Crimeans and Donbass people have no agency. They have no minds of their own.

The Jews do this same garbage. Palestinians rising up on their own, maybe because Jews treat them worse than chattel. Well of course not! Zionism is wonderful! The Palestinians love it so much. They love Jews! They would never hurt one Jew, ever.

The Jews say that if it weren’t for Syria, Libya, and Iraq there would be no Palestinians. Before they said that about the USSR. The Palestinians were only rising up because the Soviets were whispering in their ear and telling them to. Hence we took down Libya, Iraq and now Syria on the orders of the Jews because in the US, we do whatever the Jews tell us to do. Iraq, Libya and now Syria were ordered to be taken down by the Israelis. First of all, they were all enemies of Israel, but second of all, if we got rid of all of those countries, the Palestinian revolution would end immediately.

Because, you know, the Palestinians are only shooting rockets and settlers because the Syrians, Iraqis, and Libyans tell them to and give them guns and stuff. This is also why Iran is on the list. Iran is the last of the Jews’ enemies to remain standing. All of the others have been taken out. Granted, Lebanon is an enemy of the Jews, but they have no military so no one cares much about them. Take out Iran and take out Israel’s last remaining enemy. And the Palestinians won’t fight anymore because they only fight because the evil Iranians tell them to. And they won’t get one more bullet because all the weaponry comes from Iran.

A similar thing is playing with Hezbollah. Does Hezbollah exist, maybe, because Israel repeatedly invaded Lebanon? Of course not! That has nothing to do with it! The Lebanese Shia love the Jews. They want to run up to Jews and kiss them on the lips! Nope, instead, Hezbollah only exists because of Iran. Every time a Jew mentions Hezbollah, they say Iran in the next sentence. Because you know Hezbollah are just puppets. Nasrallah is a man on a string.

They and he have no agency. They only take orders from Iran. They don’t. They don’t take orders from Iran. Hezbollah does whatever the Hell it wants and it is not unusual for them to have different goals and aims than the Iranians. The Iranians have no real control over them. Hezbollah is an independent entity with a strong anti-Israel position so Iran supports them, but Iran can’t tell them what to do. Hezbollah gets to do whatever the Hell it wants to. But as the interests of Iran and Hezbollah coincide it is unlikely that Hezbollah will do crazy things not approved of by Iran. On the other hand, Hezbollah is not some wing of the Iranian military taking direct orders from Iran like the Jews say.

Now if you want to say that Iran arms Hezbollah, you have a point. And part of the reason the Jews are trying to destroy Syria is because that way they can end the Iran – Syria – Hezbollah arms pipeline.

Another good case is Kashmir. If you think Indian Hindus are irrational and nuts in general, wait until you see how they feel about Kashmir. Want to see an Indian Hindu have a chimpout? Mention the word Kashmir. They will raise their voices, start yelling, pound the table and get threatening and menacing. And they will say one word over and over: “Pakistan! Pakistan! Pakistan! Pakistan! Pakistan! Pakistan! Pakistan! Pakistan!”

Because you see, Kashmiris have no agency. Kashmiris love India! They love Hindus! They want to kiss all the Hindus on the cheeks! They’re loyal Indian citizens! They have no beefs with India. Kashmiris have total love for India. They would never rebel. In fact, not one Kashmiri has ever taken up arms against India. Not one. Nope. Instead, 100% of the Kashmiri rebellion, armed and otherwise, is being caused by the evil bogeyman Pakistan.

Now Pakistan does aid some of the more radical armed Kashmiri groups, but most of the groups are actually headquartered outside of Kashmir in Pakistani Kashmir. They don’t have much of a presence in Kashmir itself. And now the resistance is mostly just constant rioting and stone throwing like in Palestine. But no matter. I’m sure every one of those stone throwers is a Pakistani in disguise. Those sneaky Pakistanis! They’re everywhere! Look out there’s one under your bed right now, Hindu! Boo! Pakistan! Boo! Boogeyman!

If you study the Kashmiri rebellion, it has internal roots. It never got going until about 1969 anyway because before that, the Kashmiris had tried to work peacefully within the system. Only when India blocked all efforts at peaceful change did the Kashmiris rise up. And in the worst of the armed conflict, 90% of the rebels were native Kashmiris.

