propaganda

Syria

White Helmets vow to soldier on after aid cut-off

Two months after it was first reported that Trump had issued an order to freeze over $200 million in “reconstruction aid” to what media accounts called “US-backed rebels” in Syria, details finally emerge on which groups have had their aid cut. And the first to be mentioned isn’t a “rebel” group at all, but the White Helmets—the volunteer unarmed civil defense force that operates in areas under bombardment by the Assad regime and its Russian backers. The US State Department, which is said to provide about a third of the White Helmets’ budget, acknowledged that funding for the group is “under active review.” But White Helmets leader Raed Saleh pledged to persevere: “Our volunteers are still operating on the ground.” You can donate to the White Helmets through their website. (Photo: White Helmets)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: Against Red-Brown politics

In Episode Nine of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg rants against "Red-Brown Politics," the dangerous notion of an alliance between the left and fascist right against liberalism and the West—now evidenced in the growing support for the genocidal dictatorship of Bashar Assad on both the "anti-war" (sic) "left" (sic) and the "alt-right." Leading lights of the American "left" have joined pro-Assad delegations to Syria, as have figures on the fascist right. Emerging as the global representative for this sinister trend is Russo-nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, who is bringing together supposed peaceniks and neo-fascists around supporting despots like Putin and Assad in the name of a "multi-polar" world. Weinberg urges that leftists utterly reject overtures from the radical right, and adopt a single-standard anti-fascism—which must inlcude solidarity with the Syrian Revolution. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon.

Syria

Podcast: from Guernica to Syria

In Episode Eight of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the bitter historical irony: In April of 1937, the aerial bombardment of the Spanish town of Guernica by the Nazi Luftwaffe shocked the world. Today, what happened there is a near-daily occurrence in Syria (as well as Yemen and elsewhere around the world), and we are so inured to it that the “anti-war” people are actually on the side of the authors of aerial terror. During the Spanish Civil War, the left heroically opposed Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s drive to establish a fascist dictatorship with the aid of German military intervention. Today, it cravenly abets Bashar Assad’s drive to re-establish his fascist dictatorship with the aid of Russian military intervention. Even as Russia scrambles to block any investigation into the Douma chemical attack and other war crimes in Syria, “leftists” shamefully echo Russian propaganda denying any responsibility by Assad. Weinberg again urges that any legitimate anti-war position must begin with opposition to the genocidal regime of Bashar Assad, and with solidarity for the Syrian Revolution. Listen on SoundCloud. (Photo of Aleppo ruins from UNHCR)

Syria

Podcast: the anti-war left morphs into its opposite

In an in-depth interview for the Dobbstown podcast, CounterVortex editor Bill Weinberg traces the downward trajectory of the anti-war movement to the point that it now doesn’t protest when Trump (let alone Assad or Putin) bombs civilians, but does protest when Trump bombs warplanes that are used to bomb civilians. The poorly named “anti-war” left has morphed into its exact opposite: pro-war, pro-dictatorship, and even pro-genocide. Weinberg discusses his own political awakening in the Reagan cold war, and the American left’s descent to its current political and ideological nadir. He urges support for the actual social struggles in places like Syria, Libya, Crimea, etc., rather than viewing them as pawns on the geopolitical chessboard, as our imperialist enemies do. (Photo of Aleppo ruins from UNHCR)

Syria

Podcast: against pro-war ‘anti-war’ jive

In Episode Seven of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg rants against the sinister development of pro-war propaganda masked as “anti-war” propaganda. The overwhelming response of the “anti-war” left to the Douma chemical attack and Trump’s retaliatory air-strikes is to baselessly deny that Bashar Assad was behind the attack, to portray the victims as CIA-jihadists, and to change the subject (“What about Gaza, Yemen, etc?”) These are all propaganda tactics lifted directly from the Assad regime’s playbook. “Anti-war” hypocrites may protest that they do not support Assad, they just oppose US air-strikes. But when you echo the Assad regime’s propaganda and rush to exculpate it of every atrocity, you objectively do support Assad. You are actively abetting his war of extermination against the Syrian people. Any legitimate anti-war position must begin with opposition to the genocidal regime of Bashar Assad and his foreign backers in Moscow and Tehran, and with solidarity for the Syrian Revolution. Listen on SoundCloud. (Image: Syria Solidarity NYC)

