A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

[American Dream]

http://jewdas.org/after-the-paris-attac ... -the-left/

After the Paris attacks against Jews, some questions for the rest of the Left
23/01/2015

By Levi Tazir

Two weeks ago, four Jews were killed in a kosher supermarket for being Jews. Anti-Semitism was in the news once again. The headlines confirmed what everyone in a minority has known for some time: racism, in all forms, is on the rise.

Right-wing Jewish groups like Campaign Against Anti-Semitism seized on it as an opportunity to feed paranoid dogma. Zionist groups used it as an excuse to promote immigration to Israel. Conservatives pulled together awful policies, saying it meant we needed more police.

We, on the Jewish Left, struggled to articulate ourselves, to say that Jews did of course have a future in Europe, to reject right-wing opportunism, to say that we would be stronger if we united with all other groups facing bigotry, to express our concerns about Islamophobic and anti-immigrant backlashes, to offer our best arguments for socialist, anarchist and democratic solutions to anti-Semitism.

And we did it alone. We did it alone.

If you read any of the left-wing news sources or subscribe to any of the UK’s leftist parties, you wouldn’t even know an attack on Jews had happened. You’d know about Charlie Hebdo. You’d know about the attacks on mosques in the aftermath. You could read deep and insightful histories of French colonialism in North Africa and interesting accounts of the problems in the Parisian banlieus. But nothing about Jews.

On Counterfire: nothing. On Left Unity: nothing. From the Greens: nothing. Red Labour: nothing. On the Revolutionary Socialists Network: nothing.

My Facebook and Twitter feeds filled up with Jews offering their thoughts. But from other, non-Jewish leftists, I just heard nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I want to know why. I want to ask some questions to the rest of the Left.

Do you think it doesn’t matter?

Maybe you thought it wasn’t newsworthy. But it’s not every day that Jews get killed in a supermarket for being Jews. That felt pretty important, to us at least.

Didn’t you care?

You must have cared. You’re leftists because you care about other human beings. You worry about people’s lives and want to see them do well. Surely a public execution of Jews warrants something. Just your condolences. Just your acknowledgement. That’s all.

Do you think anti-Semitism isn’t an issue?

In that case, how many Jews need to die before it is?

Did you think that Islamophobia mattered more?

The gunman was a Muslim. We were all worried that the attack would result in a backlash against Muslims. It has. It’s been terrifying. We’re adamant that we must stand together with Muslims and support our comrades and neighbours through all that’s happening. But surely – surely – the attack on Jews warranted enough to worry a little bit about anti-Semitism too. Just enough to say it was happening.

Do you believe the lies they tell about us? Do you believe we’re all rich and doing fine?

It’s an old distraction tactic from the right-wing elites to scapegoat Jews as wealthy. They think that if they point the finger at us, nobody will notice that the ruling class is overwhelmingly white, Christian and from the same schools. The truth is Jews are evenly spread across all classes, mirroring almost exactly the rest of society. As a religious group, we are no more wealthy or poor than any other religious group.

Do you think we’re all white?

Most of France’s Jews come from North Africa. The murdered came from Tunisia and Algeria. The Jews of Paris come from the same cities as the Muslims of Paris. Most Jews in Europe come from the Middle-East and North Africa. Not centuries and centuries ago. They and their parents were born in Morocco, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Yemen and Afghanistan. We’re overwhelmingly not white.

If we were all rich and white, would it mean it mattered less?

Perhaps it would. But surely it wouldn’t mean it mattered so little that anti-Semitism didn’t deserve a mention.

Do you think Israel’s occupation of Palestine justifies anti-Semitic attacks in Europe?

One BBC reporter, Tim Wilcow, said exactly that.

Israel is occupying Palestine. It’s inexcusable and unjust. It gives anti-Semites an excuse. It makes people everywhere angry. But the Jews who live in London, Paris and the rest of the world don’t have any control over that. We are not Israel’s military occupation any more than Christians are the Pope. Of course we’re not. A people can be oppressed in one space and oppressors in another. That shouldn’t mitigate against mentioning their oppression where you see it.

Do you think support from Tories is enough?

Theresa May and Eric Pickles were snapped holding up signs saying “Je suis Juif” [French: I am a Jew], in solidarity with those killed. Conservatives and right-wing Labour leaders made statements. The Spectator and The Telegraph wrote articles about the worrying growth in anti-Semitism. But we didn’t want, need or ask for their support. It’s the support of our comrades – the people who stand with us on anti-cuts and anti-war demonstrations – that matters. We needed to hear something from you.

Do you know that your silence is driving Jews to the right?

When you ignore Jewish suffering, you hand undecided Jews over to fundamentalist religious movements and Zionist political groups on a plate. They see no place for themselves on the Left, so go in any other direction. One of the main reasons that groups like the reactionary street movement Jewish Defence League are growing is that the organised Left hasn’t stepped in to offer an alternative. It’s not enough for Jewdas to write articles and organise vigils. We need you on our side.

…

I hate it, I really do, when anyone starts a conversation with “the problem with the Left is…” It’s an act of separating yourself from the rest of the Left, giving up and saying that it’s somebody else’s responsibility to change.

Only in this case, we didn’t separate ourselves from the Left. The Left separated itself from the Jews. You did that when you didn’t acknowledge that four Jews were murdered in a supermarket for being Jews.

And I want to know why.