India says, “Kashmiris are puppets cuz evil Pakistan bogeyman wants to steal our land hurr!” Actually, this is just more Indian lies. Only 6% of Kashmiris want to split off and join Pakistan. Most have traditionally only wanted an independent state in Kashmir. By the way, the UN has ordered international scofflaw India to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir to decide the fate of the region since 1949. India has always flatly refused. Because you know we can’t have people deciding their own destiny or anything like that.

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by | January 30, 2017 · 8:52 PM

Modern Life Itself Is Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy theory is life. Life is conspiracy theory.

Maybe Pynchon was right after all. Paranoia is the default operating mindset in our modern disinformation-polluted world.

At the age of 59, I have concluded that life or at least politics and geopolitics pretty much operates on conspiracy theory. in other words, modern life itself is in part conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory is the truth and the lie is what everyone got told happened.

If you throw out all the “conspiracy theory” stuff, you end up with a lot of fake news. The world news people get is whatever the State Department, Pentagon and CIA want you to believe happened. Disinformation is everywhere and the Western press is more dishonest than Pravda in the USSR.

Every time you hear the phrase “conspiracy theory” or “Russian propaganda” go do some heavy research into what happened. I have done this many times in the last couple of years.

With regard to Syria and Ukraine, most of the  “Russian propaganda” was simply the truth. The fake news was whatever the MSM-CIA wanted you to believe. That’s right. The MSM is the CIA. It’s all one thing. The MSM is part of the Deep State, and the CIA sits at the pinnacle.

I was appalled at the outrageous lying during the war in Ukraine. The West’s lies were continuous and appalling. Syria was even worse. I do not think I have ever seen so much lying in a war before. We are entering and new era of Der Luggenkriegs (The Lying Wars). I believe most wars that the West is reporting on where the West has an interest will be characterized by a nearly unfathomable amount of MSM lying.

Look at the “conspiracy theories” for:

The death of Arafat. Natural causes. The “reported facts” were wrong, and the conspiracy theory was what really happened. Actually poisoned by radiation by an Israeli spy working as his cook),

The downing of the jet at Lockerbie. The “reported facts” were wrong, and the conspiracy theory was what really happened. Qaddafi didn’t do it and was set up.

The attack on the aid convoy in Aleppo. The “reported facts” were wrong, and the conspiracy theory was what really happened. Actually a false flag attack done by a US drone and then blamed on Syria and Russia. 17 innocent aid workers were killed by the US in this false flag.

The downing of M17 in Ukraine. The “reported facts” were wrong, and the conspiracy theory was what really happened. Neither Russia nor the rebels did it and not only was the plane not hit by a missile but there was no missile period. The jet was downed by a Ukrainian fighter and the investigation was deliberately delayed, botched and corrupted with a fraudulent final report.

The shooting down of the Russian jet over Turkey. The “reported facts” were wrong, and the conspiracy theory was what really happened. Actually this was done in coordination with the US. We told Turkey 24 hours before that those jets would be in that exact location at that exact time.

US helping moderate rebels. The “reported facts” were wrong, and the conspiracy theory was what really happened. In fact, US, Israeli, Saudi, Qatari and Turkish intelligence forces operate on the ground with Al Qaeda. There may have been a number of them caught in Aleppo at the end of the siege.

The chemical weapons attack by “Assad” on Damascus that killed 1,400 people. The “reported facts” were wrong, and the conspiracy theory was what really happened. First the attack never even happened! There was no attack! The incident was a false flag attack done by Turkey and Al Qaeda. A small amount of sarin gas was released in the area by Al Qaeda,  leading to low levels in the  blood of residents. But the levels were so low as to be harmless. There were no 1,400 people. Instead about 400 people were killed, all Alawi and Christian government supporters who had been kidnapped from Northern Syria a year before. All of the dead identified so far were Alawi and Christian government supporting civilians who were kidnapped in that incident. They were killed by being put in a room with gas canisters leaking a toxin, perhaps carbon monoxide. Others were beaten to death, shot or had their throats slit. The symptoms displayed by the victims looked nothing whatsoever like Sarin poisoning. Instead they looked like carbon monoxide poisoning. A Turkish opposition parliamentarian is accusing Turkey of doing this as a false flag.

