From ballistanc at yahoo.com  Sun Aug  2 06:31:28 2009
From: ballistanc at yahoo.com (juan De La Cruz)
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 05:31:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Fw: Rebelion en Africa del Sur
Message-ID: <914117.51893.qm@web35502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>



--- On Sat, 8/1/09, betancouour romana <romanabetancouour at yahoo.com> wrote:


From: betancouour romana <romanabetancouour at yahoo.com>
Subject: Rebelion en Africa del Sur
To: ricardoliriano at hotmail.com
Cc: "juan De La Cruz" <ballistanc at yahoo.com>
Date: Saturday, August 1, 2009, 9:01 PM







26 juillet 2009 
Mass rebellion in South Africa 
In South Africa the state is being confronted by an eruption of self organised popular protest on a scale not seen since the 1980s. This article, from the mainstream press there, gives a much better overview than the articles in the British press that miss the politics of the rebellion. 
DU NOON, Diepsloot, Dinokana, Khayelitsha, KwaZakhele, Masiphumelele, Lindelani, Piet Retief and Samora Machel. We are back, after a brief lull during the election, to road blockades, burnt-out police cars and the whole sorry mess of tear gas, stun grenades and mass arrests. Already this month, a girl has been shot in the head in KwaZakhele, three men have been shot dead in Piet Retief, and a man from Khayelitsha is in a critical condition. 
There are many countries where a single death at the hands of the police can tear apart the contract by which the people accept the authority of the state. But this is not Greece. Here the lives of the black poor count for something between very little and nothing. When the fate of protesters killed or wounded by the police makes it into the elite public sphere, they are generally not even named. 
The African National Congress (ANC) has responded to the new surge in popular protest with the same patrician incomprehension under Jacob Zuma as it did under Thabo Mbeki. It has not understood that people do not take to the streets against a police force as habitually brutal as ours without good cause. Government statements about the virtues of law and order, empty rhetoric about its willingness to engage, and threats to ensure zero tolerance of ?anarchy? only compound the distance between the state and the faction of its people engaged in open rebellion. 
Any state confronted with popular defiance has two choices ? repression or engagement. If it wishes to avoid shooting its people as an ordinary administrative matter, the first step towards engaging with popular defiance is to understand the dissonance between popular experience and popular morality that puts people at odds with the state. 
A key barrier towards elite understanding of the five-year hydra-like urban rebellion is that protests are more or less uniformly labelled as ?service delivery protests?. This label is well suited to those elites who are attracted to the technocratic fantasy of a smooth and post-political developmental space in which experts engineer rational development solutions from above. Once all protests are automatically understood to be about a demand for ?service delivery? they can be safely understood as a demand for more efficiency from the current development model rather than any kind of challenge to that model. Of course, many protests have been organised around demands for services within the current development paradigm and so there certainly are instances in which the term has value. But the reason why the automatic use of the term ?service delivery protest? obscures more than it illuminates is that protests are often a direct challenge to
 the post-apartheid development model. 
Disputes around housing are the chief cause of popular friction with the state. The state tends to reduce the urban crisis, of which the housing shortage is one symptom, to a simple question of a housing backlog and to measure progress via the number of houses or ?housing opportunities? it ?delivers?. But one of the most common reasons for protests is outright rejection of forced removals from well-located shacks to peripheral housing developments or ?transit camps?. Another is the denial or active removal of basic services from shack settlements to persuade people to accept relocation. Moreover, to make its targets for ?housing delivery? more manageable, the state often, against its own law and policy, provides houses only for shack owners, resulting in shack renters being illegally left homeless when ?development comes?. 
It is therefore hardly helpful to assume that protests against forced removals and housing developments that leave people homeless are a demand for more efficient ?delivery?. On the contrary, these protests are much more fruitfully understood as a demand for a more inclusive mode of development, in the double sense of including poor people in the cities and of including all poor people in development projects. 
If the state actually engaged with any seriousness with the people to whom it has promised to ?deliver services?, these kinds of problems could be resolved. But the reality is that the state very often imposes development projects on people without any kind of meaningful engagement. One reason for this is the pressure to meet ?delivery targets? quickly ? a pressure that was greatly worsened by the ludicrous and dangerously denialist fantasy of former housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu that shacks could be ?eradicated by 2014?. 
Another reason why the state systematically fails to engage with poor people is that when it does negotiate, it tends to substitute ward councillors and their committees, as well as local branch executive committees of the ANC, for the communities actually affected by development projects. But the fact is that in many wards the councillors and local party elites represent the interests of local elites, who often have very different interests to poor communities. Moreover, it?s entirely typical for these local elites to seize control of key aspects of development projects, such as the awarding of tenders and the allocation of houses, for their own political and pecuniary gain. It is not at all unusual for ward councillors and allied local elites to threaten their grassroots critics with violence. Ward councillors are often able to order the local police to arrest critics on spurious charges. 
It is hardly surprising that ward councillors are a key target of popular protests. 
Once a community has realised that their local councillor is hostile to their interests, there are often no viable alternatives for engaging with the state. Attempts at making use of official public participation channels generally fail to get any further than a solid wall of bureaucratic contempt in which everyone is permanently in a meeting. Polite demands for attention are frequently responded to as if they were outrageous. Outright contempt of the ?know your place? variety is common. In the unlikely event that representatives from a poor community are able to access a politician higher up than their ward councillor, they are most likely to be sent back to their councillor. There is a very real sense in which we have already developed a sort of caste system in which the poor are simply unworthy of engaging with politicians on the basis of equality. 
If development was negotiated directly, openly and honestly with the people who it affects rather than with consultants bent on technocratic solutions, and ward councillors bent on personal and political advantage, things would take a little longer but their outcomes would be far more inclusive and far more to people?s liking. If the ANC is serious about democracy, it should aim to subordinate the local state to the inevitably time-consuming, complex and contested mediation of the poor communities that need it most, rather than the often predatory aspirations of local political elites. 
The heart of the moral economy behind the protest is a firm conviction that the poor are people who also count in our society. For some, this means that every citizen counts and one way of realising this is by turning on people seen as non-citizens. For others, everyone, documented or not, counts. But for as long as the state, in its actual practices, does not affirm the dignity of poor people by consulting them about their own future and including them in the material development of our collective future, the rebellion will continue. 
http://libcom.org 
http://dndf.org/?p=4829 
?



      

From farmelantj at juno.com  Sun Aug  2 14:58:34 2009
From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant)
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 16:58:34 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Francis Jeanson dies
Message-ID: <20090802.165835.2668.0.farmelantj@juno.com>



For those who can read French there is an obit at:

<www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gk_HA3eO_bSmjiFqzSeTGY0aPL6g
>


He was a philosopher, who was a friend and disciple
of Jean-Paul Sartre.  He was probably best known
for his work during the time of the Algerian struggle
for independence when he founded what came
to be known as the Jeanson Network which
transported funds to the Algerian FLN.
For that work he was put on trial for
breaching state security but was eventually
amnestied and he was able to go back
to academic life.

Outside the francophone world he
is probably best known for his
cameo appearance in Godard's
1967 file, "La Chinoise."

Jim F.
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From farmelantj at juno.com  Wed Aug  5 18:47:32 2009
From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant)
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 20:47:32 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Jerry Cohen, RIP
Message-ID: <20090805.204732.5284.0.farmelantj@juno.com>

  

http://colinfarrelly.blogspot.com/2009/08/ga-cohen-1941-2009.html
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From farmelantj at juno.com  Thu Aug  6 06:46:40 2009
From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com)
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 12:46:40 GMT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] (no subject)
Message-ID: <20090806.084640.7802.0@webmail16.vgs.untd.com>

New Statesman obits for Jerry Cohen and
Francis Jeanson.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/cultural-capital/2009/08/ga-cohen-death-equality


http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/cultural-capital/2009/08/francis-jeanson-1922-france


Jim Farmelant

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From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Thu Aug  6 10:36:35 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 09:36:35 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] So what
Message-ID: <374647.36771.qm@web180101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


O STREET PIMP MY BLOG CHALLENGE
I'm an atheist, so what?
FINALIST
By PETER JURICH ? O STREET GUEST BLOGGER ? August 3, 2009 




I was at work when someone brought up that I am an atheist.


A nearby coworker nearly had a heart attack.


"You are?" she asked. "But ... you're such a ... good person!"


 
In the words of Oneita: Oh, my.

I'd like to set the record straight on atheism. Being an atheist opens up my world to the different possibilities I may have otherwise missed. It makes me an accepting individual because it is an exercise in questioning that allows me to explore any and all walks of life.


Atheism breaks down the barriers put up by racism, sexism, xenophobia and other discrimination because I have an understanding that there is nothing more important (i.e. an invitation into heaven) than the feelings I share with others.


I explained this to my coworker.


"Well, I'm older than you," she said. "I understand more."


I didn't tell her that I attended a strict, private Catholic school for eight years, that I had questions my teachers nervously refused to answer, and that I've since answered those questions myself. I did, however, tell her my views were not without research. Yes, she is older, but that doesn't mean anything. 


I am capable of empathy, optimism, sadness, patriotism, guilt and love.


I told her I'm more confident because I'm not ashamed of any thoughts. I neglected to stress that I still differentiate between right and wrong, but I assumed she knew that.


I don't do drugs, have sex with strangers, drive insanely fast or bust caps in asses.


Her response? "Someday, you'll get it."


In respect to the warm and fuzzy feeling one gets (and I've tried very hard to get) from organized religion, I can get that same feeling by going to a concert. All we are feeling is the energy of a group of people coming together enthusiastically for a common interest. The difference is the context: Believers feel God brought them together; fans think it was Ticketmaster.


I ended the conversation out of respect for the workplace -- a public school. Begrudgingly, I let my coworker have the final word.


"Don't give up," she said. "Just try keeping a more open mind."

PETER JURICH, 23, of Dearborn is a Wayne State University student who wrote "Typing With One Hand." 


Oneita the Editor's Note: I met Peter in February when he interviewed me for a homework assignment. That was flattering, but it didn't curry any favor: I rejected the first blog entry he submitted for this challenge because it was lame. I chose this one because of Peter's honesty and his perspective, and because I knew it would produce a good conversation.





From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Thu Aug  6 12:17:19 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 11:17:19 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE AN ATHEIST IN THE BIBLE BELT
Message-ID: <373582.28482.qm@web180114.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE AN ATHEIST IN THE BIBLE BELT
By Susan McCarthy, Comment Is Free
Even in the South's big cities, many atheists feel they have
to stay closeted. 
http://www.alternet.org/belief/141801/what_it%27s_like_to_be_an_atheist_in_the_bible_belt/ 


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Thu Aug  6 14:02:22 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 16:02:22 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] I'm an atheist, so what?
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908061302l21342ff4s94478685cf916527@mail.gmail.com>

O STREET PIMP MY BLOG CHALLENGE
I'm an atheist, so what?
FINALIST
By PETER JURICH ? O STREET GUEST BLOGGER ? August 3, 2009




I was at work when someone brought up that I am an atheist.


A nearby coworker nearly had a heart attack.


"You are?" she asked. "But ... you're such a ... good person!"



In the words of Oneita: Oh, my.

I'd like to set the record straight on atheism. Being an atheist opens
up my world to the different possibilities I may have otherwise
missed. It makes me an accepting individual because it is an exercise
in questioning that allows me to explore any and all walks of life.


Atheism breaks down the barriers put up by racism, sexism, xenophobia
and other discrimination because I have an understanding that there is
nothing more important (i.e. an invitation into heaven) than the
feelings I share with others.


I explained this to my coworker.


"Well, I'm older than you," she said. "I understand more."


I didn't tell her that I attended a strict, private Catholic school
for eight years, that I had questions my teachers nervously refused to
answer, and that I've since answered those questions myself. I did,
however, tell her my views were not without research. Yes, she is
older, but that doesn't mean anything.


I am capable of empathy, optimism, sadness, patriotism, guilt and love.


I told her I'm more confident because I'm not ashamed of any thoughts.
I neglected to stress that I still differentiate between right and
wrong, but I assumed she knew that.


I don't do drugs, have sex with strangers, drive insanely fast or bust
caps in asses.


Her response? "Someday, you'll get it."


In respect to the warm and fuzzy feeling one gets (and I've tried very
hard to get) from organized religion, I can get that same feeling by
going to a concert. All we are feeling is the energy of a group of
people coming together enthusiastically for a common interest. The
difference is the context: Believers feel God brought them together;
fans think it was Ticketmaster.


I ended the conversation out of respect for the workplace -- a public
school. Begrudgingly, I let my coworker have the final word.


"Don't give up," she said. "Just try keeping a more open mind."

PETER JURICH, 23, of Dearborn is a Wayne State University student who
wrote "Typing With One Hand."


Oneita the Editor's Note: I met Peter in February when he interviewed
me for a homework assignment. That was flattering, but it didn't curry
any favor: I rejected the first blog entry he submitted for this
challenge because it was lame. I chose this one because of Peter's
honesty and his perspective, and because I knew it would produce a
good conversation.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug  7 07:44:28 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 09:44:28 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Marx relation to morality
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908070644y49447a1i727eade82a1ee876@mail.gmail.com>

[lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in
c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Thu Aug 6 13:20:33 PDT 2009

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marx is also an amoralist for the following reason: morality concerns
judging action that impacts that interests of _other_ people not the
self-interests of the actor. Marx is trying to get the working class,
working class individuals, to take action in their own self-interest.
Marx does not appeal to the working class to revolt against the
immorality of the ruling class, but to act in its own self-interest ,
which is an amoral motive.
In my opinion, Marx does hold that the ruling class exploitation and
oppression of the ruled class are wicked ,lbecause they have a bad
impact on the ruled class' individuals' interests. But he does not try
to get the working class to act because of this ruling class
wickedness. He appeals to a non-moral motive: self-interest.

Charles


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug  7 08:35:58 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 10:35:58 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Marx and morality
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908070735q46ed582bh45e29997ba99469f@mail.gmail.com>

[lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in
c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Fri Aug 7 07:25:16 PDT 2009



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marv Gandall

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shane M. writes:

>
> On Aug 6, 2009, at 4:20 PM, c b wrote:
>
>> Marx is also an amoralist for the following reason: morality concerns
>> judging action that impacts that interests of _other_ people not the
>> self-interests of the actor. Marx is trying to get the working class,
>> working class individuals, to take action in their own self-interest.
>> Marx does not appeal to the working class to revolt against the
>> immorality of the ruling class, but to act in its own self-interest ,
>> which is an amoral motive.
>
>
> But the "self-interest" of the proletariat, as Marx conceives it, has
> nothing to do with "interest" (economic advantage) as conceived by
> individuals, including individual proletarians, in bourgeois society.
> The "self-interest" of the proletariat as a class *fur sich* consists of
> its *abolition as a class
============================================== But it is only when
individual workers identify their own economic self-interest with the
interest of all who work for wages and salaries that they combine for
collective action in the workplace and in politics - that which
presents them with the possibility of transcending their status as
workers, ie. the abolition of the working class. This newly awakened
social consciousness is conceived of as the "highest expression" of
morality in contradistinction to bourgeois morality which exalts the
individual, but it follows rather than precedes the development of
class consciousness arising out of the realm of production.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

c b wrote:



> Marx is also an amoralist for the following reason: morality concerns
> judging action that impacts the interests of _other_ people not the
> self-interests of the actor.



Hard to see how someone could affect their own self interest without
impacting others. ie??

martin

^^^^^

CB: No doubt. In general, in these times, an individual worker can
seek to fulfill her own self-intetest by helping to make socialism
while impacting others' self-interests positively, no ? So, no moral
dilemma in following Marx's suggestions. Marxism is selfish and moral
at the same time. The original win-win approach.

By the way, there's nothing immoral about impacting the rich's
overinflated, ballooned even, wealth by deflating it. Rich individuals
can satisfy their self-interests with much less wealth than they have
now..


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Matthias Wasser


> Individual self-interest doesn't get you there, though. As far as any one
individual is concerned, your material-reward-to-effort ratio is going
to be a lot higher trying to get into the ruling class than
overthrowing them. You can push out the boundaries of the self to
include the community, of course, but that encroaches on the territory
of - gasp! - morality.

^^^^^^^

CB: So far, yes. So far it hasn't gotten us there, but the struggle
continues; victory is certain.

^^^^^

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Shane Mage :

But the "self-interest" of the proletariat, as Marx conceives it, has
nothing to do with "interest" (economic advantage) as conceived by
individuals, including individual proletarians, in bourgeois society.
The "self-interest" of the proletariat as a class *fur sich* consists
of its *abolition as a class*. This is an entirely moral, not amoral,
motive because it grounds communism in a concrete teleology--the
planetary historical mission of human consciousness as the embodiment
of what Hegel called "objective spirit."

^^^^^

CB: Yes, I think as it has turned out historically, the failure to
achieve socialist reovolutions, especially in the Western, big power
nations, means that there is an ironic convergence of Marxism with the
Christian trope of pie-in-the-sky-in-the-bye-and-bye or ,individual
Marxists and workers sacrificing their immediate and short-term
self-interests for the cause of the interests of others to be
fulfilled in the longer run in the planetary mission. The Party
bookstore in Highland Park 10 -15 years ago was "Longview Bookstore".

However, Marx seemed to seek to help make revolution in his lifetime,
not to say that he opposed it in the long run. And each generation of
Marxists "should" look for a way to make revolution within their
lifetime, even if as with Sisyphus, the revolutionary rock has rolled
some ways back down the hill again.

Note that Marx -and Engels, Lenin , Angela Davis, et al, (most LBOers
) - not being in the working class were thoroughly morally motivated,
I.e. they could have met their own individual self-interests much
easier or at all, in the case of Marx and Lenin, by working for the
rich rather than the poor.


From farmelantj at juno.com  Fri Aug  7 12:14:05 2009
From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 18:14:05 GMT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
Message-ID: <20090807.141405.5895.1@webmail23.vgs.untd.com>


Well on Marxmail I had posted
the following in response to
another poster, who had drawn
a comparison between Cohen and
Althusser.

-------------------
I suspect that Jerry Cohen would
not have minded if people took
note of his passing by debating
the merits of his works.

Actually, I find his reading
of Marx to have been closer
to the readings that were 
provided by such Second
International Marxists like
Kautsky and Plekhanov. 
I believe that
somewhere in KMTH he makes
such an acknowledgement.
But yet he did seem to have
to come to such a reading by way
of Althusser, even though
he rejected Althusserianism.

G.A. Cohen discussed Althusser
in his foreword to KMTH. There,
after detailing some of the
positive contributions of the 
Althusserians to Marxism
(which for Cohen included the re-emphasis 
on Marx's more mature writings like 
*Capital* rather than the earlier
writings like the *1844 Manuscripts* 
and the attention that
Althusser and his followers paid to 
historical materialism) then
proceeded to note what he regarded 
as some of their more negative attributes.

Writing thus:

"Above all, I found much of *Lire Capital* critically vague. It
is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its
insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never
caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism
behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged
with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences
for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and
where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement,
to be one, must be hard to comprehend."

Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the
very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had
rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which
the young Jerry Cohen seems to have imbibed along with his
mother's milk, having been born and raised within
the milieu of the Canadian CP. Cohen, himself, years
later, came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical
materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the
problem laid with historical materialism in general rather
than with the specific variety of historical materialism
that he had embraced.

Jim Farmelant
---------- Original Message ----------
From: jkschw1 at yahoo.com
To: "marxist philosophy" <marxistphilosophy at yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:57:20 +0000

Unless I missed it the death the other day of Jerry Cohen attracted no comment on a list devoted to Marxist philosophy. I know that as first a founder of analytical Marxism, then as a refugee from Marxism to liberal egalitarianism, he was not favored among the participants here. But IMHO he was one of the most influential and important Marxist thinkers of the latter half of the 20th century, and his legacy requires comment.

Not much time here but I will note a few thoughts;

- In the context of a sharp decline in the quantity and quality of Marxist theory, Cohen and the AMs stood for the disconnection of theory from practice, the entrenchment of Marxism as another academic exercise. In some ways this was not their fault giving the collapse of Marxism as a movement and a force in the world.

- Cohen helped bring a level of rigor and precision in Marxist thinking that had been sorely lacking for a very long time. If it's complained that his work lacked popular accessibility, what are we to say about Adorno, a favorite here who gets wide discussion?

- Cohen's major work on Karl Marx's Theory Of History is very valuable, but went down the wrong track in reviving a stagist, mechanical, primacy of the productive forces 2d Internat'l conception of historical materialism. (Possibly due in part to his roots in the Canadian CP.)

 True, Marx gave that view a lot of space, but Cohen almost totally neglected Marx's alternative class struggle view, which I think is more true and valuable and gets no less, arguably more, space. Brenner is far better on this (and no less rigorous).

- Cohen's turn to traditional style moral philosophy as important, first as a complement to his idea of historical materialism, then as a replacement for Marxism and materialist analysis, was a major retrogression. No doubt there is more ethics in Marx and Marxism than Marx cared to admit, but Marx pointed the way in integrating these into materialist analysis. 

Cohen's own positive ethical views were, moreover, disappointingly primitive and underdeveloped. See his awful Egalitarianism book, but also earlier papers on exploitation and his paper critiquing value theory -- a real train wreck. And I don't accept value theory myself! I haven't carefully read the last book in Rawls.

Btw in that book Cohen lists as the big three books on political philosophy Rawls' A Theory of Justice, Hobbes' Leviathan, and Plato's Republic. Marx's Capital doesn't make his cut. Given Cohen's a priori turn to liberal morality, Marx might be happy to be left out. 

- Cohen was nonetheless a major influence, one of the few really original thinkers in late 20th century Marxism, along with perhaps Althusser -- who, it might argued, paralleled him in a French sort of way. The people we tend to discuss, Marx, the Western Marxists, all had their roots and did much or all of their important work before 1950. 

It says something about the state of Marxism that Cohen and Althusser are among the giants of postwar Marxism.

More later.

Justin

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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Aug  7 12:36:05 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 14:36:05 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Detroit Election: notes.
Message-ID: <cae.4b8cd7dd.37adce15@aol.com>

III. The Detroit Election. 
 
Detroit is a freaking mess. 
 
A full report is warranted but I just have not made the time to do such and 
 do not know if such report is appropriate for this open list. An election 
is  extremely complex. Those sections of the proletariat needing the most 
vote the  less. This means ones message has to be tailored to those who 
actually vote.  Those who actually vote tend to be the better situated sections of 
the working  class. Because Detroit is so black real living issues are 
polarized to the  extreme as class with very little to zero racially charged 
literature. 
 
"Can't blame white people" for shit . . . here. 
 
The meaning of society moving in class antagonism, rather than just ?the  
class struggle? is visible to everyone as composition of the various  
neighborhoods. In Detroit the class struggle means the struggle against ones  
employer and government. Class antagonism means the spontaneous movement of a  
huge section of the population outside the employer-employee relationship. 
Those  outside the employer-employee relationship do not give a fuck about 
property  taxes, housing value, and the other trappings of bourgeois society. 
They are not  going to never have a job above McDonald money and home 
ownership is not even a  remote possibility. 
 
The auto workers are being pushed down with starting wages to be reduced by 
 50% from today?s level. 
 
During the election a polarization emerged over privatizations of City  
jobs. Those running for Mayor are exclusively the business type and even the  
better paid workers have had enough of ?running government like a business.? 
 
?Running government like a business.? 
 
Like General Motor?s, Chrysler or ?Bing Steel?? 
 
Bing Steel is named after the basketball player Dave Bing. Dave Bing is  
Mayor. Bing Steel went bankrupt but this was kept out of the newspapers and 
off  the airwaves so that he could win in a special election. Although a  
compassionate man - (when it comes to those with money or his poverty stricken  
fellow NBA players), Bing is an old school industrialist thinker. I have an  
ideological hate for guys like this. That Bing is black is wonderful 
because all  the class stuff comes forth with remarkable clarity. 
 
Much of the support for Dave Bing took shape as a reaction to the  
flamboyant stupidity of the ?hip Hop Mayor? whose was run out of office. Mayor  
Kwame Kilpatrick, would hold festive party?s where dead girls would pop up. 
 
?Kwame Malik Kilpatrick (born June 8, 1970) is the former mayor of Detroit, 
 Michigan. When elected at the age of 31, he was the youngest mayor in the  
history of Detroit. Kilpatrick's tenure as mayor, from 2002 until 2008, was 
 plagued with controversies which included allegations (not all against  
Kilpatrick himself) of marital infidelity, conspiracy, perjury, corruption and 
 murder. Kilpatrick is the only mayor in the history of Detroit to be 
charged  with a felony while in office.[2] On September 4, 2008, Kilpatrick 
announced his  resignation as mayor, which became effective on September 18,[3] 
as part of a  plea bargain where he also pled guilty to two felonies for 
obstruction of  justice.? _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Kilpatrick_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Kilpatrick) 
 
The Kilpatrick family is part of the state?s political machine, a fact to  
be understood with the youthfulness of the Mayor. Who sends text message and 
 makes phone call with ?criminal intent? and implications other than an 
arrogant  fool? 
 
Thus, old man Dave Bing seemed to be a break from youthful stupidity, with  
his class polices sweep under the rug of embarrassment. 
 
Tragic. 
 
Detroit elects an Industrialist. 
Who ran on a program of cutting city services!  
 
This is real tragic. 
 
These bourgeois industrialist mentality types all demand to known where the 
 money will come from for an expanded public sector. The answer is simply: 
the  same place all money comes from: the feds and money markets. 
 

IV. 
 
The migration into Detroit is still overshadowed by flight. 
 
The upper strata of the working class drove the first wave of flight during 
 the late 1950? and 1960?s. The upper strata of the workers were white and 
thus  this flight was called ?white flight.? 
 
?Flight,? without exception is driven by economic expansion and 
contraction  as the workers flee to the most robust area of labor market activity.   
Flight from one area is migration to another. Today the flight from Detroit 
is  90% black and the migration into Detroit is 90% white. In yesteryear it 
was the  exact reverse. The flight into Detroit as an international 
dimension, with a  small community of ?European intellectuals? establishing 
residency in the  Downtown area and around Wayne State University.  Proletarian 
whites - walk  aways? from high mortgages, are giving the neighborhoods a new 
healthy feeling.  Ten years out Detroit could very well be 30% white and still 
solidly  proletariat. The flight of the upper strata of the working class 
is going to  make the future interesting. 
 
Another aspect of change is taking place in the city. With the collapse of  
the housing market, families are starting to move next door to one another 
in  clusters. These clusters are economic categories and the totality of 
this motion  of flight is recreating the texture of the working class. Capital 
is creating a  solid basis for material unity of economic sectors of the 
workers. 
 
It is time to quietly distribute our communist literature and not be drawn  
into attacking the ?ultra-right? as a strategy. We do not have to have the 
 answer to every question. We have to learn how to fight by fighting. Throw 
away  Lenin?s doctrine of combat. If we fight hard for the next decade we 
might be  able to learn how to describe the material class configuration and 
intersection  involved in the spontaneous motion of the working class and 
then pinpoint the  motion of the real proletariat. There is no basis for 
communist organizations to  find unity with any section of capital. A deep 
polarization is underway. A new  relationship exists but we tend to be stuck in 
describing things on the basis of  old formula. 
 
We are going to move into a very ugly period of the workers fighting  
themselves. This round will not be fought out on the basis of the color factor.  ?
Proletarian Unites? - without any regard to the color factor, is being 
erected  on a firm economic foundation. The old slogan of ?black and white unite 
and  fight? - a classless formation blurring a conception of class unity, 
has been  consigned to history. 
 
V. The City Council election was crazy. 
 
This primary election was to choose 18 people to run in the November  
general election. The November election is for 9 positions. I believe 166 people  
ran for 18 spots. I supported four candidates in the election, all of them  
unknowns, with my strongest support for my brother. The basis of my support 
was  a candidates attitude towards privatization. Basically, if you did not 
oppose  privatizing government there was no basis for us to talk or for my 
work in ones  campaign. 
 
Specifically, my brother got 4167 votes. The top voter getter was 59,000.  
Second place was 49,000. The low count for number 18 - the cut off point was 
 8000.  In other words the difference between position number 18 and 34 was 
 2000 votes. 
 
In Detroit, as everywhere, local City Council elections is about money and  
no vision.  That is to say, the right to award contracts and pay a layer of 
 the political middle all kinds of consultant fees. 
 
Interestingly, only amongst the new forming ?European intelligentsia? is  
there a vision of Detroit?s potential as a major world city.  A segment of  
this intelligentsia retains something of a old world proletarian 
orientation,  with strong preferences for the period of ?Black worker insurgency? and 
a deep  appreciation of the city as a music center. 
 
The city needs to be reorganized on the basis of block associations that  
express Detroit's proletarian impulses. Such organization is necessary to 
defeat  and contain a certain organized criminal element and to undercut the  
authority of the police power. Already there are large areas of  Detroit  
where the police do not regularly venture. Sooner or later the spontaneous  
impulse for organization is going to emerge as a survival mode of existence. 
 
Here in stark detail is revealed the utter bankruptcy of the majority  
sector of the black intelligentsia. 150,000 Chinese immigrants locating in  
Detroit would break the grip of the black intelligentsia, which have become to  
comfortable for anyone's good. 
 
Sambo in power exacerbates "the class struggle." 
 
Then again, I am always late with conclusions and generally wrong. We have  
to do the best we can and without a general staff. Still fighting to not be 
the  last one to arrive at the party.
 
Proletarians of the World Unite. 

WL. 
 
 
 
 


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug  7 12:57:09 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 14:57:09 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Detroit Election: notes.
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908071157y5fca9309qb4f13861a18a056a@mail.gmail.com>

III. The Detroit Election.

Detroit is a freaking mess.

A full report is warranted but I just have not made the time to do such and
 do not know if such report is appropriate for this open list. An election
is  extremely complex. Those sections of the proletariat needing the most
vote the  less. This means ones message has to be tailored to those who
actually vote.  Those who actually vote tend to be the better situated
sections of
the working  class. Because Detroit is so black real living issues are
polarized to the  extreme as class with very little to zero racially charged
literature.

"Can't blame white people" for shit . . . here.

^^^^^^^^
CB: From a historical and structural perspective, the "white power
structure" and racism are still the proximate cause of Detroit's mess.
 To take a symbolic exemplar, Detroit still suffers from the racist
Reaganite Engler's policy, ending the state welfare system, stealing
all the school board's money, setting up bloodsucking charter schools,
ending residency requirement for city workers, etc.  More
fundamentally the long term disinvestment in the city by white
controlled corporations, and now failure of major auto corps is at the
responsibility of white execs are  the main cause of the economic
depression in Detroit. Also, racist edged Reaganite drastic cuts in
the Great Society and New Deal,  federal housing and urban development
spending , and health, education and welfare spending.

On a specific, AIG's bankruptcy caused Detroit's bond rating to fall
because AIG insured it. So, now Detroit had to dedicate a revenue
stream more strictly to the Wall Street thieves. AIG on the other hand
was bailed out after fucking Detroit up,  Wall Street bond rating
companies and AIG are "white".


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Aug  7 12:57:45 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 14:57:45 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Henry Louis Gates Jr.arrest and things: notes.
Message-ID: <bff.640834dc.37add329@aol.com>

>> Racism discriminates against people on the grounds of race. Just  like 
it says on the packet. It can be as arbitrary in its choice of victim as it  
is systemic in its execution. And while it never works alone (but rather in  
cahoots with class, gender and a host of other rogue characters), it has  
political license to operate independently. 
 
It's a basic lesson at relatively low cost. And yet the arrest of  Harvard
professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home in Cambridge,  Massachusetts,
suggests we are doomed to keep repeating the lesson. Barack  Obama was right
when he referred to the arrest as a "teachable moment," but  given the
brouhaha that has followed, it seems that even a moment involving  the
nation's most prominent black intellectual teaches us nothing.  <<< 
 

Comment
 
There?s a old saying where I grew up. 
 
?There?s two kind of creatures that don?t live long in America. Dogs that  
chase cars and niggas fucking with the police.? 
 
I don?t chase cars or fuck with the police.  Gates damn near got an  ?
outdate.? Outdates are widely celebrated in Detroit and areas in America where  
the poorest of America?s proletarians are concentrated in large numbers. 
Outdate  is the date you got out of jail. 
 
In America its easier to catch a case than a cold. Such is the circumstance 
 of the most destitute and politically oppressed sections of our 
proletariat. 
 
Let?s examine what happened. A prominent professor - ?public intellectual,?
  gets arrested and has charges against him dropped. The incident is 
sparked by a  neighbor calling the police. The police - the laws, arrived to 
discover the  individual in question is ?breaking into their own home? because 
of a jammed  door or lost keys. The professor produces identity papers 
establishing residency  and a verbal squabble ensues. The professor demands badge 
numbers from the  police and apparently puts forth his personal ideology 
concerning the nature of  policing in America and ends up arrested on a 
flexible charge of battery. 
 
Let?s make the professor WHITE. 
 
See where this is going?  
 
Now this white professor happens to be married to a black women. Did the  
police notice the pictures of the white professor and his black wife sitting 
on  the mantle? What?s actually happening inside the home was not just the 
professor  establishing his residency, but the residency establishing that 
the professor  resided their through pictures of husband, wife and children. 
 
Testosterone levels rise and the complex body language between individuals  
undergo subtle shift. The professor understands the soundless communication 
of  body language; the shifting of weight that is the agitation before 
attack mode.  The intimidation is palpable. Professor with glasses shifts body 
weight and so  does the police. 
 
?You guys got what you want get the fuck out of my house.? 
 
?There?s nothing to look at here.? 
 
The laws pivot on their feet and lock eyes with professor glasses.   
Professor is 5?7 and the laws are all 6? and above. 
 
?Take it easy professor. We?re just doing our job and don?t have to put up 
 with your crap.? 
 
The laws grin sensing fear in the intellectual eyes of professor. In a  
nervous impulse professor wipes his glasses with his shirt. His heart rate  
increases with a deafening noise. The laws hear this accelerated heart beat and 
 lovin it. 
 
Professor going to jail. 
 
The charge: he used a bad word. 
 
II. One cannot speak of the color factor as American history in a rational  
manner. Insanity cannot be understood or articulated on the basis of 
sanity.  Every social problem cannot be resolved. Some things are dissolved by 
history,  like the peasant question and the fate of the small producer. 
Historical feces  cannot be fixed by politics. White supremacy cannot be resolved, 
only dissolved. 
 
History dissolves as resolution.  
 
Historical questions and issues are dissolved by human beings fighting for  
resolution. Liberal intellectuals deeply feel that politics and  
intellectual-political fiat and/or class outlook or correct political line, can  
resolve issues. 
 
Bullshit. 
 
Talk about faulty logic. 
 
Once social - human, phenomenon is set in motion it has to run its course.  
Social phenomenon as systematic class relations and economic systems, are  
subject to human assault and physical reshaping at two junctures; when 
leaping  between a quantitative boundary and/or a qualitative reformulation. When 
 something fundamental to a process change, or begins changing, then 
everything  dependent upon that which is fundamental must in turn change. Not all 
at one  time, but change must take place. Its that simple. The evolution of 
the color  factor in our history has passed through quantitative and 
qualitative  boundaries. The color factor in history begins with primitive 
accumulation of  capital. Reaches America as Indian slaughter and leaps to a new 
juncture with  the invention of Eli Whitney. Class becomes branded and 
crystallized as color. A  slave class.  Color becomes an index. Color is not a 
category of class or  economics.  Color as an index is the framework for 
application of the rules  of the game. 
 
The game is power politics and class rule. 
 
The Civil War frees the slaves and a new juncture is reached. Emancipation  
is cool. A mutherfuckers can now make some money and have a girlfriend 
without  the middle man sampling the product. In 1885 nobody knows the next 90 
years  going to be really fucked up. 
 
Reaction sets in in 1890?s. I guess the American workers did not have a  
class program. There was however, an ass program: ?asses and elbows.? The 
slave  class - the branding, becomes the sharecropping class. Some escape to 
the North. 
 
The Russian Revolution realigned politics planet wide and the color factor  
is placed under the rubric of the national and colonial factor. The shift 
takes  place in 1928 in the Comintern documents on the Negro Question. 1928 
was a big  year. The Comintern forcing the Negro Question documents on the 
American  communist would spilt the communist/socialist movement for the next 
91 years. 
 
Oh .. . Pardon, this history is usually told from the upside cloaked in  
denial deeper than the mythical Egyptian river of the same name. Let me get  
history right. 1928 unfolds as the year of the great depression and 
industrial  union conflict. A man without a job in heavy industry in the North does 
not need  a union. Classes cannot be united. Un-equals can never be united 
without  tremendous pressure that deepens and maintains the inequality. In 
this time  frame the blacks are sharecroppers in the main and the industrial 
proletarians  are white. The grand alliance called workers and peasant is 
rolled out like a  Ali?s carpet. 
 
Stop it. 
 
1939 introduces the tractor. 
 
The sharecropper as a class is liquidated from history. Not all at one  
time. The color factor evolves or rather, a new form of the class struggle  
unfolds inside all classes. . The Civil Rights Movement is underway. Civil  
Rights, Black Power and Black Workers Power. This is not called the class  
struggle by most. It is called the race struggle. Desegregation in its  
fundamentality is achieved. The year is 1987. The signpost is the 1987 UAW  
Contract. Home rule - extra-seniority rights to return to ones department, by  local 
plants is overthrown.  
 
Some use other signposts. From Montgomery, Alabama to 1963 Birmingham where 
 the workers engaged the state, to 67 Watts to Detroit and Newark of 
1967/68 to  Tampa Florida 1989. Then Rodney King entered history and the City of 
Angels  exploded. 
 
I?m like, ?Ok  . . . This another level.? 
 
At any rate the 1960s Voting Rights and Fair Housing Legislation is a  
signpost up to the period of the Denny?s Restaurant lawsuit. From a  
caste/class/color question to the class and color factor seems to be the  evolution. 
The police also evolved during this entire period. 
 
Y?all remember the mythical story about the hillbilly family feuds between  
with the Jones battling the McCoys, because somebody did not marry someone 
and  said the baby was not mine? The police evolved from flatfoots to armed 
men in  vehicles or the ?rolling Jones? then a direct subsidiary of the 
military.  Corporations built private armies and then next thing you have is 
professors  with glasses being handcuffed. 
 
The bourgeoisie and the police - the laws or state, or what is the same,  ?
the rolling Jones,? understands this process from their unique state of 
being  the state.  
 
We are not going to resolve the color factor by political fiat. Can?t  
happen no matter how many times one screams internationalism. Capital rest  
exclusively on wage labor in competition for work. - jobs. As one layer of  
workers are crushed down into another the lowest section of the proletariat  
becomes truly multinational. A layer of capitalist becomes truly multinational  
and divorced - suspended in mid air, from productive  capital. 
 
Antagonism supersedes contradiction. 
 
See the serf could not overthrow the nobility or the landed property  
relations. New class(es) had to form, birthed in antagonism with the existing  
system. The system is constituted as a primary property/class relations or 
class  contradiction stabilizing the system called feudalism.  New classes  
overthrew political feudalism. The advance of industry shattered, destabilized  
and led to the overthrow of the feudal system. As the overthrow unfolded  
political representatives of labor and capital fought to capture political  
authority. 
 
The signpost for our brave new world is the emergence of anti-property as a 
 multinational class of the dispossessed. 
 
Capital, property and wealth as a property form has to be overthrow to  
dissolve the color factor.  Capital is doing this as much as it can. We?ll  
finish the job. Demographic and economic shift makes such possible today. 
 
III. 
 
Henry Louis Gates Jr., understand this process as ?old school ?heir of the 
 Talented Tenth. Go rent the video ?Two Nations of Black America? narrated 
by  Gates. The front jacket reads: ?Explore the gaping chasm between upper 
and lower  classes of black America with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.? 
 
President Obama slipped, as his Presidential functioning collided with his  
function as representative of the state. Government and state are not the 
same.  When Obama called the arrest of Gates an act of stupidity, he spoke as 
President  or government official.  When he apologized it was as head of 
state. The  state is an organization of police violence. National security or 
Security  National my man. 
 
Obama?s slip does not mean he blurted out the unspeakable. Slipped as in  
standing on oil. Oil lubricates the interlocking gears of state and 
government  as these functions are expressed in one man. The state struck back 
swiftly  against government. This reminded me of Stalin?s Russia where state, 
government  and party were combined in one figure. 
 
?Nigga fuck you,? cried the state. ?I?m sorry, lets drink a beer,? roared 
 government. 
 
?You and the WHITE professor and black police officer need to chill the  
fuck out and sit down and drink a beer. Let the police do their job.? 
 
The state gets the last word in.  
 
See how nothing changed? 

After all, the large spaces in  America set aside for mass incarcerations 
are meant for the white proletarian  population, who would never agree to 
such programs in previous decades unless  they were repeatedly told the purpose 
is to house the blacks. 
 
See how nothing changed? 
 
The split between the police and great bulk of the proletarian masses is  
complete. All of society is experiencing the historic rupture. For reasons of 
 history this process ruptures first on the basis of the color factor. 
 

IV. 
 
Gates should not have been arrested. 
 
First intellectuals are drummed out of jobs - for faulty research, (Ward  
Churchill) and then arrested for disorderly conduct.  
 
Obama says this is a ?teachable moment.? 
 
Pardon, but I have a headache and not in the mood for another lesson. No  
more ?teachable moments? for me, thank you. 
 
Such moments tend to involve handcuffs, guns, blue uniforms and  
mutherfuckers over 6?tall wearing those size 13 round toed shoes. 
 
?A teachable moment.? 
 
OK. 
 
What have we learned? 
 
A little dude with glasses arrives home from China.  He was probably  
lecturing the Chinese in the intellectual and cultural protocols of being better  
capitalists than capitalist and other delicacies of implementing bourgeois  
democracy and freedom of thought. 
 
?Dare to be Bourgeois.? 
 
Gate?s teaches cultural heritage shit with all kinds of fancy descriptions  
of the historical significance of the ?signifying monkey.?  Dr. Du Bois -  
who went to China, probably had his name tossed about. 
 
Do you know why the monkey signify? His symbolic gestures betray his  
powerlessness.  The monkey can hurt you but he is after all a monkey. 
 
The teachable moment. 
 
Little guy with glasses cannot find his front door keys. He gets into the  
house after neighbor calls police to investigate a back door break in. The 
story  end with little guy in handcuffs. Members of the Communists Party of 
China or is  it still the Chinese Communist Party, see little guy on 
television with  handcuffs on. Then Obama appears protesting little guy?s arrest and 
the members  of the CCP says, ?maybe things are getting better in America. 
After all the  President spoke up for the black guy.? 
 
Insanity cannot be explained on the basis of sanity. 
 
Do the teachable moment ever end and one graduates from this school?   
Remember the movie ?Groundhog Day,? where dude keep waking up to the same day? 
 

V.
 
America has in fact changed without changing the property relations Let?s  
locate this event in Detroit outside the isolated island neighborhoods of  
prosperity. 
 
You call the police and say, ?I believe someone is breaking into the house  
next door. They are trying to push the back door in.? 
 
You wait for the police to arrive. After three months you stop waiting. The 
 police do not show up over a house break-in in that growing area of 
America that  are its proletarian slums and bums. The police show up in nice 
neighborhoods.  Other than that, the laws ride the large boulevards, regulating 
the legal,  illegal and extra-legal exchange of commodities. 
 
The same thing happens when the police ask you to pull your car over. That  
is to say, the police don?t just pull over people in Detroit, unless there 
are  10 squad cars and a SWAT team. See, the young boyz have got out of hand 
and 80%  of them have ?outdates.? When pulled over, it is understood that 
the strategic  design is to be the last one to die.  
 
VI. 
 
Gates is starting to look like a Sambo intellectual. 
 
Sambo was the slave that beat Uncle Tom to death in the novel ?Uncle Tom?s 
 Cabin.?  This is not to suggest Henry Louis Gates Jr. should have been  
handcuffed or arrested. 
 
Society moves in class antagonism. 
 
In the blink of an eye Obama has crystallized the new period.  
 
Let's drink a beer. 
 
Miller time. 
 
WL. 
 
 
 
 


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug  7 13:13:30 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 15:13:30 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908071213o79738e0ew4cfc0fdb2ce24856@mail.gmail.com>

 "farmelantj at juno.com"


"Above all, I found much of *Lire Capital* critically vague. It
is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its
insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never
caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism
behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged
with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences
for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and
where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement,
to be one, must be hard to comprehend."

Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the
very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had
rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which
the young Jerry Cohen seems to have imbibed along with his
mother's milk, having been born and raised within
the milieu of the Canadian CP.

^^^^
CB: Seems likely that the Canadian CP's materialism was dialectical,
not mechanical. Stages of history or mode of production analysis
denigratingly labelled "stagist" seems to be a Trotskyist theoretical
shortcoming.

Also, history in the Soviet Union and China seem to lend support to a
more "stagist" interpretation of the world movement to socialism.

Perhaps this means Cohen's work is supported by these real history ,
real world developments.

^^^^^^^

 Cohen, himself, years
later, came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical
materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the
problem laid with historical materialism in general rather
than with the specific variety of historical materialism
that he had embraced.

^^^^^
CB: Real history is looking more "stagist" , actually.

^^^^

Jim Farmelant
---------- Original Message ----------
From: jkschw1 at yahoo.com
To: "marxist philosophy" <marxistphilosophy at yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:57:20 +0000

Unless I missed it the death the other day of Jerry Cohen attracted no
comment on a list devoted to Marxist philosophy. I know that as first
a founder of analytical Marxism, then as a refugee from Marxism to
liberal egalitarianism, he was not favored among the participants
here. But IMHO he was one of the most influential and important
Marxist thinkers of the latter half of the 20th century, and his
legacy requires comment.

Not much time here but I will note a few thoughts;

- In the context of a sharp decline in the quantity and quality of
Marxist theory, Cohen and the AMs stood for the disconnection of
theory from practice, the entrenchment of Marxism as another academic
exercise. In some ways this was not their fault giving the collapse of
Marxism as a movement and a force in the world.