[American Dream]

You and I both oppose the neoconservatives, but we do so from radically different standpoints. I see the neocons as representatives of one capitalist faction who are working to intensify the long-established system of U.S. imperialism and related forms of social control. You see the neocons as a mostly Jewish group of interlopers working with deviousness and characteristic Jewish arrogance to destroy traditional Christian culture, weaken the United States, and seize power on behalf of Israel. My critique is rooted in a systemic analysis of oppression; your critique is rooted in antisemitic scapegoating.

The term antisemitism is often misused and misunderstood, so I want to explain clearly what I mean. It’s not inherently antisemitic to criticize Jews, Jewish organizations, or the Israeli government. Jews as much as anyone sometimes act in unethical or oppressive ways. Most Jews in the U.S. hold white skin privilege, the majority (though by no means all) are middle class or higher, and a few have even made it into the upper reaches of the economic or political elite. For these and other reasons, the leading U.S. Jewish organizations, like most organizations in this country, have a stake in a social and political order that’s inherently oppressive. Israel, like the United States, is a racist society founded on settler colonialism. The very concept of Israel as a Jewish state is inherently undemocratic and discriminatory toward Palestinians.

Some Jews and Jewish organizations misuse the charge of antisemitism or the memory of the Nazi genocide to deflect legitimate criticisms, especially criticisms of the Israeli state and its supporters. This muddles the issue, but it doesn’t mean the concept of antisemitism has no validity. It is antisemitic, for example, to treat Jews as a monolithic group, blame Jews as a whole for the oppressive actions of some, or stereotype Jews as arrogant, power-hungry, or evil — all of which you do in The Southern Journal. It’s also antisemitic to trivialize or justify the persecution of Jews or single out Jews for disproportionate criticism — as you do in your blog.

Antisemitic ideology exaggerates Jewish influence on politics and society — it imagines that Jews wield an immense, secret, malevolent power. The fictitious international Jewish conspiracy has been blamed for everything from the bubonic plague to the rise of global capitalism. A more limited version of this lie is the widespread notion that “the Jewish lobby” dictates U.S. support for Israel — as if U.S. imperialism didn’t have good reasons of its own for maintaining Israel as its number one client state.

The myth of Jewish power is partly rooted in a distinctive societal dynamic. Historically, non-Jewish elites have often recruited Jews into positions of relative privilege that were highly visible but outside the real centers or power. This allowed the rulers to make use of Jews’ higher literacy rates and other skills, and also to insulate themselves against popular resentment by setting up Jews as scapegoats for oppression. In medieval Europe, Jews often worked as moneylenders, merchants, tax collectors, or administrators on feudal estates. Although only some Jews held these jobs, they took on a defining role for Jewish communities as a whole. Under this arrangement, Jews were alternately tolerated and terrorized — periodically their rights were revoked, their property seized, and they were expelled, imprisoned, or massacred.

This dynamic has continued in the modern era — even, to a limited extent, in the post-World War II United States. Here, Jews have been disproportionately concentrated in middle-level roles as shopkeepers, landlords, white-collar workers, administrators, or professionals, which to many poor and working-class people represent the most visible kinds of status and power. Seeing Jews in these roles can reinforce the myth that Jews are the main oppressors.

We can see a related dynamic at work with regard to the neoconservatives (setting aside the fact that some of the most important neocons — such as Jeane Kirkpatrick, Bill Bennett, and Michael Novak — are non-Jews). Like the “Court Jews” of another era, the neocons are influential, publicly visible agents representing a section of the mostly non-Jewish ruling class. Their influence depends on capitalist patronage — courtesy of Dick Cheney, Rupert Murdoch, Richard Scaife, the Olin and Smith Richardson foundations, etc. And like Court Jews, they are useful not only for their skills in the service of power, but also as expendable scapegoats in times of need. It’s striking that Jewish neocons Perle, Wolfowitz, Libby, and Feith have all left the Bush administration, while Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice (traditional hawks who are neither neocon nor Jewish) are still there.

Israel, too, reflects this same antisemitic dynamic. Yes, the Israeli state is an oppressor and aggressor in its own right, but for almost forty years its power and stability have depended on massive U.S. subsidies. As U.S. imperialism’s most loyal ally in the region, Israel has helped keep Arab states in line, but in its scapegoat role Israel has also drawn some of the fire away from U.S. imperialism and oppressive Arab regimes. Presenting themselves as enemies of Zionism and friends of the Palestinians has helped such regimes deflect popular opposition away from their own brutal policies.

So, by exaggerating the neocons’ power and independence as mainstays of a “new power elite,” by obscuring their role — and Israel’s role — in a larger system of social control, and by treating both as an expression of Jews’ evil nature, you are faithfully following an old, tired script. You’re promoting a fake radicalism that leads people away from understanding how oppression works.

Your theories about Jewish power are not only insulting and dangerous for Jews, they’re also patronizing to Christians, who you claim to be defending. In your piece about liberals and neocons you write, “the neocons know perfectly well that by using the Christian right they…are causing Christians and Christianity to come under attack.” Elsewhere you describe Christian rightists as “morons” who have “enthroned” Jews because they were “propagandized by Jews since they were small.” In other words, Christian rightists are too stupid to make their own strategic decisions — they’re passive pawns manipulated by (Jewish) neocons, who pretend to support them in order to discredit Christianity.

