The Yellow Vests Are Just The Start Of The Global Working Class Revolution That’s Underway

Another important dispatch from The Greanville Post. Be sure to share it widely.

Dateline: 30 April 2019

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n December of 1999, the lefty cartoonist Dan Perkins (pen name “Tom Tomorrow”) ended a cartoon with these words:

What can you do? You don’t matter. Your vote doesn’t matter. Your protests don’t matter. Go ahead, march in the streets and chant your little slogans. The political sophisticates and media elites will smirk at your naivete, your misguided nostalgia for the sixties, and then they will steer the conversation back to the stock market or the fabulous new restaurant they’ve recently discovered. They’re not worried about you.

And yet…something extraordinary just happened in Seattle. Demonstrators took to the streets and made their voices heard-and it made a difference. The media were forced to address issues they had previously swept under the rug, to explain why anyone could possibly be opposed to unfettered global capitalism. In a few short days, the entire debate was altered, perhaps irrevocably.

You know something’s wrong. Maybe it’s time to start making some noise about it. Happy new millennium.

Twenty years later, the brief moment of hope for working class revolution that Perkins described has become a routine occurrence. Almost every week since November of last year, France’s Yellow Vests have been agitating in the streets for the restoration of social benefits, livable wages, taxing the rich, climate action, and (according to a Yellow Vests assembly from this month) the abolition of capitalism. As the Yellow Vests in France continue to demand change amid violence from police and attacks from the media, similar rebellions are happening around the world.

Additional Yellow Vest movements have happened worldwide, from Russia to Canada to many countries throughout Europe. America’s lack of such a mass protest effort is clearly only temporary, as the United States is brimming with the same revolutionary energy that’s appearing in much of the rest of the world. This year, strike action in the U.S. has hit a 32 year high as its teacher strikes have escalated. Around the U.S. the Poor People’s Campaign has been using civil disobedience protests to continue Martin Luther King Jr’s vision for a just society. Similar rebellions are underway in seemingly every other place where poor and working people are oppressed, with examples ranging from the additional teacher strikes in Europe to the anti-government protests in Algeria to the massive recent communist-led general strike in India.

These events make up the first stage of a revolutionary period that the capitalist world has entered into. Resistance efforts against corporate power are overall much more frequent than they were just a few years ago, and we have every reason to expect the class struggle to keep accelerating in the coming years. This is because unlike during the time of the WTO protests, the victims of global capitalism have reached their breaking point.

In America most of all, inequality has been steadily increasing throughout the developed world for almost half a century. Those in the more wealthy countries have seen their living standards decline to the point where in the United States alone, half the population is poor by modern standards. The global concentration of wealth has also led to increased poverty in the poorer nations, with NAFTA having devastated Mexico’s economy and similar damage having been done to the Latin American countries where neoliberal reforms have taken place. The imperialist powers have long carried out corporate looting in the global south, but now that inequality has risen so much in both parts of the world, ordinary people in the dominating nations have a shared sense of victimhood with their counterparts in the foreign sweatshops.

With the capitalist world’s extremely debt-ridden and unstable economic system heading for a crash that will likely be worse than the one from 2008, this restlessness among the lower classes is no doubt going to keep intensifying in the coming years. Unemployment, lowered wages, consumer debt, slashed social benefits, and government handouts for the rich will all explode after the next financial crisis, and this will drive more people to get out and fight for their rights.

But while it’s certain that the next decade will see great efforts to reject the current system, a vision for what we want society to look like next hasn’t yet been adequately articulated. This clarification of our collective goal for the future is where the anti-capitalist movement will be needed. We can’t water down our demands and accept a setup where capitalism continues with some reforms. We need to infuse our protests with an explicitly pro-socialist message, which can be articulated through signs at demonstrations, posts on blogs and social media, and public statements on behalf of the protesters. The world’s poor and working people must unite under an agenda which includes taking the means of production away from the capitalist class.