- Cohen helped bring a level of rigor and precision in Marxist
thinking that had been sorely lacking for a very long time. If it's
complained that his work lacked popular accessibility, what are we to
say about Adorno, a favorite here who gets wide discussion?

- Cohen's major work on Karl Marx's Theory Of History is very
valuable, but went down the wrong track in reviving a stagist,
mechanical, primacy of the productive forces 2d Internat'l conception
of historical materialism. (Possibly due in part to his roots in the
Canadian CP.)

 True, Marx gave that view a lot of space, but Cohen almost totally
neglected Marx's alternative class struggle view, which I think is
more true and valuable and gets no less, arguably more, space. Brenner
is far better on this (and no less rigorous).

- Cohen's turn to traditional style moral philosophy as important,
first as a complement to his idea of historical materialism, then as a
replacement for Marxism and materialist analysis, was a major
retrogression. No doubt there is more ethics in Marx and Marxism than
Marx cared to admit, but Marx pointed the way in integrating these
into materialist analysis.

Cohen's own positive ethical views were, moreover, disappointingly
primitive and underdeveloped. See his awful Egalitarianism book, but
also earlier papers on exploitation and his paper critiquing value
theory -- a real train wreck. And I don't accept value theory myself!
I haven't carefully read the last book in Rawls.

Btw in that book Cohen lists as the big three books on political
philosophy Rawls' A Theory of Justice, Hobbes' Leviathan, and Plato's
Republic. Marx's Capital doesn't make his cut. Given Cohen's a priori
turn to liberal morality, Marx might be happy to be left out.

- Cohen was nonetheless a major influence, one of the few really
original thinkers in late 20th century Marxism, along with perhaps
Althusser -- who, it might argued, paralleled him in a French sort of
way. The people we tend to discuss, Marx, the Western Marxists, all
had their roots and did much or all of their important work before
1950.

It says something about the state of Marxism that Cohen and Althusser
are among the giants of postwar Marxism.

More later.

Justin

------------------------------------


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Aug  7 13:15:17 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 15:15:17 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Detroit Election: notes. part 1 & 2
Message-ID: <c21.53d11566.37add745@aol.com>

Thanks for the report. 
 
It is interesting it comes on the heels of a discussion of German fascism  .

?We communist are a drop in a bucket? Lenin would remind comrades whose  
sense of proportions outran reality. Not a drop in a coffee cup, but a damn  
bucket. At this meeting you were the drop. Your safety is very important and 
it  is good that you declined to engage in a shouting match. The only thing 
 communists have to prove is our ability to make contacts, recruitments, 
create  literature distribution networks and bringing together small circles 
of  combatants to protect ones neighborhoods and popularize issues. 
 
Your report quoted from a fascist newspaper: 
 
II. 
 
>> From a newspaper distributed tonight I found this bit of strategic  
vision from the organizers: 
 
Target: A self-serving, self-
perpetuating political class
that no  longer represents the will of the people. << 
 
Comment 
 
The fascist are pretty clear and leveling their attack mode against the  
political middle. The political middle is an economic/political formation.  
Specifically, this economic/political formation sits at the base of the Obama  
victory. More exactly, a layer of the working class swung to Obama is being 
 targeted. 
 
The intersection of class interest is being targeted to be shattered, as  
the key to a fascist transition. As surely as a section of conservative 
workers  were swung to Obama they can be swung to the fascist. 
 
How we cope with this is the stuff of the real class struggle. 
 
The ideological attack was indicated in your report. 
 
>>When I told her I had served during two eras of war and was  eligible 
for comprehensive government paid health 
care through the VA  she told me that 
socialism was okay for veterans. << 
 
Comment 
 
Socialism - the government footing the bill for healthcare rather than the  
individual or their employer, is alright for the military but not the 
lowest  section of the proletariat. The ?aged? get Medicare and a narrow section 
of the  proletariat outside the labor market - primarily women and 
children, get  Medicaid. 
 
In my opinion the reason literature today is ?racially? tinged - rather  
than outright white chauvinism, is the evolution of the color factor and 
America  40 years into desegregation. Racially tinged means isolating the most 
poverty  stricken of the proletariat, without openly speaking of blacks and 
browns ?as  the problem? because a huge majority section of this poverty 
stricken mass are  white. 
 
I am of the opinion - (at this writing and it is subject to change because  
I do not know enough), that we should under no conditions engage the  ?
ultra-right? or level our attack against them. Our approach has to be defense  
of the most poverty stricken of the proletarian masses and their needs. The  
middle will speak for itself and take care of themselves. 
 
A little over six months ago the ?political middle? - (expressed in the  
union bureaucracy and the ?political class?) at the rally in Lansing 
Michigan,  was attacking our ass because we dared to speak of health care outside 
the  bounds of the Obama administration. Apparently, the subtle shift was 
allowing us  to openly distribute our literature so as to pull us into a direct 
confrontation  with the ?ultra right.? 
 
The road to Rome is through the political middle, carrying the voice and  
demands of the most poverty stricken and not attacking the ?ultra right, 
because  the "political middle" stands in our way and are the political and 
social prop  of capital. 
 
The fringe groups are fighting to capture the loyalty of the political  
middle by attacking its leaders. My thinking at this time is to treat the  
politically middle and better situated workers the same way Lenin looked at the  
peasants as a class: to swing them to the side of the real proletariat, 
rather  than viewing the best paid workers in unions as the vanguard of the 
social  revolution of the proletariat. This is not to say we ignore these 
workers.  Rather, we have to face things in their concreteness. 
 
For instance the majority of the UAW is retired workers! We face a hell of  
a new fight as majority shut out of production. We are compelled to gyrate 
in  harmony with the lowest section of the proletariat shut out of 
production. No  way could I see this coming or fore tell such an alignment three 
years ago, much  less a decade or two ago. A huge struggle within the union by 
retired workers is  brewing. 
 
I do not have a clue what is going to happen because this struggle is  
outside the traditional bound of employer-employee. I do know the company is  
going to try and detach us from it as legacy cost. 
 
A new era is wide open. 
 
The best and most effective way to respond is to begin building our forces  
and distributing communist literature to individuals. 
 
Again I use Rally Comrades and the People's Tribune because they are devoid 
 of all that ideological crap. 
 
III. The Detroit Election. 
 
 


From farmelantj at juno.com  Fri Aug  7 13:29:32 2009
From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 19:29:32 GMT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
Message-ID: <20090807.152932.5895.2@webmail23.vgs.untd.com>


CB wrote: 
---------------------
Seems likely that the Canadian CP's materialism was dialectical,
not mechanical. Stages of history or mode of production analysis
denigratingly labelled "stagist" seems to be a Trotskyist theoretical
shortcoming.

Also, history in the Soviet Union and China seem to lend support to a
more "stagist" interpretation of the world movement to socialism.

Perhaps this means Cohen's work is supported by these real history ,
real world developments.

------------------------


Yes, that was pretty much Jerry Cohen's take on
the implications concerning the fall of the 
Soviet Union.  When he issued his revised
edition of KMTH in 2000, he appended a
chapter on the collapse of the Soviet bloc
in which he made the following observations:


=======================
What is the significance for Marxists, of the failure of the socialist
project in what was the Soviet Union? And what is the significance, for
socialists, of the failure of that project? I separate the two questions
not merely for the formal reason that 'Marxists' and 'socialists' designate
(overlapping but nevertheless) distinct categories, but also for the
substantial reason that the significance of the Soviet failure is, in my
view, very different for the two cases. For reasons to be explained below,
the Soviet failure can be regarded as a triumph for Marxism: a Soviet
success might have embarassed key propositions of historical materialism,
which is the Marxist theory of history. But no one could think that the
Soviet failure represents a triumph for socialism. A SOviet success would
have been unambigously good for socialism.

I treat, here, the significance of the Soviet failure for Marxism. Now, as
I said, had the Soviet Union succeeded in building socialism, that might
have embarassed historical materialism. It might, in particular, have posed
a serious challenge to the central claims of historical materialism:

(1) 'No social formation ever perishes before all the productive forces for
which there is room for it have developed . . .'

(2) 'and new higher relations of production never apppear before . . .
[they] have matured in the womb of the old society itself.'

It follows from the passage on exhibit that a capitalist society does not
give way to a socialist one until capitalism is fully developed in that
society, and that socialism does not take over from capitalism until the
higher relations which characterize socialism have matured within the
antecedent capitalist society itself. But what, precisely, is imposed by
the requirement that relations constitutive of the future socialist society
must mature under capitalism? A complete answer to that question might be
difficult to supply, but whatever else is required for such relations to
have matured within capitalism, thre surely must exist, for such relations
to have matured, a large proletariat within the capitalist society in
question: it must be false that the great bulk of 'immediate producers' are
peasants, rather than industrial wage-workers.

Now against the background of the two exhibited historical materialist
theses, I want to discuss a criticism of historical materialism which is
often made by anti-Marxists. I draw attention to this criticism because I
believe it to be instructively incorrect.

The criticism is that, whereas Marx predicted that socialist revolution
would first break out in advanced capitalist countries, it in fact occurred
first in a relatively backward one, one so backward that one might refuse
to call it a capitalist country. And this predictive failure was not just
of the man Karl Marx himself, but of historical materialis, because of its
commitment to theses (1) and (2) above. For here was a socialist revolution
in an incompletely capitalist country in which further development of the
productive forces , under a capitalist aegis, was surely possible (so that
(1) stands falsified), and in a country which had not generated much of a
proletariat (so that (2) also stands falsified).

Before indicating why I think that this criticism is misguided, I should
address a standard reply to it, in defence of (2), which I think unsound.
The standard reply, against the charge that the 1917 revolution occurred
without the existence of a developed proletariat, and, therefore, in
contradiction of (2) above, is that there was a highly developed and
concentrated proletariat in the huge factories of Petrograd itself, where
the leading revolutionary events occurred, and where power was seized. But,
while an ample local proletariat may help to explain, and may have even
been crucial to, Bolshevik political success, theorem (2) is, in my view,
supposed to be true not because of the exigencies of politics but because
of what a socialist form of economy requires for viability. So this way of
protecting (2) against the threat posed to it by the Russian revolution fails.

Despite the failure of the 'Petrograd proletariat' gambit, I do not think
that the 1917 revolution falsified thesis (2). The reason why I think that
it does not is that it would do so only if what occurred in 1917 was indeed
a socialist revolution, one which by definition, ushered in a truly
socialist society, in which class division is abolished under the rule of
the associated producers themselves. I do not believe that Soviet society
had such a socialist character: it was not ruled by the associated
producers, but by the leaders, and sometimes just by the leader, of the
Bolshevik Party. Indeed, those who criticize historical materialism in the
stated fashion would be the last to grant that the 1917 revolution
succeeded in establishing what Marxists would regard as a truly socialist
society: they should therefore be the last to lodge the criticism of
historical materialism that they do lodge. (They may think that the Russian
revolution produced the only sort of 'socialism' that is possible, but they
should not (as they do) expect others, who may not agree with that further
claim, to accept that the Russian revolution falsified (2).)

In a word , the 1917 revolution and its aftermath offer no difficulty for
proposition (2), since appropriately higher relations of production did not
supervene. But, all the same, the Russian revolution might still be thought
to refute proposition (1), the principle that no social order ever perishes
before all the development for which it supplies romm has been completed,
for capitalism, surely showed room for fuller development in Russia in
1917. Thus, someone might say, the problem the 1917 revolution poses for
historical materialism is not that it causes socialism to succeed
prematurely but that it caused capitalism to fail prematurely.

But I believe that that judgement is also ill-considered. For historical
materialism does allow for the possibility of a premature revolution
against capitalism, provided that it is not successful in the medium or
long run. Only because historical materialism does allow for such a thing
could Marx have warned, in the *German Ideology*, that, if there were an
attempt to install socialism on the basis of an incomplete development of
the productive forces, then 'all the old filthy business' 'would begin again.'

Now, I am confident that the Russia of 1917 was indeed charactrized by an
incomplete development of the productive forces, in the sense Marx
intended: he undoubtedly thought, in the early 1880s, that Russia was very
backward, and I am sure that he would still have thought it backward, and I
am sure that he would still have thought it backward (if not very backward)
in 1917. Accordingly, under a reasonable interpretation (which I shall
presently give) of the aforequoted *German Ideology* passage, the
restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union confrims the truth of that
passage in particular and of historical materialism in general: the
restoration shows that no social order perished here before all of its
possibilities of productive development were exhausted. Capitalism receded,
but receding, temporarily, is not the same thing as perishing.

The reasonable interpretation of the *German Ideology* passage that I have
in mind says, first, that Marx did not think that competition and
capitalism would necessarily 'begin again' immdediately: seventy years is
the batting of an eyelid, world-historically speaking. And the reasonable
interpretation adds, for good measure, that the rigours and death and
mismangement of the seventy post-revolutionary years might themselves be
regarded as illustrating the 'filthy business' that Marx predicted (whether
or not we eccentrically interpret Soviet society as itself a peculiar form
of capitalism, as some twentieth-century Marxist sectshave done).

In sum, the standard use of the Soviet case in criticism of (2)requires
affirmation that the 1917 revolution established as socialist society,
which is not true, and which is hardly considered to be true, in the
appropriate sense, by makers of the standard criticism. And the standard
Soviet- experienced-based criticism of (1) works only under a crude
conception of historical materialism's implication which ignore the
reasonable interpretation just ventured of an important, and entirely
representative, *German Ideology* passage. So, as far as anything raised
thus far shows, the Russian revolution does not embarass the relevent
historical materialist theses.

But there is a further point to be made here. As is quite well known, Marx
was consulted in the 1880s by Russian socialists who asked him whether he
did not think that Russia could pass from its semi-feudal and merely
nascent capitalist condition directly to communism, without undergoing the
rigour of a full capitalist development. In order to answer that question,
Marx learned the Russian language, so that he could study Russia's history
and circumstances. And his answer to the question that the Russians put to
him was very interesting: 'If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for
a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other,
the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the
starting-point for a communist development.'

Now, how does that sit with the requirements of historical materialism, and
in particular with theses (1) and (2)? I believe that, as long as (1) and
(2) are taken to be true for each society separately, then Marx's advice
was heresy. But that very advice suggests a global construal of historical
materialism in which claims such as (1) and (2) are asserted not of each
society taken singularly but of world-scale or at least multi-national
social systems. (If Marx had meant that revolution in the West was no more
than just politically or militarily required, then his answer to the
socialists does not require this construal, but I think that he thought
that socialist success in Russia needed Western cooperation for more deeply
systemic reasons).

Now was Marx's advice to the Russians heresy, if we interpret (1) and (2)
in the suggested global fashion? That is a matter of judgement, and all I
can do here is to set out my own. It is that, taken globally, (2) would be
consistent with Marx's advice, but that (1) would not be. (2) would be
consistent because the proletariat was sufficiently developed across Europe
as whole for new, higher relations to count as having matured, in a global
sense, within that region. But (1) would still contradict Marx's advice,
since as history shows, there was enormous scope for further development
under capitalism in Europe when Marx wrote his remarks. Whatever globalism
does for (2), in the face of the challenge to it posed by the Russian
revolution - and you may disagree with my judgement that it helps (2) a lot
- it makes (1), if anything, more difficult to defend, in the face of that
challenge.

Lenin was, of course, an erudite student of Marx, and he did not imagine
that the 1917 Russian Revolution would stand alone and succeed. He thought
that it would succeed, but only because he thought that there would be the
responsive workers' revolution in the West that Marx laid down as a
requirement of a Russian success: the needed support from afar would be
forthcoming. As a Marxist, Lenin was committed to believing that, in the
absence of that desired response, socialism in Russia was doomed, and, in
due course, he expressed despair over Western proletarian failure and
inaction. The true heresy was not Lenin's making of the 1917 revolution,
for he made it with appropriately orthodox hopes, but Stalin's proclamation
of 'socialism in one country,' because that had to mean socialism in one
backward country, and such as prospectus contradicts historical materialism
on any construal of its central theses. (I do not thereby commit myself to
Trotskyism, but perhaps I do commit myself to the view that one must choose
between denial of key historical materialist theses and affirmation of some
Trotskyist ones).

If the Soviet Union had succeeded in building an attractive socialism, then
that would have been wonderful for socialism and for humanity, but bad for
the credibility of historical materialism. Of course, since human beings
are the sorts of creatures that, fortunately or unfortunately, they are,
they might have been more willing to believe historical materialism had the
Soviet Union succeeded. But by 'credibility', here, I mean what it could be
rational to believe, so the stated infirmity of human nature does not
affect what I have said.

=======================






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From phil at pwalden.fsnet.co.uk  Fri Aug  7 13:48:01 2009
From: phil at pwalden.fsnet.co.uk (Phil Walden)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 20:48:01 +0100
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
In-Reply-To: <20090807.141405.5895.1@webmail23.vgs.untd.com>
Message-ID: <20090807194803.PAMZ13254.aamtaout01-winn.ispmail.ntl.com@pwalden>

I live in Oxford and clashed with G. A. Cohen at seminars at which I tried
to persuade him to take Hegel's dialectics and Marx's dialectics seriously.
In particular, Hegel's Science of Logic was a completely closed book to
Cohen because for reasons of professional advantage, Cohen adopted the
British Professional Philosopher view of Bertrand Russell etc. that Hegel's
logic is simply irrational. This was always just stated as an assertion, or
with a 'clever' Oxford academic 'joke', without any thought of having a real
engagement with Hegel's Logic. My efforts, at least as far as Cohen were
concerned, were completely forlorn, I think because his background in the
Canadian CP had corroded and fixed his mind and intellect to the extent that
he could not grasp Hegel's dialectics or Marx's dialectics, and he took
refuge in analytical 'Marxism' and abstract moral 'theory'. His always
arrogant dismissal of dialectics did, I think, do some and probably all of
his students a lot of damage. He was, of course, rigorous, in an analytical
philosophical kind of way, but at the level of imagination he was very
limited. Ralph Dumain would have absolutely knocked spots off him, given
Ralph's wide reading and relatively undogmatic approach. Look at 'Analytical
Marxism' now. It has utterly disintegrated. That is partly because it never
had any connection with Marx's thought, although it tried, through
linguistic tricks, to claim that it did have something to do with Marx. Ask
yourself the question: what are the positive proposals of 'Analytical
Marxism' for how society should be in the future....an individualistic
'utopia' in which there is a strategic denial that the fundamental
contradiction in human society is that between capital and labour.

Phil Walden

  

-----Original Message-----
From: marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu
[mailto:marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of
farmelantj at juno.com
Sent: 07 August 2009 19:14
To: marxistphilosophy at yahoogroups.com
Cc: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home



Well on Marxmail I had posted
the following in response to
another poster, who had drawn
a comparison between Cohen and
Althusser.

-------------------
I suspect that Jerry Cohen would
not have minded if people took
note of his passing by debating
the merits of his works.

Actually, I find his reading
of Marx to have been closer
to the readings that were 
provided by such Second
International Marxists like
Kautsky and Plekhanov. 
I believe that
somewhere in KMTH he makes
such an acknowledgement.
But yet he did seem to have
to come to such a reading by way
of Althusser, even though
he rejected Althusserianism.

G.A. Cohen discussed Althusser
in his foreword to KMTH. There,
after detailing some of the
positive contributions of the 
Althusserians to Marxism
(which for Cohen included the re-emphasis 
on Marx's more mature writings like 
*Capital* rather than the earlier
writings like the *1844 Manuscripts* 
and the attention that
Althusser and his followers paid to 
historical materialism) then
proceeded to note what he regarded 
as some of their more negative attributes.

Writing thus:

"Above all, I found much of *Lire Capital* critically vague. It
is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its
insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never
caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism
behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged
with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences
for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and
where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement,
to be one, must be hard to comprehend."

Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the
very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had
rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which
the young Jerry Cohen seems to have imbibed along with his
mother's milk, having been born and raised within
the milieu of the Canadian CP. Cohen, himself, years
later, came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical
materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the
problem laid with historical materialism in general rather
than with the specific variety of historical materialism
that he had embraced.

Jim Farmelant
---------- Original Message ----------
From: jkschw1 at yahoo.com
To: "marxist philosophy" <marxistphilosophy at yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:57:20 +0000

Unless I missed it the death the other day of Jerry Cohen attracted no
comment on a list devoted to Marxist philosophy. I know that as first a
founder of analytical Marxism, then as a refugee from Marxism to liberal
egalitarianism, he was not favored among the participants here. But IMHO he
was one of the most influential and important Marxist thinkers of the latter
half of the 20th century, and his legacy requires comment.

Not much time here but I will note a few thoughts;

- In the context of a sharp decline in the quantity and quality of Marxist
theory, Cohen and the AMs stood for the disconnection of theory from
practice, the entrenchment of Marxism as another academic exercise. In some
ways this was not their fault giving the collapse of Marxism as a movement
and a force in the world.

- Cohen helped bring a level of rigor and precision in Marxist thinking that
had been sorely lacking for a very long time. If it's complained that his
work lacked popular accessibility, what are we to say about Adorno, a
favorite here who gets wide discussion?

- Cohen's major work on Karl Marx's Theory Of History is very valuable, but
went down the wrong track in reviving a stagist, mechanical, primacy of the
productive forces 2d Internat'l conception of historical materialism.
(Possibly due in part to his roots in the Canadian CP.)

 True, Marx gave that view a lot of space, but Cohen almost totally
neglected Marx's alternative class struggle view, which I think is more true
and valuable and gets no less, arguably more, space. Brenner is far better
on this (and no less rigorous).

- Cohen's turn to traditional style moral philosophy as important, first as
a complement to his idea of historical materialism, then as a replacement
for Marxism and materialist analysis, was a major retrogression. No doubt
there is more ethics in Marx and Marxism than Marx cared to admit, but Marx
pointed the way in integrating these into materialist analysis. 

Cohen's own positive ethical views were, moreover, disappointingly primitive
and underdeveloped. See his awful Egalitarianism book, but also earlier
papers on exploitation and his paper critiquing value theory -- a real train
wreck. And I don't accept value theory myself! I haven't carefully read the
last book in Rawls.

Btw in that book Cohen lists as the big three books on political philosophy
Rawls' A Theory of Justice, Hobbes' Leviathan, and Plato's Republic. Marx's
Capital doesn't make his cut. Given Cohen's a priori turn to liberal
morality, Marx might be happy to be left out. 

- Cohen was nonetheless a major influence, one of the few really original
thinkers in late 20th century Marxism, along with perhaps Althusser -- who,
it might argued, paralleled him in a French sort of way. The people we tend
to discuss, Marx, the Western Marxists, all had their roots and did much or
all of their important work before 1950. 

It says something about the state of Marxism that Cohen and Althusser are
among the giants of postwar Marxism.

More later.

Justin

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From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug  7 14:24:05 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 16:24:05 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
In-Reply-To: <20090807194803.PAMZ13254.aamtaout01-winn.ispmail.ntl.com@pwalden>
References: <20090807.141405.5895.1@webmail23.vgs.untd.com>
	<20090807194803.PAMZ13254.aamtaout01-winn.ispmail.ntl.com@pwalden>
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908071324i72010a75of6e9ee74a6eb32ed@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/7/09, Phil Walden <phil at pwalden.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> I live in Oxford and clashed with G. A. Cohen at seminars at which I tried
> to persuade him to take Hegel's dialectics and Marx's dialectics seriously.
> In particular, Hegel's Science of Logic was a completely closed book to
> Cohen because for reasons of professional advantage, Cohen adopted the
> British Professional Philosopher view of Bertrand Russell etc. that Hegel's
> logic is simply irrational. This was always just stated as an assertion, or
> with a 'clever' Oxford academic 'joke', without any thought of having a real
> engagement with Hegel's Logic. My efforts, at least as far as Cohen were
> concerned, were completely forlorn, I think because his background in the
> Canadian CP had corroded and fixed his mind and intellect to the extent that
> he could not grasp Hegel's dialectics or Marx's dialectics, and he took
> refuge in analytical 'Marxism' and abstract moral 'theory'.

^^^^^
CB: Maybe there's a dialectical contradiction here (smile_, but CP's
teach dialectics, Hegelian and Marxist.   See for example , Lenin's
essay on Karl Marx or Engels' _Ludwig Feuerbach_ or  _Anti-Duhring_
very much featured in CP teaching in this area. _The Manifesto of the
Communist Party_ is informed by dialectics.

It seems very unlikely that Cohen'a dismissal of dialectics came from
following any example of the Canadian CP

^^^^^

His always
> arrogant dismissal of dialectics did, I think, do some and probably all of
> his students a lot of damage. He was, of course, rigorous, in an analytical
> philosophical kind of way, but at the level of imagination he was very
> limited. Ralph Dumain would have absolutely knocked spots off him, given
> Ralph's wide reading and relatively undogmatic approach. Look at 'Analytical
> Marxism' now. It has utterly disintegrated. That is partly because it never
> had any connection with Marx's thought, although it tried, through
> linguistic tricks, to claim that it did have something to do with Marx. Ask
> yourself the question: what are the positive proposals of 'Analytical
> Marxism' for how society should be in the future....an individualistic
> 'utopia' in which there is a strategic denial that the fundamental
> contradiction in human society is that between capital and labour.
>
> Phil Walden
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu
> [mailto:marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of
> farmelantj at juno.com
> Sent: 07 August 2009 19:14
> To: marxistphilosophy at yahoogroups.com
> Cc: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu
> Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
>
>
>
> Well on Marxmail I had posted
> the following in response to
> another poster, who had drawn
> a comparison between Cohen and
> Althusser.
>
> -------------------
> I suspect that Jerry Cohen would
> not have minded if people took
> note of his passing by debating
> the merits of his works.
>
> Actually, I find his reading
> of Marx to have been closer
> to the readings that were
> provided by such Second
> International Marxists like
> Kautsky and Plekhanov.
> I believe that
> somewhere in KMTH he makes
> such an acknowledgement.
> But yet he did seem to have
> to come to such a reading by way
> of Althusser, even though
> he rejected Althusserianism.
>
> G.A. Cohen discussed Althusser
> in his foreword to KMTH. There,
> after detailing some of the
> positive contributions of the
> Althusserians to Marxism
> (which for Cohen included the re-emphasis
> on Marx's more mature writings like
> *Capital* rather than the earlier
> writings like the *1844 Manuscripts*
> and the attention that
> Althusser and his followers paid to
> historical materialism) then
> proceeded to note what he regarded
> as some of their more negative attributes.
>
> Writing thus:
>
> "Above all, I found much of *Lire Capital* critically vague. It
> is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its
> insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never
> caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism
> behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged
> with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences
> for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and
> where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement,
> to be one, must be hard to comprehend."
>
> Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the
> very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had
> rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which
> the young Jerry Cohen seems to have imbibed along with his
> mother's milk, having been born and raised within
> the milieu of the Canadian CP. Cohen, himself, years
> later, came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical
> materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the
> problem laid with historical materialism in general rather
> than with the specific variety of historical materialism
> that he had embraced.
>
> Jim Farmelant
> ---------- Original Message ----------
> From: jkschw1 at yahoo.com
> To: "marxist philosophy" <marxistphilosophy at yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:57:20 +0000
>
> Unless I missed it the death the other day of Jerry Cohen attracted no
> comment on a list devoted to Marxist philosophy. I know that as first a
> founder of analytical Marxism, then as a refugee from Marxism to liberal
> egalitarianism, he was not favored among the participants here. But IMHO he
> was one of the most influential and important Marxist thinkers of the latter
> half of the 20th century, and his legacy requires comment.
>
> Not much time here but I will note a few thoughts;
>
> - In the context of a sharp decline in the quantity and quality of Marxist
> theory, Cohen and the AMs stood for the disconnection of theory from
> practice, the entrenchment of Marxism as another academic exercise. In some
> ways this was not their fault giving the collapse of Marxism as a movement
> and a force in the world.
>
> - Cohen helped bring a level of rigor and precision in Marxist thinking that
> had been sorely lacking for a very long time. If it's complained that his
> work lacked popular accessibility, what are we to say about Adorno, a
> favorite here who gets wide discussion?
>
> - Cohen's major work on Karl Marx's Theory Of History is very valuable, but
> went down the wrong track in reviving a stagist, mechanical, primacy of the
> productive forces 2d Internat'l conception of historical materialism.
> (Possibly due in part to his roots in the Canadian CP.)
>
>  True, Marx gave that view a lot of space, but Cohen almost totally
> neglected Marx's alternative class struggle view, which I think is more true
> and valuable and gets no less, arguably more, space. Brenner is far better
> on this (and no less rigorous).
>
> - Cohen's turn to traditional style moral philosophy as important, first as
> a complement to his idea of historical materialism, then as a replacement
> for Marxism and materialist analysis, was a major retrogression. No doubt
> there is more ethics in Marx and Marxism than Marx cared to admit, but Marx
> pointed the way in integrating these into materialist analysis.
>
> Cohen's own positive ethical views were, moreover, disappointingly primitive
> and underdeveloped. See his awful Egalitarianism book, but also earlier
> papers on exploitation and his paper critiquing value theory -- a real train
> wreck. And I don't accept value theory myself! I haven't carefully read the
> last book in Rawls.
>
> Btw in that book Cohen lists as the big three books on political philosophy
> Rawls' A Theory of Justice, Hobbes' Leviathan, and Plato's Republic. Marx's
> Capital doesn't make his cut. Given Cohen's a priori turn to liberal
> morality, Marx might be happy to be left out.
>
> - Cohen was nonetheless a major influence, one of the few really original
> thinkers in late 20th century Marxism, along with perhaps Althusser -- who,
> it might argued, paralleled him in a French sort of way. The people we tend
> to discuss, Marx, the Western Marxists, all had their roots and did much or
> all of their important work before 1950.
>
> It says something about the state of Marxism that Cohen and Althusser are
> among the giants of postwar Marxism.
>
> More later.
>
> Justin
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
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From dogangoecmen at aol.com  Fri Aug  7 16:02:43 2009
From: dogangoecmen at aol.com (=?utf-8?Q?DG=C3=B6=C3=A7men?=)
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:02:43 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Heidegger and Nazism
Message-ID: <8CBE5C1EC42D495-152C-29C1@FWM-M27.sysops.aol.com>


Heidegger

The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy, in Light of the Unpublished Seminars of 1933-1935

        
    


            Emmanuel Faye; Translated by Michael B. Smith; Foreword by Tom Rockmore     
        



        



            
            
                
            
            
                
                    
                
            
                
                    
                            
            
                
                    
                
                        
        


    

        

    
    
        

In
the most comprehensive examination to date of Heidegger?s Nazism,
Emmanuel Faye draws on previously unavailable materials to paint a
damning picture of Nazism?s influence on the philosopher?s thought and
politics.

?

In
this provocative book, Faye uses excerpts from unpublished seminars to
show that Heidegger?s philosophical writings are fatally compromised by
an adherence to National Socialist ideas. In other documents, Faye
finds expressions of racism and exterminatory anti-Semitism.

?

Faye
disputes the view of Heidegger as a na?ve, temporarily disoriented
academician and instead shows him to have been a self-appointed
?spiritual guide? for Nazism whose intentionality was clear. Contrary
to what some have written, Heidegger?s Nazism became even more radical
after 1935, as Faye demonstrates. He revisits Heidegger?s masterwork, Being and Time,
and concludes that in it Heidegger does not present a philosophy of
individual existence but rather a doctrine of radical self-sacrifice,
where individualization is allowed=2
0only for the purpose of heroism in
warfare. Faye?s book was highly controversial when originally published
in France in 2005. Now available in Michael B. Smith?s fluid English
translation, it is bound to awaken controversy in the English-speaking
world.

    
    
    
Emmanuel Faye
is associate?professor at the University Paris Ouest?Nanterre La
D?fense and an authority on Descartes. He lives in Paris. Michael B.
Smith is professor emeritus of French and philosophy at Berry College
and the translator of numerous philosophical works into English. He
lives in Riverdale, NY.

 


D.G??men
http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/

From farmelantj at juno.com  Sat Aug  8 07:45:38 2009
From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant)
Date: Sat, 8 Aug 2009 09:45:38 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Short obit for Jerry Cohen
Message-ID: <20090808.094538.5520.0.farmelantj@juno.com>

 
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/farmelant080809.html
____________________________________________________________
Save on Student Chairs
Student chairs at great savings. Volume discounts. Great selection.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=6UAM7OYVK1jT7R12Q0zAkgAAJ1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAUAAAAAAAAAAHh65T52jM5ncMobbUdvnUm4SCDsAAAAAA==


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Sun Aug  9 12:39:08 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 14:39:08 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Eating Less May Extend Your Lifespan -- But Is it
	Worth It?
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908091139k772bf3a3ga87a01b5fa9fe77b@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141792/eating_less_may_extend_your_lifespan_--_but_is_it_worth_it/


Eating Less May Extend Your Lifespan -- But Is it Worth It?

By Ari LeVaux, AlterNet. Posted August 8, 2009.



Recent studies indicate cutting your diet by 30 percent of what you're
supposed to eat can extend your life, but living longer isn't
everything.


AlterNet Social Networks:



The idea that eating less can prolong life has been gaining traction
in recent years, thanks to studies on many organisms, including mice,
spiders, dogs and worms, that correlate fewer calories with longer
life.

A group called the Calorie Restriction Society has formed to encourage
and assist people in reducing their long-term caloric intake for the
sake of health. Their diet, called Calorie Restriction with Optimal
Nutrition (CRON), is intended to drastically reduce caloric intake
without starving the body. CRONies, as they call themselves, claim
that in addition to the possibility of living longer and retarding the
effects of aging, they experience increased energy and mental clarity.

We're talking about more than skipping dessert. The CRON diet aims for
a weight of 10-25 percent less than what you weighed in college
(assuming you were healthy, not anorexic or obese). I'm 6' 2'' and
weighed 160 pounds when I was 20. So if I were a CRONie, I'd aim to
weigh about 130 pounds -- 55 pounds less than my current weight.

That may sound extreme, but CRONies received a recent boost from the
results of a long-term study on rhesus monkeys.

The monkeys were divided into two groups, one of which was fed 30
percent fewer calories than the other. The researchers, led by Ricki
J. Colman and Richard Weindruch at the University of Wisconsin,
reported in Science magazine's July 9 issue that after 20 years, the
dieting monkeys show significantly less diabetes, cancer, and heart
and brain disease than the control group.

Calorie restriction entered the mainstream in the 1980s, when UCLA
researcher Dr. Roy Walford began publishing books, including The
120-Year Diet, based on his research with mice. Walford died at 79 of
Lou Gehrig's disease, and his daughter Lisa Walford now carries the
torch. A prominent CRONie, she's 5 feet tall, weighs 80 lbs, and
according to her recent book, The Longevity Diet, enjoys a daily
breakfast of four walnuts, six almonds and 10 peanuts, which is eerily
similar to, but somewhat less, than what I fed a five-ounce parakeet I
recently babysat.

Another of Dr. Walford's disciples is Richard Weindruch, co-author of
the recent monkey study. Weindruch also co-founded LifeGen
Technologies LLC, a company that "works with drug makers to quantify
the effect of possible life-extending drugs." LifeGen's business plan,
based on the premise that most people don't have the willpower to
limit their caloric intake by 30 percent, is to identify and replicate
in pill form the biochemical processes triggered by caloric
restriction.

When I reached Weindruch by e-mail, he admitted that he himself
doesn't follow a calorie-restricted diet, though he does eat "lots of
vegetables and not much meat." His co-author, Ricki Coleman, has
similarly gone on record acknowledging that she doesn't follow a
low-cal diet, despite their team's conclusion that "these data
demonstrate that caloric restriction slows aging in a primate
species."

While the CRONies are fasting for joy, many scientists and health
experts don't buy it.

Most of the monkeys are still alive, and are expected to keep living
for years, so it's too early to tell if the dieting monkeys really
will live longer. And at this point, according to the researchers, the
difference between the two groups in terms of the deaths that have
occurred so far is not statistically significant.
But if there's yet to be a significant difference in mortality between
the two groups, why has this study made headlines around the world?

Researchers employed some statistical fancy footwork to exclude monkey
deaths deemed not due to age -- including deaths occurring under
anesthesia while blood samples were taken. Thus the researches were
able to show a statistically significant difference between the two
groups of surviving moneys. Skeptics argue the low-cal diet could have
made the monkeys more susceptible to health threats not usually
associated with age.

Infection, for example, isn't considered an age-related disease, but
caloric restriction has been shown to disrupt the immune system and
increase susceptibility to some types of infection, like listeria, in
fruit flies. And the effects of undereating on a number of other
health indicators, like bone density and fertility, while perhaps not
life-threatening, are nonetheless negative.

There's also reason to believe that laboratory conditions don't
adequately simulate real life. Studies that show mice to live as much
as 40 percent longer on a calorie restriction diet are done with lab
mice, which have been bred for high fertility and other
characteristics. According to professor Jo?o Pedro de Magalh?es at the
Integrative Genomics of Ageing Group at the University of Liverpool,
mice derived from wild populations don't live longer under calorie
restriction.

In the recent monkey study, the baseline or so-called "normal" caloric
intake of the non-dieting monkeys was determined by observing how much
the monkeys ate in captivity with unlimited access to food. It's
possible these monkeys were overeating, out of boredom perhaps, or,
like many Americans, simply because they could. If the monkeys on the
"normal" diet were in fact overeating, then it's hardly surprising
that the monkeys eating the 30 percent-off diet have lower rates of
diabetes, heart disease, etc.

Given that the average American consumes more than 3,700 calories per
day (according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization), and that
much of it comes from junk food, some calorie restriction would
probably be a good thing for many of us. But if you're not fat, does
it make sense to starve yourself from thin to bony?

Another question relates to the monkey chow. The materials and methods
section of the monkey study doesn't identify the monkey diet,
specifying only that "animals in this study are fed a semipurified,
nutritionally fortified, low fat diet containing 15 percent protein
and 10 percent fat."

Not all calories, protein and fat are equal. Meat from grass-fed beef,
for example, has a healthier balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty
acids. Protein from soy has been linked to man-boobs, intestinal
problems in kids, and thyroid illness in adults. Trans fat increases
the risk of heart disease. If the monkeys were fed a diet from
McDonald's, for example, a 30 percent reduction in calories would
certainly explain the relative lack of diabetes and heart disease.

So while the monkey study results are interesting, I'm sticking with
my filling diet of naturally produced and minimally processed foods.
And if I'm wrong? Well, if living 120 years means 120 years of
semi-starvation, I'm not sure I see the point. And I would not be a
pretty sight at 130 pounds.




See more stories tagged with: food, diet, cronies, caloric restriction

Ari LeVaux writes a syndicated weekly food column.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Sun Aug  9 12:40:19 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 14:40:19 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] IS THE U.S. ON THE BRINK OF FASCISM?
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908091140y7e729ea6o8ea325ebc625cc58@mail.gmail.com>

IS THE U.S. ON THE BRINK OF FASCISM?
By Sara Robinson, Campaign for America's Future
There are dangerous currents running through America's
politics and the way we confront them is crucial.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/141819/is_the_u.s._on_the_brink_of_fascism/


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Aug  9 13:33:48 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 15:33:48 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Detroit Election: notes. response 1,
	2 and 3.
Message-ID: <c48.3e85668a.37b07e9c@aol.com>

>> CB: From a historical and structural perspective, the "white power  
structure" and racism are still the proximate cause of Detroit's mess. To take a 
 symbolic exemplar, Detroit still suffers from the racist Reaganite 
Engler's  policy, ending the state welfare system, stealing all the school board's 
money,  setting up bloodsucking charter schools, ending residency 
requirement for city  workers, etc. 

More fundamentally the long term disinvestment in  the city by white 
controlled corporations, and now failure of major auto corps  is at the 
responsibility of white execs are the main cause of the economic  depression in 
Detroit. Also, racist edged Reaganite drastic cuts in the Great  Society and New 
Deal, federal housing and urban development spending , and  health, education 
and welfare spending.
 
On a specific, AIG's bankruptcy caused Detroit's bond rating to fall  
because AIG insured it. So, now Detroit had to dedicate a revenue stream more  
strictly to the Wall Street thieves. AIG on the other hand was bailed out 
after  fucking Detroit up, Wall Street bond rating companies and AIG are 
"white".  


From dogangoecmen at aol.com  Mon Aug 10 03:58:55 2009
From: dogangoecmen at aol.com (=?utf-8?Q?DG=C3=B6=C3=A7men?=)
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 05:58:55 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] David Rovics - The Commons
Message-ID: <8CBE7B84E6605D5-198-BF8@Webmail-mg19.sim.aol.com>


 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blOeXMcapBI&NR=1


 


D.G??men
http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/

From Waistline2 at aol.com  Mon Aug 10 10:06:18 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:06:18 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Detroit Election: notes. response 4
Message-ID: <d51.52c7b88d.37b19f7a@aol.com>

Home Rule 
 
No politically mature person in America believes white supremacy has been  
eradicated in America or is not expressed in some of Detroit's relations 
with  other political jurisdictions. However, classes and segments of class 
respond to  and articulate their response to the material impact of white 
chauvinism in  different ways. Home rule from the standpoint of the class 
conscious workers and  militants is the spontaneous push for block by block self 
organizations to  contain crime and violence; restore the safety and high 
standards of public  education, to educate our youth and to fight for a vision 
of what Detroit can  become. 
 
The road to unity of the fighting section of our working class lay along  
lines of affirmative actions and fights riveted to common economic interest. 
For  instance expansion of the public sector or government funding to 
alleviate  poverty for all within an economic category. One opposes Mayor Dave Bing
?s plans  of privatizing because it lowers the wages of workers. 
 
The workers are slowly waking up to seeing that the problem is capitalist  
relations of production.  
 
****
 
>> On a specific, AIG's bankruptcy caused Detroit's bond rating to  fall 
because AIG insured it. So, now Detroit had to dedicate a revenue stream  more 
strictly to the Wall Street thieves. AIG on the other hand was bailed out  
after fucking Detroit up, Wall Street bond rating companies and AIG are 
"white". 
 

From cb31450 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 10 11:53:48 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:53:48 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Detroit
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908101053q60b3e524y5dbde312a4d6b3de@mail.gmail.com>

AIG insuring of Detroit city bonds was not motivated by race hate or racism
 but profit motive. The first question is "why did the leaders of Detroit
go to  AIG in the first place?" I am not aware of any evidence that Detroit
seeking  insurance from AIG was racially motivated. AIG?s pricing of
insurance or  financial products was the motivation for Detroit
entering into this
market  relation.

^^^^^
CB:  On this  issue, racism should be analyzed _structurally_, not in
terms of individual motivation.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 10 12:51:13 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:51:13 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Inside Story on Town Hall Riots: Right-Wing Shock
	Troops Do Corporate America's Dirty Work
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908101151r3c5aaca9gead8421af469f38d@mail.gmail.com>

Inside Story on Town Hall Riots: Right-Wing Shock Troops Do Corporate
America's Dirty Work
By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet
Posted on August 10, 2009, Printed on August 10, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/141860/

The recent spate of town hall dustups may look like an overnight
sensation, but they've been years, even decades, in the making.

Since the days in the late 1970s, when the New Right began its
takeover of the Republican Party, it has cultivated a militia of white
people armed with a grudge against those who brought forth the social
changes of the '60s.

These malcontents have been promised their day of retribution, a day
for which they are more than ready. Few seem to understand that they
are merely dupes for a corporate agenda that will only worsen the
conditions in which they live.

Why, you may ask, would men of power and fame shake the rough,
unmanicured hands of gun enthusiasts, conspiracy theorists,
gay-haters, misogynists and racists?

Because somebody's got to do the dirty work. Magnates don't like to
soil their French cuffs, and it's hard for a bunch of rich guys to
garner sympathy for threats to their bottom lines. It's the classic
inside-outside game that the right wing of the GOP has played for the
last two decades.

The Health-Care Industry Executive

Imagine you're an executive at a pharmaceutical company. Your U.S.
operations are your cash cow; they earn you wild net profits because,
unlike in other industrialized nations, you do not experience the
price controls of a government-administered program in which the
government negotiates for the best price on prescription drugs and
devices.

Along comes a government plan for health-insurance reform that
includes a public, government-financed plan. The public option, they
call it. As part of the plan, you will be required to negotiate with
the government for the price of medications and devices to be
distributed within the plan.

Now that could really screw up your massive profit margins. Private
plans might then insist on prices more like those the government is
getting.

Instead of increasing your profit by double digits in the worst year
the economy has seen since the Great Depression, as did an outfit
called The Medicines Co., your shareholders may have to settle for
profits more in line with the overall growth of the economy. And
wouldn't that just stink?

Meanwhile, polls show a clear majority of Americans -- you know,
regular Americans, the kind who don't want to own an AK-47, or who do
accept the president's citizenship status -- favor the public option.
In fact, in June, CBS News found that majority to be 72 percent.

So, whaddaya do? Well, if your lobbying firm counts former Rep. Dick
Armey, R-Texas, as its senior policy adviser, you don't have do much.
Dick will take care of the rest through FreedomWorks, the ostensibly
grassroots, nonprofit organization of anti-taxers, cold warriors and
affirmative-action opponents, which he chairs.

Need to make it look like regular Americans oppose the
health-insurance reform bills now being considered by Congress? Make
sure a handful of those angry white people turn up at the town hall
meetings now being conducted by members of Congress throughout the
country. Make sure they disrupt the meeting and rattle the
congressperson.

Capture it all on amateur video and put it up on a faux,
amateur-looking Web site, and try to kid the media into thinking
there's a widespread rebellion happening. After all, the media are
gonna want that dramatic footage.

The Republican Member of Congress

Now, suppose you're a Republican member of Congress. Your party got
totally throttled in the 2008 election, and if you don't derail this
health care thing, it's going to be a big win for your Democratic
opponents, as millions of underinsured and uninsured Americans finally
have some health care coverage -- one bright spot in a largely dismal
economy.

Meanwhile, you get a lot of your campaign cash from
health-care-related industries and from the Wall Street bankers and
brokers who want to keep those profits soaring.

