Tuesday Interesting Links

• Excellent, in-depth piece on Rojava, the PKK and PYD, and on-the-ground observations about local civil society being built in accordance with the ideology of libertarian municipalism

• Reddit AMA with a PKK soldier who has been fighting in Syria

• Summary of a study published last year on the motivation of people fighting for Islamist groups in Syria; its less about religion than one might think

• Malcolm Harris writes, via a book review, on the history and future potential of cooperation between anarchists and Marxists

• Larry Summers on Bernie Sanders and the Federal Reserve

Sunday Interesting Links

• Introduction to a new upcoming issue of Viewpoint Magazine on social reproduction and class struggle outside of the workplace

• A lengthy, critical look at the evolution of MAS and the Morales government in Bolivia, via Jacobin Magazine

• A look at an argument between Venezuela’s minister of culture, and young radical communists

• Insightful article on the potential beginning of a Third Intifada in Palestine

• Some on-the-ground reporting on the YPG’s governance of the formerly ISIS-controlled town of Tal Abyad, via Washington Post

• Some on-the-ground reporting on Adiyaman, a small Turkish town that has produced a key ISIS-linked terror cell, via LA Times

Interesting Links (On Syria)

• Dismal reflections on Salafi-jihadism, Turkish fascism, and the lack of international left solidarity

• An article from April 2015 anticipating tensions between Kurds and Arabs in the Syrian town of Tel Abyad after a successful YPG offensive; meanwhile, Turkey has started bombing YPG positions in the city to contain their forces east of the Euphrates River

• Interview with the co-presidents of the Cezire canton of Rojava–an Arab sheik and a Kurdish ex-guerrilla

• “Ahrar al-Sham’s Revisionist Jihadism“–Fantastic overview of the internal debates and evolution of Salafi Islamic fundamentalism and the position of Ahrar al-Sham (Turkey’s main proxy and the strongest rebel group in Syria)

Wednesday Interesting Links (On Kurdistan)

• In-depth article from The Atlantic on the renewed Kurdish insurgency in Turkey

• Despite the renewed insurgency, the AKP is not seeing its approval rising in polls, nor HDP approval dropping in polls

• On the new “security zones” in Turkey, and their effects on civilian life

• In-depth observations from Vice News on Rojava, recent battles, and the uneasy relations between the Syrian government and the Kurds

• On the cooperation and alliances between Kurds and Syriacs in Rojava (old, but interesting)

Thursday Interesting Links

• In-depth piece on Leopoldo Lopez, Venezuelan opposition leader, from Foreign Policy; and a concise, summary article from The Nation

• Turkey’s lobbying influence within the US government, and implications for Kurdish leftists

• Kurds in Rojava are starting to refine oil for the first time

• Clashes in Islamabad, Pakistan, as people attempt to resist housing demolitions and evictions in the slum areas; the Awami Workers’ Party seems to be at the center of things

• There were some protests last week in the SF Bay Area against “charter cities” in Honduras

• Manipulating LED lights can change and control the nutrition and flavor of fruits and vegetables grown indoors

Friday Interesting Links (On Kurdistan)

• A Personal War: America’s Marxist Allies Against ISIS (an in-depth feature piece from the Wall Street Journal, of all places)

• As of yesterday, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has killed three Turkish cops in revenge for the recent killing of 32 members of a solidarity delegation to Rojava

• Turkey has begun arresting members of armed groups like ISIS, but also members of the PKK or the Marxist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C), and carrying out air-strikes on ISIS and PKK positions in Syria and Iraq

• Seymour Hersh on Syria, Turkey, chemical weapons, and Sunni fundamentalist militants (circa 2014)

• Wikipedia article on the Susurluk scandal, which emerged in 1996 and shed some light on the nature of the “deep state” in Turkey

• Rojava: a struggle against borders and for autonomy

• The new PKK: unleashing a social revolution in Kurdistan

• Kurdish autonomy between dream and reality

Kurdish militants escorting a funeral march for some of the victims of the Suruc bombing

Tuesday Interesting Links

• From Jacobin Magazine: “In his last interview, Chokwe Lumumba discusses popular power and the past and future of revolutionary struggle in the American South.”

• Interfluidity on the Greek crisis, the betrayal of the political intentions behind the Eurozone, and the horrifying mess that creditors have made of Greek’s economy

• A right-wing Turkish perspective on the PYD and Rojava–perhaps a warning sign to radical leftist Kurds that the alliance with the West is going to come to an end soon?

• Once again, LNG exports from the US are hitting serious economic obstacles

• [PDF] The Political Economy of Liberal Democracy (June 2015)