alanjjohnstone
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http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/02/02/Syria-jihadist-group-ISIS-forms-women-only-battalions.htmlhttp://www.fptoday.org/syrias-isis-recruits-female-brigades-hinting-at-changing-role-for-women/A February story so before the current events and probably the source of this articlehttp://www.businessinsider.com/isis-has-female-battalions-too-2014-10When i googled ISIS WOMEN FIGHTERS, there as a great number of stories of ISIS fearing those Kurdish females…bit like the Germans on the Eastern Front being supposedly terrified of the Red Army Female regiments. Just recalled Gaddafi supposedly had an all female bodyguard of elite Amazon soldiers..never ever hard of them doing anything during his downfall.It all makes for good news footage.
Oh , btw , ALB , he too raises the women issue and why it seems so popular.
Quote:A lot has been made in the Western media of the female only militia units with pictures of young women in combat fatigues with guns gracing the pages of magazines, and websites. To be cynical it sells. Here we have these brave young women fighting off these 'Islamic barbarians'. The PKK marketing department certainly knows its audience. When you stop to think about it now, it’s not really exactly that radical. The Da'esh also have women only groups of combat troops. You can't imagine them having mixed groups in an ultra-Islamic group, but then neither does the PKK, and nor does the Iranian state, which also has female combat troops. In fact the PKK, has a long history of separating the sexes and sexual relationship between the sexes have long been punished, just like in any other bourgeois army.I thought this worth reading. From a Left Communist, ex-ICC, of Turkish origin and ex-postal worker, if i recall his history correct.http://libcom.org/blog/bloodbath-syria-class-war-or-ethnic-war-03112014
Quote:The working class, neither in the Middle East nor in the rest of the world, is not strong enough to stop this war just as in 1914 it was not strong enough to stop World War One or the Armenian genocide a year later. To pretend otherwise is to be prey to illusions. However, that does not mean that revolutionaries should dive headfirst into taking sides in it, and acting in a way which will almost certainly lead to the prolonging and intensification of ethnic/sectarian conflict. It is important to remember that the siege of Kobanê is but a moment in a larger struggle across the entire region being fought out by the proxies of various local imperialist powers….The alternative that internationalists pose to this is that of class struggle. It may seem far away now, but it is only four years ago that the TEKEL strike in Turkey really seemed to be breaking down barriers between Kurdish, and Turkish workers, and led to a much wider strike wave. 2013 saw massive demonstrations across Turkey sparked by police brutality against protestors inIstanbul's Gezi park. The three years since the Arab spring may seem like a long time now, but in times like these changes can occur very, very quickly. Although the working class seems weak today struggles where the working class is fighting for its own interests will return in the future, and they are the only solution to overcoming the ethnic and sectarian divide by uniting workers as workers, not as Kurds, Turks, Arabs, and Persians, or Sunni, Shia, Christian or Yazidi.Pity that he is to disappear from history."Google returns 81 results on "Redstar2000". None of the given sources are reliable sources. All are from within the Marxist community. While he may be well known in the limited context of the Marxist community, he has zero notability outside of that community."Much of this would have applied to Marx at certain times in his life.
DJP, nobody thinks it is simple, neither a sentence or two from myself, or an article or two by yourself, can give the topic full justice. The transformation of mercantile capitalism and the development of banking over the centuries into what we have now are subjects on their own can fill volumes. Factories themselves had to evolve from simple mills and work-shops to vast sheds of billowing smoke stacks. The thread, however, and my contribution, was a limited one to the specific claims that some sort of work ethic possessed the working class and created an acceptance of capitalist values. I was not endeavouring to explain the rise of capitalist society in all its aspects, just suggesting that there maybe some forcing of the wrong jigsaw piece into the space.But as always we have present day examples to go by…there is no need to look back into distant history. We have the land-grab politics going on today and communal lands privatised, forcing people into landless propertarians, and i did offer it an example that it is not a work ethic that is the driver of this. As you noted in your article with the Ketts rebellion the peasants and particularly the more skilled artisans and craftsmen did not go go willingly into the arms of a waiting factory owners. There were a series of uprising, remembered mostly these days by local history societies. I tried on the blog to give brief accounts of those starting with the more well known one but also lesser knownhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2012/05/revolting-peasants.html