A public option is going to stink for you, too. So, while Armey's army
of taxphobes is useful to you, it would be great to get some really
hard-core types to further stoke the fires -- especially if marshaled
by guys who know how to really tar Democrats with racist imagery and
slurs of unpatriotic behavior.

That's where Grassfire.org and its brother networking site, ResistNet,
come in. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who promised to make health-care
reform President Obama's "Waterloo," is a big fan. Says so right there
on the Grassfire Web site. ResistNet is yet another right-wing hub for
organizing the disruption of health-care town hall meetings.

The Media Mogul

Okay, now put on the hat of a media mogul, one who rails against the
minimal restrictions the U.S. has on multi-outlet ownership, and one
for whom the bottom line is everything. In fact, you actually own the
Wall Street Journal.

If you can nip this health care thing in the bud, you could stand in
the way of a president who wants to rein in Wall Street's worse
excesses and who may depress the profit margins of health-care
companies in which your readers invest with his dastardly public
option. What's a mogul to do?

Why not hire a guy known for riling the discontented to host a show on
your cable news channel, and empower him as an organizer? Let him
create a little project pegged to fear and nationalism -- something,
say, like 9/11 -- through which he mobilizes bands of those aggrieved
by the fact of a black president to disrupt town hall meetings.

That's exactly what Rupert Murdoch did when he hired Glenn Beck to
host a Fox News Channel show and to put together a little organizing
site called The 9-12 Project.

Although Beck's stated goal is to bring America back to where it was
on Sept. 12, 2001 -- a nation pulled together in the wake of the
terrorist attacks the day before -- he draws together only those who
embrace the goals of the right.

But his project site is shaped like a social-networking tool, and
activists in Florida credit the Tampa 9-12 chapter as turning them out
to a town hall they helped turn into a ruckus.

Put these three scenarios together, and you have the phenomenon that
has become the summer of the town-hall scuff, a heated season of
right-wing disruptions of civic fora.

Add to that an oppressed-white-people narrative that has its roots in
the origins of what used to be called the New Right, and you have a
confluence of interests ready to elevate to prime-time status a
disgruntled and paranoid minority with a penchant for misplaced blame.

FreedomWorks and the K Street Lobbyist

In Washington's K Street corridor, Dick Armey is a very important man
-- so important, in fact, that he was scooped up, upon his retirement
from Congress, by the lobbying firm DLA Piper.

It's been widely reported that Piper lobbies on behalf of health-care
industry interests, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, but its top
health-care-industry client, according to OpenSecrets.org, is The
Medicines Co., a small, below-the-radar firm that has paid Armey's
lobbying firm nearly $2.4 million since the beginning of 2008 --
nearly 15 percent of DLA Piper's overall lobbying income for the
period.

I called The Medicines Co., requesting an interview with someone on
staff who could spell out the company's position on the pending health
care bills, and I got back a rather empty, generic statement via
e-mail from the company's public relations firm, FD:

The Medicines Co., a small biotech company, was founded on and
continues to follow our mission of saving lives, improving patient
outcomes and reducing health care costs. Any suggestion that the
Medicines Co. has opposed or retained anyone to oppose the pending
health care reform bills is entirely mistaken.

I sent an e-mail back, asking for the company's position on the
health-care bills what it spent $2.4 million to lobby for, and
received no response by press time.

The Medicines Co. operates so below the radar that it is not even
listed as a member on the Web site of the Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturer's Association (PhRMA), which opposes the House bill
because it empowers a non-elected panel of experts to oversee
cost-containment in public programs.

PhRMA also claims the House plan will raise premiums on senior
citizens enrolled in the Medicare prescription drug plan, a plan, as
currently construed, largely seen as a giveaway to the pharmaceutical
companies.

Last year, The Medicines Co. saw net earnings on its major product,
the anti-coagulant Angiomax, increase 17 percent over the course of a
single year.

Because of The Medicines Co.'s tight lips, we may never know whether
it feels it's getting its $2.4 million worth out of Piper, or its
senior policy analyst, Armey, in his effort to derail health care
through the FreedomWorks astroturf site.

Go to the site, and you'll find a Health Care Action Kit (PDF),
complete with talking points and Armey's "ObamaCare translator" of key
terms in the health care discussion, laced with Armey's own
witticisms. There's even a mock "ObamaCare insurance card" (PDF) you
can print out and pass around at town halls. It promises, among other
things on a bulletted list, "Rationed health care" and "Anxiety, pain,
risk of death."

At the risk of mixing messages (a big public-relations no-no), Armey
also advises health-care protesters to raise their opposition to the
energy-reform provision called "cap and trade" in the health-care town
halls.

Coincidentally, DLA Piper's lobbying portfolio includes a number of
oil and energy companies.

Then, there are the actual members of FreedomWorks, who leave the most
enlightening comments on the Web site:

This, from Constantine Ivanov:

June 27, 2009 -- 3:40pm
The problem is that no matter how passionately we are here condemning
the socialized (better to say "Socialistisized") Medicine, "die
eisernen Stiefel" (the iron jackboots) of Obamistas are methodically
and systematicly destroying the very core of our country.

And I recall German troops who at a steady gait moved as close as 10
miles to Moscow in 1941.

Or, this, from Joe Massana:

June 27, 2009 -- 4:00pm
[Obama] and his socilist party are ruining this country ... I know
that if I was a black man right now, I would be able to get help from
the government with my construction business and household bills.

If an entity providing 15 percent of the lobbying income at Armey's
day job took objection to any of this, do you think Armey would be
overseeing the FreedomWorks outfit?

DLA Piper also earned $300,000 since early last year lobbying on
behalf of the American Council of Life Insurers, which opposes the
long-term care provisions in the House bill, which it sees as
competition.

Grassfire and ResistNet

The FreedomWorks commenters are tame by comparison with those found on
ResistNet, a project of Grassfire.org. Using a social-networking
platform, Grassfire claims some 400,000 members who are dedicated to
"resisting" the "Democratic agenda," which, by their lights, includes
"open borders" and "taxpayer-funded abortions."

A 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Grassfire has been named as a "stealth
political action committee" by Public Citizen. Its founder and
president, Steve Elliott, has held up MoveOn.org as a model for where
he would like to take his organization.

ResistNet, has become a major hub for turning out hard-core
right-wingers to health-care town hall meetings. The organization took
in $1.5 million in 2007 (the most recent year for which information is
publicly available).

It's difficult to find out much of anything about Elliott; he manages
to keep a very low profile. But SourceWatch and Public Citizen report
that Grassfire is represented by the Washington public relations firm
Shirley & Bannister, whose principal is Craig Shirley, the man who
gave us the Willie Horton ad of the 1988 presidential election.

Shirley promoted the movie, Stolen Honor, a Swiftboat-style smear
piece made about 2004 presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
Today, Shirley's clients, according to the Shirley & Bannister Web
site, include the National Rifle Association, author Ann Coulter,
religious right co-founder Richard Viguerie, and other religious right
figures.

But Shirley & Bannister retains ties to GOP establishment figures; its
Web site bears an endorsement from William Kristol, who served in the
administration of the first George Bush, who happens to be the
candidate whose campaign reaped some of its victory from Shirley's
Horton ad.

The firm also promotes the books of former Rep. Joe Scarborough,
R-Fla., (now of MSNBC) and former George H.W. Bush speechwriter Peggy
Noonan (who promised us a "kinder, gentler nation") -- books published
by Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins.

The site also lists several other major publishers as clients for the
promotion of books by right-wing authors.

I called Shirley & Bannister on Friday morning, asking if
Grassfire/ResistNet was its client, since it is not listed on the Web
site. I was told that Amy Haas, the person who could answer my
question, was on the phone, and would get back to me. She did not.

On its introductory page, Grassfire.org complimentary words from Rep.
Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Sen. DeMint.

"Grassfire has done a great job and has done a great service to the
American people," reads the DeMint quote.

Grassfire makes the point often that it will show the president
respect and refrain from personal attacks, as ResistNet, which touts a
"no tolerance policy" (they can't say "zero tolerance," since "Zero"
is the nickname by which many of their members call Obama -- a play on
the first letter of his last name) for "personal attacks, lewd or
profane language, or militancy against Barack Obama or others."

Yet a boxed statement on the opening page of the ResistNet site offers
this: Welcome to the online community for patriotic citizens who are
opposing the Obama-led socialist agenda ?"

ResistNet is full of comments and blog posts that violate its
purported "no tolerance" policy, including those calling for social
insurrection and even the death of Obama. It promises that such
comments will be removed by a moderator, and yet they live on the site
for months.

Here's a comment that appears below a letter one ResistNet member
named Joel wrote to his congresswoman:

Comment by RBJ 1 day ago
Joel, I hate to be the one to tell you this, you remember the old
saying about "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will
never hurt me."

Well that is all that we are doing here, just throwing words at the
crowd of Socialist in D.C., aka "D.C.Terrorist"?

As we all know, when words fail, reach over and get a 2 X 4 and get
after it. Words don't hurt, but a good solid A$$ Whooping will get
there attention everytime!

Once you have their attention, then you can talk.

Or check out this one, posted by George and Pat Wilkins on Aug. 6, in
which they close a long post warning that "the statists will pass
socialized medicine in September" by wishing for the death of the
president:

Waiting lines will be long, those waiting will find operable
conditions be found to be inoperable, Hospice and palliation for
comfort will be their fate. Others will die. Why is this being done?
back door reparations. I pray that God will strike Obama dead, and all
who stand with him they are evil.

And those just two recent examples. Posted on July 2, and still living
on the ResistNet site as I write is a video by the Rev. James David
Manning, who warns that "white folks are gonna riot in the streets,
and I'm gonna join them." Throughout the video, Manning, an African
American, refers to Obama as a "half-breed Mack Daddy" -- slang for a
kind of megapimp.

Then there's this charming bit of propaganda, Obama = Hitler (which
you can view at the bottom of this story), which dubs video of Obama
delivering a speech with the voice of Adolf Hitler, and interposes
swastikas and Obama's campaign logo; Obama is shown wearing a swastika
armband; Hitler is shown with the Obama logo as a belt buckle.

Footage of Obama supporters, most of them African American, is run
side-by-side with Hitler's adoring crowds. As Obama waves and moves
his mouth, the dub is Hitler yelling, "Sieg Heil!"

The ResistNet site is also peppered with posts touting the birther
conspiracy, and other right-wing favorites. After Thursday's scuffle
at the Tampa, Fla., health care town hall, Eric Erikson (cross-posting
from RedState) blamed the violence on "SEIU thugs," an emerging
right-wing theme reported earlier by Steve Benen.

I tried to contact Grassfire President Steve Elliott to ask him about
the conflict between ResistNet's "no tolerance" policy and the vitriol
I found on his site. I also wanted to find out if there are
health-care interests among his donors. Elliott, said Tina, the woman
who answered the phone, was traveling, and his spokesman, Ron DeJong,
was on vacation. She promised to text Elliott with my contact
information, but I never heard back.

Glenn Beck and the 9-12 Project

Which brings us to Glenn Beck. There's little I can add to what's been
reported (click here for AlterNet's Tana Ganeva writing on Beck's
racism), except that when I went to the Web site of Beck's 9-12
Project, another hub of organizing for disrupters of health-care town
hall meetings, I found that the comments section had been shut down.

The message left by someone named "Editor" bore no time stamp, only a
date: August 6, the date of the infamous Tampa brouhaha at which
anti-health-care protesters, according to the St. Petersburg Times,
said they had been inspired by Beck and his project.

Each of these organizations have this in common: They're all promoting
a march on Washington for Sept. 12. Others in the mix include
TeaPartyExpress.org, and the Our Country Deserves Better PAC, which
was founded by Howard Kaloogian in the heat of the presidential
campaign.

Kaloogian was the chairman of the "Recall Gray Davis Committee," which
succeeded in unseating the Democratic governor of California. Our
Country Deserves Better ran the "Stop Obama" bus tour during the 2008
presidential election, and was faulted by Fact Check.org for airing
misleading anti-Obama advertising.

The Inside-Outside Game

The right wing of the GOP has long played this kind of inside-outside
game, from the earliest days of the founding of the religious right by
Richard Viguerie, Howard Phillips and the late Paul Weyrich. All were
veterans of the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign, and all had experience
within the establishment Republican Party.

Viguerie, following a model pioneered by Morris Dees for the 1972
Democratic primary campaign of Sen. George McGovern, D-S.D., harnessed
the power of direct-mail solicitations to land Ronald Reagan in the
White House. Weyrich founded the Heritage Foundation, which became a
fax-generating spin and policy factory for the Reagan administration.

Phillips took the game outside, organizing on-the-ground misanthropes,
and eventually founding his own political party, the U.S. Taxpayer's
Party (now the Constitution Party) to exert pressure on the GOP from
the outside.

The strategy firmly established the right's foothold in the GOP,
leading to the party's takeover. Any remnant of the old establishment
of the Republican Party was crushed in 1996, when defeated
presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan, now a MSNBC commentator,
threatened to walk the delegates he had won in his primary war against
Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kansas, out of the Republican National Convention and
into the arms of Phillips' U.S. Taxpayer Party if the GOP platform did
not firmly enough oppose abortion. He also insisted the platform
incorporate a host of other right-wing demands, such as a condemnation
of the United Nations.

The GOP forked over the writing of its platform to Phyllis Schlafly
(another veteran of the Goldwater campaign) and Buchanan's sister,
Bay, and the takeover was complete. The right wing became the
Republican establishment.

All of the narratives today embraced by the ResistNet, FreedomWorks
and the Glenn Beck crowd find their legs in the one-man clearinghouse
that is Howard Phillips.

Through his Conservative Caucus, Phillips disseminated the "birther"
theory that Obama is not an American citizen, gave right-wing
operative Cliff Kincaid an award for researching Obama's alleged
socialist roots, and for years has railed against "socialized
medicine" -- even arguing that Medicare is unconstitutional and
warning darkly of a time when the government might determine who shall
live and who shall die.

"[W]hen the supply of medical care is controlled by politicians and
bureaucrats," Phillips told a 1997 gathering of his Conservative
Caucus Foundation, "and the demand for that care exceeds the supply,
then individual human beings created in God's image become price
factors in the eyes of medical gatekeepers -- they're not even
medical, they're bureaucratic gatekeepers -- who determine medical
decisions not on the basis of medical needs, but on the basis of
bureaucratic priorities."

Phillips' disdain for feminists is palpable, and his language about
LGBT people, routinely labeled on his Web site as "perverts," "homos"
and "sodomites" is contemptible. He refers to Planned Parenthood as
"Murder Incorporated."

I called Phillips for comment on this article, but he was en route to
Mexico where he has convened a press conference to protest the
nonexistent North American Union, another right-wing conspiracy
theory. (Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is an invited speaker.)

Phillips advanced the career of Randall Terry, founder of the militant
anti-aborton group Operation Rescue. At one point, it seemed that his
U.S. Taxpayer's Party was to Operation Rescue what Sinn Fein is to the
Irish Republican Army -- the political wing of a movement steeped in
violence. (In Terry's case, the violence was in rhetoric and
obstruction designed to incite others to act.)

Conspiracy of Silence

On Aug. 4, Terry, who is seeking to make a comeback with his new
organization, Operation Rescue Insurrecta Nex, sent out an e-mail
blast urging followers to attend health care town halls convened by
members of Congress.

Trotting out the trope the that health-care reform bills provide for
taxpayer-funded abortions, he urges his followers:



Stir up some dust!

Be "unreasonable!"

In fact, you might want to be a little noisier and a little more
intense than you might normally be.

I put it this way: If you were in danger of being murdered, and I
could possibly save you at a town hall meeting, how would you want
people to behave in a town hall meeting?

At a July press conference, Terry warned of "random acts of violence"
that would occur if the health-care bill passed. There would be
violent "reprisals against those deemed guilty," he said.

Think Terry's too out on the fringe to matter? Think again. When
AlterNet reported that the Supreme Court nomination hearing of Judge
Sonia Sotomayor was being disrupted by Terry's followers, not one
Republican senator condemned him by name.

When Terry staged a demonstration outside the White House featuring
men in Obama masks "whipping" him, not a distancing word was placed
between him and the GOP establishment.

And now he is promulgating the false Republican claim that health-care
reform will mean socialized euthanasia for the aged.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin also has links to Phillips; for seven
years, her husband, Todd, claimed membership in the Alaska affiliate
of the Constitution Party -- the secessionist Alaska Independence
Party, whose convention Palin addressed last year via video.

Every other day, it seems, I receive an e-mail from one right-wing
organization or another, warning of the grave consequences of
health-insurance reform.

The subject line in an e-mail from Human Events magazine screams at me
"Grandmas and babies exterminated by Obama 'health' plan," even as
another of its e-mails asks, "Obama birth certificate destroyed?" The
anti-gay American Family Association warns: "Liberals seek to silence
and demonize those who oppose their socialism."

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council sent a plea for money to
finance a television ad that features an elderly couple complaining of
the government's denial of surgery for the man while financing
abortion with taxpayer dollars.

Think these organizations are not the Republican establishment?
Consider that the annual Values Voter Summit sponsored by the Family
Research Council's PAC will feature former "moderate" GOP presidential
candidate Mitt Romney as a keynote speaker.

In the corridors of Washington's K Street lobbying offices, in the
district offices of Republican members of Congress, and in the
executive suite of one singular mogul, the men of power must be
well-pleased with themselves, watching YouTube videos of the mayhem
they have unleashed on the rest of us. But they may just get their
pound of flesh.






Adele M. Stan AlterNet's acting Washington bureau chief.

? 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/141860/


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 10 13:36:04 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:36:04 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Short obit for Jerry Cohen
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908101236g3889c9aan521f55e5463d874c@mail.gmail.com>

G. A. Cohen, 1941-2009
by James Farmelant
Early in the morning on August 5th, one of the most notable left-wing
political philosophers of the English-speaking world, Gerald Allan
Cohen, (G. A. Cohen) or as he liked to be called by his friends, Jerry
Cohen, died after suffering a massive stroke at the age of 68.  Jerry
Cohen was probably best known for his 1978 book, Karl Marx's Theory of
History: A Defence (Oxford University Press), where he attempted to
apply the techniques of analytical philosophy (including both logical
analysis and linguistic analysis) to the elucidation and defense of
Karl Marx's materialist conception of history.  In doing so, he helped
give birth to a new school Marxist thought, Analytical Marxism.  This
school sought to clarify Marxism, using not only the tools of
analytical philosophy, along with tools of modern social science such
as rational choice theory (i.e. game theory and even neoclassical
economic analysis), to the clarification and defense of the theories
of  Karl Marx and his successors.  Besides Jerry, other leading
Analytical Marxists included the economist John Roemer, the political
theorist Jon Elster, the economist and economic historian Robert
Brenner, and the sociologist Erik Olin Wright.

In this respect, Jerry Cohen offered a reading of Marx that rejected both
traditional dialectical materialism, as well as the Hegelian readings
associated with Western Marxist schools like the Frankfurt School as
well as the structuralism of Louis Althusser.  In this and other
respects, this book was the product of Jerry's unique background.  He
was born the son of working class Jewish parents in Montreal.  Both
his parents were active in leftist politics, with his father active in
trade unionism while his mother was a member of the Communist Party of
Canada.  As a young boy, Jerry Cohen for a time attended a left-wing
Jewish day school that had the distinction of being raided by Quebec's
red squad.  That raid eventually led to the school's closure.  During
his teens, Jerry was active in the National Federation of Labour
Youth, which was the youth arm of the Canadian Communists.  He
experienced the turmoil which tore the Party apart following Nikita
Khrushchev's de-Stalinization speech before the Twentieth Congress in
1956 and which led to the disintegration of the National Federation of
Labour Youth in Quebec.  Out of this milieu, Jerry went on to attend
McGill University where he studied philosophy and was active in the
university's Socialist Society, of which he became president.

After graduating from McGill, Jerry Cohen then went to Oxford
University to pursue graduate study in philosophy, earning a B.Phil
degree and becoming fully trained as an analytical philosopher.  At
Oxford he studied under Gilbert Ryle who was one of the leading
analytical philosophers of the twentieth century (among other notable
students of Gilbert Ryle include A. J. Ayer and Daniel Dennett).   He
also studied under the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who was
one of the leading lights of liberal political philosophy.  While
Jerry remained very much a socialist and he was quite critical of
Berlin's analysis of negative liberty versus positive liberty, the two
men became close personal friends.  After completing his studies at
Oxford, Jerry Cohen stayed in the UK and took a teaching position at
University College London as an assistant lecturer, lecturer, and
reader in the philosophy department of that institution.  It was
during those years, in the 1960s and 1970s, that he began the work,
which led to the writing of his famous book.  He would remain at
University College London until his 1985 appointment as the Chichele
Professor of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford.
 He would then remain at Oxford until 2008 when he took emeritus
status there and accepted a new position as the Quain Professor of
Jurisprudence at University College London.

A full evaluation of Jerry Cohen's thought and work would be beyond
the scope of this article.  However, it should be noted that his
thought (and the thought of his fellow Analytical Marxists) followed a
distinct trajectory.  They started with a focus on historical
materialism, but, over time, they became more and more focused on the
ethical justification of socialism.  Indeed, that was the focus of his
later books including Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality (Cambridge
University Press, 1995) and If you're an egalitarian how come you're
so rich? (Harvard University Press, 2000).  He became intrigued with
the arguments of libertarian political philosophers, especially those
of Robert Nozick, as expressed in the latter's Anarchy, State, and
Utopia (Basic Books, 1974).  Jerry was intrigued by the libertarians,
both because he thought that they had provided some of the strongest
arguments available in defense of capitalism and because they appealed
to premises which he himself embraced.  Therefore, Jerry devoted much
time and energy to rebutting the arguments of Nozick and other
libertarians.  He also became increasingly engaged with analyzing and
critiquing liberal political philosophy, especially as represented in
the work of John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin.  Here, Jerry attempted to
build their work to show how liberal political philosophy could be
used to provide a basis for the defense of egalitarianism, and hence,
socialism.  Over the years, this concern led Jerry to embracing a
rather traditional style of moral philosophy at the expense of his
earlier concern with materialist and Marxist analysis.  From a Marxist
standpoint, one might say that Jerry's thought displayed retrogression
from the scientific socialism presented by Marx, to a form of ethical
socialism, not unlike the kinds of socialism that Marx had criticized.
 Nevertheless, none of this should be taken as negating the importance
of Jerry's contributions to Marxism.  For more than thirty years now,
his Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defense has been (and will likely
continue to be) the springboard for most sophisticated discussions of
historical materialism.  His quest for what he called a "no-bullshit
Marxism" will continue to inspire people who are seeking an
intellectually sophisticated approach to Marxist analysis but who are
put off by the mystifications of traditional dialectical materialism
or the obscurities of Hegelian Marxists like Theodor Adorno or Max
Horkheimer.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Farmelant (B.S., Physics, University of Massachusetts) is a
software engineer by profession.   His main interests are natural and
social sciences, technology, philosophy, and political science.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 10 14:01:16 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:01:16 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908101301v23183f06t9b7cd3a107d03df7@mail.gmail.com>

From: jkschw1 at yahoo.com
To: "marxist philosophy" <marxistphilosophy at yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:57:20 +0000

Unless I missed it the death the other day of Jerry Cohen attracted no
comment on a list devoted to Marxist philosophy. I know that as first
a founder of analytical Marxism, then as a refugee from Marxism to
liberal egalitarianism, he was not favored among the participants
here. But IMHO he was one of the most influential and important
Marxist thinkers of the latter half of the 20th century, and his
legacy requires comment.

^^^^^^
CB: Cohen may have been important , but he was not unusually
influential among Marxist thinkers.  This conclusion can only be
reached from the tendencies in Marxism that dismiss the Marxism of
CP's and Trotskyist parties, and thinkers in these sections of Marxism

^^^^^

Not much time here but I will note a few thoughts;

- In the context of a sharp decline in the quantity and quality of
Marxist theory,

^^^^^
CB: This is a position held by only a section of Marxists,
particularly academic and anti-Party Marxists.

^^^^^

Cohen and the AMs stood for the disconnection of
theory from practice,

^^^^
CB: A telling admission, given that Marx himself put so much emphasis
on the unity of theory and practice.  "Philosophers (like Cohen) have
interpreted the world in a number of ways; the thing is to change it."

^^^^^^^^

the entrenchment of Marxism as another academic
exercise. In some ways this was not their fault giving the collapse of
Marxism as a movement and a force in the world.

^^^^^
CB: This ignores that the Communist Party is the ruling party of
China, Cuba, Viet Nam, parts of India, et al., and the revolutions in
South America , which though they don't announce it, are obviously
part of the Marxist movement.

^^^^^

- Cohen helped bring a level of rigor and precision in Marxist
thinking that had been sorely lacking for a very long time.

^^^^^^^
CB: This is an assertion that is not demonstrated nor accepted by many Marxists.
It's also a self-serving claim by Analytical Marxists.
^^^^^

 If it's
complained that his work lacked popular accessibility, what are we to
say about Adorno, a favorite here who gets wide discussion?

- Cohen's major work on Karl Marx's Theory Of History is very
valuable, but went down the wrong track in reviving a stagist,
mechanical, primacy of the productive forces 2d Internat'l conception
of historical materialism. (Possibly due in part to his roots in the
Canadian CP.)

^^^^^
CB: Why not say that his alleged greater rigor and precision are the
results of his roots in the Canadian CP ?

^^^^^

 True, Marx gave that view a lot of space, but Cohen almost totally
neglected Marx's alternative class struggle view, which I think is
more true and valuable and gets no less, arguably more, space. Brenner
is far better on this (and no less rigorous).

^^^^^
CB: A "rigorous" look at actual history today would lead one to a more
"stagist" view. And of course CP's , including the Canadian , give
much primacy to "the class struggle view". So, this is a typical
slanderous claim about CP's. If the alternative to the "stagist" view
is a "class struggle" view, then the CP's don't promote a "stagist"
view.

^^^^^^^

- Cohen's turn to traditional style moral philosophy as important,
first as a complement to his idea of historical materialism, then as a
replacement for Marxism and materialist analysis, was a major
retrogression. No doubt there is more ethics in Marx and Marxism than
Marx cared to admit, but Marx pointed the way in integrating these
into materialist analysis.

^^^^^
CB: There's a recent thread on LBO-talk discussing this.  Marx doesn't
claim that capitalists are moral, he just appeals to self-interest
among workers, and appeal to self-interest is not a moral appeal.

^^^^^^^

Cohen's own positive ethical views were, moreover, disappointingly
primitive and underdeveloped. See his awful Egalitarianism book, but
also earlier papers on exploitation and his paper critiquing value
theory -- a real train wreck. And I don't accept value theory myself!
I haven't carefully read the last book in Rawls.

Btw in that book Cohen lists as the big three books on political
philosophy Rawls' A Theory of Justice, Hobbes' Leviathan, and Plato's
Republic. Marx's Capital doesn't make his cut. Given Cohen's a priori
turn to liberal morality, Marx might be happy to be left out.

^^^^
CB:  Cohen's earlier thesis is interesting to get a discussion on
Marxism going, and to demonstrate how Marxism is different than
mid-twentieth century British philosophy . However, he's not an
unusual giant among Marxist or Marxian thinkers.



- Cohen was nonetheless a major influence, one of the few really
original thinkers in late 20th century Marxism, along with perhaps
Althusser -- who, it might argued, paralleled him in a French sort of
way. The people we tend to discuss, Marx, the Western Marxists, all
had their roots and did much or all of their important work before
1950.

^^^^^^^
CB: It's a common error to think that what Marxism needs is a lot of
"original thinking" at the philosophical level.  The classics are
pretty much philosophically adequate. What's needed is to figure out
how to get the fundamentals of classical Marxism to grip masses.

^^^^^^^^

It says something about the state of Marxism that Cohen and Althusser
are among the giants of postwar Marxism.

^^^^^
CB: What does it say ?

More later.

Justin


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Mon Aug 10 14:27:52 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:27:52 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Detroit
Message-ID: <ce9.5c73fd84.37b1dcc8@aol.com>

In respect to AIG, I have not done the investigation into the rates charged 
 to Detroit to determine if insurance of Detroit bonds required a higher 
premium  rate. 
 
Did the failure of AIG have a racist impact on the city of Detroit? 
 
Without question Detroit's working class faces higher general insurance  
rates on their personal property, than Black workers in comparable economic 
and  social circumstances outside Detroit. Say in the city of Southfield. 
 
Housing and vehicle insurance is outrageously high and this "extra-charge"  
- called redlining, is the structural and material relations of white  
supremacy/chauvinism - in respects to blacks, or as it is called by the theorist 
 of biological race, racism. All the workers in Detroit - black, brown, 
"Arabic"  and white, who are able to use another resident address for 
insurance, do so in  order to receive a reduced rate of insurance. 
 
Detroit is redlined. A red mark is drawn on the map and everyone within the 
 red zone is charged extra for being in the zone. Redlining. 
 
Highland Park is worse with it being virtually impossible to get reasonable 
 insurance against fire. Pontiac is a basket case, with Grand Rapids and 
Battle  Creek being most distasteful for the working poor and teetering on the 
verge of  open fascism for blacks and the whites in the neighborhoods 
adjacent to the  blacks. Benton Harbor has been the seen of a particularly nasty 
fight over  voting rights. Northern Michigan and the farming areas of the 
state are  devastated, with huge sections of our blue eyed brothers and 
sisters living  below standards acceptable in Detroit. 
 
Detroit has muscle and proletarian fiber. The city's proletariat has to  
lean how to make its point understood. What needs to be understood is the 
class  relationships and the role of the color factor in American history. 
 
Amongst the blacks the most destitute sector of the proletariat and the  
middle class is caught in the turning gears of capital, with the former being  
herded into the concentration camps called prisons. This happens to be the 
case  throughout the state of Michigan, without regard to the color of ones 
eyes. This  is more so true with the blacks because we were slaves and 
trapped on the bottom  of the economic and social ladder. 
 
One might need to get out more often and visit areas beyond the city. 
 
"Ain't I blue ain't I blue. Ain't these tears in my eyes, telling you." 
 
Rather than eye color it is the dark clouds in the proletariat's eyes that  
cannot be ignored. 
 
Inkster is hit but so it Adrian and Allen Park. Canton, Centerline and  
Clearwater are facing murky waters. Eastpointe is "holding on" but my other  
brother by a different mother paid $105, 000 for his home in 1999, only to see 
 the house next door sell for $45, 000 two months ago. Class politics means 
 understanding intersection and economic logic and the spontaneous movement 
of  those workers who are a tad bit to economically secure to be the lowest 
sector  of the proletariat, but to economically weak to escape the cycle of 
capital  destruction. My brother in Eastpointe is black. 65% of his 
neighbors are white.  The proletariat as proletariat is hit hard. 
 
Everyone lost money and value. The problem is the promise capital made  pro
mising economic stability if we worked for them 30 - 40 years. The social  
contract has been ripped to pieces. Ripping the social contract apart might 
have  racists implications but it is a class act. Everything that happens to 
me -  the good, the bad and the ugly, has racist implications because I am a 
 Black man in America. Easy answers are boring and make me none the 
smarter. Some  of this shit - if not all of it, is capitalism. 
 
I was just up in Flint, Michigan. 
 
Detroit is a paradise compared to Flint. Actually, Detroit is still very  
beautiful. Blight and poverty is in neighborhoods zones. These zones are  
economic categories. The autowokers with 15 years seniority and up live in  
different zones than the workers making 50% less. 
 
In fact, as this horrible crisis of capital unfolds, Detroit is still  
economically robust. 
 
The "Hip Hop" Mayor was not all bad by any means. The "old Mayor" was  
stupid and arrogant. Us old heads call young men like this "young, dumb and full 
 of come." Our young Mayor was driven by testosterone and bourgeois 
politics and  lacked a vision based on the fact of Detroit's history. Detroit is 
the  industrial proletariat, past, present and future. 
 
Then again, K. Kilpatrick was part of the political establishment and  
beholden to McNamara. This was good and bad. Housing development in Detroit has  
been remarkable. Remarkable becomes outstanding under politicians on the 
side of  the proletariat. 
 
Communist know a little "something something" about money, wages, bonds and 
 economic interest of various economic strata in the city. Since some of us 
know  how to negotiate without being overwhelmed from being invited to 
dinner and  having the bill paid by a fucking representation of capital, we tend 
to judge, .  . . maybe,  to harshly. 
 
Dude  . . . . eat before negotiations or shopping because if you don't  you 
are going to buy something you go not want. Rather than looking at you  
opponent as white, think "Hey this mutherfucker is capital." 
 
If you do this and have eaten before negotiations you will not be driven by 
 an impulse to be personally greedy, unless you are personally greedy and 
have  nothing for the proletarian masses anyway. 
 
I would do better negotiating with a bunch of the dope boyz in toll who  
understand money and refuse to be taken on a "date" by capitalists, expecting  
you to eat from the steak side of the menu and then get fucked. The dope 
boyz  never scream racism when things do not go their way. Sure . . . everyone 
talks  about white peoples but no one talks about them as serious as white 
people, who  already understand they will never attain the status of white 
bread. 
 
These dough boyz "cats" (dudes) are serious and deal with market shares. I  
love this. Our market is the proletariat and what I have to offer is 
communism.  Flat out. That is the product. 
 
The right product at the right time is magic. 
 
Then there is Flint. 
 
Does not Flint produce a spark when struck and steel when worked up the  
right way? What an appropriate name for a city that gave us the historic  
sit-down strike and "struck up" bourgeois production in the form of the auto. A  
nigga be blessed to have circumstances that allow one to be spontaneously  
proletariat to the core. Show me your pay stub and an economic program 
spring  from the numbers. 
 
We talking about class and the role of the proletariat in its dimensions as 
 black, or historically and structurally Negro. 
 
One look at that pay stub and its like, "nigga, you need a union, a better  
clergy man, political representatives on the side of the proletariat or a 
good  loan shark and number man."  My niggas have all kinds of eye colorings. 
 What one must look at is not the color of eyes but that fucked up smirk on 
a  person's face and the body language of proletarian pride, defeats and  
insurgency. . 
 
Flint has been on the ropes for a long time, going back to the movie that  
got Michael Moore on the map as movie producer. Moore's "Roger and Me" 
 
Roger & Me is a 1989 American documentary film illustrating the  negative 
economic impact of the late General Motors CEO Roger Smith's summary  action 
of closing several auto plants in Flint, Michigan, costing 30,000 people  
their jobs and economically devastating the city. Flint is majority black. Was 
 Roger Smith's closing of the plants in Flint a racist act? Much of this  
production was not shifted elsewhere. The loss was absolute. 
 
I have a serious need to further understand the intricate and delicate  
operation of racism and how AIG actions had a racist impact. I am not about  
losing money, prestige or political clout because my eyes are brown. 
 
WL.  
 
 
 

In a message dated 8/10/2009 1:53:58 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
_cb31450 at gmail.com_ (mailto:cb31450 at gmail.com)  writes: 
 
AIG insuring of Detroit city bonds was not motivated by race hate or racism 
 but profit motive. The first question is "why did the leaders of Detroit 
go  to  AIG in the first place?" I am not aware of any evidence that Detroit  
seeking  insurance from AIG was racially motivated. AIG?s pricing of  
insurance or  financial products was the motivation for Detroit entering  this 
market  relation. 
 
^^^^^ CB:  On this  issue, racism should be analyzed  _structurally_, not 
in terms of individual motivation. 
 


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Mon Aug 10 16:13:50 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:13:50 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230908101301v23183f06t9b7cd3a107d03df7@mail.gmail.co
 m>
References: <5c2e4d230908101301v23183f06t9b7cd3a107d03df7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E1MadCG-00030A-79@elasmtp-kukur.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Your unrelenting idiocy is a shining example of the senility of CP Marxism.

Otherwise, I think that Cohen was worthless, not even interesting in 
comparison with the revival of Marxism that mushroomed in the '60s.

At 04:01 PM 8/10/2009, c b wrote:
>From: jkschw1 at yahoo.com
>To: "marxist philosophy" <marxistphilosophy at yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
>Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:57:20 +0000
>
>Unless I missed it the death the other day of Jerry Cohen attracted no
>comment on a list devoted to Marxist philosophy. I know that as first
>a founder of analytical Marxism, then as a refugee from Marxism to
>liberal egalitarianism, he was not favored among the participants
>here. But IMHO he was one of the most influential and important
>Marxist thinkers of the latter half of the 20th century, and his
>legacy requires comment.
>
>^^^^^^
>CB: Cohen may have been important , but he was not unusually
>influential among Marxist thinkers.  This conclusion can only be
>reached from the tendencies in Marxism that dismiss the Marxism of
>CP's and Trotskyist parties, and thinkers in these sections of Marxism
>
>^^^^^
>
>Not much time here but I will note a few thoughts;
>
>- In the context of a sharp decline in the quantity and quality of
>Marxist theory,
>
>^^^^^
>CB: This is a position held by only a section of Marxists,
>particularly academic and anti-Party Marxists.
>
>^^^^^
>
>Cohen and the AMs stood for the disconnection of
>theory from practice,
>
>^^^^
>CB: A telling admission, given that Marx himself put so much emphasis
>on the unity of theory and practice.  "Philosophers (like Cohen) have
>interpreted the world in a number of ways; the thing is to change it."
>
>^^^^^^^^
>
>the entrenchment of Marxism as another academic
>exercise. In some ways this was not their fault giving the collapse of
>Marxism as a movement and a force in the world.
>
>^^^^^
>CB: This ignores that the Communist Party is the ruling party of
>China, Cuba, Viet Nam, parts of India, et al., and the revolutions in
>South America , which though they don't announce it, are obviously
>part of the Marxist movement.
>
>^^^^^
>
>- Cohen helped bring a level of rigor and precision in Marxist
>thinking that had been sorely lacking for a very long time.
>
>^^^^^^^
>CB: This is an assertion that is not demonstrated nor accepted by 
>many Marxists.
>It's also a self-serving claim by Analytical Marxists.
>^^^^^
>
>  If it's
>complained that his work lacked popular accessibility, what are we to
>say about Adorno, a favorite here who gets wide discussion?
>
>- Cohen's major work on Karl Marx's Theory Of History is very
>valuable, but went down the wrong track in reviving a stagist,
>mechanical, primacy of the productive forces 2d Internat'l conception
>of historical materialism. (Possibly due in part to his roots in the
>Canadian CP.)
>
>^^^^^
>CB: Why not say that his alleged greater rigor and precision are the
>results of his roots in the Canadian CP ?
>
>^^^^^
>
>  True, Marx gave that view a lot of space, but Cohen almost totally
>neglected Marx's alternative class struggle view, which I think is
>more true and valuable and gets no less, arguably more, space. Brenner
>is far better on this (and no less rigorous).
>
>^^^^^
>CB: A "rigorous" look at actual history today would lead one to a more
>"stagist" view. And of course CP's , including the Canadian , give
>much primacy to "the class struggle view". So, this is a typical
>slanderous claim about CP's. If the alternative to the "stagist" view
>is a "class struggle" view, then the CP's don't promote a "stagist"
>view.
>
>^^^^^^^
>
>- Cohen's turn to traditional style moral philosophy as important,
>first as a complement to his idea of historical materialism, then as a
>replacement for Marxism and materialist analysis, was a major
>retrogression. No doubt there is more ethics in Marx and Marxism than
>Marx cared to admit, but Marx pointed the way in integrating these
>into materialist analysis.
>
>^^^^^
>CB: There's a recent thread on LBO-talk discussing this.  Marx doesn't
>claim that capitalists are moral, he just appeals to self-interest
>among workers, and appeal to self-interest is not a moral appeal.
>
>^^^^^^^
>
>Cohen's own positive ethical views were, moreover, disappointingly
>primitive and underdeveloped. See his awful Egalitarianism book, but
>also earlier papers on exploitation and his paper critiquing value
>theory -- a real train wreck. And I don't accept value theory myself!
>I haven't carefully read the last book in Rawls.
>
>Btw in that book Cohen lists as the big three books on political
>philosophy Rawls' A Theory of Justice, Hobbes' Leviathan, and Plato's
>Republic. Marx's Capital doesn't make his cut. Given Cohen's a priori
>turn to liberal morality, Marx might be happy to be left out.
>
>^^^^
>CB:  Cohen's earlier thesis is interesting to get a discussion on
>Marxism going, and to demonstrate how Marxism is different than
>mid-twentieth century British philosophy . However, he's not an
>unusual giant among Marxist or Marxian thinkers.
>
>
>
>- Cohen was nonetheless a major influence, one of the few really
>original thinkers in late 20th century Marxism, along with perhaps
>Althusser -- who, it might argued, paralleled him in a French sort of
>way. The people we tend to discuss, Marx, the Western Marxists, all
>had their roots and did much or all of their important work before
>1950.
>
>^^^^^^^
>CB: It's a common error to think that what Marxism needs is a lot of
>"original thinking" at the philosophical level.  The classics are
>pretty much philosophically adequate. What's needed is to figure out
>how to get the fundamentals of classical Marxism to grip masses.
>
>^^^^^^^^
>
>It says something about the state of Marxism that Cohen and Althusser
>are among the giants of postwar Marxism.
>
>^^^^^
>CB: What does it say ?
>
>More later.
>
>Justin



From farmelantj at juno.com  Tue Aug 11 05:23:41 2009
From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com)
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:23:41 GMT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Couple of newspaper obits for Jeyy Cohen
Message-ID: <20090811.072341.1036.0@webmail14.vgs.untd.com>



In the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/10/ga-cohen-obituary

In the Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6790514.ece



____________________________________________________________
Click here for great quotes from top international movers!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTMAuTIaPprI7abty61H3WpGXEPo362Jw3hDiBeMVvhDag2tkanFPi/


From jannuzi at gmail.com  Tue Aug 11 21:30:29 2009
From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:30:29 +0900
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Some other reading about GA Cohen
Message-ID: <ffbe0f7e0908112030l5c18373exda8a718e0e9316ed@mail.gmail.com>

Since the continental tradition(S) upheld some variants of Marx and
Marxism, we don't usually think of Marxist philosophy as belonging to
any of the Ango-Analytic versions of philosophy, especially within
currents that tried to define and delimit 'social science'. However,
the first piece here looks to put Cohen up against Althusser (and
Althusser was clearly an 'influence' on Cohen). The second piece is an
artefact about the demise of analytical Marxism and what Cohen
proposed next.

You need a subscription to get the first article on pdf. I am checking
to see if I can get it through my library.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a739400331

Louis Althusser and G. A. Cohen: a confrontation
Author: Grahame Lock
DOI: 10.1080/03085148800000021
Publication Frequency: 4 issues per year
Published in: journal Economy and Society, Volume 17, Issue 4 November
1988 , pages 499 - 517
Subjects: Economics; Political & Economic Anthropology; Theory &
Political Sociology;
Formats available: PDF (English)
Article Requests: Order Reprints : Request Permissions

      View Article: View Article (PDF) View Article (PDF)


Abstract
The paper compares and confronts the work of two of the most
distinguished living Marxist philosophers: G. A. Cohen from the
English-speaking world, and Louis Althusser from France. It develops a
critique of certain of Cohen's theses from the standpoint of ideas
present in the work of Althusser. But it also problematizes certain
presuppositions common to the work of both - in particular, the notion
that historical development (transition or revolution) should be
explained in terms of some general theory of non-correspondence
between productive forces and production relations: the difference
being simply that, within this scheme, Althusser accords explanatory
primacy to the latter, Cohen to the former. Cohen's and Althusser's
accounts of technological innovation and development are also
compared, in connexion with the contrasting place which they attribute
to the notice of human rationality on the one side and class struggle
on the other.


------------------------------
http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?channel_id=2188&editorial_id=10428

Analytical Marxism - an ex-paradigm? The odyssey of G.A. Cohen
Marcus Roberts

In 1978 G.A. Cohen published Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence.
That this landmark work set out to defend (something like) the
orthodox historical materialism of the Second International was
surprising enough; that its author situated himself within the
`analytical' tradition - and therefore engaged, and sought to defeat,
Acton, Plamenatz, Popper et al. on their own methodological terrain -
was surprising indeed. It is testimony to Cohen's analytical acuity
that, from such unpropitious materials, he fashioned not a mere curio,
but arguably the most accomplished defence of `technological
determinism' ever produced, and one of the most important works of
Marxist philosophy to have emerged from the Anglo-American academy. In
fact, its publication heralded the emergence of a sui generis Marxism
designated by its progenitors - prominent amongst whom, alongside
Cohen, were Jon Elster, John Roemer, Adam Przeworski and Erik Olin
Wright - as `Analytical' or `Rational Choice' Marxism. The architects
of this new `paradigm' insisted that a necessary condition of
Marxism's salvation was its importation into the tradition of
analytical philosophical method, `positivist' social science, and -
or, at least, so argued Elster, Roemer and Przeworski - that version
of rational choice theory originating in the Marginalist revolution of
the 1870s and providing neo-classical economics with its definitive
axioms. As one commentator observed, `Cohen and his co-thinkers ...
casually crossed the supposedly impassable border between Marxism and
the academic mainstream in philosophy and social theory.'

After nearly two decades, few Marxist `insights' have survived the
attempt to `reconstruct' it. Most of the Marxist heritage -
Marxism-Leninism, Trotskyism, Western Marxism and Structuralist
Marxism - had been consigned to the Humean flames from the outset. So,
too, had Marx's `multiply confused' anatomy of the capitalist mode of
production. As for `Marx's theory of history' in its technological
determinist incarnation, Cohen has long since confessed to doubts as
to its defensibility; few Marxists - even amongst his co-workers - now
share the slightest doubts about its indefensibility; and, anyway,
Cohen himself no longer considers it to have any purchase upon the
crucial problems confronting socialists at the close of the twentieth
century. He argues that the pre-history of the historical materialist
programme has nothing very interesting to tell us regarding either the
constituency, agency and strategy of any prospective transition to
socialism, or the motivational and institutional structures of a
feasible socialism. Thus, in the introduction to Self-Ownership,
Freedom and Equality (1995), Cohen concedes that

    to the extent that Marxism [i.e. Analytical Marxism - MR] is still
alive, as ... one may say that it (sort of) is in the work of scholars
like John Roemer and Philippe Van Parijs [note the conspicuous absence
of Elster - MR], it presents itself as a set of values and a set of
designs for realising those values ... Its shell is cracked and
crumbling, its soft underbelly is exposed.