Syria

Syria: gas attacks, air-strikes and hypocrisy —again

Just over a year after Trump’s air-strikes on an Assad regime airbase in response to a chemical attack, we witness a repeat of this episode—although this time the air-strikes were on wider targets, and carried out in conjunction with British and French forces. In response to last week’s chemical attack on Douma in Syria’s besieged Eastern Ghouta enclave, missiles and warplanes from the USS Donald Cook in the eastern Mediterranean carried out the first Western strikes on targets around the Damascus area. The targets were chemical warfare and military facilities, with no deaths or civilian casualties yet reported. “Anti-war” hypocrites who were silent during Trump’s massive bombardment of civilians in Raqqa and Mosul, silent during the Assad-Purtin destruction of Aleppo, and silent (at best) over the Douma chemical attack, are now protesting air-strikes on Assad’s machinery of death. Such “anti-war” depravity is part of the problem. (Image: Syria Solidarity NYC)

Syria

Syria: new chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta

Estimates of the dead vary from 70 to 150 after the latest and worst chemical attack on the besieged enclave of Eastern Ghouta, in the Damascus suburbs. The number is likely to rise, as rescue workers are still reporting new casualties at the town of Douma, the last in the enclave that remains in rebel hands. The apparent strike by a “barrel bomb” filled with either sarin or chlorine gas targeted a building where displaced families were sheltering from the ongoing Assad regime and Russian air-raids. The victims are overwhelmingly civilians, and many are said to be children. Trump has pledged a US military response to the attack. (Image: Syria Solidarity Campaign)

New York City

Why do people treat the word ‘Jew’ as an insult?

From anonymous radical-right xenophobes in Britain came the call to make April 3 “Punish a Muslim Day.” Letters were sent to addresses across England, calling for violent attacks on Muslims. Police were on alert, and women who wear the hijab were advised to stay home. There were also reports that some of the letters had arrived in New York, causing the city’s Muslim community to mobilize and the NYPD to beef up security. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams joined multi-faith leaders to condemn the threats. His comments were laudable in intent, but revealing in their wording: “Our message must be just as loud. Not punish a Muslim, let’s embrace a Muslim, let’s embrace a Christian, let’s embrace a person of Jewish faith…” Why has the word “Jew” become taboo, and especially in progressive circles? (Image: frgdr.com)

Planet Watch

Podcast: The Abolition of (Hu)man(ity)

In Episode Six of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg reads and discusses selections from CS Lewis‘ classic work The Abolition of Man, and explores its relevance in light of the contemporary dilemmas posed by biotech and artificial intelligence. Conservative Christian moralist Lewis paradoxically developed a quasi-anarchist critique of technological society, with ideas closely mirroring those of his contemporary George Orwell—despite the fact that the two were on opposite sides of the political divide. But Lewis went beyond even Orwell’s dark vision in foreseeing an actual end to humanity itself, as it has been understood for millennia, and its replacement by a conditioned post-humanity stripped of all dignity and reason. Recent technological “advances” have made this possible more literally and completely than Lewis could have imagined. Listen on SoundCloud. (Image: Earth First! Newswire)

Watching the Shadows

SPLC capitulates to Red-Brown axis

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) last week issued a pressingly important report, “The multipolar spin: how fascists operationalize left-wing resentment.” It refreshingly called out “red-brown populist collaboration”—documenting the growing convergence between figures on the supposed “left” and the radical, even fascist right, both in the US and in Europe. Playing a critical role is Russo-nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, who is bringing together supposed peaceniks and neo-fascists around supporting despots like Putin and Assad in the name of a “multi-polar” world. But, depressingly, at the first howls of protest from this very Red-Brown alliance, SPLC folded like punks, removing the report from their website and issuing a pusillanimous apology.

Syria

As circles close on Ghouta and Afrin, where’s the solidarity?

The Turkish assault on Afrin has forced the enclave’s Kurdish defenders into an alliance with the same Assad regime that is committing war crimes in Eastern Ghouta. This tragically poses an obstacle to any solidarity between the respective defenders of the besieged enclaves. But we in the West are faced with no such grim choices, and should be capable of a consistent position. Yet Noam Chomsky, who signed a statement in support of Afrin, has shamefully abetted Putin’s propaganda portraying the repeated chemical attacks on Ghouta as “fake news.” (Photo of Aleppo ruins from UNHCR)

North America

Podcast: Politics of the Second Amendment

In Episode Four of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg makes the case that the Second Amendment is a non-grammatical muddle of obfuscation—because the issue was just as contentious in 1789 as it is today, and the Framers fudged it. That’s why both the “gun control” and “gun rights” advocates can claim they have the correct interpretation—as they each advocate solutions that, in their own way, escalate the police state. In the wake of the latest school massacre, youth activists are pressing the issue, and this is long overdue. But the discussion that needs to be had would explore the social and cultural roots of this peculiarly American pathology. Listen on SoundCloud, and support us via Patreon.