If this movement is equipped with the aspects that have been historically needed for socialist revolutions-such as an armed population of revolutionaries and strong institutions to support the people’s struggle-we’ll have a much better chance at defeating capitalism. Like all ruling classes, the capitalists won’t give up their power willingly, and they’re demonstrating this by preparing to violently crush a rebellion. President Trump’s declarations of global war on socialism are backed by the power of America’s security apparatus and militarized police departments. And Trump’s statement last month about his supporters potentially carrying out violence on his behalf showed that he and the rest of the ruling class are willing to use military force to defend their power. We’re committing ourselves to a power struggle where violence should be avoided as much as possible, but which will no doubt entail violence because of the violent nature of the people in power.

In short, this revolution will require a lot more than mere street marches. But as Perkins assessed about the WTO protests, any act of resistance can have an impact. And we’ve entered an era where acts of resistance are reaching a tipping point.

Closing words
Like vampires fearing light, capitalists elites have always been afraid of the socialist demonstration effect. A huge and constant effort is aimed at "showing" that socialism doesn't work, that it is tyrannical, inefficient, etc. Thus sabotaging and killing socialism wherever it may arise —Russia, China, Korea, Venezuela, Chile—by any means necessary, no matter how brutal and dishonest, is therefore standing policy. But socialist solutions work. And Medicare for All would show everyone in America, the key capitalist fortress, that many of our nightmares can easily vanish under socialism. For the capitalists and their hanger-ons it would be a Pandora's box.—P. Greanville

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rainer Shea I’m writing articles that counter the propaganda of the capitalist/imperialist power establishment, and that help move us towards a socialist revolution.

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Democratic Leaders Reject Calls to Support Medicare for All

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The Democrat Bunch: Always diametrically opposed to the people's interest, while pretending otherwise. Obama is now officially retired, but his influence continues. Meanwhile Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer carry on implementing the wishes of the plutocracy (and Israel, of course).

The Democratic Party’s leadership is clearly beholden to the political center [right and the interests of their wealthy donors—as is evident from their lack of support for the Medicare for All bill. Democrats in the House and Senate are increasingly coming out in support of the Medicare for All bill, which Bernie Sanders has tried to put on the agenda. But instead of riding this wave of progressive support and the popularity of Medicare for All to draw a significant contrast against Trump and the Republican party, Democratic Party leaders are obstructing its momentum.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., recently reiterated she will not support Medicare for All, claiming she is opting to preserve the Affordable Care Act. She has made similar comments in the past, including a hypocritical claim earlier this year in which she said, “The comfort level with a broader base of the American people is not there yet. It doesn’t mean it couldn’t be. States are a good place to start.” Pelosi hasn’t supported single-payer healthcare in her home state of California either, nor has she ever co-sponsored a Medicare for All bill in the years since Congressman John Conyers, D-Mich., began introducing it in 2003. The comfort level with the American People is there, the discomfort lies with Democrats so beholden to their donors on this issue that they won’t even bring themselves to co-sponsor legislation. They are laboring under the false pretense that doing so will expose flaws in the Affordable Care Act. Meanwhile polls and surveys increasingly show most Americans support Medicare for All, and that support has surged in the past year.

The best way to preserve the Affordable Care Act, until an improved system replaces it, is to support Medicare for All to provide healthcare as a right to all Americans. Pelosi is not alone in her rejection of Medicare for All. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., House Democratic Party Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., DNC Chair Tom Perez and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair, Congressman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., are also holdouts against the bill. Only Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., and Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn, D-S.C., have signed on as co-sponsors to to the bill, while the top leader of the Democratic Party continue to treat the policy as a nuisance.

Pelosi and Schumer mixing with citizens to keep the franchise going. They will answer with evasives if anyone should ask them about Medicare for All.

These establishment Democrats need to get on board for Medicare for All, or get out of office. Progressive policies like this are becoming mainstream, and a surge in popularity for this policy is a testament to the success progressive activists are finding in the wake of Trump’s Presidency to fix the Democratic Party so as to represent voters’ interests, not wealthy donors. Progressives are underrepresented in the Democratic Party, especially in the party’s leadership, with some of the most moderate Democrats occupying top positions. Their leadership has dragged the Democratic Party into the ground over the past decade. Pelosi, Schumer, Hoyer, and Lujan are relics of a Democratic Party that embraces stagnancy and preserves the status quo over change.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Sainato's writing has appeared in the Guardian, Miami Herald, Baltimore Sun, Huffington Post, LiveScience, Buffalo News, the Plain Dealer, the Hill, Gainesville Sun, Tallahassee Democrat, Knoxville News Sentinel, and the Troy Record. He lives in Gainesville, FL. Follow him on twitter: @msainat1

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Words from an Irish patriot—

(VIDEO) WORLD NEWS: Pope on Circuses, Animal Rights in Pakistan, and More!