However, while conceding the demise of Analytical Marxism, Cohen, in
an article originally published in 1990, announces the advent of
another new paradigm: `Analytical Semi-Marxism'.

If it is true that the moment anyone started to talk to Marx about
morality he would laugh, then Analytical Semi-Marxism would have had
him in stitches. At the end of a century providing socialists with few
occasions for merriment, Cohen declares it high time for a
straight-faced engagement with, and development of, the `ethical' or
`utopian' socialism decried by Marxism's founders. Marxists could
excuse themselves from serious application to normative political
philosophy only so long as they had anticipated both the emergence of
a working-class movement impelled into class struggle by its material
interests, and the advent of an era of material abundance placing
humankind, at long last, beyond the `circumstances of justice' and,
therefore, the need for theories of justice. The latest news from the
Anglophone academy is that the working class has a good deal more to
lose than its chains (and, it appears, a good deal less to win than a
world), and that `[w]e can no longer sustain Marx's extravagant,
pre-Green, materialist optimism'. The `planet earth rebels' against
the final elimination of material scarcity. The Marxist explanatory
programme in ruins, and - relatedly - socialism relegated from the
destiny of humankind to one social blueprint amongst others,
`Marxists, or what were Marxists, are impelled into normative
political philosophy'.

back





-- 
Japan Higher Education Outlook
http://japanheo.blogspot.com/

We are Feral Cats
http://wearechikineko.blogspot.com/


From farmelantj at juno.com  Wed Aug 12 05:36:47 2009
From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:36:47 GMT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Another obit for Jerry Cohen, The Independent
Message-ID: <20090812.073647.5445.0@webmail19.vgs.untd.com>





http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-jerry-cohen-maverick-philosopher-who-subjected-marxism-to-the-rigours-of-analytical-philosophy-1770667.html



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From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 12 07:14:49 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:14:49 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Wooo !
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908120614y172cb3ffva98de62bb3ae90c7@mail.gmail.com>

Over the Top and Beneath Contempt

By: Roger Simon

Politico.com - August 11, 2009 04:44 AM EST

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/25991.html

Today, we live in the age of rabid response.

Not rapid response. Rapid response was yesterday. Rapid
response was the political tactic of responding quickly
to all attacks, no matter how outrageous or
unbelievable.

Those who did not respond rapidly, those who told
themselves the public would not believe outright lies,
failed to win higher office. (Thus Democrats still blame
John Kerry for not responding rapidly enough in 2004 to
the attacks of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.)

Rabid response is different.

The purpose of rabid response is to scorch the earth, to
raise the stakes, to go nuclear in the hope that your
opponent will be so shellshocked he can make no response
at all. The purpose of rabid response is to grab the
public by the throat and not let go.

Have concerns over Barack Obama's health care plan? I
don't doubt it. The plan is very long and very
complicated and still a work in progress.

But there is one thing we do know about it: It will
establish "death panels."

These death panels will determine whether you, your
baby, your parents or your grandparents will receive
health care or be left to die. In the street. Like a
dog.

How will the death panels operate? Who will be on them?
Will they validate parking? We do not know. We know only
that the death panels will judge each individual's
"level of productivity in society" and render a life or
death judgment.

So says Sarah Palin on her Facebook page.

In olden times, Palin might have made this claim at a
speech or during a news conference where reporters might
have asked questions like: "What proof do you have?" or
"Aren't you just trying to scare people?"

But Palin does not risk that. She takes no questions.
She has done her duty as a rabid responder. She has rung
the tocsin, sounded the alarm, lit the signal fire.

Truth? Accuracy? Responsibility?

Not her territory.

Glenn Beck is a rabid responder on race. "This
president, I think, he has exposed himself as a guy over
and over and over again who has a deep-seated hatred for
white people or the white culture," Beck says. "This guy
is, I believe, a racist."

Rush Limbaugh is a rabid responder on Nazis and
swastikas. He knows a lot about swastikas. He sees them
everywhere. He looks at the Obama health care logo -
which incorporates the familiar medical symbol of twin
serpents on a staff - and sees it as being "damn close
to a Nazi swastika logo." Speaker of the House Nancy
Pelosi muddied the waters - surprise! - by saying those
who oppose Obama's health care plan "are carrying
swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on
health care."

But Limbaugh had a rabid response for that: "There are
far more similarities between Nancy Pelosi and Adolf
Hitler than between these people showing up at town
halls to protest a Hitler-like policy that's being
heralded by a Hitler-like logo."

And then, out of left (or right) field, came this: "Ted
Kennedy's dad, by the way, Joe Kennedy, sympathetic to
Hitler, sympathetic to the Nazis," Limbaugh said.

But Limbaugh was not done with the Nazis or Hitler. In
the world of rabid response, invoking the ultimate
symbols of evil to describe one's political opponents is
routine.

It doesn't matter what you say, as long as it is over
the top and beneath contempt.

"Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by
dictate," Limbaugh said. "Hitler said he didn't need to
meet with his Cabinet; he represented the will of the
people. He was called the messiah. He said the people
spoke through him."

Which means, I guess, if Hitler were alive today, he
would be a talk show host.

[Roger Simon is POLITICO's chief political columnist.]

c 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 12 07:22:25 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:22:25 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Partial list of famous musical artists who died as
	young or younger than Michael Jackson
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908120622o44c662d9h4d6311005396a15f@mail.gmail.com>

Wes Montgomery




Wes Montgomery, 1965
Background information
Birth name John Leslie Montgomery
Born March 6, 1923(1923-03-06)
Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.
Died June 15, 1968 (aged 45)
Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.
Genre(s) Soul jazz, contemporary jazz, crossover jazz, mainstream
jazz, jazz pop, hard bop
Occupation(s) Musician, songwriter
Instrument(s) Guitar
Label(s) Riverside, Verve, CTI
Notable instrument(s)
Gibson L-5 CES
John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery (6 March 1923 - 15 June 1968)[1] was an
American jazz guitarist. He is generally considered one of the major
jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django
Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others,
including Pat Martino, George Benson, and Pat Metheny.

Contents [hide]
1 Biography
2 Technique
3 Recording career
4 Discography
4.1 Riverside ( 1959-1963 )
4.2 Verve ( 1964-1966 )
4.3 A&M ( 1967-1968 )
5 References
6 External links



[edit] Biography
Montgomery was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He came from a musical
family; his brothers, Monk (string bass and electric bass) and Buddy
(vibraphone and piano), were jazz performers. The brothers released a
number of albums together as the Montgomery Brothers. Although he was
not skilled at reading music, he could learn complex melodies and
riffs by ear. Montgomery started learning guitar relatively late, at
the age of 19, by listening to and learning the recordings of his
idol, guitarist Charlie Christian. He was known for his ability to
play Christian solos note for note and was hired by Lionel Hampton for
this ability.[1]

Many fellow jazz guitarists consider Montgomery the greatest influence
among modern jazz guitarists. Pat Metheny has praised him greatly,
saying "I learned to play listening to Wes Montgomery's Smokin' At The
Half Note." In addition, Metheny stated to the New York Times in 2005
that the solo on "If You Could See Me Now," from this album is his
favorite of all time. Joe Pass indicated that, "To me, there have been
only three real innovators on the guitar--Wes Montgomery, Charlie
Christian, and Django Reinhardt," as cited in James Sallis's The
Guitar Players and in his Hot Licks instructional video. In addition,
George Benson attests, "Wes had a corn on his thumb, which gave his
sound that point. He would get one sound for the soft parts, and then
that point by using the corn. That's why no one will ever match Wes.
And his thumb was double-jointed. He could bend it all the way back to
touch his wrist, which he would do to shock people." Kenny Burrell
states, "It was an honor that he called me as his second guitarist for
a session." In addition, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Johnson, Joe
Satriani, Jimi Hendrix, David Becker, Joe Diorio and Pat Martino have
pointed to him numerous times as a great influence.

Following the early work of swing/pre-bop guitarist Charlie Christian
and gypsy-jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, Wes joined Tal Farlow,
Johnny Smith, Jimmy Raney, and Barney Kessell to put guitar on the map
as a bebop / post-bop instrument. While these men generally curtailed
their own output in the 1960s, Montgomery recorded prolifically during
this period, lending guitar to the same tunes contemporaries like John
Coltrane and Miles Davis were recording. While many Jazz players are
regarded as virtuosos, Montgomery had a very wide influence on other
virtuosos who followed him, and in the respect he earned from his
contemporaries. To many, Montgomery's playing defines jazz guitar and
the sound that learners try to emulate.

Dave Miele and Dan Bielowsky claim, "Wes Montgomery was certainly one
of the most influential and most musical guitarists to ever pick up
the instrument....He took the use of octaves and chord melodies to a
greater level than any other guitarist, before or since....Montgomery
is undoubtedly one of the most important voices in Jazz guitar that
has ever lived-or most likely ever will live. A discussion of Jazz
guitar is simply not thorough if it does not touch upon Wes
Montgomery." (Jazz Improv Magazine, vol 7 # 4 p. 26).

"Listening to [Wes Montgomery's] solos is like teetering at the edge
of a brink," composer-conductor Gunther Schuller asserted, as quoted
by Jazz & Pop critic Will Smith. "His playing at its peak becomes
unbearably exciting, to the point where one feels unable to muster
sufficient physical endurance to outlast it." Wes received many awards
and accolades: Nominated for two Grammy Awards for Bumpin', 1965;
received Grammy Award for Goin' Out of My Head as Best Instrumental
Jazz Performance by Large Group or Soloist with Large Group, 1966;
nominated for Grammy Awards for "Eleanor Rigby" and Down Here on the
Ground, 1968; nominated for Grammy Award for Willow, Weep for Me,
1969. Wes' second album, The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery,
earned him Down Beat magazine's "New Star" award in 1960. In addition,
he won the Down Beat Critic's Poll award for best Jazz guitarist in
1960, '61, '62,'63, '66, and 1967. (NPR.org, September 26, 2007).

Montgomery toured with Lionel Hampton early in his career, however the
combined stress of touring and being away from family brought him back
home to Indianapolis. To support his family of eight, Montgomery
worked in a factory from 7:00 am to 3:00 pm, then performed in local
clubs from 9:00 pm to 2:00 am. Cannonball Adderley heard Montgomery in
an Indianapolis club and was floored. The next morning, he called
record producer Orrin Keepnews, who signed Montgomery to a recording
contract with Riverside Records. Adderly later recorded with
Montgomery on his Pollwinners album. Montgomery recorded with his
brothers and various other group members, including the Wynton Kelly
Trio which previously backed up Miles Davis.

John Coltrane asked Montgomery to join his band after a jam session,
but Montgomery continued to lead his own band. Boss Guitar seems to
refer to his status as a guitar-playing bandleader. He also made
contributions to recordings by Jimmy Smith. Jazz purists relish
Montgomery's recordings up through 1965, and sometimes complain that
he abandoned hard-bop for pop jazz towards the end of his career,
although it is arguable that he gained a wider audience for his
earlier work with his soft jazz from 1965-1968. During this late
period he would occasionally turn out original material alongside
jazzy orchestral arrangements of pop songs. In sum, this late period
earned him considerable wealth and created a platform for a new
audience to hear his earlier recordings.

Wes Montgomery died of a heart attack on June 15, 1968 in
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.[2]


[edit] Technique
According to Jazz guitar educator Wolf Marshall, Montgomery often
approached solos in a three-tiered manner: He would begin a repeating
progression with single note lines, derived from scales or modes;
after a fitting number of sequences, he would play octaves for a few
more sequences, finally culminating with block chords.[1]

The use of octaves (playing the same note on two strings one octave
apart) for which he is widely known, became known as "the Naptown
Sound". Montgomery was also an excellent "single-line" or
"single-note" player, and was very influential in the use of block
chords in his solos. His playing on the jazz standard Lover Man is an
example of his single-note, octave- and block-chord soloing. ("Lover
Man" appears on the Fantasy album The Montgomery Brothers.)

Instead of using a guitar pick, Montgomery plucked the strings with
the fleshy part of his thumb, using downstrokes for single notes and a
combination of upstrokes and downstrokes for chords and octaves.
Montgomery developed this technique not for technical reasons but for
his wife. He worked long hours as a machinist before his career began
and practiced late at night while his wife was sleeping. He played
with his thumb so that his playing would be softer and not wake her.
This technique enabled him to get a mellow, expressive tone from his
guitar. George Benson, in the liner notes of the Ultimate Wes
Montgomery album, wrote, "Wes had a corn on his thumb, which gave his
sound that point. He would get one sound for the soft parts, and then
that point by using the corn. That's why no one will ever match Wes.
And his thumb was double-jointed. He could bend it all the way back to
touch his wrist, which he would do to shock people."

He generally played a Gibson L-5CES guitar. In his later years he
played one of two guitars that Gibson custom made for him. In his
early years, Montgomery had a tube amp, often a Fender. In his later
years, he played a solid state Standel amp with a 15-inch (380 mm)
speaker.


[edit] Recording career
Montgomery toured with vibraphonist Lionel Hampton's orchestra from
July 1948 to January 1950, and can be heard on recordings from this
period. Montgomery then returned to Indianapolis and did not record
again until December 1957 (save for one session in 1955), when he took
part in a session that included his brothers Monk and Buddy, as well
as trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, who made his recording debut with
Montgomery. Most of the recordings made by Montgomery and his brothers
from 1957-1959 were released on the Pacific Jazz label.[1]


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 12 07:32:05 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:32:05 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Nature and Paradoxes of Freedom
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908120632s5129fe54v8a55f477f8373cb4@mail.gmail.com>

farmelantj at juno.com farmelantj at juno.com
----------------
Concerning the concepts of negative freedom
that were embraced by both Hayek and Isaiah Berlin,
Dogan is quite correct that for both men, the
embracing of negative liberty (and the rejection
of positive liberty) was very much motivated by
their desire to defend capitalism.  Where the two
men differed, is that Berlin's embrace of negative
liberty was in the context of his "pluralism."
By pluralism, Berlin meant a "value pluralism"
or a pluralism of values (not unlike Max Weber's
conception) in which there are a plurality of
ideals, which may all be equally valid, but which
are not entirely compatible with one another.
For Berlin, while negative liberty was a valid
social ideal, it was not the only one.  Berlin
recognized as valid, the social ideals of
equality and solidarity.  Therefore, for Berlin,
unlike Hayek,  the good society while embracing
negative liberty also might embrace other
ideals like equality or solidarity.  Therefore,
Berlin was able to rationalize the emergence of
the welfare state in the UK and the New Deal
in the US.  In this way, as Dogan suggests,
Berlin's pluralism of values was closely
tied to the pluralism of classes under
capitalism, and so Berlin like a good
social democratic liberal attempted to
mediate between the interests of capitalists
and workers under capitalism.

Jim F.


^^^^^^^^
CB: Berlin seems to be espousing ye olde liberal creed of  e pluribus
unum. It is on US money as a sort of official American motto or
something

.".. E Pluribus Unum included in the Seal of the United States, being
one of the nation's mottos at the time of the seal's creation ..."


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 12 09:55:10 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:55:10 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Detroit
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908120855uaf7aabya9d6f6323fbcc9ef@mail.gmail.com>

Waistline2

In respect to AIG, I have not done the investigation into the rates charged
 to Detroit to determine if insurance of Detroit bonds required a higher
premium  rate.

^^^^^
CB: This switcheru was voted on in a public session, so, I'm sure of
what I'm saying.

AIG was insuring some of Detroit's bonds. When AIG went bankrupt, the
bond agency lowered Detroit's bond rating , because its insurance was
no good. Detroit had to enter into a draconian revision ( higher
priority for the Wall Street bhe ond company to a casino revenue
stream to the City) against its interests of its contract with the
Wall Street bond company/parisite in order to avoid
bankruptcy/receivership/in Michigan: Emergency Financial Manager. The
Emergency Financial Manager  acts as a financial dictator in cutting
City jobs and stealing tax money for Wall Street.

^^^^^^^^
Wall Street Dictators

by John Henry

If one looks at the big picture, the City of Detroit is being set up
by the powers-that-be, including the news media, for the same
treatment as the school  system - a financial dictatorship, with Wall
Street and its agents ripping off the City workers and
People of Detroit.

Mayor Bing is demanding that the City workers take a 10% paycut over
two years. The City unions are picketing today and may strike.

A big part in this set-up is the years long project of portraying the
elected officials of the City,Mayor and City Council, as so bad that
the masses will accept a non-elected financial dictator to "clean up
the mess" of these oh so foolish people elected by the citizenry.
Whatever, faults they have, they are no worse than the dozens of white
men who exclusively ran Detroit City government for so many decades.
It is no coincidence that once the City Council became majority Black
and women the forces that shape public opinion turned them into a
bunch of fools in the minds of so many suckers and naive ones among
us.

Detroit financial problems are not due to City officials' bad decisions,
but the disinvestment  from and failures of corporate America in
Detroit, and the related long term depopulation begun 60 years ago. The last
thing the City needs is "CEO thinking" in leadership. CEO thinking has
bankrupted all Wall Street, GM, Chrysler ! No exaggeration.

At any rate, the effect of  brainwashing so many citizens ignorant of
Detroit's history and current events.  has brought just such a
CEO-style Mayor , who has all the appearances of someone who will
facilitate handing the City over to a financial dictator, or emergency
financial manager as over the DPS.

Critically related to this looming financial rightwing coup, within
the last several months,  Wall Street bond holders tightened the noose
through a swithcheroo perpetrated by Wall Street giant AIG's failure
lowering Detroit's bond rating , triggering and threatening an
emergency financial manager, i.e. financial dictator event. In the end
Detroit was forced to let a Wallstreet firm get its teeth deeper
into a City juggler vein/revenue stream from a casino. Then AIG was
bailed out and Detroit was not by the federal government.

Rushing Detroit to bankruptcy is very much about enriching Wall
Street, the nation wide financial sector of America,  at the expense
of City workers and the People of Detroit. The financial dictator
selected will be an agent of that finance capitalist class.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 12 10:55:04 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:55:04 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Michigan event launches drive to abolish nuclear
	weapons
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908120955y23d9a245j31007b4dc40298aa@mail.gmail.com>

Michigan event launches drive to abolish nuclear weapons


Author: John Rummel
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 08/11/09 16:01


BIRMINGHAM, Mich. ? Imagine if the threat of nuclear weapons and the
billions that go to building and maintaining them instead went to
provide health care, education and the prevention of global warming.
It could become a reality when the United Nations meets in the spring
of 2010 for the final review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

While the campaign to make it happen will be worldwide in scope, a
local kickoff here came last week at the annual memorial service to
commemorate the killing of innocent civilians in the nuclear bombings
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 44 years ago this month.

Speaking to the assembled crowd, Al Fishman, a board member of Peace
Action of Michigan, said this will be the first worldwide effort to
ban nuclear weapons since 1950. ?We have a chance to make this a
success because for the first time in history, we have a president
committed to goal of the abolition of nuclear weapons,? Fishman said.

He read aloud part of a petition addressed to President Obama that
will be circulated during the next nine months leading up to the UN
meeting:

?Dear President Obama, We wholeheartedly applaud you for declaring in
Prague, ?I state clearly and with conviction America?s commitment to
seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.? We
commend you for your courageous and historic recognition that ?as the
only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the U.S. has a moral
responsibility has to act.??

According to Fishman, another positive action the president is taking
is his plan in the near future to resubmit the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification. Fishman said such
initiatives from our president ?gives us space to move.?

Fishman said the petition to Obama will be circulated by many groups
and that model resolutions will be available to take before
organizations, city councils and other elected bodies.

?This is a winner,? he said. To back up that confidence the first
announced action will be signature collecting in Plymouth, Mich., the
home district of conservative Republican Congressman Thaddeus
McCotter.

jrummel @ pww.org


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 12 11:26:46 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:26:46 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Socialist Feminist Revival
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908121026i7c2aee14gaede34c3f1e1dc3f@mail.gmail.com>

Socialist Feminist Revival
If not now, when?

August 09, 2009

By Reihana Mohideen

Reihana Mohideen's ZSpace Page
Join ZSpace


         [Contribution to the Reimagining Society Project hosted by
ZCommunications]

There is a revival of socialist feminism in Latin America, spearheaded
by the Venezuelan and Cuban revolutions.

I just returned from a workshop on gender-based violence organised by
the Ministry of Women's Affairs in Venezuela and the UNDP. Speakers at
the workshop included Maria Leon, Minister of Women's Affairs and Nora
Casteneda President of Banmujer or Bank for the Development of Women.
The two women explained the gains made by women as a result of
Bolivarian socialist revolution in Venezuela. A record which was truly
amazing in the attempts made in empowering women towards achieving
gender equality, reported candidly by both women, who also outlined
the challenges women in that country have as yet to overcome.

The Bolivarian constitution is the first in the South (and possibly
the world) to recognise women's housework as a legitimate economic
activity producing wealth and contributing to the social welfare of
the population: "The State will recognise household chores as an
economic activity that creates added value, produces wealth and social
welfare. Housewives have the right to social security according to the
law." (Article 88) As Maria Leon explained in Article 88 "the work of
all previous generations of women are also recognised and valued".

In March 2007 the right of women to live a life free of violence
became an organic law enacted by the National Assembly of Venezuela.
Now the law must be effectively implemented. This includes setting up
special courts or legal units to handle violence against women cases
across the country, with some 19 courts already set up covering all
regions. These courts were described as 'new institutions of the
Venezuelan state to eradicate violence against women'. The first
courts were on violence against women were set up in Caracas on June
27, 2008.

These courts have the authority to temporarily arrest perpetrators of
violence against women and prohibit them from leaving the country. The
first dates for the trial should be set ten to twenty days after the
act of violence, with sentencing on the same day with penalty and
fines. Appeals processes exist. These courts were also described as
'specialised organs on violence against women' and as 'weapons in the
struggle against violence against women'.

According to Maria Leon, "Talking is not enough. Laws are not enough.
Institutions are not enough. We need a cultural change in our views
and outlook." This required mobilising women to become "a real force,
a deterrent force, an army to combat violence against women and to
change the notion of women as battered victims and weak human beings".
To mobilise women some 25,000 'points of encounter' for women are
being set up where women have easy access to information and services
without cumbersome requirements and bureaucratic regulations. These
25,000 'points of encounter' will consist of at least ten women, who
will then organise more women to create "an army to combat violence
against women ... the point is not only to decrease violence against
women, but to eradicate it".

The Ministry for Women's Affairs and Gender Equality was set up on
March 8, 2009. One of the first activities of the new Ministry was to
organise a congress of women to consult women on the plans and work of
the Ministry. A key objective of the Ministry is to advice the
President on 'human development with gender equality' and the 'active
participation in the defence and guarantee of women's rights in the
revolutionary transformation of the country'. Linked to this a key
task of the Ministry is to 'design the criteria for allocating
financial and social resources and investments targeting women,
especially those who are marginalised and excluded, suffering
discrimination, exploitation and violence ... in order to promote a
socialist production model with gender equity in the socialisation of
the means of production'.

Maria Leon and other Venezuelan women speakers all emphasised the
importance of the local popular power structures, the commune
councils, in the mobilisation and empowerment of women. According to
Leon "Peoples power, popular power, is most important [and] 70% of the
commune councils are headed by women".

Nora Castaneda provided updates on the work of Banmujer. Banmujer is a
key political instrument of the revolution in the economic and
political empowerment of poor and ethnic minority women. Since 2001,
Banmujer has redistributed wealth of around US$179 million in 106,616
microcredits to poor women. In 2008 alone it approved a total of
13,689 microcredit loans worth US$35 million.

Meanwhile in Cuba pathbreaking proposals and measures are being
advocated and discussed amongst the entire population to advance
gender equality in relation to sexual rights, spearheaded by the
National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX). According to CENESEX
Director Mariela Castro this year's celebration of International Day
against Homophobia and Transphobia will be held in Havana on Saturday,
May 16. It will be dedicated not only to youth, but also to the
family, "so that fathers and mothers can better understand their
homosexual or transsexual children."
The National Assembly (Cuba's parliament) will include in its work
agenda an initiative to reform the national Family Code, which has
been effective in Cuba since 1975 and contains proposals on gender
identity and rights of "sexual minorities." The initiatives include
the legal recognition of the same sex unions, whereby they will enjoy
the same rights as consensually united heterosexual couples.

In June 2008 a resolution of the Ministry of Public Health leganised
the performing of sex change operations on transsexual persons.
Resolution 126 establishes the creation of a center for integral
healthcare for people who are transsexual, which will be the sole
institution in the country authorized to carry out total or partial
medical sex change treatments.

This is a far cry from the former Soviet project with its idealisation
of motherhood or anything in the experience of the Chinese revolution.
And it is a distinct trend in the opposite direction to what is taking
place in a number of industrialized countries in the West, the US and
Australia included, where the trend is to take away a range of even
formal rights won in gender equality and related sexual rights.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 12 14:11:21 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:11:21 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?iso-8859-1?q?Encyclop=E9die?=
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908121311r40d043c5w8f969341209edd15@mail.gmail.com>

Encyclop?die

Title page of the Encyclop?die.Main article: Encyclop?die
Andr? Le Breton, a bookseller and printer, approached Diderot with a
project for the publication of a translation of Ephraim Chambers'
Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences into French,
first undertaken by the Englishman John Mills, and followed by the
German Gottfried Sellius. Diderot accepted the proposal. During this
translation his creative mind and astute vision transformed the work.
Instead of a mere reproduction of the Cyclopaedia, he persuaded Le
Breton to enter upon a new work, which would collect all the active
writers, ideas, and knowledge that were moving the cultivated class of
the Republic of Letters to its depths; however, they were
comparatively ineffective due to their lack of dispersion. His
enthusiasm for the project was transmitted to the publishers; they
collected a sufficient capital for a more vast enterprise than they
had first planned. Jean le Rond d'Alembert was persuaded to become
Diderot's colleague; the requisite permission was procured from the
government.

In 1750 an elaborate prospectus announced the project to a delighted
public, and in 1751 the first volume was published. This work was very
unorthodox and had many forward-thinking ideas for the time. Diderot
stated within this work, "An encyclopedia ought to make good the
failure to execute such a project hitherto, and should encompass not
only the fields already covered by the academies, but each and every
branch of human knowledge." Upon encompassing every branch of
knowledge this will give, "the power to change men's common way of
thinking." This idea was profound and intriguing, as it was one of the
first works during the Enlightenment. Diderot wanted to give all
people the ability to further their knowledge and, in a sense, allow
every person to have any knowledge they sought of the world. The work,
implementing not only the expertise of scholars and Academies in their
respective fields but that of the common man in their proficiencies in
their trades, sought to bring together all knowledge of the time and
condense this information for all to use. These people would
amalgamate and work under a society to perform such a project. They
would work alone in order to shed societal conformities, and build a
multitude of information on a desired subject with varying view
points, methods, or philosophies. He emphasized the vast abundance of
knowledge held within each subject with intricacies and details to
provide the greatest amount of knowledge to be gained from the
subject. All people would benefit from these insights into different
subjects as a means of betterment; bettering society as a whole and
individuals alike.

This message under the Ancien R?gime would severely dilute the
regime's ability to control the people. Knowledge and power, two key
items the upper class held over the lower class, were in jeopardy as
knowledge would be more accessible, giving way to more power amongst
the lower class. An encyclopedia would give the layman an ability to
reason and use knowledge to better themselves; allowing for upward
mobility and increased intellectual abundance amongst the lower class.
A growth of knowledge amongst this segment of society would provide
power to this group and a yearning to question the government. The
numerated subjects in the folios were not just for the good of the
people and society, but were for the promotion of the state as well.
The state did not see any benefit in the works, instead viewing them
as a contempt to contrive power and authority from the state.

Diderot's work was plagued by controversy from the beginning; the
project was suspended by the courts in 1752. Just as the second volume
was completed accusations arose, regarding seditious content,
concerning the editors entries on religion and natural law. Diderot
was detained and his house was searched for manuscripts for subsequent
articles. But the search proved fruitless as no manuscripts could be
found. They were hidden in the house of an unlikely
confederate?Chretien de Lamoignon Malesherbes, the very official who
ordered the search. Although Malesherbis was a staunch
absolutist-loyal to the monarchy, he was sympathetic to the literary
project. Along with his support, and that of other well placed
influential confederates, the project resumed. Diderot returned to his
efforts only to be constantly embroiled in controversy.

These twenty years were to Diderot not merely only a time of incessant
drudgery, but harassing persecution and desertion of friends. The
ecclesiastical party detested the Encyclop?die, in which they saw a
rising stronghold for their philosophic enemies. By 1757 they could
endure it no longer. The subscribers had grown from 2,000 to 4,000, a
measure of the growth of the work in popular influence and power. The
Encyclop?die threatened the governing social classes of France
(aristocracy) because it took for granted the justice of religious
tolerance, freedom of thought, and the value of science and industry.
It asserted the doctrine that the main concern of the nation's
government ought to be the nation's common people. It was believed
that the Encyclop?die was the work of an organized band of
conspirators against society, and that the dangerous ideas they held
were made truly formidable by their open publication. In 1759, the
Encyclop?die was formally suppressed. The decree did not stop the
work, which went on, but its difficulties increased by the necessity
of being clandestine. D'Alembert withdrew from the enterprise and
other powerful colleagues, including Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron
de Laune, declined to contribute further to a book which had acquired
a bad reputation. Diderot was left to finish the task as best he
could. He wrote several hundred articles, some very slight, but many
of them laborious, comprehensive, and long. He damaged his eyesight
correcting proofs and editing the manuscripts of less competent
contributors. He spent his days at workshops, mastering manufacturing
processes, and his nights writing what he had learned during the day.
He was incessantly harassed by threats of police raids. The last
copies of the first volume were issued in 1765. At the last moment,
when his immense work was drawing to an end, he encountered a crowning
mortification: he discovered that the bookseller, fearing the
government's displeasure, had struck out from the proof sheets, after
they had left Diderot's hands, all passages that he considered too
dangerous. The monument to which Diderot had given the labor of twenty
long and oppressive years was irreparably mutilated and defaced. It
was twelve years, in 1772, before the subscribers received the final
27 folio volumes of the Encyclop?die, ou dictionnaire raisonn? des
sciences, des arts et des m?tiers since the first volume had been
published.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Diderot


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Wed Aug 12 20:47:00 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:47:00 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Detroit
Message-ID: <c40.6375bdce.37b4d8a4@aol.com>

>> AIG was insuring some of Detroit's bonds. When AIG went bankrupt,  the 
bond agency lowered Detroit's bond rating , because its insurance was no  
good. Detroit had to enter into a draconian revision ( higher priority for the  
Wall Street bhe ond company to a casino revenue stream to the City) against 
its  interests of its contract with the Wall Street bond company/parisite 
in order to  avoid bankruptcy/receivership/in Michigan: Emergency Financial 
Manager. The  Emergency Financial Manager  acts as a financial dictator in 
cutting City  jobs and stealing tax money for Wall Street. << 
 
Comment 
 
Without a doubt Detroit faces trouble. The issue was if this trouble was  
the result of racism because the controllers and executors of all major  
countries in America are white. 
 
Detroit has lots of financial problems, currently dealing with a $300  
million structural imbalance - as it is called, and calls on swap termination  
agreements totaling $400 million.  Standard and Poors stripped Detroit of  
its investment grade rating affecting $2.4 billion of limited and unlimited 
tax  general obligation bonds, along with its pension certificates. Changes -  
downgrade, in bond and credit worthiness can trigger a call demand. That is 
what  happened. 
 
Detroit is involved in some complex swap agreements, specifically the  
Detroit Retirement System Fund issuing $948.5 in bond obligations back in 2006.  
Involved in this agreement were AG, UBS and SBS Financial Products. 
 
It is true that that the termination agreement triggers a call for a large  
payment, of which Detroit does not have. The agreement was to tie payment 
to the  Casino revenue stream which amounts to roughly $180 per year. The 
agreement in  place releases this revenue stream after $4.2 million a month is 
paid. $4.2  times 12 months equals a little over $50 million a year. Whether 
these actions  are the result of racism and racist because the executives 
in the financial  architecture are white and Detroit is majority, black with 
black politicians was  the issue raised. 
 
Without question, the city of Detroit has faced stiff opposition and white  
supremacist opposition by the state bureaucracy and some of its neighboring 
 political jurisdictions. On the other hand it is a fact that bonds for the 
 entire state of Michigan were downgraded during the same period. 
 
Defining the problem defines the solution. 
 
If the problem is white executives and white supremacy, the solution is  
removal of white executives and replacing them by non-whites and ending whites 
 supremacist attitudes and actions towards Detroit. 
 
Defining the problem defines the solution. 
 

**** 
 
>> A big part in this set-up is the years long project of portraying  the
elected officials of the City,Mayor and City Council, as so bad  that
the masses will accept a non-elected financial dictator to "clean  up
the mess" of these oh so foolish people elected by the  citizenry.
Whatever, faults they have, they are no worse than the dozens of  white
men who exclusively ran Detroit City government for so many  decades.
It is no coincidence that once the City Council became majority  Black
and women the forces that shape public opinion turned them into  a
bunch of fools in the minds of so many suckers and naive ones among
us.  << 
 
Comment 
 
Detroit City Council has been majority black since 1977, which ushered in  
the following representatives. 
 
Erma Henderson 
Maryann Mahaffey 
Nicholas Hood II 
Clyde Cleveland 
Jack Kelley 

David Eberhard 
Kenneth Cockrel, Sr. 
William G. Rogell 
Herbert McFadden, Jr.  
 
Two years later Chrysler went bankrupt in the bond market and had to be  
bailed out by the feds. The point is that this is the economic and political  
juncture marking a transition or restructuring in the form of capital, which 
 would go on to write the agenda for the world total capital in the 1990?s. 
The  rise of the non-banking financial architecture is a phenomenon of 
capital rather  than racism. 
 
Without question, the election of blacks throughout city government was of  
history making significance for all of America. Blacks representing the 
black  masses is the gage for the degree to which desegregation was shattered. 
There is  and was no other gage. Period. 
 
Once the ideological concept of racism is thrown away, it becomes obvious  
that blacks conform to the ethic history of America, no different from the  
emergence of the ethnic Italian or ethnic Irish politician. As Italians were 
 grouped together in neighborhoods, at a certain point in their 
quantitative  density, Italian politicians are elected to office. Blacks are no 
different in  their quantitative density. 
 
Segregation meant the black politician could not go national. The election  
of Obama alters history and closes out a chapter in American history. 
 
The manipulation of public opinion is not against the black representatives 
 as black, inasmuch as Detroit is going to remain black for the near 
future. The  manipulation of public opinion is an attack against the proletariat 
itself. 
 
Defining the problem defines the solution. 
 
The American proletariat is female across the board. This new proletariat,  
which took shape in the post 1977 period, characterizes all of American 
society  and is not peculiar to Detroit. What is being attacked is the 
proletariat. What  is being debased is the lack of political consciousness of the 
proletariat. For  a moment, forget the color factor. What is wrong with the 
politicians is the  political consciousness of the masses that elected them. 
 
The evolution of the black political representative, which had to take  
place based on all black unity, has completed its historical course. Blacks are 
 going to be elected in Detroit. The question begins to shift to class and  
questions of economic stratification. Different economic strata of the  
proletariat faces and express different demands. 
 
The issue facing every section of the Detroit proletariat is not black  
politicians "are no worse than the dozens of white men who exclusively ran  
Detroit City government for so many decades." The issue is the slow hard fight  
to educate the proletariat in class outlook, fortitude and the role of  
government in implementing the demands of the working class. Equality has been  
won. At least all the equality that can be won under capitalism. Every 
economic  stratum is more than less equal within itself. 
 
The reason white men exclusively ran Detroit city government for so many  
decades is a product of the European ethnic composition of Detroit during 
these  decades. 
 
In 1820 Detroit was roughly 95% white and 5 % black. 
In 1960 the city was 70% white and 28% Black. 
In 1970 55% white and 43% black.
In 1980 34% white and 63% black.
In 1990 21% white and 75% black. 
In 2000 12% white and 81% black. 

Keep in mind that the City Council became black in 1977 or during the  
period when Detroit became majority black. 

I am not at all convinced that one can produce a shred of evidence to  
indicate that industry fled Detroit to escape a black population. Forty years  
ago there was a neighborhood around every factory. The taxes were high on the 
 factory; the property value was valuable because it was near a factory. 
The  factory hired two or three thousand people. Everyone was consuming and  
producing. The factory owners were consuming and producing and people who 
worked  in the factory were consuming and producing. Then speed up occurred in 
the late  1960s and early 1970's. The shift of industry to the South 
accelerated but was  steady since the 1950s. Industry had been fleeing South to 
take advantage of  cheap labor and protection by the Taft Hartley Act and its 
"right to Work" laws. 
 
In fact I would say that racism against blacks in Detroit did not cause  
industry to shift to low wages areas in the South and then Mexico. 
 
In addition the rise of the multinational corporation in the post WW II  
years was not driven by racism but seeking to circumvent protectionist  
regulations of various national states. 
 
There is a strong impulse amongst the Detroit voters for a ward system  
rather than citywide general election for City Council because they feel the  
representatives are not responsive in the face of economic decay and cut back 
of  city services. Those demanding more from City officials are neither 
fools or  suckers. The city?s proletarian masses are not fools and suckers to 
demand their  interest be represented. 
 
Every major city in America is cutting back on government services.  
Actually every state. 
 
Something deeper than racism is taking place. 
 
Without question, both major newspapers and all major television stations  
convey an ingrained white chauvinism.  Short of revolution there is no  
possibility of this changing inasmuch as white chauvinism is wedded to  
anti-communism as American history. Defeating the latter is the key to defeating  
the former. 
 
To complete the picture of flight from Detroit the following information  
might be useful 
 
In terms of flight, white flight between 1970 and 1990 was not to the  
suburbs but to the Sunbelt. In fact, the region population fell between 1980 and 
 1990 by 200,000 - from 5,200,000 to 5,000,000. Then region - metro, 
population  rose from 5,000,000 to 5,357,000 between 1990 and 2000 and remains the 
same as  of 2008 (5,354,000). Between 2000 and 2008, Detroit population 
fell by 40,000.  The suburb population actually fell along with Detroit?s 
population count:   by 3,000 or remained the same. 
 
 
WL. 
. 
 

This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from 
_http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ 
(http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) 


From liljoe.radical at gmail.com  Wed Aug 12 22:31:17 2009
From: liljoe.radical at gmail.com (Lil Joe)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:31:17 -0700
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Marxism-Thaxis Digest, Vol 70, Issue 9
In-Reply-To: <mailman.3.1250100004.29513.marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>
References: <mailman.3.1250100004.29513.marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>
Message-ID: <6ea00fee0908122131g4b26c6cbh4bdeb44b3089a41d@mail.gmail.com>

Revolutionary Posturing, Rhetoric and Actuality of Reactionary Policy,
Critical Commentary on Malcolm X' 1963 "Message to the Grassroots",
by Lil Joe
LilJoe.Radical at Gmail.com
Laborpartypraxis.com




In the 1963 "Message to Grassroots Speech at a Detroit Church, The Shrine of
the Black Madonna, Malcolm X presented his concept of 'revolution' and of
'Black revolution', which he contrasted to civil rights civil goals and
political methods of civil disobedience and alliance with organized
labor.  This speech, and Malcolm X's delivery of it against the civil rights
movement - its objectives and methods of achieving them through the politics
of civil disobedience has become the defining moment of and for what has
come to be the ideology and advocates of black nationalism qua
'revolutionary nationalism'.

The way in which Malcolm X achieve this is did by demagogy of analogy,
fallacies. The fallacy is based upon the false premise that slavery is a
biological rather than an economic category, there were black slaves in
Muslim Africa -Mali, Songhai - but also 'white' slaves in Greece and Rome,
as well as native American slaves in the Aztec, Tolteca, and Inca empires,
Asian slaves in Mesopotamia, Assyria, Persia, India, China, Japan &c. Slaves
as a class has always been integrated!

In America the indentured servants originally were an integrated class-
which in consequence of the world-market engendered capitalist terms of
trade and comparative advantage the triangular trade favored the African
slave trade that Africans displaced all others to become this economic
class.


 "The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement
and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the
conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren
for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the
era of capitalist production.

"With the development of capitalist production during the manufacturing
period, the public opinion of Europe had lost the last remnant of shame and
conscience. The nations bragged cynically of every infamy that served them
as a means to capitalistic accumulation. Read, *e.g.,* the na?ve Annals of
Commerce of the worthy A. Anderson. Here it is trumpeted forth as a triumph
of English statecraft that at the Peace of Utrecht, England extorted from
the Spaniards by the Asiento Treaty the privilege of being allowed to ply
the negro-trade, until then only carried on between Africa and the English
West Indies, between Africa and Spanish America as well. England thereby
acquired the right of supplying Spanish America until 1743 with 4,800
negroes yearly. This threw, at the same time, an official cloak over British
smuggling. Liverpool waxed fat on the slave-trade. This was its method of
primitive accumulation. And, even to the present day, Liverpool
?respectability? is the Pindar of the slave-trade which ? compare the work
of Aikin [1795] already quoted ? ?has coincided with that spirit of bold
adventure which has characterised the trade of Liverpool and rapidly carried
it to its present state of prosperity; has occasioned vast employment for
shipping and sailors, and greatly augmented the demand for the manufactures
of the country? (p. 339). Liverpool employed in the slave-trade, in 1730, 15
ships; in 1751, 53; in 1760, 74; in 1770, 96; and in 1792, 132.

"Whilst the cotton industry introduced child-slavery in England, it gave in
the United States a stimulus to the transformation of the earlier, more or
less patriarchal slavery, into a system of commercial exploitation. In fact,
the veiled slavery of the wage-workers in Europe needed, for its pedestal,
slavery pure and simple in the new world.

"Tantae molis erat, to establish the ?eternal laws of Nature? of the
capitalist mode of production, to complete the process of separation between
labourers and conditions of labour, to transform, at one pole, the social
means of production and subsistence into capital, at the opposite pole, the
mass of the population into wage-labourers, into ?free labouring poor,? that
artificial product of modern society. If money, According to Augier, ?comes
into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,? capital comes
dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm

Malcolm X was either ignorant of, or if knowledgeable about this actual
empirical history deliberately ignored this empirical historical process,
which resulted in African slavery in the American South, to thereby instead
white wash capitalism by presenting African chattel slaves in America as a
racial institution of 'white supremacy'. The Nation of Islam and its
leaders, Malcolm X included, never discoursed on capitalist commodity
production by chattel slavery in context of the world-market, but the
supposed psychology of black slaves and white masters.

Moreover, the Nation of Islam was in no way anti-capitalist, their objective
was to have a black petty bourgeoisie displace a Jewish or white petty
bourgeois monopoly in the black ghettos, not to have workers unite to
expropriate the productive forces and consequently dis troy capitalism. The
presentation of capitalism as black capitalism=black nationalism was to
supplant economic class classification by racial classification, presenting
black capitalists as 'black revolutionaries': 'buy black'!

Proletarians selling their labor power to capitalists today are presented by
Malcolm X in his Message to the Grassroots speech as the same class as
chattel slaves, ignoring the difference that chattel slave labor was
directly appropriated by the chattel slave's owners. Malcolm X had to
obliterate the economics of class distinctive relations of production in
order to deceptively present it as race relations:


To understand this, you have to go back to what [the] young brother here
referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro ?? back during slavery.
There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field
Negro. The house Negroes ? they lived in the house with master, they dressed
pretty good, they ate good ?cause they ate his food ?? what he left. They
lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master;
and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would
give their life to save the master?s house quicker than the master would.
The house Negro, if the master said, "We got a good house here," the house
Negro would say, "Yeah, we got a good house here." Whenever the master said
"we," he said "we." That?s how you can tell a house Negro.

If the master?s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to
put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house
Negro would say, "What?s the matter, boss, we sick?" We sick! He identified
himself with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if
you came to the house Negro and said, "Let?s run away, let?s escape, let?s
separate," the house Negro would look at you and say, "Man, you crazy. What
you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I
wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?" That
was that house Negro. In those days he was called a "house nigger." And
that?s what we call him today, because we?ve still got some house niggers
running around here.

This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He?ll
pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master,
and then brag about "I?m the only Negro out here." "I?m the only one on my
job." "I?m the only one in this school." You?re nothing but a house Negro.
And if someone comes to you right now and says, "Let?s separate," you say
the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. "What you mean,
separate? From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better
job than you get here?" I mean, this is what you say. "I ain?t left nothing
in Africa," that?s what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.

On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field Negro ?? those
were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field than there was
Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers.
In the house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro in the field didn?t get
nothing but what was left of the insides of the hog. They call ?em
"chitt?lin?" nowadays. In those days they called them what they were: guts.
That?s what you were ?? a gut?eater. And some of you all still gut?eaters.

The field Negro was beaten from morning to night. He lived in a shack, in a
hut; He wore old, castoff clothes. He hated his master. I say he hated his
master. He was intelligent. That house Negro loved his master. But that
field Negro ?? remember, they were in the majority, and they hated the
master. When the house caught on fire, he didn?t try and put it out; that
field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze. When the master got sick, the
field Negro prayed that he?d die. If someone come [sic] to the field Negro
and said, "Let?s separate, let?s run," he didn?t say "Where we going?" He?d
say, "Any place is better than here." You?ve got field Negroes in America
today. I?m a field Negro. The masses are the field Negroes. When they see
this man?s house on fire, you don?t hear these little Negroes talking about
"our government is in trouble." They say, " *The* government is in trouble."
Imagine a Negro: "Our government"! I even heard one say "our astronauts."
They won?t even let him near the plant ?? and "our astronauts"! "Our Navy"
?? that?s a Negro that?s out of his mind. That?s a Negro that?s out of his
mind. Just as the slavemaster of that day used Tom, the house Negro, to keep
the field Negroes in check, the same old slavemaster today has Negroes who
are nothing but modern Uncle Toms, 20th century Uncle Toms, to keep you and
me in check, keep us under control, keep us passive and peaceful and
nonviolent. That?s Tom making you nonviolent. It?s like when you go to the
dentist, and the man?s going to take your tooth. You?re going to fight him
when he starts pulling. So he squirts some stuff in your jaw called
novocaine, to make you think they?re not doing anything to you. So you sit
there and ?cause you?ve got all of that novocaine in your jaw, you suffer
peacefully. Blood running all down your jaw, and you don?t know what?s
happening. ?Cause someone has taught you to suffer ?? peacefully.