Saying that the neocons have allied with the Christian right as a ploy to stir up anti-Christian sentiment is just silly — it makes about as much sense as the idea that they support the Israeli right in order to stir up anti-Zionism. But aside from that, you are simply treating millions of evangelical Christians with contempt, which is a strange way to counter supposed anti-Christian hatred.

In reality, the Christian right is one of the strongest mass movements in U.S. history, neither controlled by nor dependent on the small network of neocons, and its leaders have been making shrewd strategic decisions for decades. The Christian right has forged an alliance with the neocons as part of its effort to amass power and pursue shared goals. Most Christian rightists support Zionism because they believe that a strong Israel is a necessary part of the End Times (during which all Jews and others who don’t embrace Christianity will be destroyed), and because it fits with U.S. capitalism’s drive for global dominance, which they embrace. These choices are not very nice, and they reflect religious beliefs that are not subject to rational discussion, but they are neither stupid nor the result of external manipulation.

--MATTHEW N. LYONS, Critiquing neocons and scapegoating Jews: An exchange with a “heartland Democrat”

[American Dream]

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/pani ... ty-greece/

On the Doorstep of Power

A Syriza election win today will be a victory against both austerity and the European right.

by Leo Panitch



As wnter year eight of the long-lingering global economic crisis, it is sobering indeed that it is only in Greece that a political party putting forward a clear, radical alternative to the policies of neoliberal austerity stands on the doorstep of power.

Emerging out a coalescence of people from the 1980s Eurocommunist left and newer alter-globalization social movements, Syriza had at one point reached as much as 15 percent support in opinion polls before 2010. But it came to the brink of power only when its new leader, Alexis Tsipras, in the run-up to the spring 2012 election proclaimed that it was Syriza’s immediate goal and duty to enter government in coalition with anybody who would join with them to stop the economic torture of the Greek people.

The policies imposed by the European Central Bank, and above all by the German Federal Bank acting behind it, made the term “Great Depression” rather than “Great Recession” apt for Greece in this crisis. Unemployment was pushed beyond 25 percent, minimum wages were slashed by a third, people were cut off the electricity grid and denied basic pharmaceuticals. The rule of law was simply thrown out when it came to labor relations.

Having clung to office for two more years, the governing coalition of the old patronage parties is about to be displaced by Syriza in today’s election. What Syriza is first of all promising is that it will renege on reactionary austerity policies. They are promising to reinstate collective bargaining and workers’ basic rights, to raise the minimum wage, to reconnect people to the electricity grid. It is a sad commentary on our times that these have become radical things to do.

A good deal of this can be done without resolving the serious question of whether Greece will continue to treat as legitimate and pay all the interest on the enormous debt that was run up by previous clientalist and, in many senses, corrupt governments, who always worked hand in glove with the small capitalist class that runs industry, trade, and finance.

Syriza has costed its immediate restorative policies at some 11 billion euros, equivalent to less than 20 percent of revenues lost through tax avoidance. Its most popular proposed revenue measure involves finally requiring the big media barons to pay license fees for the use of that very basic public resource — the airwaves.

Syriza is not saying that they want to leave the euro. They don’t, and wouldn’t be anywhere near where they are in the polls otherwise. The question is whether they can have the breathing room to undertake basic restorative policies, and to lay the ground for a longer-term economic strategy without taking that step. This would entail real structural reform of the Greek state, so there could be some real democratic involvement in what’s invested and how it’s invested, so that Greece might come out of the crisis in a progressive manner.

The loans Greece has had from European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund in exchange for introducing such terrible austerity have not removed its heavy debt burden. The loans were mainly designed to allow for paying interest due to the bondholders, so that Greece could continue to borrow, at exorbitant rates.

The insistence that a newly elected Syriza government — which would be Greece’s first really honest, non-clientalist government — should first of all embrace the obligation to pay such interest rates to either wealthy Greek capitalists or to foreign bankers is nothing less than scandalous.

The mainstream premise that were Syriza to succeed than somehow this would deepen the European crisis stems from looking at the world in terms of the dangers that a democratically elected government poses for domestic and international capital rather than in terms of the necessary things that a democratic government should be doing for the majority of its people.

Syriza represents the first and the strongest democratic response to the bizarre deepening of neoliberalism after the 2008 crisis. Were such a government to be stymied or brought down by the hostility of its domestic capitalist class working in cahoots with international capital and its political representatives, this would be a tragedy for democracy. It would reinforce the notion, growing ever stronger in Europe today, that the only way to protect people from the neoliberal austerity is through supporting rightwing ethno-nationalist parties.

[American Dream]

http://www.leninology.co.uk/2015/01/syr ... lan-b.html

SUNDAY, JANUARY 25, 2015

Syriza landslide: Troika Plan B posted by Richard Seymour

Current exit polls give Syriza a lead of at least 9%, averaging 12% and possibly as high as 16%. Syriza is on 36-39%, New Democracy on 23-27%.

Unfortunately, there is a dark side of the elections, which is that Golden Dawn did better than expected with 7-9%. The new centrist party, To Potami, did better than expected with 6-8%, and Pasok got the same. The Greek communists (KKE) got 4.5-5.5%, the right-wing nationalist Independent Greeks 3.5-4% and Papandreou's formation 2.5-3%.

It isn't yet clear if this is enough to give Syriza an outright governing majority. This depends on relatively minor fluctuations in the vote. If, for example, Papandreou's bloc gets just over the 3% mark it will get into parliament and thus deprive Syriza of a parliamentary majority. But either way, coalition or not - and we prefer not - this is going to be the first experiment in which a European country is governed by the radical left specifically for the purposes of resisting austerity.