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Thank you for visiting our animal defence section. Before reading our main essay, please join us in a moment of compassion and reflection.

The wheels of business and human food compulsions are implacable and totally lacking in compassion. This is a downed cow, badly hurt, but still being dragged to slaughter. Click on this image to fully appreciate this horror repeated millions of times every day around the world. With plentiful non-animal meat substitutes that fool the palate, there is no longer reason for this senseless suffering. Meat consumption is a serious ecoanimal crime. The tyranny of the palate must be broken. Please consider changing your habits in this regard.

Animal People Forum debuts biweekly news series current events that impact animals worldwide

WORLD NEWS: Pope on Circuses, Animal Rights in Pakistan, and More! (1/17/18)

In this episode of Animal People World News, find out…

Why the U.K.’s foxhunting ban is here to stay
How the U.S. Interior Department is pushing its pro-hunting agenda
How China is implementing its new ban on ivory sales
How the last dancing bears in Nepal were rescued
Why Pope Francis promoted a circus convicted of animal cruelty
What a new Swiss law means for companion animals, lab animals, and crustaceans
How three Indian states are improving life for dairy cows
What Sindh’s new bill means for animal rights in Pakistan

TRANSCRIPT:

Greetings! I’m Wolf, like the animal, reporting for Animal People World News.

U.K. HUNTING BAN TO STAY, SAYS PRIME MINISTER

The United Kingdom’s 2004 ban on hunting with dogs will remain the law of the land, says Prime Minister Theresa May. May has in the past been a vocal supporter of foxhunting, and declared as a campaign promise prior to her June 2017 reelection that she would hold a vote to relegalize hunting with dogs. Although many Conservative party politicians are foxhunting enthusiasts, most U.K. citizens oppose the bloodsport, including nearly three quarters of Conservative voters. In abandoning her promise to try and repeal the ban, May suggested that her party’s past support for foxhunting might have been a factor in its recent electoral losses.

Although illegal, hunting foxes, hares, and other wild mammals with dogs remains common in the U.K. Trail hunting, a legal alternative in which hounds follow an artificially laid scent, is often used as cover for the hunting of actual animals. There were over four hundred and thirty prosecuted cases of illegal hunting between 2005 and 2017. Hunting birds with dogs remains legal, but increasingly controversial.

U.S. INTERIOR DEPT. PUSHES PRO-HUNTING AGENDA

Ryan Zinke, the United States Secretary of the Interior, announced on January ninth the creation of a new Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation Council. The Council will advise the government on creating policies to expand hunting access, increase public support for hunting, and encourage more Americans to take up the practice.

Promoting hunting has been a major agenda item for Secretary Zinke ever since his appointment to the position by President Trump. His first day in office, Zinke signed an order to allow hunting with lead ammunition and fishing with lead tackle on public land, despite data showing that lead in the environment poisons millions of animals every year. He has declared October to be “National Hunting and Fishing Month.” In November 2017 he created the International Wildlife Conservation Council, whose duties include quote-unquote “educating” the public on the benefits of hunting, weakening legal protections for threatened species, and promoting trophy hunting overseas.

Zinke claims that “hunters and anglers are at the backbone of American conservation,” arguing that killing wild animals fosters appreciation for nature and provides essential funding for species and habitat protection. Yet his own department’s statistics show that while hunting has dwindled in popularity, non-violent wildlife watching and photography have become more popular than ever. With more than seven times more people watching wild animals than hunting them, Americans spent a total of one hundred and fifty-six billion dollars on wildlife activities in 2016, more than any other time in the previous twenty-five years.