“ISIS” Suicide bombings of Kurdish Left rallies in Suruc and Istanbul. The “reported facts” were wrong, and the conspiracy theory was what really happened. The government knew about both bombings and allowed the plots to go forward. Then police kept the injured from leaving the scene and beat up the survivors.

The “Gulen” coup in Turkey. The “reported facts” were wrong, and the conspiracy theory was what really happened. There was no Gulen coup. Gulen had nothing to do with this. Erdogan lies like a rug! There was indeed a coup and Erdogan received warning of it some hours before but he allowed it to go forward to crack down on the opposition. The coupists were Ataturkist Turkish ultranationalist seculars. The US was also involved. The US put the coup in motion to get rid of Erdogan as he had started cooperating with Russia a week before.

Trump won the elections by winning the electoral collage, and all the polls were off. The “reported facts” were wrong, and the conspiracy theory was what really happened. Actually the polls were perfect.The polls were 100% correct. They predicted the popular vote well, and as far as certain state votes, Republicans committed mass election fraud in Florida, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin at the very least and probably in a lot of other places. Hillary actually won Wisconsin, Florida and North Carolina by ~2-3 points, more in Pennsylvania but less in Michigan. Real recounts were never done in any of those states. 70,000 votes in Detroit alone were not counted, apparently deliberately. However, even partial recounts found 26,000 fake Trump votes in Pennsylvania, 5,000 fake Trump votes in Wisconsin and 2,000 fake Trump votes in Michigan. And all of those were acknowledged by the states. Why so many fake votes and why are they all for Trump? They have been using those damn voting machines to steal elections since 2000, and they will do it forever until we stop them. It’s pretty hard to have an accurate poll when there is mass electoral fraud going on! Polls can’t predict fraud. The exit polls were far off from the actual count. Everywhere on Earth, that means electoral fraud. P.S. Exit polls started veering far off from results in 2000, when they put those damned computers in. The charge is being made by some of the US top statisticians.

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by | December 23, 2016 · 4:31 PM

The Old “Arab Israelis Have It So Good” Argument

Malla: Well, I did some research on this and it seems the Mizrahi had a more realistic opinion about Arabs and non Whites in general, while the Ashkenazim (and maybe Sephardics), especially during the early days of Israel, had a more idealistic opinion of the Third World. But the Mizrahi themselves are non-Whites. If Arabs and non-Whites then so are Mizrahis because Mizrahis are just Arabs. Besides, many Ashkenazis came with socialistic ideas of kibbutz farming and hippieness, while the Mizrahi were more realistic.

Check this interesting video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f80NnYflDU8

Check out the Ashkenazi/Mizrahi couple at 6:52. So it seems more Mizrahi (Middle Eastern Jews) are more right wing and support predatory violent behavior towards Arabs and Palestinians, while the Ashkenazis (Euro Jews) vote more left and are friendlier to Arabs (idealistic mindset). I do not know how the Sephardics and Ethiopians Jews vote.

Besides, Israel has a massive poverty rate, one of the highest in OECD countries. No wonder they get pissed by migrants from Africa taking way their jobs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SSd0rgTc1E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPuQwFX2J2A

But Israel has an overall high standard of living. Arabs in Israel, in spite of whatever racism they face, have a higher standard of living and social freedoms than most other Arab countries. Only Tunisia and Christian-dominated Lebanon come close in social freedom, and the Gulf states are the only ones who have more income among Arabs.

This is similar to the case in Rhodesia and South Africa where the Blacks had a higher standard of living than Blacks in the rest of the African continent. Or Singapore, where the Indians and Malays have a higher standard of living than Malaysia and definitely (much, much, much) higher standard of living than India thanks to the huge Chinese population. Singapore’s quality of life is comparable to other Chinese majority developed places like Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. One may ask that if Anglo-Celts and other Northern Euros never came to Australia would such an Australia (Australia full of only aborigines) be so developed as it is today or it would be more like Papua New Guinea.