http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2014/06/remembering-wat-tyler.htmlhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/06/flame-of-freedom.htmlhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/06/john-mend-alls-rebellion.htmlhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-jacquerie.htmlThe Enclosureshttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2012/05/enclosures-thieving-of-land.htmlAlso included are the religious undertones of those rebellionshttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/05/sunday-sermon-taborites.htmlhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/03/omnia-sunt-communia.html But to return to the thread, You and YMS know the song"In Cokaygne we drink and eatFreely without care or sweatThe food is choice and clear the wineAt fourses and at supper time,I say again, and I dare swear,Under heaven no land like this,Of such joy and endless bliss."In Cockaygne,"All is day, there is no night,There is no quarrelling nor strife,There is no death, but endless life,There is no lack of food or cloth,There is no man or woman wroth."It is in Cockaygne"That geese fly roasted on the spit,As God's my witness to that spot,Crying out, "Geese, all hot, all hot!"Every goose in garlic drest,Of all the food the seemliest."Hmmm…not too much of the puritanical work ethic in those lines of verse and it continues into the 20th c with Big Rock Candy Mountain, those American hoboes (again many being landless share-croppers by default on mortages to the banks) in search of work but certainly not in thrall to the idea of wage-labour In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,There's a land that's fair and bright,Where the handouts grow on bushesAnd you sleep out every night.Where the boxcars all are emptyAnd the sun shines every dayAnd the birds and the beesAnd the cigarette treesThe lemonade springsWhere the bluebird singsIn the Big Rock Candy Mountains……In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,The jails are made of tin.And you can walk right out again,As soon as you are in.There ain't no short-handled shovels,No axes, saws nor picks,I'm bound to stayWhere you sleep all day,Where they hung the jerkThat invented workIn the Big Rock Candy Mountains…Socialists may agree with the concept of the dignity of labour and its essential psychological positive aspects of sharing work with others but should we promote a work ethic tht too often is a mere echo of capitalism's wage-slavery?
Has anyone on the thread declined to accept that "free labour" was an advance on chattel slavery or feudal restrictions ? One reason why workers should support migrant workers exercising their right of mobility of labour.Worth a read from the blog on some worker history, some bits probably from EP Thompson http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/01/blood-for-blood-says-general-lud.html#more
Quote:Traditional craftsmen, such as wainwrights and blacksmiths, were their own masters, able to work whatever hours they wanted as long as they delivered their products on time. Industrialization reduced their crafts to menial labor that could often be performed by unskilled workers. If the artisans tried to make the transition, they were faced with lower wages and fixed working hours — something referred to as "wage-slavery".Also this http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2012/10/dont-like-mondays.html
Quote:"Piece work" was often the norm with workers adapting their skills to operate on flexible working periods. If they missed Monday they could make it up by working extra hard at the end of the week in order to have more free time.So that places peice work in context, scarcely exalting work but as a means of creating leisure…As capitalism grew it placed this in the clocking in and out context of factory discipline, depriving workers of this flexi-time…something that again was re-introduced through the unions in the latter-half of the 20th c.. Was it really a work ethic or a thrift movement with savings banks and buiding societies and mutual insurance associations springing up everywhere (after all the trade unions started off not from the guilds but insurance schemes in many cases), as well as co-opertives. Would Robin C accept that LETS and Credit Unions and such like is the acceptance of capitalism…or a rejection of a particular brand of it?We can surely say that the nub of the issue isn't voluntarism when peasantry are driven from the land unable to compete with the world market and international trade agreements and seek work in the slums of cities and become proletarianised in the sweatshops which may well be a step up from starvation. Surely it isn't a work ethic that is the force that is initiating this rural to urban migration but desperation.Perhaps the churches have been at times begun by workers…the Welsh chapel…the Methodists…the Wee Frees…but were they not also a form of policing supported by local employers who themselves may not have been actual members of the same church…Much the same as freemasonry and the orange lodges had separate hierarchies.
The Leninists stole Marx from us, now they again try to steal Morris (a continuous campaign over the decades). Shame it isn't if we can't beat them, join them…rather than if we can't beat them, make them join us!