The white man do the same thing to you in the street, when he want [sic] to
put knots on your head and take advantage of you and don?t have to be afraid
of your fighting back. To keep you from fighting back, he gets these old
religious Uncle Toms to teach you and me, just like novocaine, suffer
peacefully. Don?t stop suffering ?? just suffer peacefully. As Reverend
Cleage pointed out, "Let your blood flow In the streets." This is a shame.
And you know he?s a Christian preacher. If it?s a shame to him, you know
what it is to me.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1145

There are no chattel slaves house servants or field working slaves in
today's economy.

Malcolm X's 'Message to the Grassroots' is opposed to the concept of the
working class has become the means by which bourgeois conservative and
reactionary 'black nationalists' masquerade a 'revolutionaries' in their
attacks on civil rights and 'white labor', and more specifically
communism.  The link to the entire speech - Malcolm X' "Message to the
Grassroots" is given at the end of this Critique of it and the Nation of
Islam, the politics and ideology of which Malcolm here represented and
articulated. In the body of this text I will present the statements from
Malcolm's speech that have become defining of both 'black nationalism' as
'revolutionary'.

Mao-tse-Tung, Ho Chi Minh, Ki, Il Sung, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Kwame
Nkrumah, Muhammad Babu, Amil Cabral and other Marxists are appropriated by
Malcolm X from the camp of workers and peasants communist revolutionaries
and falsely injected into the category of 'black nationalists', not leading
workers and peasants revolutions against capitalism and imperialism by
'black revolutions' against 'the white man'!

Malcolm X, seemingly authoritatively, declared:


  I would like to make a few comments concerning the difference between the
black revolution and the Negro revolution. There?s a difference. Are they
both the same? And if they?re not, what is the difference? What is the
difference between a black revolution and a Negro revolution? First, what is
a revolution? Sometimes I?m inclined to believe that many of our people are
using this word "revolution" loosely, without taking careful consideration
[of] what this word actually means, and what its historic characteristics
are. When you study the historic nature of revolutions, the motive of a
revolution, the objective of a revolution, and the result of a revolution,
and the methods used in a revolution, you may change words. You may devise
another program. You may change your goal and you may change your mind.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1145

 We shall see that Malcolm X's authoritative stance was pretentious and
seeming to be informed was in fact uninformed, as for being a revolutionary
there was at the time an antinomy of his style and rhetoric concerning what
is and is not a 'revolution' in contrast to the actual doctrines and
policies of the Nation of Islam, which he at the time represented. We shall
also see that the charge of civil rights activists calling the reforms they
advocated 'revolution' was really nothing but a straw man, as specially as
attributed to Martin Luther King Jr, who is always the implicit target of
these Malcolm X critiques.




One of Malcolm X's examples of 'revolution' was the Chinese Revolution:


 "The Chinese Revolution ?? they wanted land. They threw the British out,
along with the Uncle Tom Chinese. Yeah, they did. They set a good example.
When I was in prison, I read an article ?? don?t be shocked when I say I was
in prison. You?re still in prison. That?s what America means: prison. When I
was in prison, I read an article in Life magazine showing a little Chinese
girl, nine years old; her father was on his hands and knees and she was
pulling the trigger ?cause he was an Uncle Tom Chinaman, When they had the
revolution over there, they took a whole generation of Uncle Toms ?? just
wiped them out. And within ten years that little girl become [sic] a
full?grown woman. No more Toms in China. And today it?s one of the toughest,
roughest, most feared countries on this earth ?? by the white man. ?Cause
there are no Uncle Toms over there." (ibid.)
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1145


Actually, the Chinese Revolution was not a liberation war against the
British, to the extent that it was a national war it was a War of Resistance
of the vicious Japanese invasion and occupation forces, and in this war the
Nationalist Chinese Kuomintang  was in an alliance with the Chinese
proletarian Communist Party and its peasant based Peoples' Liberation
Movement.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_11.htm


  The Kuomintang (National People's Party) was established in 1912 by Sun
Yat-sen <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/CHINAsun.htm> and Song
Jiaoren. When the party was suppressed in 1913 Sun Yat-sen and his military
commander, Chiang Kai-Shek<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWchaing.htm>,
escaped to Japan <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Japan.htm>.

With the help of advisers from the Soviet
Union<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Russia.htm>the Kuomintang
gradually increased its power in China. In 1924 it adopted
the "Three Principles of the People" (nationalism, democracy and social
reform).

Sun Yat-sen <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/CHINAsun.htm> died on 12th
March 1925. After a struggle with Wang Ching-Wei, Chiang
Kai-Shek<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWchaing.htm>
eventually
emerged as the leader of the Kuomintang. He now carried out a purge that
eliminated the communists from the organization. In 1928 the reformed
Kuomintang captured Beijing and was able to establish a government in
Nanjing.

When the Japanese Army
<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWjapanA.htm>invaded the
heartland of China in 1937, Chiang was forced to move his
capital from Nanking to Chungking. He lost control of the coastal regions
and most of the major cities to Japan. In an effort to beat the Japanese he
agreed to collaborate with Mao
Zedong<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDmao.htm> and
his communist army.

After the bombing of Pearl
Harbor<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWpearl.htm>,
Chiang and his government received considerable financial support from
the United
States <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USA.htm>. General Joseph
Stilwell <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWstilwell.htm>, head
of American
Army Forces in China, Burma and India (CBI), disagreed with this policy,
arguing that Chiang
Kai-Shek<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWchaing.htm> was
an inept leader and was ignorant of the fundamentals of modern warfare.
Stilwell was accused of being pro-communist and in October 1944 Stilwell was
recalled to the United States and was replaced by General Albert
Wedemeyer<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWwedemeyer.htm>.


During the Second World War
<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WW.htm>the communist forces
were well led by Zhu
De <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDzhu.htm> and Lin
Biao<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDbiao.htm>.
As soon as the Japanese surrendered, the communists began a war against the
Nationalists . The communists gradually gained control of the country and on
1st October, 1949, Mao announced the establishment of People's Republic of
China. Chiang Kai-Shek <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWchaing.htm> and
the remnants of his armed forces fled to Formosa (Taiwan).
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/CHINAkuomintang.htm

The presentation of the Chinese Revolution, led by the proletarian based
Chinese Communist Party and it's peasant based People's Liberation Army as a
revolution of nationalist Chinese against 'the white man' - Britain in
particular - is either irresponsible disinformation based on ignorance on
Malcolm X's part, or a conscious lie by him to buttress his claim that
nationalism is 'revolutionary'. The war was not against Britain, but against
Japan, and Elijah Muhammad's faction in the Black Islam group supported
Japanese imperialism. It was the Japanese who were defeated in context of
World War II, and the Kuomintang was the Nationalist Party that was driven
from China on a class basis. Like the Nation of Islam, the Kuomintang was
representative of capitalism and as such was/is reactionary nationalism.

The Kuomintang was supported by British and US imperialism, the Chinese
Communist Party and Peoples Liberation Army was supported by the Soviet
Union, the Allies and Elijah Muhammad's faction supported Japan and
therefore the Germany-Italy-Japanese Axis alliance.


Britain and the United States were allies with the Soviet Union and China
against Germany and Japanese fascism. Elijah Muhammad was a supporter of
Japanese fascism and aggression in China.
http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/muhammad_e.htm


 JAPANESE OCCUPATION OF CHINA Of the estimated 20 million people that died
as a result of the Japanese hostilities during World War II, about half of
them were in China. China claims that 35 million Chinese were killed or
wounded during the Japanese occupation from 1931 to 1945.

An estimated 2.7 million Chinese were killed in a Japanese "pacification"
program that targeted "all males between 15 and 60 who were suspected to be
enemies" along with other "enemies pretending to be local people." Out of
the thousands of Chinese prisoners captured during the war only 56 were
found alive in 1946.

The first phase of the Chinese occupation began when Japan invaded Manchuria
in 1931. The second phase began in 1937 when the Japanese launched major
attacks on Beijing, Shanghai and Nanking. By the time the Japanese attacked
Pearl Harbor in 1941 they were firmly entrenched in China, occupying much of
the eastern part of the country.
http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=59&catid=2&subcatid=5


 It is ahistorical and hypocritical for Malcolm X, as the national
representative and spokesperson for Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam
to now switch its ideological alliance from Japan and the Axis to the
Chinese and the Allies, and is a lie to claim the war was against Britain,
and even more so to call the Chinese Communist Party nationalist party and
the Kuomintang, the actual Nationalist Party 'uncle Toms', thus associating
them implicitly with the civil rights movement which Malcolm called 'uncle
Toms'. Like the Nation of Islam, the Kuomintang are the 'nationalists', so
if the KMT is 'uncle Tom', then so is the NOI!

Malcolm X said:


  So I cite these various revolutions, brothers and sisters, to show you ??
you don?t have a peaceful revolution. You don?t have a turn?the?other?cheek
revolution. There?s no such *thing* as a nonviolent revolution. [The] only
kind of revolution that?s nonviolent is the Negro revolution. The only
revolution based on loving your enemy is the Negro revolution. The only
revolution in which the goal is a desegregated lunch counter, a desegregated
theater, a desegregated park, and a desegregated public toilet; you can sit
down next to white folks on the toilet. That?s no revolution. Revolution is
based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of
freedom, justice, and equality.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch18.htm

No, a revolution is not based on loving your enemy, and there is no such
thing as a Negro revolution or a Black revolution, a revolution is not based
on race but on class interests - 'a revolution is an insurrection, an act of
violence by which one class overthrows another'  (Mao). A workers revolution
in America - and 90% of Black Americans are proletarians - is a communist
revolution. Mao said "every *Communist* must grasp this truth, political
power grows out of the barrel of a gun". Whether a communist revolution can
be won through electoral politics or by armed insurrection, or a combination
of the two, it will be based on class interests and not race. Communist
revolution requires the unification of all workers of every ethnicity,
gender and sexual preference, which is what Malcolm X and the Muslims
opposed.

What Malcolm X said against the Civil Rights movement was also a straw man,
it never called itself a 'revolution'. It was a rebellion against racial
segregation, disenfranchisement, discrimination and violence. What Malcolm X
didn't tell the Black audience, was that he and the Nation of Islam were
working with the Ku Klux Klan to get land from them without violence, in
payoff for opposing the Civil Rights Movement by denouncing its leaders as
"Uncle Toms".

It wasn't until years after the Message to the Grassroots that Malcolm X
admitted that while he was sprouting rhetoric about 'black revolution' in
opposition to the civil rights movement's war to tear down walls of racial
segregation, discrimination, disenfranchisement and violence, that he had
been sent to Atlanta to accompany Jeremiah X, the local Muslim minister of
Atlanta, to a secret meeting with members of the Klan in December 1960:


"I was in the home of Jeremiah, the [NOI] minister in Atlanta, Georgia. I?m
ashamed to say it, but I?m going to tell you the truth. I sat at the table
myself with the heads of the Ku Klux Klan, who at that time were trying to
negotiate with Elijah Muhammad so that they could make available to him a
large area of land in Georgia or I think it was South Carolina. They had
some very responsible persons in the government who were involved in it and
who were willing to go along with it. They wanted to make this land
available to him so that his program of separation would sound more feasible
to Negroes and therefore lessen the pressure that the integrationists were
putting upon the white man. I sat there I negotiated it. I listened to their
offer. And I was the one who went back to Chicago and told Elijah Muhammad
what they had offered."
?Malcolm X: The Last Speeches

Malcolm X concluded: "From that day onward the Klan never interfered with
the Black Muslim movement in the South."

So when Malcolm in 1963 was saying:


  I would like to make a few comments concerning the difference between the
black revolution and the Negro revolution. There?s a difference. Are they
both the same? And if they?re not, what is the difference? What is the
difference between a black revolution and a Negro revolution? First, what is
a revolution? Sometimes I?m inclined to believe that many of our people are
using this word "revolution" loosely, without taking careful consideration
[of] what this word actually means, and what its historic characteristics
are. When you study the historic nature of revolutions, the motive of a
revolution, the objective of a revolution, and the result of a revolution,
and the methods used in a revolution, you may change words. You may devise
another program. You may change your goal and you may change your mind. Look
at the American Revolution in 1776. That revolution was for what? For land.
Why did they want land? Independence. How was it carried out? Bloodshed.
Number one, it was based on land, the basis of independence. And the only
way they could get it was bloodshed.

One would have assumed from what Malcolm said in opposition to civil
disobedience as the method of the civil rights movement to end segregation,
that on the contrary the 'army' of the 'nation' of Islam - the 'Fruit of
Islam' - were in training to invade the South, kill 'the white man' and
expropriate 'the land' by violence to set up an 'independent nation' of
Black people. But, instead of making war on the organization which made war
on Black people, the Ku Klux Klan, the State and the land owners and taking
land from them, on the contrary the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X on their part
in particular had 'negotiated' a 'non-violent' transfer of land from the
'white man' to the 'black man'.

When we therefore analyse rather than being mesmerised by Malcolm's style
and demagogic charisma, to critically consider what he said and what he did,
viz: "Look at the American Revolution in 1776. That revolution was for what?
For land. Why did they want land? Independence. How was it carried out?
Bloodshed. Number one, it was based on land, the basis of independence. And
the only way they could get it was bloodshed" we see an antinomy, a
disconnect.

If 'revolution' was 'based on land', and could only be carried out with
'bloodshed', but the Ku Klu Klan, the land owners and the State of Georgia
or South Carolina were peacefully handing over to the NOI land, that not
only self-refutes the claim or formula revolution =land expropriation by
violence, but more importantly raises the question why was this formula put
forward if known to be untrue? It was not the NOI policy to arm and train a
cadre to imitate armed liberation movements in Asia, Africa and Latin
America, waging armed struggle to expropriate land violently, but to
negotiate a 'peaceful revolution', which they said is impossible, by
collaborating with the Ku Klu Klan and Southern States against the civil
rights movement. The actual policy of the NOI was to collaborate with the
KKK and the State behind the scenes and without violence to recieve land
from them on the quit, and at the same time loudly preach violent revolution
to hypocritically contrast themselves to 'Christians', to by demagogic
rhetoric denounce the civil rights movement's strategy of non-violent civil
disobedience.

So, notwithstanding the violent rhetoric of revolution seizing land from
'the white man', the actual NOI policy was "non-violent revolution", or
rather collaboration with the violence of the Ku Klux Klan against civil
rights activists in exchange for land as payment for denouncing those civil
rights activists, ridiculing their objectives and styling as violent:


 [The] only kind of revolution that?s nonviolent is the Negro revolution.
The only revolution based on loving your enemy is the Negro revolution. The
only revolution in which the goal is a desegregated lunch counter, a
desegregated theater, a desegregated park, and a desegregated public toilet;
you can sit down next to white folks on the toilet. That?s no revolution.
Revolution is based on land.


When Malcolm said in this same speech to this Black audience in Detroit:


We have a common enemy. We have this in common: We have a common oppressor,
a common exploiter, and a common discriminator. But once we all realize that
we have this common enemy, then we unite on the basis of what we have in
common. And what we have foremost in common is that enemy ?? the white man.
He?s an enemy to all of us. I know some of you all think that some of them
aren?t enemies. Time will tell.

What Malcolm failed to mention the Nation of Islam/Ku Klux Klan alliance
against civil rights for Blacks and that the Klan was using their wealth and
political representatives in Southern governments to provide NOI members
with land in Georgia or South Carolina. In the NOI/KKK relationship this
'white man' was not an oppressor, exploiter and disscrimnator against those
'black men', but their benefactor and supplier of 'land', so if 'land is the
basis of independence' the Ku Klux Klan was the liberator of the Nation of
Islam!

The NOI/KKK quid pro quo was that every time the KKK did the NOI the favor
of killing Blacks, it enabled the NOI to denounce the civil rights movement
in the interest of the white supremacists, and to do so with militant
sounding rhetoric about retaliation if the Klan killed one of the NOI,
knowing damn well that the NOI/KKK pact precluded this possibility.

The NOI members were of the only black organization that Klansmen didn't
kill. Not out of fear of retaliation, but because they were allies of the
KKK, having a 'common enemy' in the civil rights movement. Even as they
murdered Medgar Evers, forced Robert F.Williams into exile, bombed the home
of Martin Luther King Jr and bombed the Baptist Church that was the center
of the civil rights movement in Birmingham Alabama, this same Ku Klux Klan
proved they were not the 'enemy' of the Nation of Islam, but their comrade
in common opposition to the Black rebellion against racial sagregation,
disinfranchisment, discrimination and violence.



In the classic study piece of the 1960s "Black Nationalism" by E.U.
Essien-Udom it is related:


 Muhammad teaches his all his followers that they must submit to the just
acts of those in authority in public  or private life, provided these do not
conflict with their religious beliefs. In a speech in Detriot in 1959 he
advised his followers to 'obey those in authority' and admonished them: 'Be
yourself - Yourself as a righteous Muslim. Follow the Golden Rule ... Be
polite, courteous and respectful so that you may inspire respect from the
police officers. ... if you are attacked when peaceful, God comes to our
rescue. If you are aggressive, you must fight your own battle without
Allah's help. . If attacked he says fight back".


To be further clarified further on:


 "Questioned about his attitude toward civil authority, Minister James 3X
responded 'I have all respect for civil authority. I learnt early in life
that there can be no peace and stability in society without the highest
respect of the citizens for the constituted authority. I would respect the
laws of any land provided they do not conflict with the Holy Quran'"
http://books.google.com/books?
id=60puRMJB6z4C&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=elijah+muhammad+submit+to+those+in+authority<http://books.google.com/books?+id=60puRMJB6z4C&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=elijah+muhammad+submit+to+those+in+authority>


Malcolm X concurred:


  Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone
puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. *Malcolm X Speaks, 1965
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/1882.html*

What Elijah Muhammad, James 3X and Malcolm X have in common is advocacy of
submission to State Power, the "authority" of its agents on one hand, that
is obedience to the laws by which the material interests of the most
powerful, politically dominate economic classes subordinate those of the
oppressed classes on one hand, and then the fake militant rhetoric of 'fight
back' when directed at individuals who themselves violate this social
contract by attacking individual blacks.

"Self-defense" by individuals against violent individuals is a
Constitutional right, and is legal and by no means 'revolutionary'. It has
nothing to do with class war. The Nation of Islam never spoke of
self-defense as collective response to Klan or State violence against
Negroes. Not only were the NOI in league with the Klan, but the Southern
Dixiecrat State, and the State itself by using religion to preach workers to
submit.




I want to present to Readers the historical continuity and class based
interests of these Statements from Elijah Muhammad, James 3X and Malcolm X.

In political society, religion is transformed from a cultural to a political
function. The high priest and the priesthood are part and parcel of the
wealthy, which places its high temple in the capital, working hand and hand
with the palace. The high priesthood works hand and glove with the
bureaucracy in the political government. In such political societies
religion cannot avoid the political.

The political function of religion in class relations is to provide the
status quo, the ruling class and the state government with a spiritual
justification. The power of religion is its spiritual authority, supposedly
derived from gods. Religion predates civilization, by which I mean political
class society, in which the wealthy do not work and those that work are not
wealthy. The most powerful of the wealthy classes determine the politics
which control society.

The pre-political religion cemented a tribal communal people on the basis of
common held beliefs, rituals, and taboos. But this religion transforms into
a political party that provides by its historical authority ordination of
the economic order which inheres in extremes of wealth and poverty and uses
its authority to sanction, to authorize (if you will) the political state,
which is an apparatus of violence and of oppression representing the general
interests of the ruling classes. Thus this politicized religion joins with
the state to engender a culture of domination, authority and subordination,
obedience.

Religious laws came to reflect the material interests of the proprietors
against the propertyless. The chief-priests or priest-king, or ?prophet? or
?messenger? of gods thus by invoking god's ordinance declares divine
authority of the courts protecting property rights.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 13 06:47:08 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:47:08 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Postal Service
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908130547k6e787a1cy21e21cff2efe796e@mail.gmail.com>

EVERY CRISIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY
Peter Rachleff
St. Paul, Minnesota
August 10, 2009

This year's Postal Press Association Editors Conference
was abuzz with discussion of the Postal Service's
threats to close hundreds of' stations.  Virtually every
editor present knew of one or more stations at risk in
her or his own jurisdiction.  The wolf which has loomed
at the APWU's door for years - plant closings, job
losses, disruptive excessing, economic insecurity, to be
followed by the wage and benefit cuts and attacks on
retirees' benefits which workers in other industries
have experienced - is now huffing and puffing for real.
In my workshop, "Learning From the Past to Conquer the
Challenges of Today," we discussed ways to turn this
crisis into an opportunity to revitalize the union, to
secure its role not only in the workplace and at the
bargaining table but also in the community, and to lead
the fight to preserve - if not expand - public service.

Our workshop revolved around three historical moments:
(1) the revitalization of unions in the Great Depression
era of the 1930s, using the Minneapolis teamsters as an
example; (2) the incorporation and weakening of unions
in World War II, the late 1940s, and 1950s; and (3) the
attack on unions and their members by business' and
government's turn to economic "neoliberalism" in the
1980s.  We then discussed what we can learn from these
historical moments that we can use in this crisis that
we face now, so that we can turn it into an opportunity
to rebuild the labor movement and redirect society as a
whole.

The architects of the Minneapolis teamsters' struggles
picked the right context in which to act.  They could
feel the energy and hope of working people who had
organized the summer 1932 Bonus Army protest in
Washington, had elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt
president in November 1932, and had begun a militant
unemployed movement in city upon city, demanding an end
to mortgage foreclosures and evictions and an expansion
of relief.   In February of 1934, at the depths of a
Minnesota winter, they realized that coal delivery
workers could hold an upper hand over their employer.
Their victory in a three day strike sent a message to
all Minneapolis workers - that with the right strategy
and tactics, workers could defeat anti-union employers.

Having decided that the time was right to act, the
activists who built Local 574 from one hundred members
in February of 1934 to 15,000 by August, paid particular
attention to the roles of rank-and-file members, to the
union's relationship with other unions and the
community, and to its relationship to the government.
The union asked each rank-and-file member to function as
an organizer.  Unionized drivers and helpers refused to
allow their trucks to be loaded or unloaded at non-union
warehouses, while unionized warehouse workers refused to
load or unload non-union trucks. The union also reached
out to other unions, offering them solidarity and
receiving support in return.  The Minneapolis teamsters
became known for their refusal to cross picket lines,
and they helped unions like the International Ladies
Garment Workers win their own strikes.  The union also
reached out to the community, helping the unemployed
organize in order to receive relief, participating in
protests against foreclosures and evictions, and
supporting farmers in establishing farmers' markets in
the city.  The union also pressed the government, at the
local, state, and federal levels, to create jobs, to
raise minimum wages, and to protect workers' rights to
organize.  Teamsters Local 574 experienced phenomenal
growth not only in numbers but also in power and
respect, based on the involvement of their own members,
their supportive relationships with other unions and in
the wider community, and their demands upon the
government.  Their experience typified much of what
happened to American unions in the 1930s, as they grew
from about two million members to fourteen million.

This kind of organization and culture were eaten away in
the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as unions became integrated
into a social contract with employers and the
government.  The latter, rather than opposing unions
outright (since they really couldn't), developed rules,
regulations, and institutions which limited union power.
The dues check-off removed considerable day-to-day
contact between stewards and workers.  The great strike
wave of 1945-1946 ended by allowing corporations to
raise prices despite unions' initial demands that wage
increases not be passed along to consumers.  The
Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 outlawed the two most important
expressions of solidarity, the sympathy strike and the
secondary boycott.  Unions began to practice
"productivity bargaining" in which they granted
management authority to control the shopfloor and the
introduction of new technologies, as long as workers got
raises.  By the merger of the AFL and the CIO in 1955,
the labor movement had ceased growing and individual
unions were adopting a business model in which a gap
grew between officers and staff, on the one hand, and
rank-and-file members, on the other.

When corporations and their political allies turned to
economic neoliberalism in the late 1970s -
globalization, free trade, deregulation, privatization,
the cutting of taxes on the rich, the cutting of
services to the poor - they launched an attack on
unions. Most unions, unfortunately, had neither the
internal strength nor the community support to withstand
such an attack. Beginning with President Reagan's firing
of the air traffic controllers in 1981, employers and
the government attacked one union after another.  And
one union after another fell.

But now this system itself is in crisis, from Wall
Street to Main Street.  In big cities and small towns,
we know how serious this crisis is.  Workers, middle
class women and men, people of color and white folks,
put their shoulders to the wheel to elect Barack Obama
in 2008.  But as the congressional struggles over
executive salaries, bank and stock market regulation,
the uses of the stimulus packages, health care reform,
and the Employee Free Choice Act reveal, President Obama
cannot save us - our jobs, our futures, our unions, our
way of life - by himself.  We must learn the lessons of
the 1934 Minneapolis teamsters - to make every member an
organizer, to build support with other unions, to seek
support in the community, and to make clear demands
together upon the government.  If we want the Postal
Service to survive this crisis, if we want our union to
survive this crisis, if we want our jobs to survive this
crisis, we must turn it into an opportunity to rebuild
and revitalize our union.  We must once again make the
expressions "organized" labor and labor "movement" ring
true.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 13 08:51:48 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:51:48 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?iso-8859-1?q?Encyclop=E9die?=
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908130751q5eef130dlb44772cc4c57a006@mail.gmail.com>

The original encyclopedists were considered important contributors to
the development of materialism by Engels. Is Wikipedia in that
tradition ?  Knowledge for masses.

The whole essay, or book "Marx and Engels On Literature and Art" of
which the reference to discussions of Diderot is a small section, has
quite and index.

CB

Diderot

1. Ludwig Feuerbach
2. Marx to Engels 15 April 1869
3. Engels To Marx. 16 April 1869

In:  Marx and Engels On Literature and Art

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: Marx Engels On Literature and Art. Progress Publishers. 1976;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/art/index.htm


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 13 08:53:20 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:53:20 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Marx and Engels On Literature and Art
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908130753w570de89dxab4041d1ff155e75@mail.gmail.com>

Marx and Engels On Literature and Art

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/art/index.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: Marx Engels On Literature and Art. Progress Publishers. 1976;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Preface

Materialist Conception of the History of Culture
Social Being and Social Consciousness

1. Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
2. The German Ideology

Natural Conditions and Development of Culture
Landscapes

Against Vulgarisation of Historical Materialism

1. Engels to Joseph Bloch. September 21-22 1890
2. Engels to W. Borgius. January 25 1894
3. Engels to Conrad Schmidt. October 27 1890
4. Engels to Joseph Bloch. September 21-22 1890
5. Engels to Conrad Schmidt. August 5 1890

Engels About Mehring?s The Lessing Legend

1. Engels to Franz Mehring. April 11 1893
2. Engels to Karl Kautsky. June 1 1893
3. Engels to Franz Mehring. July 14 1893

Class Relations and Class Ideology

1. The German Ideology
2. The Communist Manifesto

Scientific and Vulgar Conceptions of Class Ideology

Engels to Paul Ernst

Historical Continuity and Its Contradictions

1. The German Ideology
2. Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Uneven Character of Historical Development and Questions of Art

Introduction to the Economic Manuscripts of 1857-58

General Problems of Art
Ideological Content and Realism

1. Engels to Minna Kautsky, 26 November 1885
2. Engels to Margaret Harkness, beginning April 1888
3. Review of A Chenu, Les Conspirateurs and L. de la Hodde, La
Renaissance de la R?publique, Feb 1848

The Tragic and the Comic in Real History

1. Critique of Hegel?s Philosophy of Right. Introduction
2. Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
3. Leading article in K?lnische Zeitung No. 179
4. Engels to Marx, 4 September 1870
5. Engels to August Bebel, 7 July 1892

Problems of Revolutionary Tragedy

On Ferdinand Lassalle?s Drama Franz von Sickingen

1. Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle, 19 April 1859
2. Engels to Ferdinand Lassalle, 18 May 1859

Miscellaneous Items

Language and Literature

1. Ideas do not exist separately from language, from Grundrisse
2. Materials on the History of France and Germany, Engels

Improvisation and Poetry


New-York Daily Tribune, 7 March 1853, Marx

On Literary Style

1. On Proudhon, Letter to J B Schweizer, 24 January 1865
2. Marx To Engels, 31 July 1865
3. Engels to Eduard Bernstein, 12-13 July 1883
4. Engels to Sorge, 29 April 1886

On Literary Polemics

1. On Brentano?s Polemic Against Marx over Alleged Misquotation
2. Refugee Literature, IV
3. Engels to Marx, 25-26 October 1847
4. Engels to Eduard Bernstein, 12 March 1881
5. Engels to Eduard Bernstein, 29 June 1884

On Translation

1. Engels To Marx, 23 September 1852
2. Engels To Marx, 29 November 1873
3. Engels To Friedrich Sorge, 29 June 1883
4. Engels To Eduard Bernstein, 5 February 1884
5. How Not to Translate Marx, Engels, The Commonweal, 1885
6. Engels To Laura Lafargue, 16 November 1889
7. Engels To Laura Lafargue, 8 January 1890

Additional References On Translation of Marx?s works


8. Engels To Marx, 24 June 1867
9. Engels To Sorge, 20 June 1882
10. Engels To August Bebel, 18 August 1886
11. Engels To Laura Lafargue, 13 September 1886
12. Engels To Laura Lafargue, 28 April 1886
13. Engels To Sorge, 29 June 1888


Art in Class Society
The Origin of Art

Historical Development of the Artistic Sense

1. Private Property and Communism, 1844
2. The Division of Labour and Human Needs, 1844
3. Private Property and Communism, 1844

The Role of Labour in the Origin of Art, from Part Played by Labour
Artistic Creation and Aesthetic Perception, from Critique Political Economy

Social Division of Labour

Division of Labour and Social Consciousness
Estrangement of Labour and Condition of Workers in Capitalist Society

Money and World Culture

The Distorting Power of Money

Capitalism and Spiritual Production

Relation of Art to Capitalist Mode of Production, Theories of Surplus Value
Bourgeois Taste and Its Evolution, Engels To Laura Lafargue, 14 January 1884

The Work of the Artist in Capitalist Society

1. Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 4
2. Productive Labour, Economic writings of 1864
3. Theories of Surplus Value, Addenda

Freedom of the Press and of Artistic Creation

1. Debates on Freedom of the Press, Marx 1842
2. Debates on Freedom of the Press, Marx 1842
3. Debates on Freedom of the Press, Marx 1842
4. Debates on Freedom of the Press, Marx 1842
5. Stamp Duty on Newspapers, Neue Oder Zeitung, 30 March 1855

Asceticism and Enjoyment, from German Ideology
Work and Play, from Capital, Volume I
Bourgeois Civilisation and Crime, from Theories of Surplus Value, Addendum

Historical Mission of the Working Class

The Proletariat and Wealth, from The Holy Family

The Working Class and the Progressive Development of Society

1. Speech at Anniversary of The People?s Paper, Marx
2. The Housing Question, Engels

The Working Class and Culture

1. Letters from London, Engels
2. The Condition of England, Engels
3. Letters from London, Engels
4. The Condition of the Working Class in England, Engels
5. Marginal Notes on ?The King of Prussia.?, Marx
6. Note on Eccarius? article on Tailoring in London, Marx

Proletarian Revolution and the Vandalism of the Bourgeoisie

1. The Civil War in France
2. Notes from Newspapers

Art and Communism
Criticism of Egalitarian Communism

1. Private Property and Communism, 1844
2. The Peasant War in Germany, Engels 1850

Individuality and Society

1. From ?Saint Max,? German Ideology
2. From ?Saint Max,? German Ideology
3. From ?Proletarians and Communism,? German Ideology

The Kingdom of Freedom and Material Labour

1. From The Grundrisse, Marx 1857
2. From Capital Volume III

History of Social Thought, Literature and Art Antiquity, Middle Ages
and Renaissance
Antiquity

The Dawn of Human Culture, from Early German History, Engels
Beginnings of Mythology, Conspectus of Morgan?s Ancient History, Marx
Epic Tradition of the Semites, Engels to Marx. approx. 26 May 1853

Ancient Greek Society in Homer?s Poems

1. Origins of the Family, Chapter 1, Engels 1884
2. Origins of the Family, Chapter 4, Engels 1884

Greek Tragedy

1. Origins of the Family, Preface, Engels 1884
2. Conspectus of Morgan?s Ancient History, Marx

Position of Women in Greece, from Origins of the Family, Chapter 2

Ancient Slavery and World Culture

1. Anti-D?hring, (Theory of Force) Engels
2. Greetings to Socialists in Sicily, 26 September 1894, Engels

The Plastic Element in Greek Art

1. Marx?s Doctoral Dissertation
2. Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy, Marx 1839

Greek Enlightenment

1. Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy, Marx 1839
2. Marx?s Doctoral Dissertation

Religion and Culture in the Ancient World, Marx 1842
Decline of the Ancient World, from Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy

Lucretius Carus

1. Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy
2. Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy


Horace, Engels to Marx, 21 December 1866
Persius? Satire, from Bruno Bauer and Early Christianity
Lucian, from History of Early Christianity, Engels 1894

Middle Ages

Germanic Culture, Early German History, Engels
Love in Literature of Antiquity & Middle Ages, from Origins of the Family
Wagner and Germanic Epos, from Origins of the Family, Chapter 2
Legend of Siegfried and the German Revolutionary Movement, Engels 1840

Ancient Irish Literature

1. History of Ireland, Engels 1870
2. History of Ireland, Engels 1870
3. Manuscripts on the History of England and Ireland, Engels 1870
4. Notes for the preface to a collection of Irish Songs, Engels July 1870

Ancient Scandinavian Epos, History of Ireland, Engels 1870
Early Medieval Danish Poetry, Engels to Marx, June 20 1860
The Chanson de Roland, On the History of France and Germany, Engels

Proven?al Literature

1. On the Polish Question, Marx 1848
2. Chronological Extracts, from Schlosser?s World History

Chivalrous Love Poetry, from Origins of the Family, Chapter 2
Peasant Equalitarian Ideas in England, from Schlosser?s World History
German Volksb?cher, Engels 1848

Renaissance

End of the Ancient World to End of the Middle Ages, Dialectics of Nature

Italian Culture from Dante to Garibaldi

1. Preface to Capital Volume III
2. Affairs in Prussia, Marx in New-York Tribune, 15 October 1860

Dante, Preface to Italian Edition of the Communist Manifesto, Engels 1893
Petrarch, Wanderings in Lombardy, Over the Alps, Engels 1893
Boccaccio, The Peasant War in Germany, Engels 1850
Great Renaissance, from Dialectics of Nature, Engels 1883
Titian, Engels to Marx, 20 May 1857
Grobian Literature of the Reformation Period, from Moralising
Criticism and Critical Morality, Marx 1847
Significance of Reformation, On History of France and Germany, Engels

Thomas More

1. Capital, Volume I, Chapter 27
2. Capital, Volume I, Chapter 28
3. Preparatory materials for Anti-D?hring
4. Foreign Policy of Russian Tsardom, Engels 1890

Shakespeare

1. War Debate in Parliament, New-York Tribune, 17 March 1854
2. Engels To Marx, 10 December 1873
3. from The German Ideology
4. Marx To Engels, 27 February 1861

Calder?n

1. Revolutionary Spain, Marx 1854
2. Marx To Engels, 3 May 1854
3. Herr Vogt, Marx 1860

Cervantes

1. The New Martial Law Charter, Marx 1849
2. Capital, Volume I, Chapter 1

History of Social Thought and Literature
The Modern Period
Three Unities of Classical Drama, Marx to Lassalle, 22 July 1861
La Rochefoucauld, Marx To Engels. 26 June 1869
Historic Significance of the Enlightenment, Anti-D?hring

The Materialism of the Encyclopedists

1. Socialism: Utopian & Scientific
2. The Holy Family

The Enlightenment and Dialectics, Anti-D?hring
Utilitarian Philosophy of the Enlightenment from The German Ideology

Voltaire

1. Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 12 October 1868
2. What have the Working Classes to do with Poland?, Engels, 1866

Diderot

1. Ludwig Feuerbach
2. Marx to Engels 15 April 1869
3. Engels To Marx. 16 April 1869

Rousseau

1. from Anti-D?hring
2. On Proudhon, Letter to J B Schweizer, 24 January 1865

Sentimentalism as a Reaction to the Enlightenment, Moralising
Criticism, Marx 1847
Crisis of Enlightenment Ideals, Socialism: Utopian & Scientific

From cb31450 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 13 08:58:39 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:58:39 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Materialism of the Encyclopedists
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908130758v32cf9b01y86e8a603a02a7711@mail.gmail.com>

The Materialism of the Encyclopedists

1. Socialism: Utopian & Scientific
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch02.htm

2. The Holy Family




Frederick Engels
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

II
[Dialectics]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



In the meantime, along with and after the French philosophy of the
18th century, had arisen the new German philosophy, culminating in
Hegel.

Its greatest merit was the taking up again of dialectics as the
highest form of reasoning. The old Greek philosophers were all born
natural dialecticians, and Aristotle, the most encyclopaedic of them,
had already analyzed the most essential forms of dialectic thought.
The newer philosophy, on the other hand, although in it also
dialectics had brilliant exponents (e.g. Descartes and Spinoza), had,
especially through English influence, become more and more rigidly
fixed in the so-called metaphysical mode of reasoning, by which also
the French of the 18th century were almost wholly dominated, at all
events in their special philosophical work. Outside philosophy in the
restricted sense, the French nevertheless produced masterpieces of
dialectic. We need only call to mind Diderot's Le Neveu de Rameau, and
Rousseau's Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inegalite
parmi less hommes. We give here, in brief, the essential character of
these two modes of thought.


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Thu Aug 13 09:32:30 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:32:30 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?iso-8859-1?q?Encyclop=E9die?=
In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230908130751q5eef130dlb44772cc4c57a006@mail.gmail.co
 m>
References: <5c2e4d230908130751q5eef130dlb44772cc4c57a006@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E1MbcJb-0000up-3Z@elasmtp-mealy.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

While we are on this subject for no reason at all. . . . On my web site:

<http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/diderot1.html>Diderot, 
Interpreter of Nature: Selected Writings

<http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/diderot3.html>Denis Diderot 
by Tamara Dlugach

Elsewhere:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diderot>Denis Diderot - Wikipedia, the 
free encyclopedia

<http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/diderot/index.htm>Denis 
Diderot Archive at Marxists Internet Archive


At 10:51 AM 8/13/2009, c b wrote:
>The original encyclopedists were considered important contributors to
>the development of materialism by Engels. Is Wikipedia in that
>tradition ?  Knowledge for masses.
>
>The whole essay, or book "Marx and Engels On Literature and Art" of
>which the reference to discussions of Diderot is a small section, has
>quite and index.
>
>CB
>
>Diderot
>
>1. Ludwig Feuerbach
>2. Marx to Engels 15 April 1869
>3. Engels To Marx. 16 April 1869
>
>In:  Marx and Engels On Literature and Art
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Source: Marx Engels On Literature and Art. Progress Publishers. 1976;
>Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/art/index.htm

From cb31450 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 13 10:23:16 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:23:16 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Hemingway, the American left,
	and the Soviet Union: some forgotten 	episodes
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908130923j5c1b4a2fk34cf10a89e087dd4@mail.gmail.com>

Hemingway, the American Left, and the Soviet Union: Some Forgotten Episodes
Journal article by Cary Nelson; The Hemingway Review, Vol. 14, 1994

http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=KG9WPQZJhw8PGW8d12NnZQvpqRhgycgTMLcDJQltpBDvWWpXptlt!-229138872!-1934322800?docId=5000276828


Journal Article Excerpt


Hemingway, the American left, and the Soviet Union: some forgotten episodes



by Cary Nelson


RECENT BIOGRAPHICAL scholarship--notably Kenneth S. Lynn's Hemingway
(1987) and James R. Mellow's Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences
(1992) --suggests that a consensus may be forming about the political
judgments that coalesced in For Whom the Bell Tolls and that
presumably carried Hemingway through the next two decades of his life.
Briefly, the argument as Mellow puts it is that Hemingway by the end
of 1938 experienced "growing disillusionment" with the cause of the
Spanish Republic. His 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls as a result
became, according to Mellow, "among other things, Hemingway's study of
cowards and traitors and brave men in battle, as well as his apologia
for supporting the Loyalists in the Spanish civil war" (517). "In both
the marriage [to Martha Gellhorn] and the romance with left-wing
politics," Lynn writes in a similar argument, "Hemingway would
discover himself to have been sadly deceived" (442); "he said farewell
to the Comintern in For Whom the Bell Tolls" (452). Putting in his own
rhetoric the lesson he would have us believe Hemingway learned, Lynn
writes that "the anti-Fascist propaganda being generated by the
Comintern's cleverest liars, Willi Muenzenberg and Otto Katz (both
later liquidated on Stalin's orders) was a rhetorical cover for the
imperialistic designs of a system no less ruthless than Hitler's and
infinitely more so than the repressive regime that Franco would
establish" (444).(1) One exception to this pattern is Jeffrey Meyers'
Hemingway: A Biography (1985), which sees For Whom the Bell Tolls as
flowing from Hemingway's Loyalist sympathies rather than marking their
end point. But Me...


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Thu Aug 13 10:54:25 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:54:25 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?iso-8859-1?q?Encyclop=E9die?=
Message-ID: <c75.58821e88.37b59f41@aol.com>

Ralph, you have a way with words. 
 
Guess I will send in something related to real life in America.
 
WL. 
 
 
In a message dated 8/13/2009 11:34:28 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
rdumain at autodidactproject.org writes:
While we are on this subject for no  reason at all. . . . On my web  site:

<http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/diderot1.html>Diderot,  
Interpreter of Nature: Selected  Writings

<http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/diderot3.html>Denis  Diderot 
by Tamara  Dlugach

Elsewhere:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diderot>Denis  Diderot - Wikipedia, the 
free  encyclopedia

<http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/diderot/index.htm>Denis  
Diderot Archive at Marxists Internet Archive
 


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Thu Aug 13 10:56:49 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:56:49 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism,
	fighting the ultra right and Health care.  1
Message-ID: <c69.500515a3.37b59fd1@aol.com>

Unemployment continues to mount as does home fore closures. Society begins  
to move as the economic crisis develops. This social response then 
polarizes  society. At this point the left and right side of the movement reach a 
point ? a  fork in the road ? a polarization within their ranks. Which way do 
we go? Who  are our friends and enemies? 
 
As the working class further fragments into hard economic strata, the left  
side of the movement begins to fragment and break between progressives, 
with  deep political and economic ties to the better situated workers or the  
economic/political middle and communists/socialists striving to recruit and  
express the demand of the workers from the lens of the most destitute of the 
 proletarians. The right-wing  side of the movement polarizes between  
reactionary and fascist. 
Reactionaries seek to restore the stability of the system based on the  
past. Their calling card is a demand to return to the past and the Constitution 
 in the pre Civil War years, or slavery and white supremacy. The new 
American  fascists do not seek a return to the past but express the need for 
society to  leap forward deploying state violence to stabilize and contain social 
and  economic polarization. 
 
A new fascist movement is gathering force worldwide to maintain private  
property for the benefit of the few. This movement is emerging in response to 
an  objective spontaneous movement arising with an impulse to organize 
society as a  cooperative society based on the new productive forces. Much is at 
stake, and  those revolutionaries who are fighting for a cooperative society 
need to be  clear about what?s arising and what it represents so that the 
proper tactics can  be used to carry humanity to victory. 
 
Fascist movement 
 
The new fascist movement is composed of many different individuals and  
organizations, which are not monolithic, but they all want to take the country  
in the same direction and have the same goals. The goals of this movement 
are  not reactionary as defined above. Unlike the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi 
Party, the  new American fascists do not seek to restore the social and political 
order of  the past.  The social and political order of the past means the 
social  order of the period of legal segregation and the strengthening of the 
wage  labor-capital bond as the social contract. This political aspects of 
the social  order was shaped on the basis of the defeat of Reconstruction 
and an expanding  economy. 
 
As the federal troops were pulled from the defeated South, reaction  
organized the so-called "revolt of the poor whites" against newly freed slaves. 
 
Cloaking themselves in the mantle of "saving the South" and the "Southern  
way of life" - (which meant white supremacy and cling to the moral 
imperatives  of the Constitutionalist Confederates), the KKK entered history as agent 
of  Yankee finance capital and hangman of democracy. The aim of the 
reactionary  movement was to "freeze time" and restore as much of the old social 
order as  possible. This old social order remained intact until a revolution 
in production  occurred - mechanization of agriculture, that compelled 
Southern society to leap  forward to a new technological basis. This revolution in 
the productive forces  excited the Civil rights Movement to life and would 
go on to shatter Jim Crow  segregation and reform social relations in 
America. 
 
Those that make up the new fascist movement do not want to take society  
back to the era of Jim Crow, but want to take the country into the 
twenty-first  century organized around the new tools of production, electronics. These  
individuals have a vision of reconstructing America. As the productive 
relations  between workers and capitalists are torn asunder, they see the 
writing on the  wall. Their goal is to preserve private property; privately 
generated means and  forms of wealth and privilege, even if it is at the expense 
of the capitalist  economic relations of production or the value producing 
system. As the  electronic revolution matures, the capitalist is becoming as 
outdated as the  worker in the exact same manner - if not more, that rendered 
the sharecropper  and planter class obsolete. 
 