It’s pretty bad to compare the surrounding Arabs with New Guineans and Aborigines. The whole Arab World is built up to Hell. They’re all modern countries over there. I have seen photos of Libya before the war, and it looks like Miami. I saw a recent photo of Casablanca, and it looked like LA. I have seen photos of the rest of the region, even war-torn Syria and Iraq, and they look like regular modern countries. There’s not a lot of difference between in the ordinary street scene between Amman, Beirut, Damascus or even Cairo and Tel Aviv. It all looks the same, like any modern built-up country.

There is none of the horrible poverty you see in India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Latin America or Black Africa.

Arabs will not tolerate that sort of abject shantytown type poverty. They are basically socialist people who don’t care about money too much and believe that everyone should be well taken care of. Social safety nets are ordinary things in every Arab country. There’s no debate about this sort of thing. They are not individualists. They are collectivists. And they don’t think rich people are better than poor people. They are not particularly greedy, and they have a “We are all part of one village” mindset wherever they live.

Semi-feudalism came late to the Arab World via the Ottomans, and it never worked well. There were landed gentry and fellahin, or landless peasants. Nasser was the man who confiscated the land from the land barons and gave it to the landless peasants. If you went around the whole Arab World back then, even in say Yemen, there was a portrait of Nasser on every wall. Now in Western or Latin American culture, doing that is called Communism, and everyone hates it. But the Arabs love this sort of thing.

Baath nationalist parties came in in Syria and Iraq around 1960, a revolutionary socialist state arose in Libya in 1969, and another one was birthed in Algeria in 1964. Land was confiscated from feudal latifundiaists in all of these place and distributed to the peasants. The governments were all officially socialist, secularization was enforced even at gunpoint if it took that, huge safety nets were set up, and the state even got involved in quite a few of the larger industries and became a major employer. All of this was wildly popular all over the region.

US style radical individualism and Libertarian free market capitalism is totally anathema to all of those societies. For one thing, it goes against Islam, as Islam is a socialist religion. In feudal times, large Arab landowners enlisted the help of the local imams in interpreting parts of the Koran where it said, “Some are rich, and some are poor, and that’s all just fine” or something to that effect, but it never worked well. It ended up turning the local imams into hated figures like the priests of Catholic Church in the West and Latin America who always sided with the rich against the people.

So this whole idea that the Israeli Arabs have it good for having some extra money falls flat on Arab and even Arab Israeli ears. Standard of living is not number one on their list of the most important things in life.

If the Arabs are all so jealous of Israel, why are the non-oil Arabs are not jealous of the oil Arabs? Typical Jews to reduce everything down to money. Arabs don’t care that much about money. They don’t revolve their whole lives around money or sit around hating Jews for having more skyscrapers. That’s not important to your average Arab.

I have never in my life heard one Arab tell me they were jealous of Israel.

In Palestine, White European racist fascists invaded the region, started wars with everyone around them, and, being high IQ, produced a developed economy. So what? These jerks get brownie points because they are rich? I’m supposed to love them because they’re rich and hate those Arabs because they’re poor?

The commenter is an Indian, that’s why he thinks that way. We are socialists here; we don’t think like this. Actually I think the more money someone has, the worse of a person he tends to be, but that’s just me.

All of these arguments were used by the South Africans who practiced a very similar White settler-colonial project far after this stuff went out of style.

Arabs in Israel are not happy people. They’re angry, and they have no loyalty to the state at all. The Jewish fascists say the Arabs are traitors, and the Jews are actually correct on that score. Indeed they have no loyalty to the state and do not even see themselves as Israelis.

The similarities between Israel and apartheid South Africa are striking. It’s notable that Israel was long one of South Africa’s strongest allies, and towards the end, it was one of their only allies. Arab Israelis are are institutionally treated as second class citizens in exactly the same way the Blacks were under apartheid. 

Were those Blacks happier on their South African Nigger Plantation because they had a higher standard of living? They were not, but this was the argument that was used to show that they were happy Negroes toiling away cheerfully in the sun for their beloved White slavemasters. Similarly, South Africa moved into the neighborhood and in a matter of time, like Israel, it was soon also embroiled in wars with most if not all of its neighbors. Similarly, South Africa, like Israel, had zero friends in the region.