IVORY BAN TAKES EFFECT IN CHINA

China’s ban on ivory sales, first announced December 2016, is now in full effect. After gradually shutting down factories and traders over the course of 2017, the Chinese government declared on New Year’s Eve that all sales of elephant ivory, including online, and imports from abroad would be illegal.

International commercial trading of ivory has been illegal under CITES, the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species, since 1989. However, the allowance of domestic sales within China has continued to fuel demand for ivory products, and to provide cover for the illegal killing of African elephants for the Chinese market.

The Chinese public seems generally to support the ban, with hashtags translating to “no sales, no killings” and “make ivory products commercial no more” trending on Chinese social media. However, the impact of the ban is unfortunately undercut by the persistence of legal markets in neighboring regions, which conservationists fear will continue to sustain ivory smuggling into China.

Hong Kong, which is governed autonomously from mainland China, isn’t scheduled to ban ivory until 2021. Japan, meanwhile, has now become the world’s new largest legal ivory market, and shows no sign of banning the trade. At the most recent CITES meeting, Japan defeated a proposal to ban all domestic ivory sales, joining forces with Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the European Union, which all profit from trophy hunting of elephants.

NEPAL RESCUE CLOSES CURTAIN ON BEAR DANCING

The cruel practice of bear dancing has now been eradicated in Nepal. The last known dancing bears in the country were rescued on December nineteenth, by Nepali police and activists from Jane Goodall Institute Nepal and World Animal Protection. The bears, a male named Rangila and female named Sridevi, are now under the care of Parsa National Park.

Dancing bears are taken from their mothers as cubs, often captured in the wild. They are controlled using ropes threaded through a piercing in their nose, taught to stand on their hind legs and shuffle by being placed on hot metal or coals, and have their claws and teeth broken off to ensure obedience.

Fortunately, the practice is now in steep decline. The last known dancing bears in India were surrendered to the organization Wildlife SOS in 2009, after a lengthy campaign to rescue and rehabilitate the animals and train their former owners for alternative professions.

Bear dancing still exists in Pakistan, where at least two hundred and twenty bears remain in captivity. Yet Pakistani officials are cracking down, and plan to eradicate the practice within the next five years. The last dancing bear in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, was rescued last September.

MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY REMARKS

I would like to take a moment now to acknowledge the legacy of Martin Luther King, Junior, whose life is celebrated throughout the United States on January fifteenth. The movement to recognize the moral rights of animals builds on the precedents of historic struggles to establish and defend human rights, including the movement for racial justice of which Martin Luther King was a major leader, and which continues today with campaigns such as Black Lives Matter.

A compassionate world for animals of every species cannot be achieved without also securing freedom and justice for human beings, of every race, religion, gender, and orientation. At the same time, there cannot be true, lasting peace between humans so long as the cruel exploitation of other sentient beings is tolerated, simply because they are different from us. Human rights and animal rights do not conflict; they are mutually interdependent.

Thank you. We now return to our main program.

POPE PROMOTES CIRCUS WITH ANIMAL CRUELTY RECORD

On Thursday, January eleventh, Pope Francis paid for more than two thousand guests to attend the Medrano Circus in Rome. The Medrano Circus uses a wide variety of captive wild animals in its performances, including elephants, giraffes, camels, big cats, kangaroos, ostriches, parrots, reptiles, spiders, and scorpions. In July 2016, an Italian court found the circus’s director at the time guilty of animal cruelty, after investigations revealed animals kept confined in small, barren enclosures, exposed to extreme heat and cold, and exhibiting stress behaviors such as pacing and scratching.

The Vatican distributed free tickets to refugees, prisoners, homeless, and poor people, with the declared intent of showing the Church’s solidarity with the downtrodden. Yet the decision to support circus use of animals contradicts Pope Francis’ own teachings on compassion for all creatures. In his encyclical Laudato Si: On Care For Our Common Home, he declares:

“The ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God… Every act of cruelty towards any creature is ‘contrary to human dignity.’”

The Pope’s circus patronage also goes against the shifting tide of public opinion. Just this month so far, the governments of Scotland and the U.S. state of New Jersey have both banned the use of wild animals in circuses, recognizing the inherent cruelty involved in forcing wild animals to perform for human amusement.