This is the crux of the social turmoil going on worldwide. The globe is  
caught in the throes of the kind of social revolution Marx wrote about. Angry  
masses are raging against skyrocketing food and energy prices and 
stagnating  wages and unemployment in India, Senegal, Yemen, Indonesia, Morocco, 
Cameroon,  Brazil, Panama, the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and elsewhere. These 
protests  have targeted governments? handling of the crisis, are widespread, 
and gathering  pace. As one British newspaper observed, they "may spark a 
new revolution." 
 
Millions of workers have been dispossessed of their livelihood ? whether it 
 is a small plot of land or their job in the urban centers or through wars ?
 and  have been uprooted from their home countries. Millions have been 
forced to  migrate, leaving behind home and loved ones to join the global 
workforce. They  are becoming the new global workers who trek the globe in search 
of work.  Globalized production globalizes the producer. 
 
Migration is going on from poor countries to rich countries; from poorer  
countries to poor countries. It?s not just transnational, but domestic too ? 
 from one region to another within one nation. A qualitatively new level of 
 flight is underway. This mass migration compounds the social and political 
 problems faced in every country. The global worker within our midst is a  
constant reminder to domestic workers that capital is failing worldwide. 
 
The United States is not untouched by the widespread social turmoil in  
other countries. "You can?t do this to people year after year ? that is, 
upturn  their lives, take away what they thought they had earned without 
provoking  rather intense political reactions", a well known author and commentator 
William  Greider warned in an interview with Amy Goodman, the host of the 
radio program  Democracy Now. "People, out of their own distress and anger 
will organize their  own politics, and they will make themselves seen and heard 
around this country." 
 
Recently, Admiral Dennis Blair, the new U.S. Director of National  
Intelligence, emphasized this point by warning the Senate Intelligence Committee  
that the deepening economic crisis posed perhaps the gravest threat to 
stability  and national security. Reports from the Department of Homeland Security 
and the  FBI warn that "the consequences of prolonged economic downturn, 
real estate  foreclosures, unemployment and the inability to obtain credit will 
create a  fertile environment" for organizing from both the left and the 
right.  (Department of Homeland Security, Right Wing Extremism, April 2009) 
 
Such warnings are not going unheeded by either the capitalists or the  
revolutionaries. 
 
Fascism's target 
 
The target of the new fascist movement is the same dispossessed sector of  
the class that the revolutionaries on the side of the workers are going 
after.  The industrial heartland of America ? known as the Rust Belt, claims the 
highest  concentration of the industrial proletariat in the country. Today, 
due to the  electronic revolution this industrial heartland is becoming a 
wasteland of  misery to the millions of dispossessed workers who once could 
count on good  jobs, decent homes, affordable health care, and the 
wherewithal to provide their  children with a college education and a stable future. 
 
While made to feel ashamed to stand in the unemployment and food lines, and 
 if lucky, to labor in the fields picking fruit and vegetables, these newly 
 dispossessed are now meeting their counterparts who they had been taught 
to see  as "welfare queens" and "deadbeat dads" and "illegal." "What 
happened?" is a  question that keeps resonating in their minds. 
 
Dividing the workers 
 
Ideology is what holds a movement together, any movement. The fascist  
movement is no different. How will they drum up this ideology? In the same way  
that German and Italian fascism had to proceed from the most violent and 
brutal  elements of their national history, the rise of the fascist movement in 
America  will do the same. Historically, the ruling class has used the 
ideology of white  supremacy to rally the most economically secure - sector, of 
the working class  to their side. This tactic has been used to divide and 
conquer the workers at  every potential juncture of class unity. 
 
The isolation and oppression of the masses of African Americans is again  
being utilized, but under new conditions. The ruling class is attacking them, 
 not simply because they are Black, but because they are poor. Between the 
close  of the Second World Imperialist War and into the 1970?s, the attack 
on the  blacks as blacks, had as its goal containment of the stability 
between  capitalist and workers. The white section of the working class, often 
morally  supporting the fight of the blacks, said "go slow." Go slow meant as 
the system  expanded blacks would enter the industrial order at the bottom of 
the industrial  social ladder. "Go slow" meant "I cannot give you my job to 
make things right,  because all that would do is switch position and the 
same problem emerges with  me on the bottom instead of you." 
 
"Then I will have to fight like hell against you and nothing really  
changes." 
 
The point is that the reactionary propaganda was not designed to keep the  
black poor but to moderate and stabilize the employer-employee relationship 
as  the system expanded. The watch word was "a rising boat lifts all, even 
those on  the bottom deck." 
 
Today, what may seem to be the same propaganda is different or rather have  
a different purpose. All this propaganda ? (that Blacks are "shiftless, 
can't  hold a job, they have babies out of wedlock, they won't finish school, 
they use  drugs, and they are criminally inclined") ? is all to set the basis 
for this  attack. The history of racism (white supremacy) makes such 
fascist propaganda  acceptable. From this stronghold, fascist propaganda can 
easily proceed to place  the so-called white "trailer trash" and the "illegal" 
immigrants in the same  category. 
 
The tactic of white supremacy worked during the period of industry,  
developing nation-states, and imperialism. The material foundation existed for  
the ruling class to extend privileges to one section of the workers over  
another. The ruling class maintained the allegiance of a section of the white  
workers through bribery based on segregation, which translated into higher 
wages  and a higher standard of living than the rest of the workers. 
Electronic  technology eliminates the need for workers and, as a result, the 
capitalists  have steadily destroyed this system of bribery. Also being destroyed 
with it,  however, are the bonds that kept those workers politically and 
ideologically  tied to the capitalists. 
 
The conditions are turning these workers from the political bulwark of  
capitalism to its weakest link. The workers, every economic layer, are 
awakening  and beginning to realize they have been duped and used against their own  
interests. Once politically awakened they will unleash their wrath against 
their  class enemies. This moment is objectively near.
 
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from 
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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Thu Aug 13 10:59:17 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:59:17 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism,
	fighting the ultra right and Health 2.
Message-ID: <bea.466bc2ef.37b5a065@aol.com>

II. 
 
How is the new logic against the poor - destitute proletarians, being  
expressed? 
 
The health Care debates are instructive. Over and over older workers  
rallying against a single payer system - on Medicare, are asked why they oppose  
single payer. "I do not want government control over my life." But ask the  
commentator, "Are you receiving Medicate and do you support that." 
 
"Yes, I am on Medicare and love it but do not want socialism." 
 
But pleas the commentator, "Medicare is socialism." 
 
A section of society is expressing an impulse that says the poor should not 
 have Medicare or a single payer system paid for by the American people, 
but it  is alright for "hard working older Americans to have socialism." 
 
The outer form of this propaganda is tinged with and expresses the color  
factor in our history but the attacked is against the most destitute sector 
of  the proletariat without regard to color. 
 
The organized mass sent to town hall meeting to protest and oppose a single 
 payer system - not the organized Nazi and KKK groups, are opposing plans 
to aid  the majority, and the majority support a single payer health care 
system. 
 
Which way for America 
 
The fascist movement is arising in America as a political response to the  
changes underway in society. The ruling class cannot rule in the old way and 
the  developing fascist movement offers the means by which the masses of 
Americans  can be turned toward supporting the ruling class in its efforts to 
transform  society to protect its property and power. 
 
But, they are moving against the tide of history. The new means of  
production confront society with the question: Either the continuation of  private 
property with a fascist state to govern society or the creation of a  
cooperative society based on public property organized to distribute the  
abundance created by these new tools. 
 
At times of extreme shifts in wealth and class formation, as we are  
witnessing today, movements surge to rally the working masses around their  vision 
and solutions to society's problems. The big question today is which  
ideology will express and guide the rising movement of the workers today: an  
ideology that will crown a fascist movement with power, or an ideology that 
will  crown the movement for a cooperative society? 
 
Tactics and strategic thinking 
 
The American people cannot afford the rising cost of health care. Public  
option means single payer system or government foots the bill for many. Those 
 forces attacking single payer and/or public option is a combination of  
reactionary and fascist forces. 
 
One line of thinking says "we progressives and communists" should confront  
and counter the reactionaries or "ultra rights."  This approach will lead  
to our immediate defeat, not to mention tear us off the path of fighting to 
form  class conscious concepts and perception amongst every layer of the 
working  class.  The fight is along the path of the fight running through the  
political middle. This means fighting to win the workers over to what we 
know is  in their class interest. The workers instinctively sense what is in 
their class  interest. 
 
I am of the opinion that we should under no conditions engage the  
"ultra-right" or level our attack against them. Our approach has to be defense  of 
the most poverty stricken of the proletarian masses and their needs. The  
Obama campaign and victory polarized the left and set the basis for a further  
spilt between the progressives and communists. However, the progressives 
seek to  use us because they fear the working class, seek to maintain only 
their  privileges and will not do the work. This class logic is expressed in the 
 ideological arena and within Marxism. 
 
During and following the Obama victory a section of Marxism began launching 
 a massive attack against the communists under the banner of "fighting the 
ultra  left." The "ultra left" were dubbed anyone on the left the did not 
support Obama  hook, line and sinker. Although these Marxists will deny it, 
their attack under  the banner of fighting the "ultra left" and fighting the 
"ultra right" was in  retrospect part of the precondition for what is taking 
place today in the town  hall meetings. To my knowledge none of the 
advocates of fighting the "ultra  right" have stepped forth to do just that. Rather 
they campaign against their  supposedly communist brothers and then demand 
that we fight the ultra right. 
 
This logic has played itself out in the real world in Detroit at a  
frightening pace, predating the Town Hall meetings. 
 
A little over six months ago the "political middle" - (expressed in the  
union bureaucracy and the "political class") organized a rally in Lansing - 20 
 minutes outside of Detroit and state capital of Michigan. John Conyers and 
Jesse  Jackson were on the roster and spoke. Some of us old heads attended 
with signs  supporting H.R. 676 or the single payer health care bill 
introduced by Conyers  and supported by 86 Senators. 
 
Believe it or not we were mildly attacked for supporting 676 and deviating  
away from the Obama approach. As we later escalated the campaign around 
H.R.  676, going into union meeting we faced stiff resistance from the local 
union  leaders and in retirement meeting. We were basically told our actions 
were  "ultra left" and that we were opening the door to the "ultra right." 
 
This made no sense to our way of thinking inasmuch as there are still  
roughly 5 different bills floating our and 676 is already written and supported  
and makes an excellent starting point in the battle for single payer 
system. 
 
In June the Chrysler retired workers had their dental and vision plans  
taken away and a wave of protest washed through the union. The retired workers  
are now the largest section of the UAW Chrysler. 
 
A section of the union leaders went from attacking us because we dared to  
speak of health care outside the bounds of the Obama administration to 
calling  us and giving us the nod. What happened is that these reps were not 
pushed to  the left. Politics do not work in such a way as to push a coherent 
political  entity to the left or right. Certain union leader opened some 
political space  for us because they had to in order to remain in the capacity of 
liars, crooks  and thieves. 
 
If these fellows think we can be maneuvered into fighting the "ultra right" 
 they are mistaken because our job I to educate the workers so as to allow 
them  self organization on their own behalf.  The subtle shift allowing us 
to  openly distribute our literature is not going to be used to be drawn into 
a  direct confrontation with the "ultra right," because that is the wrong 
line of  march. 
 
The road to Rome is through the political middle, carrying the voice and  
demands of the most poverty stricken and not attacking the "ultra right, 
because  the "political middle" stands in our way and are the political and 
social prop  of capital. This does not mean we attack the political middle with 
insults. We  have to learn how to be about the business of "representing" as 
the young folks  say. 
 
The reactionary fringe groups are fighting to capture the loyalty of the  
political middle by attacking its leaders. My thinking at this time is to 
treat  the politically middle and better situated workers the same way Lenin 
looked at  the peasants as a class: to swing them to the side of the real 
proletariat,  rather than viewing the best paid workers in unions as the 
vanguard of the  social revolution of the proletariat. This is not to say we ignore 
these  workers. Rather, we have to face things in their concreteness. As 
the auto  workers are pushed lower and into the unemployment they bring with 
them a new  sense of organization, collectivity and fighting capacity. The 
retired workers  are beginning to play a new role in the life of our country. 
 
Things have changed and old formula is useless. 
 
Attacking the "ultra right" is nothing more than a clever way of demanding  
unconditional support of the Obama administration, even as they escalate 
the war  and waver on a single payer system. 
 
My opinion is that the Obama administration is not reactionary as defined  
in this article. We have entered deeply into the undiscovered country and 
have  to learn how to think on our feet. 
 
WL.
 
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from 
_http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ 
(http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) 


From shmage at pipeline.com  Thu Aug 13 11:07:48 2009
From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:07:48 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism,
	fighting the ultra right and Health 2.
In-Reply-To: <bea.466bc2ef.37b5a065@aol.com>
References: <bea.466bc2ef.37b5a065@aol.com>
Message-ID: <07302C54-FB5C-4BD2-AD98-EAC10861A3C3@pipeline.com>


On Aug 13, 2009, at 12:59 PM, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote:
>
> Attacking the "ultra right" is nothing more than a clever way of  
> demanding
> unconditional support of the Obama administration

Exactly.

Shane Mage

> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Thu Aug 13 11:34:45 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:34:45 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Detroit: American cities in crisis
Message-ID: <bea.466ccd73.37b5a8b5@aol.com>

Empty water bottles littered the table in front of Ray Nagin, whose shaved  
head reflected the florescent lights above. On a damp night in early Dec. 
2008,  the New Orleans mayor had come before the city council to discuss the 
$1.1  billion municipal budget it had just passed after 12 hours of 
contentious  debate. To Nagin?s dismay, the council had unanimously rejected the 
property tax  increase he?d proposed to counter a looming $24 million deficit. 
As he struggled  to control his infamous temper, the embattled leader warned 
that the city, still  struggling after Katrina, was headed for fiscal 
calamity. ?2009 will be a  challenge,? he said. ?2010 will be a train wreck.? 

Ray Nagin is not the only one quaking in city hall. Go to nearly any  
American city and you?ll see the red ink bleeding onto the pavement. On Smith  
Street, the epicenter of Brooklyn?s erstwhile brownstone boom, a note taped to 
 the window of a hipster clothing store advertises a two-for-one sale on 
$98  ?vintage-inspired? sweaters. In Fresno, Calif., skateboarders perfect 
ollies in  the drained swimming pools of foreclosed homes. On the shore of 
Lake Michigan,  an unmoving crane guards the inactive construction site of the 
Santiago  Calatrava?designed Chicago Spire condominium tower. Once touted as 
a glamorous  symbol of the Second City?s resurgence, the twisting, 
undulating skyscraper is  now making humbler headlines.

full: http://americancity.org/magazine/article/cities-in-crisis/
 


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 13 11:51:22 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:51:22 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism,
	fighting the ultra right and Health 2.
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908131051o59479e7bja63ca1c7b737d73@mail.gmail.com>

Shane Mage

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waistline2 at aol.com wrote:
>
> Attacking the "ultra right" is nothing more than a clever way of
> demanding
> unconditional support of the Obama administration

Exactly.

^^^^^
CB: A point upon which sectarians/ultra-lefts, whether Stalinist or
Trotskyist, can agree.


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Thu Aug 13 11:56:49 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:56:49 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism,
 fighting the ultra  right and Health 2.
In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230908131051o59479e7bja63ca1c7b737d73@mail.gmail.com
 >
References: <5c2e4d230908131051o59479e7bja63ca1c7b737d73@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E1MbeYx-0007Lo-RL@elasmtp-curtail.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Well, at a very quick reading, I got a general idea of the 
correlation of forces delineated by Waistline, though I will have to 
study this again. But I don't understand how attacking the right = 
unconditional support for Obama.

At 01:51 PM 8/13/2009, c b wrote:
>Shane Mage
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Waistline2 at aol.com wrote:
> >
> > Attacking the "ultra right" is nothing more than a clever way of
> > demanding
> > unconditional support of the Obama administration
>
>Exactly.
>
>^^^^^
>CB: A point upon which sectarians/ultra-lefts, whether Stalinist or
>Trotskyist, can agree.

From Waistline2 at aol.com  Thu Aug 13 12:14:20 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:14:20 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism,
	fighting the ultra right and Health 2.
Message-ID: <c09.66b9c890.37b5b1fc@aol.com>

> Attacking the "ultra right" is nothing more  than a clever way of
> demanding unconditional support of the Obama  administration

Exactly.

^^^^^
CB: A point upon which  sectarians/ultra-lefts, whether Stalinist or
Trotskyist, can agree.  


Comment
 
 
1). It was in fact the Clinton Administration that brought "attacking the  
ultra right" to national political prominence, as the great "right wing  
conspiracy." I am not going to fight the enemy of my enemy, when clearly  both 
are my enemy. Fighting the enemy of my enemy means unconditional  support to 
the enemy. 
 
2). Please explain what political policy I have advanced on this list or  
any other that can be attributed to Stalin. It is true that my political  
evolution and orientation were within the Stalin polarity, but so was yours and 
 99% of those affiliated with and sympathetic to the CPUSA. I have made it 
clear  for 40 years that Stalin's Marxism and the National Question is a 
brilliant  historical document. As well as his presentation outlining 
Industrialization of  the USSR. 
 
3). Actually it is Lenin that pioneered the political doctrine of the  
"political middle." This by definition means the focus cannot be the ultra  
rights. 
 
Lets assume I am wrong. Please delineate the class breakdown in America you 
 are proceeding from. Attacking the ultra right is a waste of time and 
resources,  especially in a city like Detroit. 
 
 


From shmage at pipeline.com  Thu Aug 13 14:50:42 2009
From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:50:42 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism,
	fighting the ultra right and Health 2.
In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230908131051o59479e7bja63ca1c7b737d73@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5c2e4d230908131051o59479e7bja63ca1c7b737d73@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8C0563F2-A502-46AA-B012-EA5502773F6B@pipeline.com>


>>
>>
>> Attacking the "ultra right" is nothing more than a clever way of
>> demanding
>> unconditional support of the Obama administration
>
> Exactly.
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: A point upon which sectarians/ultra-lefts, whether Stalinist or
> Trotskyist, can agree.


A record--four(!) stupid insults in  one sentence!

Shane Mage

> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Thu Aug 13 16:29:27 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:29:27 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Soviet philosophy preserved online
Message-ID: <E1MbipJ-0008TS-G7@elasmtp-mealy.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Though I think most of the productions of Soviet Marxism-Leninism 
should have been flushed down the toilet long before they were, and 
that the Soviet version of dialectical materialism has done a great 
deal of harm as has most else that came from that source, I am 
nonetheless dedicated to preserving unjustly forgotten and neglected 
work. It seems that some of the Ilyenkov school and a few 
philosophers such as Lektorsky have survived beyond the demise of the 
USSR, but historical amnesia has already closed in on everything 
else. Soviet philosophy and dialectical materialism were always best 
at demystifying various manifestations of bourgeois philosophy, 
whether of positivist, Popperian, or irrationalist varieties, rather 
than constructing positive ideas of their own. (There are exceptions, 
though, in the USSR and other East European countries.)

The main entry points into my contributions to such preservation are:

<http://www.autodidactproject.org/bib/ussrphil.html>Salvaging Soviet 
Philosophy (1)

and

<http://www.autodidactproject.org/bib/ussrph03.html>Soviet Philosophy 
from Progress Publishers: Selected Bibliography, 1968-1990 (1)

I'm going to expand this latter page, including the creation of a new 
section on aesthetics. Also, this page links to works on 
<http://leninist.biz/en/taz.html>leninist.biz, described below.

In addition to my own efforts, and in many cases in conjunction with 
them, Robert Cymbala has, without compensation or support, 
undertaken  the digitization of many works from Progress Publishers 
and other Soviet imprints. He could use some financial support, as 
well as more books in his bibliography to digitize. His site can be found at:

<http://leninist.biz/en/taz.html>leninist.biz

Books of interest recently added to this site include:

<http://leninist.biz/en/1988/PI292/>The Problem of the Ideal by David 
Dubrovsky

<http://leninist.biz/en/1977/PU268/>Philosophy in the USSR: Problems 
of Dialectical Materialism [several authors]

<http://leninist.biz/en/1985/EMT239/index.html>Emotions, Myths and 
Theories by Victor G. Panov

<http://leninist.biz/en/1984/PP246/>The Psychology of Phantasy: An 
Experimental and Theoretical Investigation into the Intrinsic Laws of 
Productive Mentality by I. Roset

<http://leninist.biz/en/1985/AU236/>The American Utopia by Eduard Batalov

<http://leninist.biz/en/1975/PR246/index.html>The Philosophy of 
Revolt: Criticism of Left Radical Ideology by E. Batalov

<http://leninist.biz/en/1986/PTAG210/>Political Thought of Ancient 
Greece by V.S. Nersesyants

<http://leninist.biz/en/1972/H306/index.html>Humanism: Its 
Philosophical, Ethical and Sociological Aspects by M. Petrosyan

<http://leninist.biz/en/1983/CHP397/index.html>Civilisation and the 
Historical Process [various authors] (1st 99 pp. only)

<http://leninist.biz/en/1977/PO343/index.html>Philosophy of Optimism: 
Current Problems by B.G. Kuznetsov (1st 99 pp. only)

In addition, the entire volume of an historic work, in three PDF 
files, has been digitized:
<http://leninist.biz/en/1931/SCR236/>Science at the Cross Roads; 
Papers Presented to the <http://leninist.biz/en/1931/SCR236/>[2nd] 
International Congress of the History of Science and Technology Held 
in London from June 20th to July 3rd, 1931 by the delegates of the 
U.S.S.R<http://leninist.biz/en/1931/SCR236/>.

Robert Cohen's 
<http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/hessen-cohen.html>Introduction 
to The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's 'Principia' by Boris 
Hessen can be found on my web site.

Excerpts from some of the other books can also be found on my web site.


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Thu Aug 13 17:20:07 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:20:07 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Autodidact Project 10th anniversary
Message-ID: <E1Mbjbn-00080C-Iw@elasmtp-kukur.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

12 August 2009 was the 10th anniversary of my first web site, The 
Autodidact Project, still going strong:

http://www.autodidactproject.org

In addition to my own rants, essays, translations, poems, book and 
film reviews, I've contributed (and have been consulted on)--along 
with bibliographies and web guides--writings by and about a wide 
range of obscure as well as better known authors and topics. Among 
the jumble of topics are workers' self-education, reading publics, 
radical publishing, popular intellectual life, atheism, Esperanto, 
philosophical and universal language projects, board games, ideology, 
Marxism, Black Studies (Richard Wright, CLR James, jazz musicians, 
the Afro-German connection, black freethought, and more), critical 
theory, labor radicals (such as Mark Starr and Buffalo's own Emanuel 
Fried), the American Hegelians, the Young Hegelians, William Blake, 
Heinrich Heine, philosophical style, historiography of philosophy, 
paraconsistent logic, irony, humor & cynicism, occultism, mysticism, 
orientalism, New Age thought & fascism.

____________________

"I did it, I did it."

        -- John Lee Hooker

From farmelantj at juno.com  Thu Aug 13 18:27:28 2009
From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:27:28 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Forward from Rosa Lichtenstein on Analytic Marxism
Message-ID: <20090813.202728.5344.0.farmelantj@juno.com>



In response to this:
 
http://www.marxmail.org/msg66028.html
 
It is worth adding that Donald Davidson was a socialist, too, as were
Gilbert Ryle and John Austin. Wittgenstein himself declared he was a
'communist at heart', wanted to move to Russia (since he was in agreement
with the gains made by workers after the 1917 revolution), and attributed
the most important ideas of his later period to Sraffa. Moreover, Rush
Rees at one point wanted to join the UK-Trotskyist RCP and many of
Wittgenstein's other disciples were also lefties (for example, Gasking).
 
http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Wittgenstein.htm
 
If anything, it's dialecticians who are the conservatives, since they are
quite happy to ape the dogmatic and a priori thought-forms of traditional
philosophy.
 
http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2002.htm
 
http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm
 
Rosa!
 
____________________________________________________________
Easy-to-use, advanced features, flexible phone systems.  Click here for more info.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTQZarUXSCVKfnEhDAaVYTV0ep5QHjFAIRWyOlszWz8fsLH2v88JP6/


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 14 09:12:31 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:12:31 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Honduras Resistance
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908140812o2c508e9epa4a88fa5f2b9cb09@mail.gmail.com>

THE ORGANIZER NEWSPAPER
P.O. Box 40009 San Francisco, CA 94140
Email: theorganizer at earthlink.net Website:
www.socialistorganizer.org

Honduras Resistance Deepens, With Working Class at the Helm

International Labor Solidarity Needed Urgently to Defeat the Coup

EDITORIAL:

The Honduran people -- with the working class and their trade unions playing
an increasing leadership role -- are on the move. Their revolutionary
upsurge is shaking the fragile edifice of corporate-dominated politics
across the continent and creating frictions within the U.S. ruling
establishment itself.

As we go to press, a week-long nationwide general strike of teachers and
public sector workers is under way. It is a political strike to press for
the resistance movement's three central demands: (1) the immediate and
unconditional reinstatement of Manuel Zelaya as the sole and legitimate
president of Honduras, (2) a referendum on convening a Constituent Assembly
to draft a new Constitution, and (3) the immediate punishment of all the
perpetrators of the June 28 coup for their crimes against the people.

Up till now, there had been three two-day strikes (all on Thursdays and
Fridays) called by the three main trade union federations in Honduras, all
of which are part of the National Front Against the Coup. All the main
decisions regarding what to do next in the struggle are made by a weekly
Delegates Assembly of the Front, which is held at the hall of the Beverage
Industry Workers Union (STIBYS). The Delegates Assembly -- which brings
together more than 800 mandated representatives from unions and popular
organizations throughout Honduras -- has become the nerve center and
coordinating body of the resistance movement.

The recent strike has been more widely followed than the previous two-day
strikes. In addition to the teachers and State office workers, the workers
and students at the National Autonomous University of Honduras hit the
bricks, as did the workers at the National Agrarian Institute, the
electrical workers of the Empresa Nacional de Energ? ??a, some
private-sector workers, and the workers at the National Weather Service.

Also, on August 11, tens of thousands of people converged from all corners
of the country into Honduras' two main cities -- Tegucigalpa and San Pedro
Sula. Most of the participants in this National March of Popular Resistance
had left their villages and towns on August 6, the day that the unlimited
general strike began, in response to the call from the National Front
Against the Coup. Most of the marchers pledged to remain in these two cities
throughout the week to participate in the planned demonstrations, roadblocks
and plant/campus occupations. In Tegucigalpa, a mass march of 20,000
people -- with union banners displayed prominently -- buoyed people's
determination to continue the struggle. One of the chants throughout the
march was, "No Somos Cuatro Gatos!" -- or, we are not just a small handful
of people (literally we are not four cats) -- a reply to the Micheletti
media machine, which keeps trying to convince the world that 45 days after
the coup things have "returned to normal," with only a handful of
discontents -- four cats -- stirring up trouble. Washington's Conundrum It
is now public knowledge that a wing of the Republican Party helped in one
form or another to prepare the June 28 coup that overthrew democratically
elected President Manuel Zelaya -- with hawks like John Negroponte, Otto
Reich and current U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens in the forefront
of this effort. Meetings between Llorens and the high military command took
place throughout the entire week leading up to the coup.

The mass public outrage that swept the Americas in the aftermath of the coup
compelled the Organization of American States (OAS) to call for the
"immediate and unconditional reinstatement of Zelaya as the legitimate
president of Honduras." Having military coups break out in a continent
marked by growing revolutionary upheavals -- especially after President
Barack Obama's public pledge to "turn the page" on the era of military
dictatorship of past decades -- posed a serious risk to the overall position
of U.S. imperialism in the region. Obama and all the heads of state in the
Western Hemisphere voted in favor of the OAS resolution.

No sooner had those votes been taken, however, than the U.S. State
Department, under Hillary Clinton, set out to subvert the OAS resolution by
drafting a script for a "mediated settlement" in Honduras that legitimized
the perpetrators of the June 28 coup. One week later, Clinton anointed a
credible regional leader to serve as the mediator for this U.S.-initiated
plan: President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica. (Two of Clinton's associates,
Lanny Davis and Bennet Ratcliff are, in fact, running strategy for the coup
government.)

The Arias Plan calls for the return of Zelaya to Honduras BUT only if he
accepts to form a "government of national reconciliation" with the
perpetrators of the coup, if he renounces his effort to poll the Honduran
people on convening a Constituent Assembly that would draft a new
Constitution, and if he drops his call to bring the coup leadership to trial
for their crimes.

Zelaya accepted this plan, while emphasizing that the central question for
him was point no. 1 of the seven points -- that is, his immediate return to
Honduras. But the de-facto government of Roberto Micheletti -- better known
in Honduras as "Pinocheletti" -- rejected the Arias Plan and even went so
far as to deny visas to a delegation from the OAS sent to discuss the plan.
The top military brass no doubt fear that a return of Zelaya, no matter how
conditioned and politically hamstrung, would be seized upon by millions of
mobilized people in Honduras and throughout the region as a blow to the
de-facto government.

This rejection of the Arias Plan by Micheletti has posed a conundrum for
Washington -- and for Obama, in particular. Getting Zelaya on board with the
Arias Plan did not do the trick. The National Front Against the Coup, which
is the voice of the fighting resistance movement, categorically rejected the
Arias Plan, as did many governments in the Americas, following the lead of
Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. There is widespread awareness in Honduras that the
U.S. government -- one wing of which was implicated in the coup -- has no
right to violate the Honduran people's right to self-determination by
imposing unacceptable conditions for the return of Zelaya.

This did not, however, prevent U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens from personally
requesting over the weekend of August 8-9 that the National Front Against
the Coup get on board with the Arias Plan "as the sole means of preventing
more violence and ensuring a peaceful outcome" (aporrea.org). No doubt
Llorens was hoping to find at least one taker within the Front leadership
who could be bought off and wielded to show that there is now a "reasonable"
wing of the movement that approves a negotiated settlement with Micheletti.

But here, too, Llorens was rebuffed. On August 11, the National Front issued
a new declaration rejecting Llorens' overtures and reaffirming the call for
the unconditional and immediate reinstatement of Zelaya as president and the
convening of a Constituent Assembly to draft a Constitution that would
replace the 1982 Constitution, drafted by a previous military dictatorship
to protect the oligarchy and enshrine the monopoly of political power in the
two parties of the ruling class: the Liberals and Conservatives.

Stalling and buying time for the de-facto regime, with the hope that the
movement would slowly wither on the vine, has been another tactic deployed
by U.S. imperialism. The desired goal is to weather the storm until November
2009, when new presidential elections will be held. But not only has the
resistance movement not ebbed, it has grown by the day. And now the National
Front Against the Coup has issued a statement announcing that if Zelaya is
not properly reinstated as the sole legitimate president of Honduras, they
will call for a boycott of the coup-organized November elections.

Yet another option is to begin the wholesale repression of the resistance
movement. But this, too, is backfiring. On August 6, for example, the
National Guard attacked a peaceful demonstration in Tegucigalpa, killing one
teacher: Roger Abraham Vallejo. The following day, the mass protests were
more than twice the size. And with all the international attention focused
on Honduras, such repression cannot go under the radar -- nor can it be
easily justified. After all, Obama is still on record calling for the return
of Zelaya to Honduras.

International Labor Solidarity Needed Urgently

The growing class confrontation in Honduras requires the immediate, visible
and effective solidarity of the international workers' movement,
particularly of the international trade union movement. The workers,
peasants, youth and indigenous people of Honduran are putting their lives on
the line in this struggle for democracy, workers' rights, and economic and
social justice. They need the active support of working people the world
over, particularly in the United States, to help them carry forth and win
their struggle.

In response to the "Appeal from the National Front Against the Coup to
Working People the World Over," the 9-million-member Unified Workers Central
(CUT) of Brazil voted on August 7 to call for Continental Days of
Mobilizations on August 10-14 in solidarity with the people of Honduras.
This appeal has been heeded widely across the continent, with mass
demonstrations in most major cities demanding that their respective
governments sever all diplomatic ties with the military regime in Honduras
and insist on the implementation of the initial OAS resolution.

In the United States, we have perhaps the most critical role to play. An
August 8 solidarity message from the Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and
Justice to the Honduran trade union movement lays out our tasks in the
United States in precise terms:

"We are painfully aware that the U.S. government, by its refusal to cut off
all aid and arms to the Honduran military and coup plotters, becomes
complicit in this attack on the constitutional order and democratic rights
of the people of Honduras. Words by the Obama administration that are not
matched by strong actions to cut off all funds and guns to the conspirators
are empty gestures.

"We demand that our government cut off all aid and arms to and all commerce
with the perpetrators of this criminal coup and the oligarchs, corporations
and other forces that conspire with them directly or collude with them by
their silence. The coup would not last a week if the U.S. did this, froze
all the assets of the plotters and called upon the international community
to do the same. Corporations that continue to do business in Honduras should
be barred from doing business in the United States.

"President Zelaya must be returned to office in Honduras immediately and
without conditions. The conspirators against him should be arrested and
brought to trial for their crimes against the people. We pledge to support
you in any way we can until such time as the president, the constitutional
order and democracy are restored in Honduras. The working class and labor
movement of Honduras shall prevail. You shall consign the forces of darkness
and reaction to the past."

Indeed. With the aid of the international labor movement, beginning with
that of the U.S. labor movement, the Honduran working class and labor
movement of Honduras can and shall prevail!

*************************

Why the Deep Aspiration to a Constituent Assembly [Note: Following are
excerpts from an article by internationally recognized Honduran writer Helen
Uma? ??a. The article appeared under the title "The Fear of a Two-Letter
Word," referring to a "S? ??" vote -- Spanish for "Yes" -- in the June 28
non-binding opinion poll on whether or not a Constituent Assembly should be
convened to draft a new Constitution. The excerpts have been translated by
The Organizer.] On June 28, I had hoped to cast my ballot for a "S? ??" --
or "yes" -- vote on the "fourth ballot box," or "Cuarta Urna." Like so many
others, I saw this referendum on convening a Constituent Assembly to draft a
new Constitution as a path for a change that would collectively benefit the
historically marginalized sectors of our society: the peasants, workers, and
ethnic minorities. ...

It was finally time to modify a Constitution whose deficiencies are glaring,
with the endorsement of a majority of our citizens and following a full
public discussion.

To state, as the perpetrators of the coup have done (only to be echoed by a
servile media), that what Mel [President Manuel Zelaya] wanted to accomplish
with this "fourth ballot" was to secure his re-election on November 29,
2009, is without a doubt the greatest lie and distortion in the political
history of our country. The hypothetical Constitution -- as it depended on
whether the people would vote "S? ??" -- would not have been drafted and
approved until newly elected deputies had convened as a National Constituent
Assembly to undertake this task. And this could not have taken place until
next year, well after Mel had left office.

When I first learned of the coup, I was sickened. The powers that be had
resorted to military force, with the assistance, or at the very least the
tacit approval, of the empire to the North, to abort what could have been a
journey to a more just and equitable society, to deal a death blow to the
possibility of realizing our long-held dream: that we could begin the
building a new society where the most urgent needs of the population --
food, healthcare, education, housing, jobs -- could be met.

The very idea that the people could be consulted about something of this
import, and that a new Constitution could be drafted to remedy the grave
injustices enshrined in the current magna carta, was met with great
enthusiasm by the people.

Never before had our humble but proud people -- those who live in
shantytowns or on the edges of precipices in forgotten canyons -- been told
they could express themselves on such a significant issue. Never before. The
coup was the awkward response by the ruling elite, by the twin parties of
the landowners and oligarchs, to this human wave that was becoming conscious
of its true interests. ... But the last word hasn't been said. Not by a long
shot.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 14 09:42:16 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:42:16 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Twitter: >40% pointless babble
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908140842n70b2c4eaof0b510add0ba8e6b@mail.gmail.com>

Here's a link for Ralph the purpose meister.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.pearanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Twitter-Study-August-2009.pdf


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Fri Aug 14 09:43:40 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:43:40 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Twitter: >40% pointless babble
In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230908140842n70b2c4eaof0b510add0ba8e6b@mail.gmail.co
 m>
References: <5c2e4d230908140842n70b2c4eaof0b510add0ba8e6b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E1Mbyxe-0006VB-4C@elasmtp-banded.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Maybe you should twitter your moment-to-moment survey of Wikipedia.

At 11:42 AM 8/14/2009, c b wrote:
>Here's a link for Ralph the purpose meister.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>http://www.pearanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Twitter-Study-August-2009.pdf
>
>___



From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Aug 14 10:33:58 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:33:58 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Class,
	politics and the art of struggle: the concept of "ultra right" is
	wrong
Message-ID: <d5e.55011914.37b6ebf6@aol.com>

Strategy in the Class struggle 
 
Part 1
 
 
There are some thing in life I just hate. Missing the lottery by one  
number, hitting my knee on the edge of the coffee table and being stuck in wrong  
thinking or using Marx approach like a true believing Jehovah witness.  
Somewhere  in Marx writings he advances a proposition about the workers  
leaping out of the bounds of economic struggle against the employers and passing  
over to political struggle against the regime. Lenin speaks of the workers  
transcending the trade union struggle but I am through using Lenin as an 
index  like a true believer quotes Genesis. 
 
For much of my life I understood the process the working class must pass  
through in the following way: a large segment of workers go on strike and at 
a  certain point the employers call in the police or the state intervenes 
and on  this basis the struggle of the workers is compelled to leap outside 
the  employer-employee relations. In fact this is what happened at the Dodge 
Truck  strike (Local 140) around 1974. The workers struck the plant and the 
local Judge  literally came to the factory gate handing out arrest warrants 
and giving worker  sentences on the spot. The next day we issued a leaflet of 
condemnation with the  headline "Here Comes The Judge," a popular joke line 
taken from the old Flip  Wilson Comedy show. 
 
The state - judge and police, attacks the workers and the struggle leaps  
into the political arena. Or the workers engage the political process seeking 
 legislation to lighten their load, as in the case of the struggle for the 
eight  hour workday. 
 
Something different is happening today that conforms to Marx insights but  
this "something" is happening on its own basis. 
 
Economic crisis and government action to stabilize the economy are drawing  
the American people into politics. We first witnessed this is a big way 
with the  election of Obama and pondered the meaning of the huge open air 
rallies  involving upwards of 80,000 people but lacked a political framework to 
make  sense of events. 
 
The struggle within the ruling class and its political elite, as it seeks  
solutions to the economic crisis, rather than open clashes between employer 
and  employee is having a profound impact on the life of the country. When 
the  government began to insert itself openly and directly into the 
management of the  economy, the whole country was pulled into political discourse ? 
"leave it to  the market," "bailout those corporations that are too large to 
fail,"  "nationalize" ? with journalists and students, laid-off and debt-lad
en workers,  homeowners and homeless all asking, "Where?s my bailout?" 
 
The national public discourse is on, with socialism being discussed daily.  
It is not only the academics, leftists, progressives, and news spinners, 
but  today mainstream America is awakening to politics beyond elections and 
engaging  an intense discussion over the attributes of socialism. . 
 
Politics beyond elections? Socialism being discussed in America? Wow, this  
is new. "Politics beyond elections" is meant to convey a concept of a 
changed  reality. "Politics beyond elections," also implies that hence forth, the 
 politics before the next series of elections have changed. 
 
For the first time in many generations, we see a public discourse that  
opens the door to political struggle over class interests. Whether  
revolutionaries can seize this moment to add depth, vision, and class  partisanship to 
the intensifying debate depends both on political strategy and  on an 
approach to work that politicizes from within this broad awakening. 
 
I write from the point of view that attacking the left as "ultra left" and  
advocating the left focus on the "ultra right" will educate not one worker 
in  the politics of class. Further, I assert that attacking the left as 
"ultra left"  and focusing on attacking the "ultra right" is the sole political 
purpose of  MSNBC and Chris Matthis, whose targeted enemy is the New 
American fascists at  Fox news. 
 
Revolutionaries are not free to simply politicize and "revolutionize" at  
will. We can do so under definite economic and historical conditions. When 
those  conditions are ripe, it is critical that we understand those conditions 
and  seize the time. The financial crisis spotlights society at a critical 
juncture.  The ruling class cannot protect its property nor stabilize the 
economy without  the government inserting itself into management of the 
economy and instituting  nationalization in some form ? partial or temporary. 
Bailing out AIG and pouring  an admitted $800 trillion into the new financial 
architecture is a case in  point. 
 
At the same time, unless "the government" takes responsibility for the  
public welfare, larger and larger sections of the population will go under -  
without the basic necessaries of life. Unless the Federal government 
guarantees  health care for all, millions will suffer and die for lack of money to 
see a  doctor. The more than less stable section of the working class will 
see more of  its incomes going to health care - higher premiums. Every layer 
of society,  every economic rung on the ladder faces having more and more of 
its dollars  poured into the health care system. Health care becomes a tough 
issue because  each economic fragment of all classes have "skin in the 
game" and perceives its  interest different. Yet, each fragment of classes needs 
the same things: "help." 
 
Each class fragment wants help for itself, with the most destitute of the  
proletariat occupying a social/economic status compelling it to fight for  
medical care for all in order to meet it basic and elementary medical needs. 
A  $5,000 medical tax credit - for instance, will not help the most 
destitute of  the proletarian masses because of its low income level. Here we run 
into the  meaning of class analysis. Class analysis ascends from the Ivory 
Towers of  intellectual thought and is transformed into the material politics 
of  championing the aspirations of the working class based on its most 
poverty  stricken sector. When we discuss classes we have to look at what we are 
really  talking about. On A Marxist list there is general agreement on the 
meaning of  class as a property relation. In the world outside our 
intellectual door class  appears as economic stratification and class sector behavior. 
The main point is  that classes are not simply reducible to those working at 
the means of  production and those owning the means of production.  I am of 
the opinion  that class and class struggle in August 2009 means the 
spontaneous motion and  movement of economic fragments of classes and their 
intersecting interest. From  this point of view what is blocking and containing the 
spontaneous movement of  the most destitute sections of the proletariat is 
not the "ultra rights" but the  relative stability of the economic middle, 
as it stabilizes the system of  capital rule and advances a set of demands 
that fall short of the needs of the  real proletarian masses. 
 
What follows from this is the need to adjust the demands of the most  
poverty stricken sector of the proletariat to intersect with the economic layer  
directly above it. Here we have to speak of class demands in a very concrete 
 way. We have to write and develop a body of literature that speaks to the  
concreteness of class as the American experience. 
 
Unless "the government" ensures everyone?s access to the necessaries of  
life, like education, public housing, personal energy allotment and clean  
running water, private industry will buy up ever-broader components of the  
public infrastructure in cities and towns across the country and run them for  
the profit of the corporations, rather than the needs of the majority. 
 
This objective necessity of nationalization opens the decisive battlefield  
over whose interests the government will serve. Will the public demand  
nationalization in the interests of the common good? Will the class that works  
until its labor is no longer needed struggle for its interests to be served 
and  protected? Or will nationalization continue to serve the interests of 
private  corporate investors, the class of people that accumulates wealth 
based on  others? toil and their growing debt? The $800 trillion given to the 
non-banking  financial institutions could have been better spent as direct 
injections into  the society infrastructure and needed things like medical 
care. 
 
I am deeply aware that a layer of the workers morally feel it is better to  
teach a man to fish, rather than to give him a fish because giving him a 
fish  means he eats for one day, while teaching him to fish means he eats for 
a  lifetime. The problem is that the $800 trillion was not directed toward 
giving  fish or teaching anyone how to fish. Then, the capitalist politicians 
demand  that we the people "pay" for this $800 trillion giveaway. 
 
On this historical battleground over whose interests nationalization will  
serve, our class can be educated and formed politically ? with the 
consciousness  and capacity to fight in its own class interests. 
 
This battle is already conjuring up forms that are rooted in American  
history. At critical turning points, when the populace had to pay for the  
disruptions in the economy and the free market monetary system, it aimed its  
anger at "the banks" or "Wall Street." In controversies over the Bank of the  
United States in the early 1800s, over the gold standard in the late 1800s, 
and  over financial regulation during the early days of the New Deal, 
American  politics was about finance. 
 
The current crisis is resurrecting American anger at the financial elite.  
Unfortunately, along with that anger comes the danger of racial and  
anti-immigrant agitation reminiscent of other turning points in American  history. 
New ideology and political direction will not spring forth  spontaneously 
out of layoffs, loss of health and retirement benefits, or  foreclosures. This 
time around, there is no way forward for private property  except to 
protect and expand the power of those who accumulate wealth off of  financial 
speculation and the expanding debt of the working class. This time,  the anger 
at the financial elite can also be a channel through which American  politics 
gets infused with a sense of class interests and how to fight for them  
politically. 
 
A decision has to be made. Shall the economic middle of the working class  
fight to stabilize itself in opposition to and without militant demands for 
the  most poverty stricken of the proletariat? To do such means the bottom 
is the  degree to which you will be pushed. If homelessness is accepted as 
the bottom  that is the degree to which you and your family can be pushed, 
then you are  destined to sink lower and lower. The fight has to be pushed from 
an awareness  of the need to raise the bottom of the social and economic 
ladder to a point  that you do not desire to be pushed. This approach is 
called class politics.  Everything above this "bottom" should be based on the 
individual laboring and  inspiration of the individual within a cooperative 
society. 
 
Strategic opening 
 
Political strategy aims at achieving or maintaining political power. It  
operates within the subjective side of the movement ? the conscious side of 
the  developing movement. Key to strategy is identifying your enemy?s weak 
points.  Even this nascent stage of the process reveals a critical point of 
ideological  vulnerability. 
 
What is the enemy?s weak point? If the weak point within the system and the 
 political class is not the "ultra right" then why would one focus their  
political literature and attacks against the "ultra right?" 
 
Today?s crisis and government action are pulling people from all walks of  
life into motion. But one section holds the potential to pull all others  
forward. The stably employed, mid-American workers have been the targets of  
appeals by political campaigns. They have played the pivotal role in decisive 
 ideological shifts in the history of the country. 
 
Appealed to as a "middle class," this sector has been the key to the  
capitalists? political strength. Although the capitalist class is less than one  
percent of the population, it has been able to control the entire population 
by  controlling 30 to 50 percent through good jobs, benefits, and 
privilege. 
 