Blacks in South Africa and Arabs in Israel don’t want money and stuff. White Gentiles and Jews only care about money, and they don’t care about humans, so they think everyone else feels that way too. But they don’t. People want to be free, even if being free means not having as much stuff. Stuff doesn’t make people happy. You can keep giving your slave the latest gadgetry in his slave quarters, but he’s still not a free man.

Same with South Africa. Hey look, these White European racist fascists came in here and built up the region and made a big economy because they have higher IQ’s! So what. I am supposed to like them more because they are rich and hate those Africans because they are poor? I realize this is Indian thinking, but we socialists do not think that way.

Arabs have more political rights in all of the Arab World. In the Arab World, they are not systematically discriminated against due to their religion or ethnicity.

I would argue that those Arabs in Israel do not want all of those social freedoms. Freedom to do what?

And what social freedoms do they have there that they do not have in the rest of the region? How are the social freedoms of Arab Israeli Christians better than those of Arab Christians in Lebanon or Syria? Someone needs to clue me.

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by | December 21, 2016 · 10:30 PM

Israelis Have Managed to Drive Hundreds of Millions of Their Nearest Neighbors to Near Homicidal Hatred of Them

Barack Thatcher: Robert, I am not criticizing the Palestinians.

I’m just saying logically, assuming the Jews aren’t going anywhere could protect them by taking them out of the range of Israeli missiles; taking them into the Gulf nations or wherever.

The problem is that it’s about hatred of the Jews (whether right or wrong), not a pragmatic defense of the Jews.

The Jews aren’t going anywhere.

I was just saying why not actually look for a pragmatic solution for this instead of idealistically holding out and waiting to right the wrongs of 40 years ago?

It was 70 years ago.

Israel does not generally shoot missiles or even drop bombs on Palestinian areas in the Gaza and West Bank. Sometimes they bomb some Hamas training camp in response to a rocket attack. The rocket attacks these days are never even done by Hamas. They are done by more radical groups, and Hamas does not approve of shooting rockets at Israel. But Israel says its Hamas’ fault whenever some nignog shoots a rocket!

When the battles in Syria carry over into the Golan via stray bullets, mortars or whatever, the Israelis will shell or bomb the Syrian Army in response! Israel says it is the Syrian government’s fault whenever the shooting war accidentally carries over to Gaza. Syria just has to sit there and let Israel shoot missiles and drop bombs on it all the time because if they shoot one bullet in response, Israel says they will level Syria. They bomb Lebanon all the time too, and they constantly fly jets over Lebanon to harass the Lebanese. Lebanon cannot do anything about it because if they shoot one bullet, Israel says they will turn Lebanon into Carthage. Lebanese hate Israel so much that to this day, Israel and Lebanon are still officially at war. No peace treaty or armistice was ever signed and of course Lebanon has no relations with Israel at all.

The Israelis are scum. I have nothing but the most sheer utmost hate for them. I wish they would just disappear of the planet. Israel is one of the most evil nations on Earth. I cheer whenever some Arab kills some of them. They deserve it.

They’re bullies. They’re not victims at all. They are the biggest bullies in the whole planet, and they scream all the time that they are the biggest victims on the planet. Bullies always do this. Bullies always say they are victims and they blame the person they are bullying, claiming that the victim attacked the bully first when that never happens. The bully attacks the victim, and then when the victim fights back, the bully screams, “You are an evil aggressor maniac attacking poor peaceful me for no reason.”

And then they retaliate against the victim even more because it drives bullies insane with hate whenever their victims start fighting back. I am not sure why that is, but maybe they see it as a “slave rebellion” of some sort.  Look at how harsh slave rebellions (rebellions of the victims) were put down by slaveholders (the bullies). Israel follows the exact same bully-victim paradigm that plays out in the day to day world among individuals.

Now I could pretty much care less about Jews in the Diaspora because to me they’re not the problem. Those scumbags squatting in Palestine are the problem. Sure some Diaspora Jews strongly support Israel, but most secular American Jews can hardly care less about the place. I have known many Jews and I had a Jewish girlfriend for many years. She and a number of other Jews acted like Israel was a huge headache that they wished would go away. They also said that Israel was full of Orthodox Jews, and you have no idea how many hate secular Jews have for those Ultra-Orthodox ones. They hate them! I do not know if the feeling is mutual. Most people are not aware of this intra-Jewish strife.