Meanwhile, in Berlin, European leaders are considering their options:

[American Dream]

Winning an Election Does Not Mean Winning Power

Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias on Syriza and the struggle for a better Europe.

by Pablo Iglesias


Alexis Tsipras and Pablo Iglesias at a Syriza rally this month.

Syriza’s expected victory in tomorrow’s Greek elections is part of a crescendo of anti-austerity movements across Europe. Throughout the upsurge, many formations have connected with one another, secure in the knowledge that they’re fighting the same enemy.

Though the approaches of the two parties differ, Syriza’s Alexis Tsipras has developed a particularly close relationship with his counterpart in Spain, Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias, appearing at demonstrations together and conferring in private.

The following, translated by Dan DiMaggio and edited for clarity, is a speech Iglesias delivered at a Syriza event in October.

Good evening. Change is in the air in Greece. Change is in the air in Southern Europe. Brothers and sisters, it’s an honor to speak in front of you today. It’s an honor to be in Athens just a few months before this country will finally have a popular government headed by Alexis Tsipras. This government will be the first in a series of governments which are destined to recover the sovereignty and dignity of the people of Southern Europe.

Brothers and sisters, we are called upon to reconstruct democracy — European democracy — against the totalitarianism of the market.

Some will want to call us euroskeptics. To all those hypocrites, I want to remind them today, from Greece, from a country that was a model of anti-Nazi resistance, that the best of the European democratic tradition is antifascism. And that our program to recover our social benefits and our sovereignty is inspired by the example of our grandparents who confronted this horror and fought for a democratic Europe that could only be based on social justice and liberty.

Many things unite the Greek and Spanish people to lead a new European project. But today I want to highlight the historic example of our populations in the antifascist resistance and the struggle for liberty and democracy.

Continues at: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/pabl ... ch-syriza/

[American Dream]

False Front: The Left and the “Anti-Imperialist” Right

Bromma
September 1, 2005

As popular resistance to globalization and Western imperialism strengthens around the globe, something disastrous is happening: Leadership of the opposition is swinging steadily from the Left to the radical Right.

Right-wing forces around the world are gearing up to fight against capitalism’s new world order. Every day on the streets of Baghdad, of Mosul, of Tikrit, of Fallujah, of Samarra, of Basra, there is living, dying proof that rightists are in the vanguard of the fight against the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq. It is the same in Afghanistan. Indeed, as Western capital struggles to penetrate and control the so-called Islamic world, clerical fascist and other hard-core reactionary trends have spearheaded opposition in country after country. This right wing “anti-imperialism” isn’t confined to the Moslem-inhabited countries, either. Militant rebellious political movements on the Right are gathering strength everywhere, including North America. Often these trends are more radical, better rooted in popular culture and better armed than the current Left.

One would think that the Left would be galvanized by this phenomenon of right-wing “anti-imperialism”; would be bending every effort to understand it and combat its poisonous influence. In fact, the Left, with few exceptions, is doing its best to ignore it.

It’s not like we haven’t been warned. The catastrophe in Iraq is hardly the first time that the Left has witnessed powerful right-wing influence over anti-imperialist movements.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Left anti-imperialists fighting the Shah of Iran and his U.S. sponsors embraced a united front with radical right-wing Islamist fundamentalists. Most Iranian leftists (and their Western supporters) were convinced that anti-imperialist popular sentiment would “naturally” benefit the Left; they were sure that patriarchal fundamentalism would be quickly isolated and out-maneuvered after the revolution.

So when Iranian women struggled for their human rights, leftists criticized them for being “divisive.” It was alleged that women’s demands would weaken the anti-imperialist united front against America and its agents. Azar Majedi, an Iranian activist, recalls:

Women who had never before worn a Hejab [the Islamic head cover for women], put it on voluntarily for the sake of ‘society and revolution’….One common slogan in the demonstrations [was], ‘Sister, your Hejab is more potent than our guns.’

The sacrifice of women’s rights in order to appease the fundamentalists played a major role the violent decimation of the Iranian Left.

And again, in the 1980s, when Afghans were struggling to expel the Soviet invaders, many leftists around the world downplayed the difference between freedom fighters and right-wing fundamentalist criminals. Most of the Left (Soviet apologists excepted, of course) heartily endorsed any and all “popular resistance” to the Soviet imperialists, turning a blind eye to the actual program and practice of the rising Islamist reactionary groups. Afghan women’s criticisms of the fascist mujihedeen fell on deaf ears. After all, the jihadis were fighting for “national liberation”—that seemed, within the dominant Left paradigm, to trump everything.

Meanwhile, Afghan women’s organizations, and the secular resistance generally, were viciously attacked from two sides: the Soviets and the Islamist hard Right. It was the radical Right which ended up dominating that “anti-imperialist” war in Afghanistan. Today they dominate the armed resistance to U.S. intervention. The result is a shattered nation, endlessly brutalized within shifting combinations of imperialist genocide and clerical fascist terror.