WELFARE STANDARDS IMPROVED FOR DAIRY COWS IN INDIA

Living conditions may soon improve for dairy cows in three Indian states. The governments of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Telangana have issued new guidelines to ensure higher welfare for dairy cows. These include providing soft bedding, access to the outdoors, and thorough vaccination against disease; banning or limiting the use of artificial hormones; preventing excessive milking; and recommending that calves stay with their mothers for at least three months, rather than being separated shortly after birth.

The new guidelines come in reaction to the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations’, or FIAPO’s, #EndExploitativeDairies campaign. FIAPO investigations have revealed cruelty and neglect in hundreds of dairy farms across India. Among the most gruesome practices is the use of khalbacchas, dead calves stuffed with hay, to keep mother cows lactating after their own young have died or been taken away. FIAPO hopes that the new protections for cows at the state level will pave the way for national legislation regulating dairy farms throughout India.

SINDH, PAKISTAN INTRODUCES ANIMAL RIGHTS BILL

Finally, animals in the province of Sindh, Pakistan may soon be granted basic legal rights. On December thirtieth, the governor’s cabinet introduced a new bill for consideration by Sindh’s house of representatives. If passed, the Sindh Welfare and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act would prohibit beating, neglecting, torturing, or frightening animals, as well as specific practices such as overloading draft animals or forcing animals to fight for entertainment. Violators would face sentences between three months and three years in prison.

In addition to improving animal welfare, the Act would also acknowledge animal rights, reading:

“[Animals] will be granted inalienable rights to adequate nourishment, appropriate shelter, and life in an environment free of abuse.”

Although laws regulating human treatment of animals are common worldwide, only a few recognize animals as having legal rights of their own. If the Sindh Welfare and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act is passed, the Pakistani province will join Switzerland, Germany, Spain, India, New Zealand, Argentina, and Colombia, becoming one of a small but growing number of jurisdictions to acknowledge that animals are sentient persons rather than mere objects to be used.

These are just a few of the countless issues affecting animals worldwide. Visit the Animal People Forum to find out more, and share your own perspectives on animal rights, welfare, and conservation.

Animal People is a non-profit charity, and this news program would not be possible without help from our donors. Visit our Patreon page to find out how you can support the production of future episodes, and gain access to a variety of exclusive rewards.

Thank you for your support, and for helping to create a kinder world for all living creatures!

About the Author

WOLF GORDON CLIFTON

Born and raised within the animal rights movement, Wolf Gordon Clifton has always felt strongly connected to other creatures and concerned for their well-being. Beginning in childhood he contributed drawings of animals for publication in Animal People News, and traveled with his parents to attend conferences and visit animal projects all over the world. During high school he began writing for the newspaper and contributing in various additional ways around the Animal People office. His first solo trip overseas, to film a promotional video for the Bali Street Dog Foundation in Indonesia, led him to create the animated film Yudisthira's Dog, retelling the story of an ancient Hindu king famed for his loyalty to a street dog. It also inspired lifelong interests in animation and world religion, which he went on to study for college at Vanderbilt University. Wolf graduated in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies and minors in Film Studies and Astronomy. In 2015, he received a Master of Arts in Museology and Graduate Certificate in Astrobiology from the University of Washington. His thesis project, the online exhibit Beyond Human: Animals, Aliens, and Artificial Intelligence, brings together animal rights, astrobiology, and AI research to explore the ethics of humans' relationships with other sentient beings, and can be viewed on the Animal People Forum. His diverse training and life experiences enable him to research and write about a wide variety of animal-related issues, in a global context and across the humanities, arts, and sciences. In his spare time, he does paleontological work for the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, and writes for the community blog Neon Observatory.

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RT.COM had it right 5 years ago: The war of images – video of Syrian events, and their interpretation

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]ote this article appeared five years ago (21 Oct, 2011). The author clearly analyzes and identifies the forces that since have become irrefutably connected with the tragedy and destruction of Syria as a united nation and viable civilization. Obviously it was quite possible to explain and tell the truth about events in Syria even then, when wide diffusion of such facts could have saved millions of people from extreme suffering and death. So why didn’t the big guns of the Western press do a similarly commendable job? Why did they remain silent? Were they just suddenly afflicted by a general case of gross incompetence? No need to answer that; it’s just a rhetorical question. We know the answer. And it’s beyond shameful; it’s criminal.

