August 2018

Over the last two days another round of the Astana talks between Russia, Turkey and Iran was held in Sochi, Russia. The final statement again empathizes Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. With the Syrian army coming north Turkey can no longer justify to hold onto Syrian land.

ANDREW KORYBKO—People are divided over what’s really happening, with some of them lambasting the President for capitulating under “deep state” pressure and therefore endangering the Helsinki spirit of Great Power rapprochement that looked so promising just recently while others are adamant that Trump’s still in control of everything and is just playing along as part of a “master plan”. For as widely ridiculed as the last-mentioned explanation often is whenever it’s used, especially whenever Palestine supporters evoke it when trying to explain away President Putin’s strategic alliance with Israel and recent establishment of a de-facto protectorate over it together with the US, it actually seems to be the most plausible interpretation of events in this instance, and there are good reasons to believe so.

ANDRE DAMON—The growth of the class struggle is increasingly pitting workers in direct conflict with the trade unions, which the ruling class has relied on for decades to suppress the class struggle and facilitate the redistribution of wealth to the rich. Under these conditions, the ruling elite sees the criminalization and suppression of independent political opposition as a vital necessity in the defense and expansion of its social privileges. The creation of an apparatus of mass censorship by Facebook, Google and Twitter is a vital weapon in the hands of the ruling elite in this life-and-death class struggle.