Years after the Soviet defeat, some of the Western Left still clung to bizarre illusions about the political potential of the reactionary mujehedin. An Afghan revolutionary complained to the Journal of the Centre for Women and Socialism in 2001:

When Ahmad Shah Masood [the charismatic military leader of the Northern Alliance] was visiting France we heard that even ‘left’ organisations have supported him. A journal of [the] communist party of Italy had pictured him as the unique leader of Afghanistan and had suggested that Osama Bin laden and other terrorists should instead of blowing trade centres, use their ability to lead a revolution against ‘America’s Imperialism’ …Such organisations insist that they are leading the movements for freedom and justice. These kinds of attitudes make other left organisations unreal…in the eyes of people.

And now, there is the war in Iraq. Most of the Left was wildly euphoric about the early resistance in Iraq and the outpouring of mass global anti-war sentiment. Triumphal statements about the emergence of a new movement for social justice were the common currency of left-wing discourse. Larry Wing of “War Times” exulted that, “Most important of all, and underlying all the other developments, is the emergence of a new superpower: the world’s people. As one we rose up on Feb. 15 to smite the empire. Antiwar sentiment is so great in most countries that even most reactionary leaders dare not cross us.” Tom Hayden, not to be outdone, proclaimed, “There is rising a new movement in the world. It is bigger than the movement of the 1960s.” “A global anti-war movement unlike anything that has existed for three decades — that is, since the close of the Vietnam War,” trumpeted International A.N.S.W.E.R. According to the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, “The issue of the war and Bush military policy is beginning to coalesce an incredibly wide range of social forces: anti-globalization, anti-capitalists, labor, national movements, students, greens, liberals, anarchists, etc., etc. This movement is beginning to reflect, in embryonic form, the coalition of social forces that can ultimately transform society.”

Yes, but transform it in what direction?

Can it really be that leftists didn’t notice the actual politics of the forces leading the armed struggle against the Western imperialists in Iraq? Has the Left somehow missed the virulent global opposition to the Iraq war that comes from the Right? Can it be unaware that the “incredibly wide range of social forces” opposing the Bush and Blair regimes’ war includes millions of right-wing political Islamists, Baath Party torturers, reactionary Japanese nationalists, Hindu fascists, dozens of right-wing dictators, former heads of the CIA and NSA, the Pope, capitalists in every country, conservative Republicans, antisemitic Russian nationalists, Pat Buchanan, the hard right British National Party, generals and admirals, David Duke, and most neo-nazi organizations worldwide?

For some time after the anglo-american invasion, it was difficult to find mention—let alone serious analysis—of the role of right-wing religious fundamentalism, antisemitism, fascism and reactionary populism among the global forces opposing the invasion and occupation. In fact, the Left usually spoke and acted as if there were one big progressive anti-intervention coalition on the rise. There seemed to be an assumption that the Left was the natural vanguard of these forces. This assumption was—is—as false as it is dangerous.

With the passage of time and events in Iraq, this delusional attitude has become less and less rational. But that hasn’t provoked any self-criticism. Most of the Left still tries to downplay or evade the whole uncomfortable issue of right-wing anti-imperialism, hoping it will go away by itself. In fact some leftists have adopted an even more reprehensible course: They have decided to participate in an open alliance with the fundamentalists. These “super” anti-imperialists demand “unconditional support” for the “resistance,” and consider anyone uncomfortable with this formula to be liberal and chauvinist.

It’s as if the tragedies in Iran and Afghanistan had never happened. Once again, the Left is pushing women’s freedom to the sidelines, supposedly in the name of anti-imperialism. Once again, “politics” is being twisted into a struggle between imperialist men and “anti-imperialist” men—even if those “anti-imperialist” men enslave women.

It’s now glaringly obvious that right-wing Islamist fundamentalism has become a major actor in world politics; that fact puts the pathological denial among leftists into stark relief. But we should be clear that Islamist radicalism is only one version of the right-wing “anti-imperialism” in motion today. It might be most accurate to say that right-wing Islamist insurgency is the leading edge of a worldwide phenomenon. Right wing populism, with fascist elements contending for vanguard leadership, is coming to life in country after country. Including much closer to home than Iraq.

Militant right-wing “anti imperialism” is growing in the U.S. White supremacists and fascists like Louis Beam, Matt Hale and Tom Metzger hate the neo-cons and Bush; they despise globalization’s New World Order. Therefore they study Left-led movements, coopt their language and even try to attract the activists working within them. They reason that, as Beam writes, “The New American Patriot will be neither left nor right, just a freeman fighting for liberty…The new politics of America is liberty from the NWO [New World Order] Police State and nothing more.”

Many neo-fascists and Christian fundamentalists loudly “support” Palestinian struggle against Israel, and Left activists in the solidarity movement find that they are forced to weed antisemites out of web forums and events. Organizers against the Patriot Acts are consciously building a coalition between the Left and Right. “Third Position” neo-fascists in Europe and North America actively petition Leftists and progressives to a join in a common platform opposing U.S. interventionism and hegemony in the world. Today, just as in Mussolini and Hitler’s time, many fascists claim a “spiritual kinship” to the natural world and claim to “defend” it. (“Ecology is for Aryans too,” says Tom Metzger.) Criticisms of the New World Order and its negative effects on the domestic social contract in the metropolis now crop up everywhere on the Right; they sometimes sound indistinguishable from Left anti-globalization arguments.

Remarkably, some of the hard Right’s leadership is even moderating its public positions on race in order to pave the way for potential “anti-capitalist” alliances with non-white movements. Perhaps the races should be separate, they say, but we should all unite against the common enemy—global capital. James Porazzo, head of the neo-nazi skinhead group the American Front, argues for a program of “White autonomy, Black autonomy, Brown autonomy and death to the current twisted system. The only other obvious route would be an eventual winner take all race war: I don’t think anyone with any sense would want that.”