Published time: 21 Oct, 2011

syria-2011-pro-regime-damascus-president-shout

Supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad shout slogans during a pro-regime rally in Damascus on October 12, 2011 (AFP Photo / Louai Beshara) / AFP

The unrest engulfing Syria is mirrored in the internet with a PR-civil-war. While some videos show “atrocious bandits”, others opt for “atrocious army men”. And none shows what ordinary Syrians live through.

Unlike other countries of the Arab Spring, there are a lot of different videos about Syria on the internet. TV channels around the world broadcast selective videos of atrocities by armed men. At the same time, they fail to show millions of Syrians rallying to support the government. And they don’t show videos of atrocities against Syrian people.

“The atrocity of bandits in this video is a sign that the US made a misjudgment,” Anhar Kochneva, director of the Jordan Club tourism organization comments on the video. “And now they are making an attempt of intimidating. It’s not a secret that they started preparing the anti-Syrian campaigns 10 years ago. They were proceeding from their understanding of Syrian people’s hatred toward the government, but they failed to notice that the country changed. They began supporting the anti-government rallies, but they failed to notice that these rallies actually brought people together. Millions of people just recently rallied in Aleppo, which the US considered an opposition center. The US believed that Syrians themselves would overthrow and betray Bashar al-Assad, but they failed to achieve an overturn performed by Syrians. Now they send in bandits, Syrians as well as those who co-operate with Americans among them. Some who got captured had performed terrible atrocities under the influence of drugs. For many of them, the only education they ever had was several years of school.”

Syrian army regulars celebrating a recent victory and hailing Assad.

Kochneva believes that the US Security Force rules these atrocities of bandits:

“Facebook didn’t work. They caused a provocation in Daraa but it didn’t work either. In the mid-April, the opposition met with Dan Feldman, representative of Hillary Clinton, in Istanbul. WikiLeaks reported that at that meeting a decision was made to start killing servicemen who at that time were unarmed, throughout the entire country. Four or 5 days later, servicemen in different parts of Syria were brutally murdered. And presently, many soldiers and officers are getting killed. Armed groups are kidnapping and murdering state officials.

“There are two centers of unrest left, Homs and Idleb. These videos show fierce terror of Sthe summer of 2011 in these cities. Three thousand people were killed, a third of them servicemen, and a lot of state officials. Ninety per cent of these murders were performed by bandits. This is what happened recently: officials stopped for a coffee on their way somewhere, and they got murdered.

“Bandits have been causing outrage in the north of the country, as there are many villages and forests there, which means a place for them to hide,” says Kochneva.

What’s the footwear of Syrian officers?

The Western media show videos of “atrocities of the Syrian army”. Kochneva comments on one of the most popular videos (of an officer beating up a boy): “Why is this officer wearing beach slippers?”

“Unlike foreigners, the entire Syria knows what the army wears on their feet. In the area of Hama, an army uniform warehouse was robbed. Bandits wore these uniforms while looting and ransacking, and making videos of this kind. There was just one trouble – no boots at the warehouse. Therefore the officers in the video are wearing beach slippers. Moreover, after this robbery, the army was quickly transferred to a different type of uniform. Furthermore, how can anyone understand why officers would record their own dirt and post it in the internet? They aren’t even allowed to go home; when would they find time to spend at an internet café? The army has a high authority, and people really ask them to enter their settlements to protect them.”

Kochneva is convinced that the West intentionally places a barrier for news from Syria. Otherwise, she believes, the EU and the US would not have imposed sanctions on the broadcast of Dunya, a Syrian TV channel which discusses videos of this kind of detail. Particularly, this channel even broadcasts the negotiations of the opposition. Some crafty migrants found a way of making voice chats discussing plans for destabilizing the country publicly available. Kochneva believes the authorities managed to take control over the country and to gain the support of the majority:

“People are laughing already at conspirators and their instructors. A French ambassador who attempted to talk patriarch Ignatius into supporting the US had tomatoes and eggs thrown at him when he was taken outside. A US ambassador, who was watching a rally to support peace in Syria from his car window, got wrapped in a Syrian flag with Bashar al-Assad’s portrait on it. People are saying, ‘Yes, there was terror, it was frightening and confusing; but we’re no longer afraid of you.’”

