Syria supports Kurdish self-rule vote that US labels ‘illegitimate’

Kurdish radical democrats in Iraq and Syria have forced the US and Syrian governments to take positions at odds with their respective Western media portrayals.

In Iraq, more than 92% of the roughly 3 million people who went to the polls in Iraqi Kurdish-controlled areas opted for independence from Baghdad, according to official results announced Wednesday by the Kurdish electoral commission.  While the US government ostensibly supports “color revolution” independence movements around the world in service of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson instead labeled the vote ‘illegitimate’.

Meanwhile, Kurds in the northern Syrian autonomous region known as Rojava held initial elections in 3,700 communes, in anticipation of elections next year to form a new federal state consciously modeled after that of Switzerland.  In response, Syria’s foreign minister referred to the autonomy of the region as ‘negotiable’, urging further dialogue on the matter.

If the American Empire now openly opposes votes for independence when those developments contradict its geopolitical ambitions, and when a so-called ‘rogue state’ steps up to carry the torch instead, for how much longer can the popular legitimacy of an imperial foreign policy be sustained?

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The end of a world of nation-states may be upon us

“Nation-states are nothing but agreed-upon myths: we give up certain freedoms in order to secure others. But if that transaction no longer works, and we stop agreeing on the myth, it ceases to have power over us.  So what might replace it? The trends that are pinching the nation-state are helping the city-state. In a highly connected, quasi-borderless world, cities are centres of commerce, growth, innovation, technology and finance.”

Read more: https://aeon.co/essays/the-end-of-a-world-of-nation-states-may-be-upon-us

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Catalonia Shows the Danger of Disarming Civilians

“The consequences of a government using force to control those it is sworn to protect must be high. When citizens are armed, the consequences for tyranny rise and its likelihood falls.”

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/catalonia-shows-the-danger-of-disarming-civilians/

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Spain suspends Catalan parliament, threatens ‘greater harm’

“The Madrid government has refused to rule out invoking article 155 of the constitution. The article, which has never been used, makes provision for the central government to step in and take control of an autonomous region if it ‘does not fulfil the obligations imposed upon it by the constitution or other laws, or acts in a way that is seriously prejudicial to the general interest of Spain’.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/05/spanish-pm-mariano-rajoy-warns-of-greater-harm-from-catalonia-independence-plans

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Secession Is Sweeping the World, and We Should Let It

“We’re seeing a huge uptick in provinces and territories seeking independence from their parent countries all over the globe.”

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/secession-is-sweeping-the-world-and-we-should-let-it/

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The man who wanted to split California into six states now wants to make it three

“Tim Draper filed his proposed 2018 ballot initiative on Friday asking voters to split California into three new states: Northern California, California and Southern California. ‘The citizens of the whole state would be better served by three smaller state governments while preserving the historical boundaries of the various counties, cities, and towns,’ Draper wrote in the initiative’s statement of findings.”

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-the-man-who-wanted-to-split-california-1503119126-htmlstory.html

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Maduro: Trump’s ‘imperialist hand’ is behind Venezuelan revolution

“Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday said that his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, is deeply involved in ‘terrorist’ activities and the violence that is unfolding in the South American nation with an eye toward ‘taking political control’ there.  Maduro said on his weekly radio-television show that his country is facing an ‘attack by violent forces (…) intolerance and generalized destruction,’ and that behind all this turmoil is ‘the imperialist hand of Donald Trump.’  ‘Trump has his hands infected and stuck deeply into this conspiracy and this attack that has as its objective taking political control in Venezuela, recolonizing Venezuela,’ Maduro claimed.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/05/22/trumps-imperialist-hand-is-behind-venezuelas-turmoil-president-claims.html

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The Anarchists vs. the Islamic State

“The YPG is not your typical ethnic or sectarian faction. Its fighters are loyal to an imprisoned guerrilla leader who was once a communist but now espouses the same kind of secular, feminist, anarcho-libertarianism as Noam Chomsky or the activists of Occupy Wall Street. The Kurds are implementing these ideals in Rojava, and that has attracted a ragtag legion of leftist internationals, like Belden, who have come from nearly every continent to help the YPG beat ISIS and establish an anarchist collective amid the rubble of the war – a ‘stateless democracy’ equally opposed to Islamic fundamentalism and capitalist modernity. They call it the Rojava Revolution, and they want you.”

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/american-anarchists-ypg-kurdish-militia-syria-isis-islamic-state-w466069

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A Libertarian Builds Low-Cost Private Schools for the Masses

“Bob Luddy was tired of trying to convince North Carolina educrats to improve the state’s public schools, so he built his own network of low-cost private schools that the government can’t meddle with.”

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Chatbot lawyer overturns 160,000 parking tickets in London, NYC

“Dubbed as ‘the world’s first robot lawyer’ by its 19-year-old creator, London-born second-year Stanford University student Joshua Browder, DoNotPay helps users contest parking tickets in an easy to use chat-like interface.  The program first works out whether an appeal is possible through a series of simple questions, such as were there clearly visible parking signs, and then guides users through the appeals process.  The results speak for themselves. In the 21 months since the free service was launched in London and now New York, Browder says DoNotPay has taken on 250,000 cases and won 160,000, giving it a success rate of 64% appealing over $4m of parking tickets.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/chatbot-ai-lawyer-donotpay-parking-tickets-london-new-york

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