With jobs and benefits already lost to technology and mobile capital, the  
middle-income section of the population ("the political middle?) is 
diminishing.  Lou Dobbs has built his entire television career the political middle 
and  anti-immigration rhetoric. The financial crisis drastically speeds up 
the  process of destruction of the economic/political middle. This 
destruction is not  due to bad management but is the natural result of the working of 
the free  market system under the impact of the technological advance and 
revolution. The  big fish eats the little fish means all the fish in between 
gets eaten. 
 
How fall are you willing to sink? For every 500,000 that becomes unemployed 
 and sink lower, one person and their family escapes upward. Educated and  
organized workers are being forced out of the system and into antagonism to  
capital. This rude awakening from the American Dream turns what used to be 
a  political strength for the capitalists into their potential political  
vulnerability. 
 
This section is not only tied to the capitalists economically, they are  
also attached to the capitalists culturally and psychologically. A section of  
these workers think things out like little bitty capitalists. Rapidly 
shaken  from their secure situation, these workers can be agitated for fascism. 
Or their  awakening can become the catalyst for the development of a class 
thinking and  fighting in its own interests. 
 
Here is our line of march rather than attacking the "ultra rights." 
 
Previously entitled, newly dispossessed, this section of the population can 
 be politicized rapidly to set the tone of the national political 
discourse.  Direction depends on consciousness. Our focus need to be on the political 
 middle. Just as this political middle was swung to Obama, it can be swung 
to  fascism in the blink of an eye. There is a materialist explanation for 
why the  initial impulse of these workers is to swing to the right. These 
workers are  attached to the capitalists culturally and psychologically, but 
they are workers  - wage laborers, and there spontaneous tendency is to seek 
work - rather than "a  government hand out," or to recreate and reestablish 
the wage labor form, or  reestablish their connection with capital. When 
promised the ability to "once  again work" with dignity these workers listen and 
believe. 
 
The lower section of the proletariat knows better as a lower economic  
section. These workers know that the upper economic layer of workers exist in  
relationship to their poverty and low wages. Likewise the upper economic 
layer  of workers fully understand that their status is based on them not 
becoming the  lower sector which is why these workers learn trade and send their 
children to  school and high education. The problem is that these means no 
longer work and  allow escape from the economic bottom. The system is in crisis
 
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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Aug 14 10:36:37 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:36:37 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Class, politics and The Ultra Right Fiction  2
Message-ID: <bd0.5ab245cb.37b6ec95@aol.com>

Strategy in the Class struggle 
 
Part 2
 
The Ultra Right Fiction 
 
Here is why focusing our attack or line of march to "attack the ultra  
right" insures our defeat. The battle has to be through the political middle or  
winning the middle to the side of class demands of the proletariat fused to 
the  striving of the most destitute of the proletarian masses. Fighting the 
ultra  right means fighting the fringe and reactionary elements as they 
attack the  Obama administration. 
 
The Obama administration strategic political line and desire is to defeat  
its opponents; the "ultra right," as the inherent nature of their sectarian  
battle for government control. When we focus our attack on the "ultra 
right" we  are fighting the enemy of our enemy. The "ultra right" is not the 
enemy of the  proletariat as such, but rather all of capital.  More importantly 
the  worker as the historic political middle are not connected to capital on 
the  basis of the lunatic fringe but on the basis of secure employment that 
is  increasingly less secure. 
 
The entire concept of the "ultra right" is a fiction, increasingly used by  
the black and brown petty bourgeois intellectual as the means to frighten 
the  poverty stricken masses into a fight designed to carry the petty 
bourgeois into  political office. The concept ultra right is totally devoid of a 
class content  or contemporary reality. Class content means a break down of 
economic fragments  of class, their spontaneous behavior as intersection of 
class interest and our  response as communists to this reality movement. 
 
The question before the movement is, what is to be done? Real questions  
call for real answers. This means politicizing every step of the way. It means 
 propagandizing from within the actual struggle ? as scattered and 
disoriented as  it is ? to push that struggle forward from within, through all its 
stages,  toward its actual conclusion. For instance, in Detroit we have 
targeted H.R. 676  as the focal point in the battle for the single payer health 
care system. The  sponsor of this bill - John Conyers, is elected from 
Detroit. Three months ago,  Conyers would not support his own bill, but in the 
past 3 weeks has turn towards  supporting and advocating for 676. 
 
I have no particular love for Conyers, but he is an extremely astute  
politician, birthed and nurtured in the art of class politics. John is no ones  
fools and has outlasted all his antagonists. Actually, John Conyers is of  
another generation of politicians radically different from the second 
generation  black political official, including the likes of Jesse Jackson Sr.   
Perhaps, Conyers did not want to place himself in opposition to President Obama 
 during his first 100 days in office. Conyers bill - H.R. 676, has 86 
sponsors  and was crafted long before Obama came to office. 
 
What actually happened was that the pace of the political struggle against  
a single payer place was accelerated by the Obama administration reaching 
out to  the "ultra right" while trying to attack it rather than focusing on 
he political  middle and winning this to a single payer plan. The right wing 
of the communist  movement followed Obama down this path of defeat while 
attacking those  supporting H.R. 676 as ultra leftist. 
 
We can only start where we can start. We need a general vision of the  
process unfolding and a particular vision and understanding of each concrete  
struggle. 
 
Pushing the movement forward from within is not an arbitrary question. It  
depends on where it is and where it needs to go. The struggle over how to  
stabilize the economy sets the terms of the debate for each scattered battle. 
 Bailout laid-off workers and debt-ridden college students? Yes or no? Or,  
bailout the banks? Yes or no! Nationalize in the interests of private 
property?  Or, in the interests of the people? 
 
The next step forward is from scattered defensive battles to unified  
political battles ? with the demand rising from within each scattered battle  
that the government take over the private resources of the key corporations and 
 run them in the interests of the many, not the few ? for the public 
welfare, not  for private gain. Our fight is bound up with winning the political 
middle to the  cause of the most poverty stricken sector of the proletariat. 
 
As the crisis deepens and its effects spread, government action to protect  
private property is transforming scattered, issue-based battles into 
political  battles over what the government does and whom it protects. We can 
already see  how government intervention in the auto industry contains a 
possible seed that  could put the government on collision course with the interests 
of the  autoworkers. 
 
The current stage of economic crisis has opened the historical battlefield  
of nationalization. Class interests can be fought out on this battlefield.  
Leveling our attack against the "ultra right" will ensure our catastrophic  
defeat , by realigning the political struggle in favor of the 
administration. 
 
Consciousness can be developed along the line of march that is through the  
political middle. The direction of the outcome, however, is not guaranteed. 
 Whether revolutionaries can accomplish the tasks of this moment depends on 
 whether we connect with people?s thinking where they are reacting to their 
own  catastrophes and fighting to solve their immediate problems ? connect 
with them  so we can sum up their needs and demands and put them back out in 
a way that  points forward toward their actual solution. 
 
In every current and corner of social life, the immediate needs of people  
in the cities and towns devastated by the economy opens the door to these  
battles. In every battle over real and immediate needs, people can become 
aware  of their class interests, how to fight for them, and what it will take 
to  achieve them. 
 
Expressed unevenly at first, the common political edge is beginning to  
emerge within the social struggle of people for what they need. These times 
call  on revolutionaries to drop their separate demands and to do the difficult 
 intellectual work within the battle for the next political step ahead for 
the  actual movement. Revolutionaries? approach to developing consciousness 
reflects  what philosophy ? and life itself ? tells us. Growth and 
development cannot  happen unless and until a process goes through all of its stages 
to reach its  actual and ultimate conclusion. The first stage is well on 
its way. The  financial and economic crisis is rapidly destroying the material 
basis that  connected this decisive section of the working class to the 
capitalist class.  The next steps: breaking loose from the politics and 
ideology of the class  enemy, uniting the scattered defensive battles, and 
developing into a political  force that can fight for its actual interests and aims. 
 
Science, politics, art 
 
This approach to revolutionaries? work within this political moment, then,  
rests on the distinction between science and the art of politics ? and 
embraces  the importance of both. 
 
A scientific understanding of society and social change is indispensable to 
 revolutionaries? work. It allows us to see what is new and how the 
foundation of  society is changing. It gives us the view of the overall line of 
march of the  revolution, the material conditions in which that is unfolding, 
and the actual  and ultimate results of the objective movement. 
 
Just as military battles are not won by convincing the combatants of the  
laws of physics, likewise it is not possible to "apply" science directly to 
the  practical struggle. Science points to the political, strategic, and 
tactical  considerations and conclusions that make it possible for 
revolutionaries to keep  the struggle on course, moving step by step, to its actual 
conclusion. Political  struggle depends on the art of politics. 
 
The art of politics is to rely on the objective to accomplish the  
subjective ? that is, to rely on the changes in material conditions to  accomplish a 
stage of the consciousness. The current awakening and widening  struggle 
present the opportunity to develop consciousness of class and political  
interests. Everything depends on thinking, creative revolutionaries. 
 
In Detroit it is vital to be creative and transcend the politics and  
ideology of race theory as the salient feature of the struggle. Characterizing  
capital attacks as racist without a clear economy logic can only disorient 
the  mass of workers and prevent them articulating a clear and precise class 
outlook  and class demands as a rallying point for the entire American 
working class. The  mass of proletarians in Detroit already know they are black. 
What they do not  yet know is their historic role in the American Proletarian 
revolution. 
 
New situation, new possibilities 
 
The history of the American left has alternated between two equally  
unproductive approaches to work. One approach imitates the mass movement and  
makes specific demands into a question of principle. The other tries to win the  
reform movement to "revolutionary" ? and usually ideological ? positions 
or  principles. This flip-flop and over emphasis?s on "historical questions" 
of  principle was understandable in the past because history was not yet 
going where  revolutionaries wanted to take it. In the 1920s and 1930s, the 
country was still  industrializing. Even during the Depression, the capitalist 
system was  expanding. In the 1950s and 1960s, an expanded capitalist system 
with  imperialist super-profits, also carved out from a war torn Europe, 
could grant  civil rights and access into the system for women and ethnic 
minorities. The  objective social motion was to become part of an expanding 
system. 
 
That is not the motion today. Social motion today is shaped by the growing  
objective antagonism to capital, not the fight to reform and expand it. The 
 capitalist system of exchange and entire economic system has broken down. 
An  objectively revolutionary movement has begun. Bit by bit, it is being 
forced to  direct its demands politically and this motion is proceeding faster 
than  anything I have experienced. 
 
Revolutionaries in the U.S. have never really faced such a moment ? the  
capitalist system in the process of destruction, a fundamental rupture of the  
system of exchange, the resulting discussions within the ruling class over 
how  to stabilize the market and protect private property, all sections of 
society  drawn into political discourse and activity, and a politically 
pivotal section  of the working class whose actual interests are poised against 
the capitalist  class and the government. No practical economic and social 
problem can be  addressed except in the political battle over what the 
government will do and  what class it serves. The revolutionary process is also at 
a critical juncture.  The government and corporations are inseparably 
intertwined and intermingled.  They are poised to control a class whose struggle 
increasingly takes a political  form. That class can go no further until it 
learns to fight politically in its  own interests. 
 
Thousands of well-connected, thinking, creative, and active revolutionaries 
 are today grappling intellectually, politically, and practically with this 
 question. They are experts on their fronts of struggles, skillful leaders 
in  their organizations, and tireless teachers of their constituencies. They 
know  that in order to coalesce the movement needs more than increased 
hardship and an  ultimate general goal; it needs direction as to how to get from 
hardship to  ultimate aim. 
 
The challenge before revolutionaries today is a big one, and the stakes are 
 high. Political struggle is beginning in this country. To step up to the 
tasks  of the day, revolutionaries on all fronts need to talk with one 
another about  science and analysis, strategy and politics ? the meaning of this 
political  moment and how to politicize this awakening and push the process 
ahead. 
 
The anger and awakening are spreading rapidly ? setting the objective basis 
 for consciousness to catch up in waves and leaps. Revolutionaries need to 
unite  their energies to accomplish their responsibilities and to answer the 
call of  history. The workers cannot leap to class consciousness if we do 
not talk about  class and class demands and why huge sections of the economy 
must be ripped out  of the free market relations. Limiting this discussion 
to the color factor in  Detroit and/or the striving of the petty bourgeois 
political leaders of the city  will trap the proletariat in mediocrity. 
Gearing our attacks against the ultra  right rather than on the critical issue of 
survival and neighborhoods maneuvers  us into fighting the enemy of our 
enemy. 
 

Proletarian Unite.
 
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From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Fri Aug 14 10:41:11 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:41:11 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Class,
 politics and the art of struggle: the concept of "ultra right" is
 wrong
In-Reply-To: <d5e.55011914.37b6ebf6@aol.com>
References: <d5e.55011914.37b6ebf6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <E1MbzrL-0002zX-7U@elasmtp-spurfowl.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

OK, but re:

>From  this point of view what is blocking and 
>containing the spontaneous movement of  the most 
>destitute sections of the proletariat is not the 
>"ultra rights" but the  relative stability of 
>the economic middle, as it stabilizes the system 
>of  capital rule and advances a set of demands 
>that fall short of the needs of the  real 
>proletarian masses. What follows from this is 
>the need to adjust the demands of the 
>most  poverty stricken sector of the proletariat 
>to intersect with the economic layer  directly 
>above it. Here we have to speak of class demands in a very concrete way . . .

I don't see this happening. Granted that the 
given de facto delineation of the struggle along 
the lines of the center-right (including 
so-called liberals) and the far right is rotten 
politics, what else is happening? Granted that 
there is a political perspective beyond Jon 
Stewart, but it seems to be pretty well stomped on in the public consciousness.

At 12:33 PM 8/14/2009, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote:
>Strategy in the Class struggle Part 1 There are 
>some thing in life I just hate. Missing the 
>lottery by one  number, hitting my knee on the 
>edge of the coffee table and being stuck in 
>wrong  thinking or using Marx approach like a 
>true believing Jehovah witness.  Somewhere  in 
>Marx writings he advances a proposition about 
>the workers  leaping out of the bounds of 
>economic struggle against the employers and 
>passing  over to political struggle against the 
>regime. Lenin speaks of the 
>workers  transcending the trade union struggle 
>but I am through using Lenin as an index  like a 
>true believer quotes Genesis. For much of my 
>life I understood the process the working class 
>must pass  through in the following way: a large 
>segment of workers go on strike and at 
>a  certain point the employers call in the 
>police or the state intervenes and on  this 
>basis the struggle of the workers is compelled 
>to leap outside the  employer-employee 
>relations. In fact this is what happened at the 
>Dodge Truck  strike (Local 140) around 1974. The 
>workers struck the plant and the local 
>Judge  literally came to the factory gate 
>handing out arrest warrants and giving 
>worker  sentences on the spot. The next day we 
>issued a leaflet of condemnation with 
>the  headline "Here Comes The Judge," a popular 
>joke line taken from the old Flip  Wilson Comedy 
>show. The state - judge and police, attacks the 
>workers and the struggle leaps  into the 
>political arena. Or the workers engage the 
>political process seeking legislation to lighten 
>their load, as in the case of the struggle for 
>the eight  hour workday. Something different is 
>happening today that conforms to Marx insights 
>but  this "something" is happening on its own 
>basis. Economic crisis and government action to 
>stabilize the economy are drawing  the American 
>people into politics. We first witnessed this is 
>a big way with the  election of Obama and 
>pondered the meaning of the huge open air 
>rallies  involving upwards of 80,000 people but 
>lacked a political framework to make  sense of 
>events. The struggle within the ruling class and 
>its political elite, as it seeks  solutions to 
>the economic crisis, rather than open clashes 
>between employer and  employee is having a 
>profound impact on the life of the country. When 
>the  government began to insert itself openly 
>and directly into the management of 
>the  economy, the whole country was pulled into 
>political discourse ? "leave it to  the market," 
>"bailout those  corporations that are too large 
>to fail,"  "nationalize" ? with journalists and 
>students, laid-off and debt-ladd en 
>workers,  homeowners and homeless all asking, 
>"Where???s my bailout?" The national public 
>discourse is on, with socialism being discussed 
>daily.  It is not only the academics, leftists, 
>progressives, and news spinners, but  today 
>mainstream America is awakening to politics 
>beyond elections and engaging  an intense 
>discussion over the attributes of socialism. . 
>Politics beyond elections? Socialism being 
>discussed in America? Wow, this  is new. 
>"Politics beyond elections" is meant to convey a 
>concept of a changed  reality. "Politics beyond 
>elections," also implies that hence forth, the 
>politics before the next series of elections 
>have changed. For the first time in many 
>generations, we see a public discourse 
>that  opens the door to political struggle over 
>class interests. Whether  revolutionaries can 
>seize this moment to add depth, vision, and 
>class  partisanship to the intensifying debate 
>depends both on political strategy and  on an 
>approach to work that politicizes from within 
>this broad awakening. I write from the point of 
>view that attacking the left as "ultra left" 
>and  advocating the left focus on the "ultra 
>right" will educate not one worker in  the 
>politics of class. Further, I assert that 
>attacking the left as "ultra left"  and focusing 
>on attacking the "ultra right" is the sole 
>political purpose of  MSNBC and Chris Matthis, 
>whose targeted enemy is the New American 
>fascists at  Fox news. Revolutionaries are not 
>free to simply politicize and "revolutionize" 
>at  will. We can do so under definite economic 
>and historical conditions. When 
>those  conditions are ripe, it is critical that 
>we understand those conditions and  seize the 
>time. The financial crisis spotlights society at 
>a critical juncture.  The ruling class cannot 
>protect its property nor stabilize the economy 
>without  the government inserting itself into 
>management of the economy and 
>instituting  nationalization in some form ? 
>partial or temporary. Bailiing out AIG and 
>pouring  an admitted $800 trillion into the new 
>financial architecture is a case in  point. At 
>the same time, unless "the government" takes 
>responsibility for the  public welfare, larger 
>and larger sections of the population will go 
>under -  without the basic necessaries of life. 
>Unless the Federal government guarantees  health 
>care for all, millions will suffer and die for 
>lack of money to see a  doctor. The more than 
>less stable section of the working class will 
>see more of  its incomes going to health care - 
>higher premiums. Every layer of society,  every 
>economic rung on the ladder faces having more 
>and more of its dollars  poured into the health 
>care system. Health care becomes a tough issue 
>because  each economic fragment of all classes 
>have "skin in the game" and perceives 
>its  interest different. Yet, each fragment of 
>classes needs the same things: "help." Each 
>class fragment wants help for itself, with the 
>most destitute of the  proletariat occupying a 
>social/economic status compelling it to fight 
>for  medical care for all in order to meet it 
>basic and elementary medical needs. A  $5,000 
>medical tax credit - for instance, will not help 
>the most destitute of  the proletarian masses 
>because of its low income level. Here we run 
>into the  meaning of class analysis. Class 
>analysis ascends from the Ivory Towers 
>of  intellectual thought and is transformed into 
>the material politics of  championing the 
>aspirations of the working class based on its 
>most poverty  stricken sector. When we discuss 
>classes we have to look at what we are 
>really  talking about. On A Marxist list there 
>is general agreement on the meaning of  class as 
>a property relation. In the world outside our 
>intellectual door class  appears as economic 
>stratification and class sector behavior. The 
>main point is  that classes are not simply 
>reducible to those working at the means 
>of  production and those owning the means of 
>production.  I am of the opinion  that class and 
>class struggle in August 2009 means the 
>spontaneous motion and  movement of economic 
>fragments of classes and their intersecting 
>interest. From  this point of view what is 
>blocking and containing the spontaneous movement 
>of  the most destitute sections of the 
>proletariat is not the "ultra rights" but 
>the  relative stability of the economic middle, 
>as it stabilizes the system of  capital rule and 
>advances a set of demands that fall short of the 
>needs of the  real proletarian masses. What 
>follows from this is the need to adjust the 
>demands of the most  poverty stricken sector of 
>the proletariat to intersect with the economic 
>layer  directly above it. Here we have to speak 
>of class demands in a very concrete way. We have 
>to write and develop a body of literature that 
>speaks to the  concreteness of class as the 
>American experience. Unless "the government" 
>ensures everyone???s access to the necessaries 
>of  life, like education, public housing, 
>personal energy allotment and clean  running 
>water, private industry will buy up ever-broader 
>components of the  public infrastructure in 
>cities and towns across the country and run them 
>for  the profit of the corporations, rather than 
>the needs of the majority. This objective 
>necessity of nationalization opens the decisive 
>battlefield  over whose interests the government 
>will serve. Will the public 
>demand  nationalization in the interests of the 
>common good? Will the class that works  until 
>its labor is no longer needed struggle for its 
>interests to be served and  protected? Or will 
>nationalization continue to serve the interests 
>of private  corporate investors, the class of 
>people that accumulates wealth based 
>on  others??? toil and their growing debt? The 
>$800 trillion given to the 
>non-banking  financial institutions could have 
>been better spent as direct injections into  the 
>society infrastructure and needed things like 
>medical care. I am deeply aware that a layer of 
>the workers morally feel it is better to  teach 
>a man to fish, rather than to give him a fish 
>because giving him a fish  means he eats for one 
>day, while teaching him to fish means he eats 
>for a  lifetime. The problem is that the $800 
>trillion was not directed toward giving  fish or 
>teaching anyone how to fish. Then, the 
>capitalist politicians demand  that we the 
>people "pay" for this $800 trillion giveaway. On 
>this historical battleground over whose 
>interests nationalization will  serve, our class 
>can be educated and formed politically ? with 
>the conssciousness  and capacity to fight in its 
>own class interests. This battle is already 
>conjuring up forms that are rooted in 
>American  history. At critical turning points, 
>when the populace had to pay for 
>the  disruptions in the economy and the free 
>market monetary system, it aimed its  anger at 
>"the banks" or "Wall Street." In controversies 
>over the Bank of the  United States in the early 
>1800s, over the gold standard in the late 1800s, 
>and  over financial regulation during the early 
>days of the New Deal, American  politics was 
>about finance. The current crisis is 
>resurrecting American anger at the financial 
>elite.  Unfortunately, along with that anger 
>comes the danger of racial and  anti-immigrant 
>agitation reminiscent of other turning points in 
>American  history. New ideology and political 
>direction will not spring forth  spontaneously 
>out of layoffs, loss of health and retirement 
>benefits, or  foreclosures. This time around, 
>there is no way forward for private 
>property  except to protect and expand the power 
>of those who accumulate wealth off of  financial 
>speculation and the expanding debt of the 
>working class. This time,  the anger at the 
>financial elite can also be a channel through 
>which American  politics gets infused with a 
>sense of class interests and how to fight for 
>them  politically. A decision has to be made. 
>Shall the economic middle of the working 
>class  fight to stabilize itself in opposition 
>to and without militant demands for the  most 
>poverty stricken of the proletariat? To do such 
>means the bottom is the  degree to which you 
>will be pushed. If homelessness is accepted as 
>the bottom  that is the degree to which you and 
>your family can be pushed, then you 
>are  destined to sink lower and lower. The fight 
>has to be pushed from an awareness  of the need 
>to raise the bottom of the social and economic 
>ladder to a point  that you do not desire to be 
>pushed. This approach is called class 
>politics.  Everything above this "bottom" should 
>be based on the individual laboring 
>and  inspiration of the individual within a 
>cooperative society. Strategic opening Political 
>strategy aims at achieving or maintaining 
>political power. It  operates within the 
>subjective side of the movement ? the consciious 
>side of the  developing movement. Key to 
>strategy is identifying your enemy???s weak 
>points.  Even this nascent stage of the process 
>reveals a critical point of 
>ideological  vulnerability. What is the 
>enemy???s weak point? If the weak point within 
>the system and the political class is not the 
>"ultra right" then why would one focus 
>their  political literature and attacks against 
>the "ultra right?" Today???s crisis and 
>government action are pulling people from all 
>walks of  life into motion. But one section 
>holds the potential to pull all others  forward. 
>The stably employed, mid-American workers have 
>been the targets of  appeals by political 
>campaigns. They have played the pivotal role in 
>decisive ideological shifts in the history of 
>the country. Appealed to as a "middle class," 
>this sector has been the key to 
>the  capitalists??? political strength. Although 
>the capitalist class is less than one  percent 
>of the population, it has been able to control 
>the entire population by  controlling 30 to 50 
>percent through good jobs, benefits, and 
>privilege. With jobs and benefits already lost 
>to technology and mobile capital, 
>the  middle-income section of the population 
>("the political middle???) is diminishing.  Lou 
>Dobbs has built his entire television career the 
>political middle and  anti-immigration rhetoric. 
>The financial crisis drastically speeds up 
>the  process of destruction of the 
>economic/political middle. This destruction is 
>not  due to bad management but is the natural 
>result of the working of the free  market system 
>under the impact of the technological advance 
>and revolution. The  big fish eats the little 
>fish means all the fish in between gets eaten. 
>How fall are you willing to sink? For every 
>500,000 that becomes unemployed and sink lower, 
>one person and their family escapes upward. 
>Educated and  organized workers are being forced 
>out of the system and into antagonism 
>to  capital. This rude awakening from the 
>American Dream turns what used to be 
>a  political strength for the capitalists into 
>their potential political  vulnerability. This 
>section is not only tied to the capitalists 
>economically, they are  also attached to the 
>capitalists culturally and psychologically. A 
>section of  these workers think things out like 
>little bitty capitalists. Rapidly shaken  from 
>their secure situation, these workers can be 
>agitated for fascism. Or their  awakening can 
>become the catalyst for the development of a 
>class thinking and  fighting in its own 
>interests. Here is our line of march rather than 
>attacking the "ultra rights." Previously 
>entitled, newly dispossessed, this section of 
>the population can be politicized rapidly to set 
>the tone of the national political 
>discourse.  Direction depends on consciousness. 
>Our focus need to be on the political middle. 
>Just as this political middle was swung to 
>Obama, it can be swung to  fascism in the blink 
>of an eye. There is a materialist explanation 
>for why the  initial impulse of these workers is 
>to swing to the right. These workers 
>are  attached to the capitalists culturally and 
>psychologically, but they are workers  - wage 
>laborers, and there spontaneous tendency is to 
>seek work - rather than "a  government hand 
>out," or to recreate and reestablish the wage 
>labor form, or  reestablish their connection 
>with capital. When promised the ability to 
>"once  again work" with dignity these workers 
>listen and believe. The lower section of the 
>proletariat knows better as a lower 
>economic  section. These workers know that the 
>upper economic layer of workers exist 
>in  relationship to their poverty and low wages. 
>Likewise the upper economic layer  of workers 
>fully understand that their status is based on 
>them not becoming the  lower sector which is why 
>these workers learn trade and send their 
>children to  school and high education. The 
>problem is that these means no longer work 
>and  allow escape from the economic bottom. The system is in crisis

From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Aug 14 10:42:29 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:42:29 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism,
	fighting the ultra right and Health 2.
Message-ID: <c2d.634820e1.37b6edf5@aol.com>

In a message dated 8/13/2009 1:51:41 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
cb31450 at gmail.com writes:

CB: A point upon which sectarians/ultra-lefts, whether Stalinist  or
Trotskyist, can agree.


Comment
 
Name calling is fine. 
 
What the proletarian fighters coming to the fore need is understanding and  
a materialist approach and concept of the class struggle in America. 
 
If one is sectarians or ultra left, have not all of us been on this list  
log enough to deserve the respect of an explanations, as comrades and  
brothers? 

I have attempted to detail why a certain point of view is  put forth and 
provide the material to substantiate my positions, which does not  require 
agreement with.  
 
Please clarify or provide source material for the conception of the "ultra  
right" thesis.
 
WL.   
 


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Fri Aug 14 10:49:03 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:49:03 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Class, politics and The Ultra Right  Fiction  2
In-Reply-To: <bd0.5ab245cb.37b6ec95@aol.com>
References: <bd0.5ab245cb.37b6ec95@aol.com>
Message-ID: <E1Mbzyw-0003kh-3V@elasmtp-scoter.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

I understand the logic of this, but the whole 
political system is based on nothing but 
blackmail. Though national politics has been 
bankrupt for a generation, it's arrived at the 
point of morbidity. Clinton in 1996 had nothing 
to run on but fear of the far right. That's all 
the Democratic Party has going for it. But all 
the alternatives have been squashed and relegated 
to the fringe. Unless there is a route to the younger generation I see no hope.

At 12:36 PM 8/14/2009, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote:
>Strategy in the Class struggle Part 2 The Ultra 
>Right Fiction Here is why focusing our attack or 
>line of march to "attack the ultra  right" 
>insures our defeat. The battle has to be through 
>the political middle or  winning the middle to 
>the side of class demands of the proletariat 
>fused to the  striving of the most destitute of 
>the proletarian masses. Fighting the 
>ultra  right means fighting the fringe and 
>reactionary elements as they attack the  Obama 
>administration. The Obama administration 
>strategic political line and desire is to 
>defeat  its opponents; the "ultra right," as the 
>inherent nature of their sectarian  battle for 
>government control. When we focus our attack on 
>the "ultra right" we  are fighting the enemy of 
>our enemy. The "ultra right" is not the enemy of 
>the  proletariat as such, but rather all of 
>capital.  More importantly the  worker as the 
>historic political middle are not connected to 
>capital on the  basis of the lunatic fringe but 
>on the basis of secure employment that 
>is  increasingly less secure. The entire concept 
>of the "ultra right" is a fiction, increasingly 
>used by  the black and brown petty bourgeois 
>intellectual as the means to frighten 
>the  poverty stricken masses into a fight 
>designed to carry the petty bourgeois 
>into  political office. The concept ultra right 
>is totally devoid of a class content  or 
>contemporary reality. Class content means a 
>break down of economic fragments  of class, 
>their spontaneous behavior as intersection of 
>class interest and our  response as communists 
>to this reality movement. The question before 
>the movement is, what is to be done? Real 
>questions  call for real answers. This means 
>politicizing every step of the way. It means 
>propagandizing from within the actual struggle ? 
>as scattered and disorriented as  it is ? to 
>push that struggle forward from wwithin, through 
>all its stages,  toward its actual conclusion. 
>For instance, in Detroit we have targeted H.R. 
>676  as the focal point in the battle for the 
>single payer health care system. The  sponsor of 
>this bill - John Conyers, is elected from 
>Detroit. Three months ago,  Conyers would not 
>support his own bill, but in the past 3 weeks 
>has turn towards  supporting and advocating for 
>676. I have no particular love for Conyers, but 
>he is an extremely astute  politician, birthed 
>and nurtured in the art of class politics. John 
>is no ones  fools and has outlasted all his 
>antagonists. Actually, John Conyers is 
>of  another generation of politicians radically 
>different from the second generation  black 
>political official, including the likes of Jesse 
>Jackson Sr.   Perhaps, Conyers did not want to 
>place himself in opposition to President Obama 
>during his first 100 days in office. Conyers 
>bill - H.R. 676, has 86 sponsors  and was 
>crafted long before Obama came to office. What 
>actually happened was that the pace of the 
>political struggle against  a single payer place 
>was accelerated by the Obama administration 
>reaching out to  the "ultra right" while trying 
>to attack it rather than focusing on he 
>political  middle and winning this to a single 
>payer plan. The right wing of the 
>communist  movement followed Obama down this 
>path of defeat while attacking those  supporting 
>H.R. 676 as ultra leftist. We can only start 
>where we can start. We need a general vision of 
>the  process unfolding and a particular vision 
>and understanding of each concrete  struggle. 
>Pushing the movement forward from within is not 
>an arbitrary question. It  depends on where it 
>is and where it needs to go. The struggle over 
>how to  stabilize the economy sets the terms of 
>the debate for each scattered battle. Bailout 
>laid-off workers and debt-ridden college 
>students? Yes or no? Or,  bailout the banks? Yes 
>or no! Nationalize in the interests of private 
>property?  Or, in the interests of the people? 
>The next step forward is from scattered 
>defensive battles to unified  political battles 
>? with the demand rising from within each 
>scatteered battle  that the government take over 
>the private resources of the key corporations 
>and run them in the interests of the many, not 
>the few ? for the public welfaare, not  for 
>private gain. Our fight is bound up with winning 
>the political middle to the  cause of the most 
>poverty stricken sector of the proletariat. As 
>the crisis deepens and its effects spread, 
>government action to protect  private property 
>is transforming scattered, issue-based battles 
>into political  battles over what the government 
>does and whom it protects. We can already 
>see  how government intervention in the auto 
>industry contains a possible seed that  could 
>put the government on collision course with the 
>interests of the  autoworkers. The current stage 
>of economic crisis has opened the historical 
>battlefield  of nationalization. Class interests 
>can be fought out on this battlefield.  Leveling 
>our attack against the "ultra right" will ensure 
>our catastrophic  defeat , by realigning the 
>political struggle in favor of the 
>administration. Consciousness can be developed 
>along the line of march that is through 
>the  political middle. The direction of the 
>outcome, however, is not guaranteed. Whether 
>revolutionaries can accomplish the tasks of this 
>moment depends on whether we connect with 
>people???s thinking where they are reacting to 
>their own  catastrophes and fighting to solve 
>their immediate problems ? connect with them  so 
>we can sum up their needs and  demands and put 
>them back out in a way that  points forward 
>toward their actual solution. In every current 
>and corner of social life, the immediate needs 
>of people  in the cities and towns devastated by 
>the economy opens the door to these  battles. In 
>every battle over real and immediate needs, 
>people can become aware  of their class 
>interests, how to fight for them, and what it 
>will take to  achieve them. Expressed unevenly 
>at first, the common political edge is beginning 
>to  emerge within the social struggle of people 
>for what they need. These times call  on 
>revolutionaries to drop their separate demands 
>and to do the difficult intellectual work within 
>the battle for the next political step ahead for 
>the  actual movement. Revolutionaries??? 
>approach to developing consciousness 
>reflects  what philosophy ? and life itself ???? 
>tells us. Growth and development cannot  happen 
>unless and until a process goes through all of 
>its stages to reach its  actual and ultimate 
>conclusion. The first stage is well on its way. 
>The  financial and economic crisis is rapidly 
>destroying the material basis that  connected 
>this decisive section of the working class to 
>the capitalist class.  The next steps: breaking 
>loose from the politics and ideology of the 
>class  enemy, uniting the scattered defensive 
>battles, and developing into a political  force 
>that can fight for its actual interests and 
>aims. Science, politics, art This approach to 
>revolutionaries??? work within this political 
>moment, then,  rests on the distinction between 
>science and the art of politics ? and 
>embraces  the importance of both. A scienttific 
>understanding of society and social change is 
>indispensable to revolutionaries??? work. It 
>allows us to see what is new and how the 
>foundation of  society is changing. It gives us 
>the view of the overall line of march of 
>the  revolution, the material conditions in 
>which that is unfolding, and the actual  and 
>ultimate results of the objective movement. Just 
>as military battles are not won by convincing 
>the combatants of the  laws of physics, likewise 
>it is not possible to "apply" science directly 
>to the  practical struggle. Science points to 
>the political, strategic, and 
>tactical  considerations and conclusions that 
>make it possible for revolutionaries to 
>keep  the struggle on course, moving step by 
>step, to its actual conclusion. 
>Political  struggle depends on the art of 
>politics. The art of politics is to rely on the 
>objective to accomplish the  subjective ? that 
>is, to relyy on the changes in material 
>conditions to  accomplish a stage of the 
>consciousness. The current awakening and 
>widening  struggle present the opportunity to 
>develop consciousness of class and 
>political  interests. Everything depends on 
>thinking, creative revolutionaries. In Detroit 
>it is vital to be creative and transcend the 
>politics and  ideology of race theory as the 
>salient feature of the struggle. 
>Characterizing  capital attacks as racist 
>without a clear economy logic can only disorient 
>the  mass of workers and prevent them 
>articulating a clear and precise class 
>outlook  and class demands as a rallying point 
>for the entire American working class. The  mass 
>of proletarians in Detroit already know they are 
>black. What they do not  yet know is their 
>historic role in the American Proletarian 
>revolution. New situation, new possibilities The 
>history of the American left has alternated 
>between two equally  unproductive approaches to 
>work. One approach imitates the mass movement 
>and  makes specific demands into a question of 
>principle. The other tries to win the  reform 
>movement to "revolutionary" ? andd usually 
>ideological ? positions or  principles. 
>This  flip-flop and over emphasis???s on 
>"historical questions" of  principle was 
>understandable in the past because history was 
>not yet going where  revolutionaries wanted to 
>take it. In the 1920s and 1930s, the country was 
>still  industrializing. Even during the 
>Depression, the capitalist system 
>was  expanding. In the 1950s and 1960s, an 
>expanded capitalist system with  imperialist 
>super-profits, also carved out from a war torn 
>Europe, could grant  civil rights and access 
>into the system for women and ethnic minorities. 
>The  objective social motion was to become part 
>of an expanding system. That is not the motion 
>today. Social motion today is shaped by the 
>growing  objective antagonism to capital, not 
>the fight to reform and expand it. The 
>capitalist system of exchange and entire 
>economic system has broken down. An  objectively 
>revolutionary movement has begun. Bit by bit, it 
>is being forced to  direct its demands 
>politically and this motion is proceeding faster 
>than  anything I have experienced. 
>Revolutionaries in the U.S. have never really 
>faced such a moment ? the  capitalist system in 
>the process of  destruction, a fundamental 
>rupture of the  system of exchange, the 
>resulting discussions within the ruling class 
>over how  to stabilize the market and protect 
>private property, all sections of society  drawn 
>into political discourse and activity, and a 
>politically pivotal section  of the working 
>class whose actual interests are poised against 
>the capitalist  class and the government. No 
>practical economic and social problem can 
>be  addressed except in the political battle 
>over what the government will do and  what class 
>it serves. The revolutionary process is also at 
>a critical juncture.  The government and 
>corporations are inseparably intertwined and 
>intermingled.  They are poised to control a 
>class whose struggle increasingly takes a 
>political  form. That class can go no further 
>until it learns to fight politically in its  own 
>interests. Thousands of well-connected, 
>thinking, creative, and active revolutionaries 
>are today grappling intellectually, politically, 
>and practically with this question. They are 
>experts on their fronts of struggles, skillful 
>leaders in  their organizations, and tireless 
>teachers of their constituencies. They 
>know  that in order to coalesce the movement 
>needs more than increased hardship and 
>an  ultimate general goal; it needs direction as 
>to how to get from hardship to  ultimate aim. 
>The challenge before revolutionaries today is a 
>big one, and the stakes are high. Political 
>struggle is beginning in this country. To step 
>up to the tasks  of the day, revolutionaries on 
>all fronts need to talk with one another 
>about  science and analysis, strategy and 
>politics ? the meanning of this 
>political  moment and how to politicize this 
>awakening and push the process ahead. The anger 
>and awakening are spreading rapidly ? setting 
>the objectivee basis for consciousness to catch 
>up in waves and leaps. Revolutionaries need to 
>unite  their energies to accomplish their 
>responsibilities and to answer the call 
>of  history. The workers cannot leap to class 
>consciousness if we do not talk about  class and 
>class demands and why huge sections of the 
>economy must be ripped out  of the free market 
>relations. Limiting this discussion to the color 
>factor in  Detroit and/or the striving of the 
>petty bourgeois political leaders of the 
>city  will trap the proletariat in mediocrity. 
>Gearing our attacks against the ultra  right 
>rather than on the critical issue of survival 
>and neighborhoods maneuvers  us into fighting 
>the enemy of our enemy. Proletarian Unite.



From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 14 12:59:34 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:59:34 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Forward from Rosa Lichtenstein on Analytic Marxism
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908141159t479f9aa9ue54db927e2a5a586@mail.gmail.com>

Some might conclude that the relatively hard line adopted in my Essays
toward the alien-class origins of DM sits rather awkwardly with the
apparently uncritical acceptance of ideas drawn from Wittgenstein's
work --, an allegedly bourgeois philosopher and mystic himself.

^^^^^
CB: The class of the originators of DM , Marx and Engels, was petit
bourgeois and bourgeois ( smile)


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Fri Aug 14 13:17:53 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:17:53 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Forward from Rosa Lichtenstein on Analytic
 Marxism
In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230908141159t479f9aa9ue54db927e2a5a586@mail.gmail.co
 m>
References: <5c2e4d230908141159t479f9aa9ue54db927e2a5a586@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E1Mc2Ix-0001T0-98@elasmtp-mealy.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

As I've said, Rosa combines two ideological tendencies of the undead, 
Trotskyism and Wittgenstein, either of which will suck the life force 
out of you. This obsession with the formulas of dialectical 
materialism--to defend or attack it--is simply childish, as it's only 
a drop in the bucket of how dialectical analysis has been formulated 
and applied. Even the Soviet tradition had something to say in its 
critiques of neopositivism and irrationalism. But what about Lukacs, 
the Frankfurt School, the Yugoslav Praxis School, Ilyenkov, Tony 
Smith? Rosa is a small-minded jackass, for which we can thank both 
Trotskyism and analytical philosophy. And as for the interaction of 
analytical philosophy with Marxism, why waste time being bored 
shitless with "analytical Marxism"; one could turn to the Poznan 
School. Just to give one old example of how dialectical thought was 
interjected into the cloistered realm of Anglo-American social theory:

<http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/poznan5.html>Logic, 
Dialectics, Politics: Some Recent Controversies by Hayward R. Alker, Jr. (1982)

Oh for the day when the last Stalinist is strangled with the entrails 
of the last Trotskyist.

At 02:59 PM 8/14/2009, c b wrote:
>Some might conclude that the relatively hard line adopted in my Essays
>toward the alien-class origins of DM sits rather awkwardly with the
>apparently uncritical acceptance of ideas drawn from Wittgenstein's
>work --, an allegedly bourgeois philosopher and mystic himself.
>
>^^^^^
>CB: The class of the originators of DM , Marx and Engels, was petit
>bourgeois and bourgeois ( smile)

From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 14 13:23:06 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:23:06 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rosa
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908141223l4e645c7asdda8f77a8ba4bfaf@mail.gmail.com>

Clearly, the idea that the world is rational must be forced onto
nature; it cannot be read from it, since nature is not Mind.

^^^^^
CB: This seems an "a priori" statement by Rosa. It is not "clear" that
the idea that the world is rational must be forced onto nature, nor
that to "read" rationality from it, it must be Mind.

For example, Darwin's theory , in contrast to "intelligent design" ,
can be termed "intelligible happenstance".  Nature evolves its life
forms, species originated , in a rational or intelligible manner. This
is not imposing ideas on nature. It is using ideas to represent what
is in objective reality.

Similarly  dialectical and historical historical materialism, rooted
in Marx and Engels' thinking, reflect and intelligible aspect of the
objective reality of human history.

^^^^^^

 Nevertheless, it is far easier to rationalise the imposition of a
hierarchical and grossly unequal class system on 'disorderly' workers
if ruling-class ideologues can persuade one and all that the
'law-like' order of the natural world actually reflects, and is
reflected in turn by the social order from which their patrons just so
happen to benefit --, the fundamental aspects of which none may
question.

^^^^
CB: Of course, Marx and Engels dialectical materialism does the
opposite with respect to rationalising the imposition of hiearchical
and grossly unequal class system on workers.  It helps expose the
exploitative class relations in objective reality , rather than
imposing them on reality.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 14 14:20:29 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:20:29 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rosa
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908141320h443302bbvb260eb887630bf7d@mail.gmail.com>

Surely, the most that could legitimately be claimed here is that up to
now the available evidence supports a dialectical view of reality.

^^^^^
CB: Correct . See Marxism thaxis threads in which I point out that for
Engels, the dialectical quality of reality  is an a posteriori, not a
priori, conclusion.

^^^^^^^

 It plainly shouldn't be that this widely touted 'cautious approach'
is only possible because "reality itself is dialectically structured."
If that were the case, caution could be thrown to the wind.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 14 14:33:54 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:33:54 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Soviet philosophy preserved online
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908141333t4490dd09v770e08834e2590ee@mail.gmail.com>

Ralph Dumain --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Though I think most of the productions of Soviet Marxism-Leninism
should have been flushed down the toilet long before they were, and
that the Soviet version of dialectical materialism has done a great
deal of harm as has most else that came from that source,

^^^^
CB: You say this often, but you don't produce good arguments for it.
You just assert it in a conclusory manner, usually with cuss words.
Who cares that you think it should be flushed. You don't make even a
minimum argument as to why .

Fine to organize on the www so extensively others' essays. What a nice
service you do. But what is _your_ thinking, your theses on Marxism ?
What is your thinking _at length_ ?

^^^^^

 I am
nonetheless dedicated to preserving unjustly forgotten and neglected
work.


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Aug 14 15:21:00 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:21:00 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Class,
	politics and the art of struggle: the concept of ...
Message-ID: <cd1.573c644a.37b72f3c@aol.com>

>> Clinton in 1996 had nothing to run on but fear of the far right.  That's 
all the Democratic Party has going for it. But all the alternatives have  
been squashed and relegated to the fringe. Unless there is a route to the  
younger generation I see no hope.<< 
 
Reply 
 
For the past year or so, some of us have been working on creating outreach  
work to reach those between the age of 14 and 20. Really. The fact of the 
matter  is that during the late 1960?s - 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1971, much of 
our factory  gate distributions and literature production was carried out by 
High School  students, who could not be targeted and fired for distributing 
radical  literature. In turn 99% of these youth became the foundation for 
virtually  everything progressive remaining in the city of Detroit, the union 
movement  directly and indirectly. 
 
Today the social equation is much more acute. In my youth, we carried back  
packs and brief cases with books in them and an occasional book of poetry. 
It is  not uncommon for our youth to carry guns and assault weapons. Yet, we 
are in the  process of tackling this issue. The other aspect is that this 
gives us an  opportunity to imprint our brand of materialist conception of 
the class struggle  on the upcoming generation. 
 
Ralph, nowhere, on any list or in any radical newspapers is there even an  
attempt to make a real class analysis of economic sector of the working 
class  and to unravel their logic. I believe "our group" is the first in 
American  history to popularize such an approach. In Detroit it is the black petty  
bourgeois intellectual that contaminates the ideological sphere with it 
endless  crying over racism combined with red-baiting and contempt for anyone 
subjecting  Detroit and American to class unraveling. 
 