So the Jews who are the issue are the ones over in Palestine. These ones here are not squatting in Palestine, so I have no issues with them. I also do not really care about many of the criticisms of Diaspora Jews laid out by anti-Semites. The main arguments of the antisemites seem to rightwing or even reactionary in nature. A lot of antisemitism is coming from White racism or White Supremacism/White Nationalism.

I could care less what Jews think of White Gentiles and I doubt if Jews are the enemies of the Whites. Frankly, I would rather be ruled by the Jewish rich than by the US Gentile rich. See that Trump Administration? That’s what the Gentile rich act like in this country. The Jewish rich are not exactly wonderful people and the New York Times Jews make me ill, but I would much rather be ruled by Mr. Sulzberger than Mr.Trump. For an elite group, rich Jews are markedly leftwing. In fact, rich Jews may be one of the most progressive groups of rich elites on Earth.

The Israelis are the worst bullies on Earth. Everyone in the region absolutely hates them. All the Sunnis factions and all the Shia factions hate them, and some of those Shia factions are barely even Muslims. Hell, even the Druze hate them! The Druze in Syria, the Golan and Lebanon despise Israel.

A lot of Middle Eastern Christians are not wild about Islam, but a lot of them hate Israel too. This idiot Ted Cruz gave a speech to the Christian Arab Association of America. Perhaps he said something about Muslims. Those Christians might not be real wild about Muslims but they do not usually hate them as much as your average Trumpster Republican. I have known Christian Arabs from Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Most of them did not have much to say against Muslims, but they all (except for some Lebanese Maronites) hated Israel in a huge way.

Cruz made some mention of Israel saying something like our great friends in Israel, and the whole place turned into a mob scene. They stood up and booed him for whole minutes, and they nearly chased him off the stage to where he would have had to end the speech prematurely. Cruz had ignorantly thought that since Arab Christians were not wild about Muslims that they must like Jews like most US evangelicals, but he was sorely mistaken.

My local store got taken over by Syrian Christians and they hate Israel. I mean they hate hate hate hate hate hate hate them. They don’t say anything bad about Muslims and in fact they work alongside Yemeni Muslims right now. And those are Christians! If the Christians hate Israel that much, can you imagine how much Muslims must hate them. There are quite a few Commie atheist Arabs, especially Palestinians, Iraqis and Lebanese. I used to know some of them. They probably hate Israel more than anyone!Most of them were Arab nationalists and Arab nationalists hate Israel as much as the Islamists. I used to know an Iranian Assyrian Christian woman. In fact, I dated her for a bit. She basically hated Muslims for good reason. But she hated Israel just as much! She hated Israel. And she didn’t like Jews too much either. She was a bit of an antisemite. I knew a Syrian Christian once who was a wild, raving antisemite. I mean he sounded like a Nazi.

Even non-Arab Muslims hate Israel. I have heard that Turks really despise them and for some reason, I have heard that a lot of Greeks hate Israel too, maybe because there are Greek Orthodox Christians over there. Inside Israel itself, even the Arab Christians do not like Israel. The Greek Orthodox Priest of Jerusalem named Father Hanna used to praise Hamas and cheer for suicide bombings. I knew a Pakistani woman whose hatred of Israel was off the charts and he was an extreme antisemite to boot.

No Iranians like Israel. Even the secular Iranian nationalists who despise Arabs and Islam and claim to be Zoroastrians if they are religious at all have an extreme hatred of Israel. And a lot of them don’t like Jews either – the ones I knew were serious antisemites. I knew an Moroccan Muslim woman, relatively secular, who was always posting stuff about the Palestinians.

I knew an Egyptian Muslim man who told me that there would have to be another war to take out Israel once and for all. During the Arab Spring, at one  point a huge mob attacked the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. The Israelis were spirited out of there soon enough, but the riot went on for most of the day, and at the end, the embassy had been burnt to the ground. And I was told that many of those attacking the embassy were secular Arab Spring anti-Mubarak types, not radical Muslims at all.

Nobody likes those people! They’ve acted like such scumbags since they set up shop there that they are managed to earn the near-homicidal hatred of almost all of the hundreds of millions of neighbors for quite a few miles around.

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