Not only have the Western media failed to report the truth. They have also engaged in an unrelenting propaganda campaign against Russia, Putin, Iran and Assad with the (by now) well known object of demonizing them, chiefly to prepare the American population for “extreme” measures against such targets. This is a typical cartoon floated by the presstitutes to besmirch Assad’s image.

How to create chaos

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]ussian political scientist Ruslan Kurbanov, who spent several years in the Islamic environment in Syria, agrees that there are no preconditions for a civil war; even though several years ago one would have thought that it was indeed possible to happen. According to his observations, unhappiness with the authorities was in the air as early as 2005. It was mainly expressed in rumors:

“They said that people were disappearing. They were allegedly kidnapped by Mukhabarat for being unreliable. They said that kidnapped people were found several years later in prisons. They whispered about terrible conditions in Syrian prisons. I saw those who were personally affected by abuse of power. A family member of one of them was imprisoned for opposition-oriented statements; a relative of another one disappeared; a friend of yet another one went to Iraq, and now Mukhabarat examines his acquaintances. But this was just a tiny percentage of people.”

There were also rumors of stopping armed people:

“They said that armed people were stopped in Damascus. They stated those were militants. There were rumors about attacking and shooting between militants and the authorities,” says Kurbanov.

But the official Syrian media did not respond to these rumors in any way, neither confirming nor denying them.

Kurbanov notes the following characteristic episode:

“Policemen in the street would not respond to the traditional greeting, ‘salam aleikum’. When I asked the locals why the police would not respond to my ‘salam’, I was told that all of the police are Alawis, and they do not like Sunnis, especially explicit ones.”

What is more likely to prevail: hatred toward the US, or tribal ideology?

According to Kurbanov, Syria’s Islamic circles have a strong feeling of resentment against the United States. People are very annoyed by the US trying to impose its standards on Syria, even with regard to modes of dress, and they are upset that the Syrian government agrees to adopt these standards.

“For example, Syria’s authorities conceded to US demands and introduced tight pants for female students in high schools. There were also rumors about the US dictating to the Syrian government whether it should enroll foreign applicants in Islamic universities or not.”

Kurbanov recalls that the US had once declared Syria part of the “Axis of Evil”, and many Syrians feared that the Americans would start bombing Syria the way they did to Iraq. However, Kurbanov believes the US quagmire in Iraq could have its own implication for Syria.

“There were a lot of Syrians who volunteered to fight in Iraq. Bashar al-Assad rode this wave and agitated those who were spoiling for the fight. He let Syrians volunteers infiltrate Iraq. But those fighters were aware that after Iraq, they were to take on the regime back in Syria. I would not rule out that the lone gunners whom the Syrian government later had to hunt down at home were actually former insurgency fighters heading back from Iraq. In fact, it was not that difficult to creep over the border. I have heard stories about people from Syria easily slipping into Iraq, and even Afghanistan, and then coming back. I believe it is possible that some of Syria’s Iraq veterans jumped into the fight at home as soon as it started.”

Kurbanov believes that the animosity and atrocities committed by the opposition as it can be seen from TV films is a manifestation of tribal psychology rather than of an Islamic or revolutionary one:

“In my view, there was no soil for mutual hatred in society until the very last moment. But if blood was spilled in the first protests, I assume that the crowd might easily get filled with thirst to revenge the regime and separate soldiers. Even in the capital the Arabs have preserved their tribal mentality and are ready to stand up for their people.”

Kurbanov believes that the abundance of false reels about the army atrocities has a political goal of causing chaos in the country and forcing Syria to break up its union with Iran.

“I assume that these fakes are being injected into Syrian society to accelerate the speed of the explosion. Forces that are interested in this explosion want to break up Syria’s union with Iran. They include the United States, Saudi Arabia and Sunni Jihad fighters,” Kurbanov said.

Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT

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Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership Is Bad for Animal Rights

This would make a great article, but I haven’t written it yet.