Lets be very clear…the Enclosure Acts deprived the rural workers of a livlihood and drove them to seek work in the new factory sustem in the growing urban centres. There was no voluntary choice in the matter, our forefathers were driven into those satanic mills by necessity. The Poor House and related 'welfare" schemes ensured no tolerance of the idle. The Luddite and Captain Swing resistance movements can also be cited as evidence that it as not a "100%" free choice to lose the limited independence of being a small-holder. Bonded servitude is a red herring, YMS, and the weighmen was a response to already existing piece -rates system to control it, they did not initiate it. As for the work ethic, it was imposed upon the new proletariat. Pre-capitalism had a multitude of leisure days and as work was seasonal as well as dependant on weather, there was no 9 -5 work-days, 7 days weeks. Some will have heard of Holy Monday (and often Tuesdays). Factory discipline had to be enforced. It took a long struggle to reclaim what people had lost. SP was on the right track…or was Weber getting using the wrong title of the Protestant Work Ethic…something religion introduced or are we claiming too that religion has no ruling class element simply because its congregation happens to the poor. Rugby League and Rugby Union would be a more apt comparison. Some sport was indeed for those who could afford it ..(.anybody recall Alf Tupper character, Tough of the Track, of the Victor or was it the Hotspur)…hence the prevalance of university/private education participants in some of them. Again the beaters in the huntin'fishin'shootin country sports was the only aspect permitted to the poor or running after the Hunt s foot followers. Those country folk who "chose" to engage in such outdoor sports were classed as poachers and criminalised to be deported as bonded servants. For sure, there are those who adopted the principles of capitalism to get on …the American Dream is a working class construct , after all, and doing the pools or these days, the National Lotttery, believing in the idea it is all a matter of bit of luck to be rich, and not via working hard on the factory floor. But is capitalism, accepted by workers?…Certainly aspects has been accepted as facts of life…Has all the aspects of it always been accepted?…not always…One day "entrepeneurs" may be exalted (recall Steve Jobs being mourned by Occupy Wall St)…other days they are simply spivs on the make, seen as "job creators" one day, "job destroyers" on another…So just as capitlism is full of contradictions, it is to be expected so will the working class be…our task is to destroy false illusions, reveal the reality. Yes, to make socialists by shining a light on the side of class consiousness they have developed themselves and simply using our acquired collective knowledge as a socialist political party to educate, agitate and organise so that indeed, DPJ, the working class need not re-invent the wheel and go sit in the British Library (or sit at a computer scrolling through endless websites)for decades to gain an understanding of history and economic. We offer ourselves as a shortcut to understanding. But i am not saying we substitute ourselves as the intellectual elite…Dietzgen did say that if the task of the workers is self-liberation, then the other task is also self-education. SP is no way denying such a position by asking for evidence/source in a discussion.
Female Genital Mutilation appears to be an issue in Iraqi Kurdistanhttp://www.stopfgmkurdistan.org/html/english/fgm_study.htmHow widespread the practice in PKK influenced areas, i am not so sure
In many ways discussion threads are like the daily news…they move on to the next piece and one-time headline stories are forgotten and neglected although events still take place. So we now have Iraqi Pershmerga Kurds 'reinforcing' the PKK Syrian Kurds with the permission of the Turkish government with little analysis on the mainstream media of what this actually means.Pepe Escobar has an intersting article that is worth refreshing minds about what is at stake in Rojava.http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-241014.html
Quote:Kobani is now a crucial pawn in a pitiless game manipulated by Washington, Ankara and Irbil. None of these actors want the direct democracy experiment in Kobani and Rojava to bloom, expand and start to be noticed all across the Global South. The women of Kobani are in mortal danger of being, if not enslaved, bitterly betrayed.Perhaps the effect will be the negative one the author expects, but on the other hand, those Iraqi's may well return inspired with new ideas and a more positive vision for their own region. One can only hope.
This Pope i think is confirming what James Connolly said about the papacy, it will go with the flow to ensure its popularity.http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/pope-says-evolution-and-creation-both-righthttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-caring-for-the-poor-does-not-make-you-a-communist-9828856.html
Brand and Naiomi Klein on climate changehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QoM8BgmUy8Ahttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/10/14/russell-brand-podcast-naomi-klein_n_5983148.html
Many thanks and the notes are now posted on our SOYMB blog, if you want to send anybody the link.http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-social-democratic-federation.html
The Scottish Socialist Party associated itself with a Messiah figure in the person of Tommy 'i'm not a liar' Sheridan and we saw the outcome for the party when he fell from his pedestal. (or RESPECT with Miaow Galloway…and i am sure others can be cited)We can sympathise with some of his views and quote in support of some of what Brand is trying to say just as we can with another very politicalised comedian who many seem to have forgotten all about even though he was regularly appearing on television offering astute observations although albeit more calling for "radical reform" than revolution – Mark Thomas – but we have to be wary of completely identifying with Brand or any one individual be it a media megastar or an academic one-time member (which strangely enough we possess a number of…surely this is a question to be pondered).
I was really intending it to mean a criticism of those geo-political grand schemes proposed to explain every diplomatic intervention.This is an example where there are interesting facts they are added up to one strategy whereas i think there can be conflicting sectors in world politicshttp://www.countercurrents.org/engdahl271014.htm