While the fascists are less developed in the U.S. than in Europe and other parts of the world, they are steadily growing in influence and organization. Their “anti-imperialist” views resonate widely within the ranks of militia members, Christian fundamentalists and ordinary conservatives, many of who are openly rebelling against the program of Bush and the neoconservatives—not just in Iraq but also on a range of domestic and international issues.

Judging by the reaction of leftists in U.S. antiwar movement, this is a good thing. Today, as rightists swell the ranks of anti-interventionists, they are being quietly tolerated, and frequently welcomed, by leftists. “What unites us is greater than anything that divides us,” says a leader of UFPJ. Anti-war speeches by Robert Byrd and writings by anti-war Christian fundamentalists appear on IndyMedia and other left-wing web sites. The Nation recently ran an entire article based on the pandering premise that Ronald Reagan, since he was a “true conservative,” would surely have pulled out of Iraq by now.

Left descriptions of the Iraqi resistance soft-pedal the right-wing forces that pervade it. Photos of huge all-male demonstrations in Muslim-populated countries are printed without comment; antisemitic slogans shouted at mass protests in Iraq and around the world are quietly edited out. Iraqi women’s fears about the possibility of a clerical fascist take-over of the country, widely reported in the mainstream press, are muted in the Left’s writings. Could it be that the Left is preparing to repeat, on a larger and larger scale, the mistakes made in Iran and Afghanistan?

It’s important to examine why there is a mass-based “anti-imperialist” right wing uprising in the world at this historical juncture and what that implies for the Left practically. Such an investigation may provide a window into the class changes enforced by the latest incarnation of global capitalism. It may also afford us perspective on the weaknesses of the post-WWII wave of revolutionary world struggle, weaknesses that allowed capitalism to surmount that movement’s powerful challenge. And finally, we may see hints of where we can look for the emergence of a new Left, able to survive and grow on the terrain of a transformed capitalist order.

Continues at: http://kersplebedeb.com/posts/false-fro ... ist-right/

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?st ... 0225130728

National Anarchists: Rebranding Fascism

December 20 2008

By Spencer Sunshine
Public Eye Magazine
Vol. 23, No. 4



On September 8, 2007 in Sydney, Australia, the anti globalization movement mobilized once again against neoliberal economic policies, this time to oppose the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit. Just as during the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, Washington, in1999, the streets were filled with an array of groups, such as environmentalists, socialists, and human rights advocates. And also just like in Seattle, there was a "Black Bloc"—a group of militant activists, usually left-wing anarchists, who wore masks and dressed all in black.

In Sydney, the Black Bloc assembled and hoisted banners proclaiming "Globalization is Genocide." But when fellow demonstrators looked closely, they realized these Black Bloc marchers were "National- Anarchists"—local fascists dressed as anarchists who were infiltrating the demonstration. The police had to protect the interlopers from being expelled by irate activists.

Since then, the National Anarchists have joined other marches in Australia and in the United States; in April 2008, they protested on behalf of Tibet against the Chinese government during the Olympic torch relay in both Canberra, Australia, and San Francisco. In September, U.S. National Anarchists protested the Folsom Street Fair, an annual gay "leather" event held in San Francisco.

While these may seem like isolated incidents of quirky subterfuge, these quasi anarchists are an international export of a new version of fascism that represent a significant shift in the trends and ideology of the movement. National Anarchists have adherents in Australia, Great Britain, the United States, and throughout continental Europe, and in turn are part of a larger trend of fascists who appropriate elements of the radical Left. Like "Autonomous Nationalists" in Germany and the genteel intellectual fascism of the European New Right, the National Anarchists appropriate leftist ideas and symbols, and use them to obscure their core fascist values. The National Anarchists, for example, denounce the centralized state, capitalism, and globalization — but in its place they seek to establish a system of ethnically pure villages.

In 1990, Chip Berlet showed in Right Woos Left how the extreme Right in the United States has made numerous overtures to the Left. "The fascist Right has wooed the progressive Left primarily around opposition to such issues as the use of U.S. troops in foreign military interventions, support for Israel, the problems of CIA misconduct and covert action, domestic government repression, privacy rights, and civil liberties."1 More recently, the fascist Right has also tried to build alliances based on concern for the environment, hard-line anti-Zionism, and opposition to globalization.


http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v23n4 ... scism.html

[American Dream]

Notes on the racist Independent Greeks Syriza has gone into coalition with

Mon, 01/26/2015 - 06:40 — AndrewNFlood




Having written a long piece on the election of Syriza yesterday I saw this morning that they have gone into coalition with what has been described as an anti-migrant right (or even far right) party called the Independent Greeks ( or ANEL). ANEL have a strong anti-ECB stance but on the level of seeing Greeks as a victim of an 'International Conspiracy'. Tie that into their leader claiming falsely that Jews pay no Taxes and it should sound warning bells. They do have 15 elected members so it gives the coalition a strong majority and Syriza have worked with them in the past. Presumably this and their strong anti ECB stance is why Syriza has decided that their anti-migration policies are not important.

