by DANNY HAIPHONG
Leftists should turn their attention to the New Guard Fascists — the enemies of the people at the top of the class structure and the armed body, the state, that protects the class structure.
“New guard fascism controls the levers of the economy, media, and military within the imperialist orbit.”
Syria continues to make gains against the jihadist mercenaries that flooded the country beginning 2011 with the help of US imperialism and its allies. The imperial ruling classes did not expect Idlib to be the last gasp of air for their efforts to destroy Syria and balkanize the region. It is this province where Turkey and its imperialist friends, including the United States, have lent critical support to jihadist proxies. It is also where the future of a thirty-plus year imperialist strategymay experience its greatest failure to date. The Syrian people have survived the imperial onslaught with much to teach us.
US imperialism and its allies have two choices in Syria. Either continue their current ineffectual attempt to hold back the liberation of Syria or escalate militarily. Both options come at great risk. The former ends all ambitions of overthrowing the Syrian government and further spreading the chaos of imperial domination throughout the region. The latter probably won’t lead to the overthrow of the Syrian government but willlead to dangerous military confrontations with the Russian Federation. This may be too risky for even the most blood thirsty war-hawks in Washington, Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Ankara, and the rest of the NATO-aligned countries. However, the left shouldn’t count on the good intentions of the imperialists when the profits of Wall Street and the war economy are at stake.
“The prison, police, and deportation regimes exercise enormous power over the lives of oppressed people.”
The high stakes of the imperialist war in Syria appear to be lost on most people in the US, albeit for a variety for reasons. Economic collapse looms over the heads of millions of workers who are struggling to survive under the constant siege of automation, austerity, and corporate theft. The state apparatus has escalated militarily on the home front to the point where civil liberties are a thing of the past and the prison, police, and deportation regimes exercise enormous power over the lives of oppressed people. White supremacy and racism continue to inhibit class unity. The corporate media and the Black misleadership class, in collusion with a fake, CIA-led “resistance” movement against Donald Trump, have moved further to the right to ensure that a movement for Black self-determination finds no room to breathe in the era of contending fascisms.
As Glen Ford put it in a recent issue of Black Agenda Report, fascism lives in the United States in two forms. The White Man’s foot soldiers dream of reviving the era of “Jim Crow” and 20thcentury fascism where white majorities exploited and dominated the darker nations. These old guard fascists are so arrogant that they often dismiss or are outright ignorant to the existence of a more effective type of fascism. This form of fascism is dedicated to igniting global warfare in service of monopoly and finance capital. The primary aim of the more effective form of fascism is to annihilate any nation or movement capable of bringing the era of US hegemony to a close.
“A movement for Black self-determination finds no room to breathe in the era of contending fascisms.”
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