Below are some quick notes and sources, I'm resisting commenting yet beyond the rather obvious point that this choice of coaition partners makes nonsence of Syrizas talk of solidarity with those outside Greece. Defenders of this decision say that this was Syriza's best option (but note not only) as the others are too sectarian (KKE) or not anti Europe enough ( Potami ). For me this is just a particularly brutal example of the inevitable costs of electoralism but there is an irony in some Syriza supporters proclaiming that 'There Is No Alternative' the day after proclaiming the election results had banished Thatchers TINA for good.

The one thing I have to say is that the migration question is not some matter of local politics to be swept aside. Because of its location Greece is one of the main arrival points for migrants into Europe. They are already subject to brutal racism, both from the state but also from far right organisations, in particular Golden Dawn. Many have died at the hands of cops or of fascists while many, many more have died trying to enter the country. There interests should not be swept aside in the name of Greek or even European solidarity - in fact stating it in those terms I think highlights the scale of the problem here.

Of course migrants have no votes and are extremely marginalised already so the cost of sacrificing them for Greek interests will not be electorally significant at all. To the electoralist pragmatist its probably hard to understand why anyone would see a problem here at all.

Continues at: http://anarchism.pageabode.com/andrewnf ... -coalition

[American Dream]

English Fascists Took a Beating in Dover On Sunday | VICE | United Kingdom




Article at: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/english- ... scists-544

[8bitagent]

I guess it might be seen as Anti-Semitism to bring up the ongoing severe anti black hatred and violence in Israel

http://atlantablackstar.com/2012/05/26/ ... en-beaten/

iolence surged in the streets of Tel Aviv as a 1000-strong protest against African immigrants seeking asylum in Israel turned violent.

Residents of a low-income Tel Aviv neighbourhood descended to the streets, waving Israeli flags and chanting “Deport the Sudanese” and “Infiltrators get out of our homes” to protest against the increase of African migrants moving into the area and the country.

The protest rapidly turned violent and police arrested 17 people with charges ranging from assault to vandalism. Some of them were still beating up migrants when they were arrested.

Protesters in the Hatikva neighbourhood set trash cans alight, broke some stores window and attacked African migrants who were passing-by. They also attacked an African migrant driving through the area and broke his car’s windows.

Reports suggest the protesters targeted local shops known to have African migrants as customers.

Another group of demonstrators stopped a shuttle taxi searched for migrant workers among the passengers, while banging on the windows, the newspaper Haaretz reported.

The protesters were backed by Likud Knesset member Miri Regev who participated in the march and said “the Sudanese were a cancer in our body”, Haaretz ‘s report added.

Protesters complained about Prime Minister’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the asylum seekers “problem” with some even carrying banners in support of Interior Minister Eli Yishai.

Yishai had called for the detention and expulsion of all asylum seekers earlier this week.

Interviewing Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Israeli Army Radio likened the violence to pogrom attacks on Jews in 19th century Europe.

Yishai retorted by saying Sudanese and Eritreans migrants were responsible for a rise in crime.

“I cannot judge a man whose daughter gets raped. I cannot judge a young woman who cannot walk home,” said Yishai,

“I cannot under any circumstances judge people who get abused and harmed, and who are then confronted by the state, which says, ‘Why do you behave this way to the foreigners?’”

The protests came as last week, an Israeli man was charged with arson after he threw seven Molotov cocktails at the homes of African migrants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=8 ... 1422579428

http://www.thenation.com/video/176762/i ... -holy-land

[American Dream]

Yeah- it certainly is Sudanese and Ethiopians feeling racist hierarchies in the areas controlled by the Israeli State, above and beyond the Sephardim/Mizrachis (e.g. Mordechai Vanunu) and the indigenous Palestinians. Those hierarchies are generally found in the territories controlled by settler colonialist states, world wide...

[American Dream]

Both sides of the Atlantic:


https://warriorpublications.wordpress.c ... es-police/

Citing war on terror, Tories propose sweeping new powers for spies, police

Steven Chase And Daniel Leblanc, The Globe and Mail, Jan 30, 2015


Logo of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).



People who call for terrorism attacks, even if they don’t counsel a specific act, could face up to five years in prison under new legislation the federal government wants to pass into law.

For instance, an individual in Canada who posts a video online that includes the phrase “Attack Canada” could be charged with advocating or promoting “terrorism offences in general.”

Individuals could be also charged even if they’re making general references to terror attacks in other countries.


The proposed new charge is part of a series of anti-terror measures the Harper government introduced Friday in a bill it says is necessary to protect Canadians in the wake of deadly attacks on soldiers last October that also led to a gunman storming Parliament.

This Anti-Terrorism Act represents the most sweeping increase in power for Canadian security agencies since legislative changes passed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The new criminal code offence for promoting terrorism is a marked departure from the current situation, in which police can only take action when an online posting refers to a specific attack, such as killing a particular category of individuals or targeting a precise location.

Other measures include:

Giving Canada’s spy agency the power to intervene and disrupt threats to national security at home and abroad, a major change from its existing mandate where it merely collects intelligence and hands off an intervention role to the RCMP.

Give courts the power to order the removal of “terrorist propaganda” from websites operating using Canadian Internet service providers.

Making it easier for authorities to restrict the movements of suspected jihadists, meaning they can apply to a court if they only believe terrorist activity “may be carried out.” The previous threshold called on law-enforcement authorities to state they believed an act “will be carried out.”

Extending the length of time authorities can detain suspected terrorists for up to seven days from three.

Relaxing the threshold needed to prevent suspected jihadis from boarding a plane, allowing the Minister of Transport to bar those whom the government believes are heading abroad to take part in terrorist activities.

Granting government departments explicit authority to share private information, including passport applications, or confidential commercial data, with law enforcement agencies.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said these changes are necessary given what he called the war declared by jihadists following a “distortion of Islam.”

“Over the last few years a great evil has been descending over our world,” Mr. Harper told an audience in Richmond Hill, Ont., Friday. “Jihadi terrorism is one of the most dangerous enemies our world has ever faced.”

Mr. Harper said Canada is a target because its democratic freedom.

“Canadians are targeted by these terrorists for no other reason than that we are Canadians,” he said. “They want to harm us because they hate our society and our values. They hate pluralism, they hate tolerance and the freedom we enjoy.”

He said the measures could not necessarily prevent a terrorist act in Canada, but that they were necessary to reduce the risk of one. “Bad things sometimes happen…terrorists themselves will adjust to the legislation,” he said.

Mr. Harper defended the legislation when asked whether the new powers given to police infringed on other rights.

“We do not buy the argument that every time you protect Canadians you take away civil liberties,” he said.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s role is currently restricted to collecting intelligence, analyzing and reporting on dangers to Canada, but the new legislation rewrites its mandate to allow CSIS agents to take action to foil security threats.

Ottawa is building in judicial oversight for this new CSIS power, however, and will require the agency to obtain a court warrant to flex its new muscles. As long as a judge approves, CSIS agents would be able to cancel someone’s travel reservations, for instance, or disrupt a banking transaction or electronic communications.

The new power would lift a fundamental restriction on CSIS’s activities and gives the agency a measure of authority that’s currently reserved for police forces. CSIS, a civilian agency, was created in the early 1980s after an inquiry into the RCMP security service’s illegal activities and civil-rights abuses recommended that policing be separated from intelligence gathering.

The government justifies these changes to CSIS by saying that the agency is often the first in Canada to detect a threat because it’s continually gathering intelligence and conducting surveillance, and is therefore best placed to act to disrupt a new threat before it can grow.

CSIS would still not be a law enforcement agency after these legislative changes. It would not be granted authority to arrest or detain people, for instance.

Today, CSIS informs the RCMP when it detects terror threats and hands the matter off, letting the Mounties conduct their own investigation. Ottawa argues that Canada needs to be able to act more quickly in an environment where terrorist threats can rapidly escalate from concepts to planning to execution, sources say.

The Conservative government holds a majority of seats in the Commons and the legislation is expected to pass easily.

Ottawa is also planning a more robust government financed campaign to thwart radicalization in young people, separate from the legislation being unveiled Friday.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... e22716849/

[solace]

Anti-Semitic group plans rally in Jewish area of London

Organizers of march in Stamford Hill, which has biggest Haredi population in Europe, say it is 'time to fight back' against 'Jewification' of Britain.

An anti-Semitic group is planning a rally against the "Jewification of Great Britain" in an area of north London with a strong ultra-Orthodox population.

The rally, set for March 22, is organized by a group called "Liberate Stamford Hill", referring to a district of the British capital that has the highest concentration of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Europe.

The Haredi community in Stamford Hill sparked controversy last year when posters reading "Women should please walk along this side of the road only" were seen in the area. The posters were quickly taken down, and community leaders said that they only applied to a Torah procession event and were to cater for religious men who wanted to avoid contact with the opposite sex. The rally organizers make reference to this incident in their promotional material, as well as to a volunteer commuity watch group known as the "Shomrim" (Hebrew for guards).

"We are demonstrating against the illegal and unlawful Jewish Shomrim Police that are enforcing talmudic law on British streets," says the protest's Facebook page. "These armed thugs are impersonating our police yet they have not been arrested in doing so, in fact, they are supported by the Metropolitan police. In Stamford Hill, Whites are openly spat at in the street and made to feel as if they are Second-Class citizens in their own country, we say ENOUGH White Man, It's time we fightback!"

Later, a post by the group reads: "We certainly can't promise a Nuremberg rally, the budget just doesn't cover that much just yet." The post was in response to a tweet by the North London Anti-Fascist action group, which says it will release a statement on the rally soon.

The group remains defiant in the face of widespread condemnation and apparent plans for a counter-protest on the same day.

"The Jews are mobilising an Anti-White army against us," said the group in a post on Facebook. "We welcome the opposition, any chance to show how both the Left-Wing and Jews are working hand-in-hand is an opportunity to be taken advantage of."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340 ... 70,00.html

[American Dream]

Anti-Semitic group plans rally in Jewish area of London

Organizers of march in Stamford Hill, which has biggest Haredi population in Europe, say it is 'time to fight back' against 'Jewification' of Britain.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340 ... 70,00.html

So fuckin' reminiscent of how religious Muslims are also being targeted.

[jakell]

It's probably worth me repeating here that, in my experience, an obsession with Jewish malfeasence was never really a significant feature of the British Far Right, that's mainly an American import, and forwarded under the poorly fitting conflation of White Nationalism and British Nationalism.
I realise this not a sexy detail to those who like to harp on about Antisemitism, but it's there all the same. (ie, let's back to the hand waving)

This is really a (recent) historical matter though. BN is pretty much dead and WN is the only real successor. That's the real invasion

[solace]

to those who like to harp on about Antisemitism,

Harp on? Oh well, it could be worse I suppose. You coulda said WHINE.