On the other hand a demographic shift has taken place where the older  
retired workers in the Union are the absolute majority. This means great  
struggle are afoot involving changing the Union Constitution and redefining -  
enlarging, the purpose of the union. No one else is talking about the real  
issues, even amongst organized labor. The good part is that we get to get new  
raw material without having to spend another 10 years trying to convince or  
convert the old true believers that reality has shifted. 
 
**************************
**************************
 
>> I don't see this happening. Granted that the given de facto  delineation 
of the struggle along the lines of the center-right (including  so-called 
liberals) and the far right is rotten politics, what else is  happening? 
Granted that there is a political perspective beyond Jon Stewart, but  it seems 
to be pretty well stomped on in the public consciousness.<< 
 
Reply 
 
Combining the different and often contradictory demands of various economic 
 layers of the working class into a singular political form - institution, 
is  possible but more than a notion. Detroit is going to be a good lavatory, 
or  rather laboratory because the sharp differences between economic strata 
of the  working class is not covered up by or compounded by the factor of 
white  supremacy. All economic strata within the proletariat is black in the 
main and  large divergence in income appear as class differences made 
manifest in  neighborhoods. 
 

Here is what is apparent. 
 
Detroit is say 12% white. These whites do not live in a white community,  
but are dispersed throughout the neighbors based on income or economic 
strata.  Put it this way, 10% of 900,000 people is 90,000 people dispersed through 
the  city by economic strata. This is turn means that a body politic based 
on  "protecting the white community" cannot evolve in this context. On the 
other  hand the politics of the "black community" has hit the wall and is 
worthless  given the deep economic stratification amongst the blacks. 
 
How we deal with this new class and economic stratification is going to  
make or break us. If Detroit is imbued with the spirit of class, rather than 
the  politics of black nationalism the entire country will be affected. 
 
And no it is not going to be easy. 
 
Next year the UAW chooses a new President. Much infighting is taking place. 
 I personally believe favorable conditions exist to once again form 
communist  union fractions within the union based on the retired members who have 
the time  and energy to invest in the educating of the workers at large. In 
plant work  does not hold the same significance as when Lenin wrote the often 
quoted - out  of context, "make every factory our fortress." In fact the 
whole "to the point  of production" thesis, has collapsed. In fact, other than 
government workers,  what sections of the working class can go on strike in 
this environment? Perhaps  things will change in the next 5 - 10 years. 
 
My view and point of reference is a changed political setting that allows  
for communist work in neighborhoods and as electoral politics. . 
 
The economic data I have been following suggest the crisis is still  
deepening, with forecloses steadily building. 
 
$10,000 can buy a decent house in Detroit, but only speculators, realtor?s  
and the upper layer of workers are liquid - have money. The economic  
stratification is deepening. Amongst the most poverty stricken of the  
proletariat, a neighborhood organization mean block clubs to combat crime and  perhaps 
the setting up of 21-century versions of the old "freedom schools" of  the 
1960s and early 1970?s. There is a need to begin a fight to transform the  
neighborhoods and teach the youth basic skills to rebuild their own 
community.  Sure, government has a role but so do we as individuals. 
 
A different caliber of elected official is needed with a material interest  
in the organization of the neighborhoods and the skill to make this happen. 
The  rift between those running and who ran for city council and the most 
poverty  stricken of the neighborhoods is striking. Since everyone is black 
what has  appeared is a sharp class distinction based on stratification. 
 
More later. 
 
WL.
 
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from 
_http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ 
(http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) 


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sat Aug 15 09:48:42 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:48:42 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Name calling: For the Record
Message-ID: <bd1.5c8fc2de.37b832da@aol.com>

CB: Neither the Vietnamese , Eastern Europeans nor the Chinese termed  
themselves "Stalinists". They were Marxist-Leninists. Your use of the term  
slanders and disrepects them , and  wrecks civil discussions on these  issues.  
It's a provocation. 
 
To refer to people who don't consider themselves Stalinists as Stalinists  
is none other than Trotskyist/petit bourgeois revolutionist slander,   
childish name calling, unworthy of this list. 
 
The response to you should be to refer to by some similarly insulting  
label. 
 
==============================
 
Margandall: 
 
I also winced when I saw the reference to "Stalinists", but the writer is  
invariably fair-minded and I don't think in his case there was any malicious 
 intent. It's a hackneyed hangover from Trotskyists dogma, which holds that 
the  parties, which endorsed the Khrushchev speech, could not be absolved 
of their  "Stalinist" past so long as they did not repudiate popular fronts 
with bourgeois  liberals, "stages" theories of development, or fully 
rehabilitate the Old  Bolsheviks, notably the Left Opposition. It was regarded as 
analysis rather than  an insult, notwithstanding that by these criteria most 
socialists active in  broad-based reform movements who necessarily find 
themselves allying with  liberals and favour the extension of such alliances into 
the political arena  could be tarred with the same brush. 
 
Whatever the pretence at objectivity, many Trotskyists used "Stalinist" as  
an epithet in much the same way CP'ers and their other political enemies  
venomously referred to the "Trotskyites". Glad you refrained from replying in 
 kind. Political slurs, as you note, can be as destructive as ethnic slurs, 
even  when they're not conscious. 
 
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list _pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu_ 
(mailto:pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu)  _https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l_ 
(https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l) 
 
Comment
 
Waistline:  
 
In response to a lengthy article on strategic outlook and class as economic 
 fragments the first author above addressed the issue by labeling comrades  
Trotskyists and Stalinist, rather than speak to the issue. The issue was 
posed  from two directions: why attacking the ?ultra right? - as  cornerstone 
of communist strategy is wrong, and b). why attacking  comrades as ?ultra 
leftist? - for not supporting the Obama administration, is  the wrong 
approach for Marxists, communist, and socialist - in my estimate.  

Here is what was written in reply: 
 
>> CB: A point upon which sectarians/ultra-lefts, whether Stalinist  or
Trotskyist, can agree. << 
 
For the record, I refer to myself - on this list, and on Pen-L and Marxmail 
 as a communist, rather than a Stalinist. Name calling serves a purpose; to 
 discredit a political thesis rather than its logic, lack of logic and/or  
conclusions. 
 
The revolutionary process in America and world wide is moving into  
uncharted territory. We must leave behind the preconceptions of the past period  
and begin to grapple with the new conditions and try to describe what is 
taking  place in our local environment and nationwide. Our starting point as  
revolutionaries is to describe as accurately as possible the situation faced by 
 our class, where it is in its development, and use that information to  
constantly examine and reexamine our political conclusions, and the strategy 
and  tactics that flow from those conclusions. The answers to the questions  
revolutionaries face are not the purview of this or that person, or this or 
that  organization. They are questions of the revolution, and as such 
involve all who  seek to end the destruction around us and build a new world.
 
Towards this end I have tried to describe the process I encountered in the  
last Detroit election and place it in the context of the sharpening 
political  struggle nationwide. 
 
The name of this list is Marxist-Thaxis, with Thaxis conveying the concept  
of Theory and Praxis or experience. The old ideological divisions of the 
past  periods, ought to be understood as old, as we strive to make sense of 
our own  country. If name calling is wrong on Pen-L it is also wrong on this 
list. 
 
All of us older comrades evolved our ideology expressing a political  
polarity. I have no intention of ever repudiating my political heritage. On the  
other hand, I refuse to be a slave to that heritage. If a comrade want to 
label  me than it should be understood that I refer to myself as a communist 
or a Red.  As a young man I referred to myself as a ?Black Communist,? which 
today is  meaningless. My political and ideological heritage is 
anarcho-syndicalism or  what some would today call ?council communism.? 
 
Specifically, I evolved my outlook in the context of a large group of Black 
 communists - primarily industrial workers, in the city of Detroit. These 
black  communists began organizing in the plants, inspired by Fidel, after 
returning  from Cuba in the mid 1960?s. Their first theory journal was called ?
Black  Vanguard,? that proposed the formation of a League of Revolutionary 
Black  Workers. In terms of international currents, our group identified 
itself with  the Chinese polarity during the period of the Sino-Soviet split. 
 
WL. 
 
 
 


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Sat Aug 15 09:47:15 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:47:15 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] Soviet philosophy
	preserved online
In-Reply-To: <E1MbipJ-0008TS-G7@elasmtp-mealy.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
References: <E1MbipJ-0008TS-G7@elasmtp-mealy.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <E1McLW6-0000CR-LF@elasmtp-masked.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

I messed up the main link for leninist.biz. Here's the home page:

http://leninist.biz/

To contact Robert directly, use this email address:

webmaster at leninist.biz


At 06:29 PM 8/13/2009, Ralph Dumain wrote:
>...................
>
>In addition to my own efforts, and in many cases in conjunction with 
>them, Robert Cymbala has, without compensation or support, 
>undertaken  the digitization of many works from Progress Publishers 
>and other Soviet imprints. He could use some financial support, as 
>well as more books in his bibliography to digitize. His site can be found at:
>
><http://leninist.biz/en/taz.html>leninist.biz

From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Sat Aug 15 10:02:48 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:02:48 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] Soviet philosophy
	preserved online
In-Reply-To: <E1McLW6-0000CR-LF@elasmtp-masked.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
References: <E1MbipJ-0008TS-G7@elasmtp-mealy.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
	<E1McLW6-0000CR-LF@elasmtp-masked.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <E1McLk4-00089L-4F@elasmtp-dupuy.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

The home page and sitemap are not well-organized for navigating the 
site. To keep up with English-language additions, see:

http://leninist.biz/en/whatsnew


At 11:47 AM 8/15/2009, Ralph Dumain wrote:
>I messed up the main link for leninist.biz. Here's the home page:
>
>http://leninist.biz/
>
>To contact Robert directly, use this email address:
>
>webmaster at leninist.biz
>
>
>At 06:29 PM 8/13/2009, Ralph Dumain wrote:
>>...................
>>
>>In addition to my own efforts, and in many cases in conjunction 
>>with them, Robert Cymbala has, without compensation or support, 
>>undertaken  the digitization of many works from Progress Publishers 
>>and other Soviet imprints. He could use some financial support, as 
>>well as more books in his bibliography to digitize....



From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sat Aug 15 10:27:21 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:27:21 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Soviet philosophy preserved online
Message-ID: <c06.5cffff86.37b83be9@aol.com>

Ralph Dumain  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Though I think most of the productions of Soviet Marxism-Leninism
should  have been flushed down the toilet long before they were, and
that the Soviet  version of dialectical materialism has done a great
deal of harm as has most  else that came from that source,
 
^^^^
CB: You say this often, but you don't produce good arguments for  it.
You just assert it in a conclusory manner, usually with cuss  words.
Who cares that you think it should be flushed. You don't make even  a
minimum argument as to why .
 
 
 
Comment
 
I understand Ralph?s specific critique of the world and writings on  
dialectical materialism to be the ?problem of emergence.?  The ?problem of  
emergence? or as it is called by some, ?the dialectic of the leap? -  
emergence/transition, is a valid field of inquiry. In as much as his project  involves 
years of dedication of preserving historical documents, apparently this  ?
preservation work? expresses a need or understanding to chronicle -  
preserve,  history. 
 
The second criticism I understand Ralph to level is the dogmatic -  
schematic, presentation of the components of process logic - unraveling  actuality, 
or lack of presentation of the dynamic of interactivity rather than  
causality; or the ?flat? articulation of the dynamic relation between  
quantitative and qualitative definitions as the one interpenetrates and  expresses 
itself through the other. 
 
The third criticism I understand Ralph to level is the standardization as  
mass production of the presentation mode characteristic of the Stalin 
regime.  This mode of presentation is best presented in books like ?History of the 
CPSU  (B)? 1939; ?Textbook of Marxist Philosophy? - 1936 and ?Political 
Economy? (A  Textbook issued by the Institute of Economics of the Academy off 
Sciences of the  USSR), Moscow 1954.  
 
The final criticism of Sovietization of Marxism - as I understand the  
criticism, is its straight jacking into the political needs of the moment, which 
 bends presentation to compliance with the political order. The most famous 
 instance of this ?bending to political compliance? was the Lysenko 
controversy. 
 
These are valid criticisms, as far as I am concerned.  
 
My tendency is to place all literature in the period it is produced and  
then compare it with the corresponding literature of the era. For instance, ?
The  Textbook of Marxist Philosophy? - 1936, would be measured with all the 
books on  Marxist philosophy written between say 1930 and 1940, rather than 
against  writing on Marxist Philosophy produced in 1960 or August 2009.  The 
purpose  of such an approach is to weigh impact of the Textbook when 
produced. Writings  on Marxist philosophy produced in say 1940, can be weighed as a 
response to the  1936 textbook. 
 
In my estimate the Soviet literature did more good than harm when placed in 
 its proper historical context. Today, studying the 1936 Textbook as an 
entry  point into materialist dialectics would present the reader with 
insurmountable  obstacles. 
 
However, this was not the case in 1938 America. 
 
WL.  



From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sat Aug 15 17:48:09 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2009 19:48:09 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism,
	fighting the ultra right and Health c...
Message-ID: <ca0.5975485c.37b8a339@aol.com>

( editing, expansion and clarification to part 1) 
 
 
 
The right wing side of the movement also fragments, breaks down and  
polarizes. The right-wing  side of the movement is also an ideological  movement 
increasingly polarized between reactionary and fascist as ideological  
currents. 
 
Reactionaries seek to restore the stability of the system based on the  
past. Their calling card is a demand to return to the past and the Constitution 
 in the pre Civil War years, or slavery and white supremacy. This 
reactionary  Constitutionalist current has a precedence and became the ideological 
and  political center of gravity for the rallying of the Confederates, whose 
demand  was to implement the Constitution as crafted by the ?founding fathers.
? At the  time of the Constitution?s founding, George Washington was the 
largest  slaveholder in the land.  
 
Reactionary is thus identified and understood as the political and  
ideological reliance and fall back upon American Constitutionalism, as the legal  
foundation for the preservation of bourgeois property, including the legal 
right  to reduce the laborer to slave and all the historic white supremacist  
justifications. .  
 
The new American fascists, as distinct from ?the reactionaries,? do not  
seek a return to the reactionary economic features of the past but express 
the  need for society to leap forward deploying state violence to stabilize 
and  contain social and economic polarization, while preserving private 
property on a  new basis.  
 
A new fascist movement is gathering force worldwide to maintain private  
property for the benefit of the few. This movement is emerging in response to 
an  objective spontaneous movement arising with an impulse to organize 
society as a  cooperative society based on the new productive forces. Much is at 
stake, and  those revolutionaries who are fighting for a cooperative society 
need to be  clear about what is arising and what it represents so that the 
proper tactics  can be used to carry humanity to victory. 
 
 
WL. 


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Aug 16 15:39:50 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2009 17:39:50 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Socialist Attends a Town Hall Health Care
	Meeting: HR 676
Message-ID: <c63.4c2b8c6a.37b9d6a6@aol.com>

A Socialist Attends a Town Hall Health Care Meeting
by Josh Hatala /  August 14th, 2009
 
In recent months the health care debate has reached a fevered pitch as all  
sides clamber to be heard. This debate has centered around two options: the 
plan  proposed by Obama which may, or may not, include a public option but 
maintains a  system of for-profit insurance, or the continuation of the 
status quo with,  perhaps, some ?tort reform? and an unclear notion of 
developing greater  competition within the for-profit insurance sector to drive down 
prices. Minor  reforms or the unseen hand of the market? Myths that should 
have been shattered  by the recent economic crisis are alive and well in the 
debate about health care  reform.
 
Missing from this debate are the millions of us who support a single-payer  
system. The cost effective and truly humane plan proposed in House 
Resolution  676 for a National Health Insurance Program, now faces the possibility 
of being  reduced to a footnote in the history of the early twenty-first 
century  healthcare debate. So, what is to be done? My recent trip to a health 
care  themed ?town hall? meeting attended by about 250 people in New York 
State?s 20th  district, represented by Scott Murphy (D), provide some answers 
to this  question.
 
Most of us have by now seen media coverage of these ?town hall? meetings:  
Elected officials make a case for Obamacare, right-wing protestors carry 
signs  denouncing Obama as a socialist and make wild claims about the 
dictatorial hell  ?government healthcare? will usher in. Those in support of the 
president?s as  yet unclear plan shout back and carry their own signs. Blows 
are occasionally  exchanged. Single-payer advocates are rarely heard from.
 
At the town hall meeting I attended, I was surprised to see that the  media?
s coverage of these events was fairly accurate. One protestor?s sign  
alluded to the 1973 movie Soylent Green by suggesting that a government run plan  
might create a dystopian nightmare where patients stand in front of ?Obama?
s  death panel? (as former governor Sarah Palin recently described it) 
waiting to  be judged worthy of scarce, rationed health care. When the town hall 
was opened  to Q&A, right supporters offered an ample serving of this 
fear-mongering and  misinformation.
 
When I had my chance to speak, I thanked the members of the military,  
firefighters, and police officers who had spoken (pause, wild applause from the  
right) ? for being living testaments to the success of public services and  
government-run institutions (laughter and applause from the left and 
confused  silence from the right). I then told my own story ? of both of my 
parents  passing away in the past four years, of being told their insurance had 
run out  even after decades of working for the state, that they were denied 
needed care  because of an inability to pay, and that this amounted to 
rationing health care  ? rationed based on those who can and cannot afford it. The 
feared nightmare, I  said, is already here.
 
I asked Congressman Murphy why, despite the support of tens of millions of  
Americans, a single-payer option was not being discussed as a real 
alternative  to the present system. Several members of the crowd applauded, 
expressing their  agreement, but most were silent. In Congressman Murphy?s reply, he 
claimed that  he had not heard much support from within his district for a 
single-payer system  and had a responsibility to reflect the wishes of his 
constituents.
 
The near silence from a crowd of approximately 250 people when I mentioned  
single-payer left me a bit confused. This crowd had been extremely vocal 
for  over an hour, interrupting Congressman Murphy and nearly every speaker to 
 interject their opinions either for or against the Obama plan. Why were 
there so  few cries in support of single-payer and, even more strangely, why 
was the  right-wing eerily silent when I suggested a plan that would bring us 
even closer  to real socialism? Second, I think Congressman Murphy might 
have been correct:  single-payer advocates have not been vocal enough in 
making their position  known. This is not helped by others on the left who have 
abandoned hope for  single-payer and instead support Obama?s plan because 
they see single-payer as  an impossibility in corporate dominated America. The ?
lesser of two evils?  mentality has apparently migrated from the ballot box 
to the health care  debate.
 
After asking my questions, I moved around the crowd a bit, striking up  
conversations with the handful of single-payer advocates as well as Obamacare  
supporters. It turned out that few of the Obamacare advocates I spoke with 
had  even heard of HR 676, but were very interested to learn more. It became 
apparent  that the near silence I experienced after asking Congressman 
Murphy about  single-payer was attributable to the fact that few there had even 
heard of HR  676. Most, it seems, had no idea what I was talking about. 
Congressman Murphy?s  claim that few in his district had brought up single-payer 
started to become  more believable. So, where does that leave us?
 
Fueled by half-truths and outright lies thousands of right wing meet-up  
groups are springing up around the country, inspired by Glenn Beck and other 
so  called ?patriot? pundits. These are the people at the town hall meetings 
 parroting the slogans of fear and divisiveness. Their strategy is working, 
their  numbers are growing, and partly because of their influence the 
debate over  healthcare is not moving beyond the two options mentioned at the 
beginning of  this article.
 
If we advocates of single-payer have any chance at winning real change, or  
at least having our voices heard in this debate, we need to act quickly, 
act  firmly, and act collectively to educate the public and make our voices 
heard.  Some basic ideas came to mind as a result of my trip to a town hall  
meeting.
 
We should not assume that most people understand what single-payer means,  
or know that it even exists as an option. Always be willing and able to 
explain  the benefits of HR 676, in comparison to the false options of the other 
 proposals. Flyers with basic information on single-payer can be placed at 
local  establishments such as coffee shops, bars or wherever people gather. 
We should  use the media exposure to our advantage.
 
Let?s start seriously putting the screws to elected representatives. We  
should contact them to present single-payer as a viable option. If they reject 
 this, we can escalate the pressure. Either way, the time to act is now!
 
Of course, we cannot go it alone in this struggle. Consider getting  
involved with organizations that advocate for single-payer, like the Socialist  
Party-USA or Healthcare-NOW. History shows that there is power in numbers.
 
We must always remain in motion. Get active and organize locally to  
protest, petition, and gain support.
 
Time is running out. We must act quickly and decisively if our voice is to  
be heard.
 
This article was originally published in the Socialist WebZine.
 
_http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/08/a-socialist-attends-a-town-hall-health-ca
re-meeting/_ 
(http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/08/a-socialist-attends-a-town-hall-health-care-meeting/) 


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Aug 16 16:07:15 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:07:15 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Socialist Attends a Town Hall Health Care
	Meeting: HR ...
Message-ID: <c67.5c116440.37b9dd13@aol.com>

>> The near silence from a crowd of approximately 250 people when I  
mentioned  
single-payer left me a bit confused. This crowd had been  extremely vocal 
for  over an hour, interrupting Congressman Murphy and  nearly every 
speaker to 
interject their opinions either for or against the  Obama plan. Why were 
there so  few cries in support of single-payer  and, even more strangely, 
why 
was the  right-wing eerily silent when I  suggested a plan that would bring 
us 
even closer  to real socialism?  Second, I think Congressman Murphy might 
have been correct:   single-payer advocates have not been vocal enough in 
making their  position  known. This is not helped by others on the left who 
have  
abandoned hope for  single-payer and instead support Obama?s plan  because 
they see single-payer as  an impossibility in corporate  dominated America. 
The ?
lesser of two evils?  mentality has apparently  migrated from the ballot 
box 
to the health care  debate.<<  

Comment

I believe there is a fundamental divergence  in opinion over a sensible 
course of action concerning health care. The polarity  that has emerged has 
nothing to do with health care but rather the political  strife between the 
"ultra right" and the "political middle" tied to Obama. In my  estimate 1/3 of 
the "right" would defect on the health care issue and support HR  676 if 
they knew what it was. 

>> why was the   right-wing eerily silent when I suggested a plan that 
would bring us 
even  closer  to real socialism? << 

Because sections of the  working class will listen to anyone that makes 
sense and does not have their  head stuck up Obama's ass. HR 676 has 86 
sponsors. Many communists, socialist  and progressives - including the right wing 
communist supporting the war in  Afghanistan while redbaiting their own 
communist comrades, have not a clue as to  what is really unfolding a the "class 
struggle." 

The tragedy is  that the Obama Plan cannot be supported or defended because 
there is no such  thing as the Obama plan. There are three different bills 
in the House and two in  the Senate. If we could have made the polarity in 
the struggle for or against HR  676, all this crap that is a product of 
fighting the "ultra rights" and  defending the non existing Obama Plan would have 
flowed down another channel. HR  676 is single payer with 86 sponsors in 
the Senate! 

I do not  necessary see the problem as "lesser of two evils" because HR 676 
is the lesser  of two evils. 

Rather, a section of communism and  progressives  has totally defected. In 
the case of the defecting  communists, one can expect them to become the 
most rabid red baiters as they  retreat into racial theory and deniers of 
anything remotely bound up with  classes. A section of the old ideological 
communist movement is tied to the  middle class and the political middle. 
 
We are in for an interesting ride. 
 
We are still going to push the campaign for HR 676 because there is nothing 
 else valuable to educate the masses about health care. There is no  Obama 
Plan.  
 
WL. 
 







From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Aug 16 22:17:20 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:17:20 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Socialist Attends a Town Hall Health Care
	Meeting: HR ...
Message-ID: <d22.4aed3ace.37ba33d0@aol.com>

_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Health_Insurance_Act_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Health_Insurance_Act) 
 
A brief synopsis of HR 676 
 
(Note: actually the bill has 86 co-sponsors, rather than sponsors. Sorry.) 
 
WL. 


From billyoc at gmail.com  Sun Aug 16 22:46:20 2009
From: billyoc at gmail.com (Bill O'Connor)
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:46:20 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Socialist Attends a Town Hall Health Care
	Meeting: HR ...
In-Reply-To: <d22.4aed3ace.37ba33d0@aol.com> (Waistline2@aol.com's message of
	"Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:17:20 EDT")
References: <d22.4aed3ace.37ba33d0@aol.com>
Message-ID: <874os71203.fsf@t22.Belkin>

Waistline2 at aol.com writes:

> _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Health_Insurance_Act_ 
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Health_Insurance_Act) 
>  
> A brief synopsis of HR 676 
>  
> (Note: actually the bill has 86 co-sponsors, rather than sponsors. Sorry.) 

And they're in the House, not the Senate.  :)

-- 
In Solidarity,
Billy O'Connor


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Aug 16 22:59:46 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:59:46 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Socialist Attends a Town Hall Health Care
	Meeting: HR ...
Message-ID: <c83.4396bd63.37ba3dc2@aol.com>

In a message dated 8/17/2009 12:46:55 A.M.  Eastern Daylight Time, 
billyoc at gmail.com writes:

And they're in the  House, not the Senate.  :)


Reply 


Thanks. 

WL.   



From Waistline2 at aol.com  Mon Aug 17 09:56:49 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:56:49 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Some talk on the Detroit City Council Election
Message-ID: <d11.5637b0be.37bad7c1@aol.com>

Detroit City Council - the fall campaign by: Grebner Fri Aug 07, 2009 at  
06:32:09 AM EDT 
 
The primary is over, and voters in Detroit have reduced their field for  
City Council to a mere eighteen. There are two major questions to be answered: 
 who will finish first, and become Council President? And which of the four 
 candidates who finished in places 8 through 11 (19471 to 22899 votes) will 
 survive the cut by finishing ninth or higher? Grebner :: Detroit City 
Council -  the fall campaign The answer to the first question seems obvious, at 
least right  now. Charles Pugh easily out-distanced Ken Cockrel, running 
nearly 10,000 votes  ahead. Given that Cockrel is such a known quantity to 
Detroit voters, it would  seem very hard for him to make up the margin. That 
leaves the possibility that  Pugh's luster will wear off as he becomes better 
known, but that seems unlikely  as well. For one thing, in a mad scramble 
among 18 candidates in a vote-for-9  election, there's no incentive for 
negative campaigning. It's a lot easier to  pick up a vote for yourself by 
convincing a voter to add you to their shopping  list than to convince them to vote 
AGAINST everybody who might finish ahead of  you. For another, Pugh's TV 
career seems to have trained him to present himself  well and avoid gaffes. I 
don't know Detroit politics very well, but I don't  think an anti-gay 
backlash seems likely at this late date. So I'd put my money  on Pugh for Council 
President, with Cockrel relegated to President Pro Tem. 
 
The second question is much harder: which of the four candidates who  
finished 8-9-10-11 will make the final cut? Jo Ann Watson, who took seventh  
place, exactly 2000 votes ahead of Jai-Lee Dearing in eighth might conceivably  
be squeezed out, but I doubt it. And the gap between eleventh place and 
twelfth  was huge: 19471 for James Tate, versus 12493 for Lisa Howze. So the 
question  comes down to four candidates (James Tate, Andre Spivey, Alberta 
Tinsley-Talabi  - the only incumbent, and Jai-Lee Dearing) scrambling for the 
final two seats. 
 
Insiders who care about the impact of the election on the balance of power  
in Detroit devote their attention to those four and nowhere else. Any  
endorsements, campaigning, media exposure, or scandal that doesn't affect the  
relative standings of those four candidates will be an irrelevant sideshow. 
But  much of American politics is devoted to irrelevant sideshows, of course. 
 
PPC plans to conduct a series of robo-polls covering the council race, in  
cooperation with Inside Michigan Politics, which will be reported here 
roughly  every 14 days. 
 
Top of Form 1 You must enter a subject for your comment 
 
Huge leap there (0.00 / 0) 
 
That leaves the possibility that Pugh's luster will wear off as he becomes  
better known, but that seems unlikely as well. Your analysis is pretty good 
as  usual, Grebner, but I think you jumped to a huge conclusion that may 
not be  entirely justified. It's pretty obvious that Pugh's name (and face) 
recognition  clearly overwhelmed any anti-gay feelings that may be percolating 
about  Detroit's consciousness - and that is a good thing. But he is new to 
politics  and hasn't come under any heavy scrutiny before this week. Trust 
me, the lights  are on now, people are talking about him all across the 
country, so that's going  to change. I hope he does well, a lot of people are 
hoping he does well, but we  just can't make that assumption right now. 
 
Second, Cockrel is pretty popular in Detroit and a lot of people like him  
as City Council president. You cannot take an election result where only 
about  15% of the REGISTERED voters showed up to predict what's going to happen 
in a  general election. This is going to come down to voter turnout, and 
who does a  better job of it. 
 
by: yvette248 @ Fri Aug 07, 2009 at 08:16:49 AM CDT 
 
by: you @ soon To post this comment click here: Otherwise click cancel. You 
 must enter a subject for your comment 
 
"The past is prologue" as some old guy said. (4.00 / 1) Detroit's  
electorate appears to be shrinking. For each of the last three elections,  they've 
turned out in smaller numbers than I guessed. Now, I'm guessing that's  
because much of the middle class has moved outside the City's borders, leaving a  
larger fraction of non-voters behind. 
 
The special primary for Mayor brought out 89,000 votes. The special general 
 brought only 92,000. And the City Council primary appears to have 
attracted only  98,000 or so. (I had been guessing 110,000 or 120,000.) 
 
This leads me to guess November's election will bring only 120,000 or so to 
 the polls. And if that's the case, only 25,000 will be additions to the  
primary's turnout. Those additions will be, on the average, somewhat younger, 
 less likely to vote by absentee ballot, and more liberal than the core 
whose  votes we've already counted. In short, looking among them to find 10,000 
voters  who will cast one of their votes for Cockrel, but none of them for 
Pugh, seems  like a very hard job. Cockrel's best voters - older, more 
church-oriented,  absentee ballot using - has already been counted, and he's not 
going to find  many more. I'm 90 miles away, but I think the election is 
Pugh's to lose. If he  stays away from controversy, he's going to be Council 
President. Bottom of Form  1
 
_http://www.michiganliberal.com/diary/15144/detroit-city-council-the-fall-ca
mpaign_ 
(http://www.michiganliberal.com/diary/15144/detroit-city-council-the-fall-campaign) 
 
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from 
_http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ 
(http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) 



From cb31450 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 20 06:25:59 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:25:59 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Legendary Lawyer Doris Brin Walker
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908200525g6dfc8118kf1af97dc685c7ca3@mail.gmail.com>

I didn't see it in the article below, but Dobby was an assistant
prosecutor of the Nazis at the Nuremburg trials.

CB


Legendary Lawyer Doris Brin Walker Dies; Represented
Angela Davis, Smith Act Defendants

Aug 16, 2009 By Marjorie Cohn

Marjorie Cohn's ZSpace Page / ZSpace
http://www.zmag.org/zspace/commentaries/3954

Doris "Dobby" Brin Walker, the first woman president of
the National Lawyers Guild, died on August 13 at the
age of 90. Doris was a brilliant lawyer and a tenacious
defender of human rights. The only woman in her
University of California Berkeley law school class,
Doris defied the odds throughout her life, achieving
significant victories for labor, and political
activists.

Doris' legal and political activism spanned several
decades and some of the most turbulent but significant
periods in US history. She organized workers, fought
against Jim Crow and McCarthyism, was active in the
civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, and
actively opposed the current wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

At UCLA, Doris became a marxist. After she was sworn in
as a member of the California State Bar, Doris joined
the Communist Party USA, remaining a member until her
death. Upon graduation from law school, Doris began
practicing labor law; but a few years later, she went
to work in California canneries as a labor organizer.
When Cutter Labs fired Doris in 1956, the case was
appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. Although the
Court refused to hear the case, Justice Douglas, joined
in dissent by Chief Justice Warren and Justice Black,
wrote, "The blunt truth is that Doris Walker is not
discharged for misconduct but either because of her
legitimate labor union activities or because of her
political ideology or belief. Belief cannot be
penalized consistently with the First Amendment . . .
The Court today allows belief, not conduct, to be
regulated. We sanction a flagrant violation of the
First Amendment when we allow California, acting
through her highest court, to sustain Mrs. Walker's
discharge because of her belief."

Doris returned to the practice of law and represented
people charged under the Alien Registration Act of 1940
(the Smith Act) in California. The Act required all
resident aliens to register with the government,
enacted procedures to facilitate deportation, and made
it a crime for any person to knowingly or willfully
advocate the overthrow of the government by force or
violence. The work of Doris and other NLG lawyers led
to Yates v. United States, in which the Supreme Court
overturned the convictions of Smith Act defendants in
1957. After Yates, the government never filed another
prosecution under the Smith Act.

During the McCarthy era, Doris was called to testify
before the House Un-American Activities Committee and
she also represented several HUAC witnesses. From 1956
to 1961, Doris successfully defended William and Sylvia
Powell, who faced the death penalty, against Korean War
sedition charges. The US government charged that
articles Powell had written reporting and criticizing
US biological weapons use in Korea were false and
written with intent to hinder the war effort. When a
mistrial ended the sedition case, the government
charged the Powells with treason. Attorney General
Robert Kennedy dismissed the case in 1961.

A partner with the NLG firm of Treuhaft & Walker in
Oakland, California from 1961 to 1977, Doris' practice
focused on civil rights, free speech and draft cases
during the Vietnam War. She also defended death penalty
cases. Perhaps best known for her defense of Angela
Davis, Doris was part of a legal team that secured
Angela's acquittal on charges of murder, kidnapping and
conspiracy. In that case, which Harvard Professor
Charles Ogletree in 2005 called "clearly the trial of
the 20th century, and one that exemplified the vast and
diverse talents of the true Dream Team of the legal
profession," the defense pioneered the use of jury
consultants.

Doris was elected president of the NLG in 1970 after a
bruising battle during which one opponent labeled her
"a man in a woman's skirt." She paved the way for the
election of five women NLG presidents in the ensuing
years.

Serving as Vice President of the International
Association of Democratic Lawyers from 1970 to 1978,
Doris supported the struggles of victims of U.S.
imperialism throughout the world and was instrumental
in the development of international human rights law.
In 1996, Doris served as one of eight international
observers at the South African Truth and Reconciliation
Commission hearings led by Desmond Tutu.

In 2004, Doris submitted a resolution on behalf of the
NLG Bay Area Chapter to the Conference of Delegates of
the California Bar Association asking for an
investigation of representations the Bush
administration used to justify the war in Iraq, for
possible impeachment.

Noted writer Jessica Mitford and Doris were close
friends for years; Jessica was married to Robert
Truehaft, Doris' law partner. When Doris invited
Jessica to join the Communist Party, the latter
replied, "We thought you'd never ask!" There is
speculation that author J.K. Rowling, who cited Jessica
as her main literary influence, named her Harry Potter
house elf "Dobby" after seeing Dobby Walker's name in
Jessica's books. On a recent visit to her home, Doris
showed me the Dobby references in works by Jessica on
her bookshelf.

Doris frequently called me with her concerns and
opinions about the issues of the day and in the NLG.
She remained intensely engaged in politics until the
day she died.

Doris "Dobby" Walker inspired generations of
progressive lawyers, law students and legal workers to
struggle unrelentingly for justice and equality. She
was a friend, comrade and role model to scores of
people in and out of the NLG. We will never see the
likes of her again.


Marjorie Cohn is president of the National Lawyers
Guild and a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of
Law. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the
Bush Gang Has Deifed the Law and co-author of Rules of
Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military
Dissent. Her anthology, The United States of Torture:
America's Past and Present Policy of Interrogation and
Abuse, will be published next year by NYU Press. See
www.marjoriecohn.com.


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Thu Aug 20 11:11:38 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:11:38 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <d16.502f637b.37beddca@aol.com>

>> What's wrong with eugenics? Is anyone in favor of  disgenics?<< 
 

Shane Mage 
 

Comment 
 
What is wrong with eugenics is its social origin, individual origin,  
purpose, practice and the ideological conceptions of its adherents. 
 
Eugenics is not a science of metabolic process but an ideology of fascism. 
 
Sir Francis Galton first sketched out his theory (Eugenics) in the 1865  
article "Hereditary Talent and Character," then elaborated further in his 1869 
 book Hereditary Genius.[44] He began by studying the way in which human  
intellectual, moral, and personality traits tended to run in families. 
Galton's  basic argument was "genius" and "talent" were hereditary traits in 
humans  (although neither he nor Darwin yet had a working model of this type of  
heredity). He concluded since one could use artificial selection to 
exaggerate  traits in other animals, one could expect similar results when applying 
such  models to humans. As he wrote in the introduction to Hereditary 
Genius:  _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics)  
 
The idea of creating "better humans" presuppose qualifying what is "better" 
 and according to the founder of the eugenics movement, "better" is a class 
and  social construct based on economic status and productive worth for 
capital.  Productive worth for capital is called survival of the fittest. Those 
who cannot  find a buyer of their labor power are deemed unfit, with their 
idleness serving  as prove of "unfitness" rather than prove of capital 
inherent inability to grow  human productiveness free of crisis and catastrophe. 
 
One can simply punch in the word Eugenics and read the wealth of material  
on this subject. Eugenics is a social movement reacting to capital's 
creation of  a surplus population whose value to society - organized as capital, 
could only  be realized during periods of industrial boom. 
 
Disgencis or dysgenics was first used around 1915 and like eugenics predate 
 bio-genetic science as the study of the mechanics of genes. 
 
Eugenics as advocacy for elimination - extermination, of the surplus  
population evolved in the 1860's. Dysgenics evolved based on the impact of the  
First World Imperial War. This alone should inform anyone and everyone one is 
 dealing with the surplus population and the social consequence of class 
warfare  created by capital rather than a quest to improve the natural 
metabolic process  of the human. 
 
A science seeking an understanding and unraveling of the spontaneous  
biological process of the human body would NOT proceed from a starting point of  
the social consequence of capital. Real science of the human as biology 
would be  based in a materialist approach to man as a metabolic process in a 
natural  environment before the appearance of classes, or man as a part of 
nature and  what is require to restore metabolic unity and balance. 
 
Eugenics is ideological fascism. 
 
 
WL. 
 
 
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
 
 (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm)  


From shmage at pipeline.com  Thu Aug 20 12:18:12 2009
From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:18:12 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
In-Reply-To: <d16.502f637b.37beddca@aol.com>
References: <d16.502f637b.37beddca@aol.com>
Message-ID: <DA2338BA-1975-428E-B4B6-2E09025852B0@pipeline.com>


On Aug 20, 2009, at 1:11 PM, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote:

>>> What's wrong with eugenics? Is anyone in favor of  disgenics?<<
>
> Eugenics is not a science of metabolic process but an ideology of  
> fascism.
>
Eugenics means good heredity.  Disgenics means bad heredity.
No ideology here.
All parents desire healthy, bright, strong, beautiful, talented  
children, and want those
characteristics to be inherited by their grandchildren. They seek  
eugenics.
No parent desires sickly, stupid, weak, ugly, inept children.  They  
fear disgenics.

When parents seek eugenics and prevent disgenics are they to be told-- 
as they are by Antiabortion Prohibitionists (themselves choice  
examples of disgenics)--that they are Hitlerites?

Evil people use good words lyingly, to hide their true purposes.  Were  
Hitler and Stalin "socialists"?  Were Bush and Clinton "democrats?"


Shane Mage

> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Thu Aug 20 15:25:39 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:25:39 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <ce8.5c972348.37bf1953@aol.com>

In a message dated 8/20/2009 2:18:33 P.M.  Eastern Daylight Time, 
shmage at pipeline.com writes:  


>> Eugenics means good heredity.  Disgenics means bad heredity.  No 
ideology here. All parents desire healthy, bright, strong, beautiful,  talented 
children, and want those characteristics to be inherited by their  
grandchildren. They seek eugenics. No parent desires sickly, stupid, weak, ugly,  inept 
children.  They fear disgenics.<<
 
Comment 
 
Would it not be proper to state that the above is what eugenics means to  
you, rather than what Eugenics has meant in material history? Now there is 
lots  of material available on line concerning the founding of the ideology of 
 eugenics, which pinpoints its emergence in 1865. There is material 
chronicling  the practice of Eugenics in America. 
 
Seeking health is called "seeking health," or the science of the human  
metabolic process. In modern times Arnold Ehert founded this science of healthy 
 and good heredity. In fact I still possess several of his books, which are 
very  good. Perhaps, he is worth investigating. 
 
My point is simply: it is a valid materialist approach to investigate  
eugenics from its point of origin and the "science" deployed under its name. 
 
The problem is that we are victimized by bourgeois ideology parading as  
science. What is clear is that one increases their health and the odds of  
producing healthy children by maintaining the proper alkaline environment of 
the  cell structure. 
 
Consult Arnold Ehert. 
 
>> When parents seek eugenics and prevent disgenics are they to be  told-- 
as they are by Antiabortion Prohibitionists (themselves choice   
examples of disgenics)--that they are Hitlerites?
 
Evil people use good words lyingly, to hide their true purposes.   Were  
Hitler and Stalin "socialists"?  Were Bush and Clinton  "democrats?"<<
 
 
Comment
 
Parents do not seek eugenics. Parents seek health and healthy children.  
Eugenics is not the science of attaining health. 
 
The issue as I understand this thread the history of eugenics and its  
founding. The study in bio-genetics defines itself and is called bio-genetics  
because it is a department from and not related to Eugenics. 
 
In my estimate Bush and Clinton were both bourgeois democrats, with Bush W. 
 expressing the reactionary features of the historic Southern political  
establishment, as this establishing served and fought for the  political 
authority of the old Slave Oligarchy and the Southern political  elite. I would 
not object to labeling Bush a fascist, or reactionary bourgeois  democrat. 
Clinton represented a different political branch expressed in the  concept of 
the "New South" in the era of desegregation. 
 
The point here is that Marxists do not use the term/concept "democrat"  
without definition or without a specific context.  
 
I am not aware of Stalin ever calling himself a socialist. Stalin referred  
to himself as a Marxist, Leninist and communist. Hitler did not. I do not  
consider Stalin a socialist or democrat for that matter. Stalin was a 
Marxist  and ideological communist, but then again, anyone that proclaims 
themselves a  Marxist is such. Stalin's deployment and use of the terrorist features 
of the  Soviet state, does not mean he was therefore no Marxist. 
 
As I understand matters Hitler referred to himself and followers as  
national socialists. Stalin did not. Hitler lead a fascist capitalist regime  
whose actions lead to much of the horrors of the Second World Imperialist War.  
Stalin did not lead a fascist-capitalist regime. 
 
I do not know what any of this has to do with the history and founding of  
Eugenics. 
 
Although I personally believe that evil is a material construct and  
material power, the issue of Eugenics is its founding and history. In 1865 there  
was no pretence that what was at stake in the Eugenics movement was  good 
bio-genetics of mankind. Eugenics is founded on the ideology of  survival of 
the fittest. Survival of the fittest applied to humanity is the  class 
ideology of property. This is so because "fit" is identified as social  class and 
wealth possession. Those with wealth are more fit by virtue of their  wealth 
possession. Early eugenics was concerned with intelligence as measured by  
ones station in a social class. The lower classes were proof of lower  
intelligence for the eugenics movement and its founder. 
 
To uphold eugenics is to uphold what its creator supported. That is the  
problem. Anyone that investigates the meaning of Eugenics will not arrive at  
your personal definition. 
 
Really.
 
 
WL. 
 
 
 (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm)  


From shmage at pipeline.com  Thu Aug 20 16:36:21 2009
From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:36:21 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
In-Reply-To: <ce8.5c972348.37bf1953@aol.com>
References: <ce8.5c972348.37bf1953@aol.com>
Message-ID: <39C594B4-E03C-4B3D-95DA-3B50D35E6EE4@pipeline.com>


On Aug 20, 2009, at 5:25 PM, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 8/20/2009 2:18:33 P.M.  Eastern Daylight Time,
> shmage at pipeline.com writes:
>
>
>>> Eugenics means good heredity.  Disgenics means bad heredity.  No
> ideology here. All parents desire healthy, bright, strong,  
> beautiful,  talented
> children, and want those characteristics to be inherited by their
> grandchildren. They seek eugenics. No parent desires sickly, stupid,  
> weak, ugly,  inept
> children.  They fear disgenics.<<
>
> Comment
>
> Would it not be proper to state that the above is what eugenics  
> means to
> you, rather than what Eugenics has meant ...

Are you confused by the capitalization-to-start-sentences style rule I  
(unfortunately) adhered to?  eugenics (nonrestrictive noun) is not  
Eugenics (restrictive noun).  The former's meaning is determined by  
the meaning of the words comprising it: *eu* (good) plus *genics*  
(pertaining to heredity): its cognates are such words as "euphoria"  
and "generation."  The latter, as indicated by the upper-case E, has a  
meaning restricted to the definition intended by the speaker, and  
there are indefinitely many such definitions.

eugenics is universal among mammals and birds and most other  
terrestrial animals.  It is the key factor making evolution a  
conscious, not a random process. Darwin called it "sexual selection."

communism is the *beginning* of history because only in a communist  
society because only then will eugenics become a social goal, the  
evolution of our species the object of a *fully* conscious process.



Shane Mage

> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Thu Aug 20 21:43:18 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:43:18 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <cc7.5bd3acc8.37bf71d6@aol.com>

In a message dated 8/20/2009 6:36:34 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
shmage at pipeline.com writes:

>> Are you confused by the capitalization-to-start-sentences  style rule I  
(unfortunately) adhered to?  eugenics  (nonrestrictive noun) is not  
Eugenics (restrictive noun).  The  former's meaning is determined by  
the meaning of the words comprising  it: *eu* (good) plus *genics*  
(pertaining to heredity): its cognates  are such words as "euphoria"  
and "generation."  The latter, as  indicated by the upper-case E, has a  
meaning restricted to the  definition intended by the speaker, and  
there are indefinitely many  such definitions.<<

Reply
 
Well . . . yes, I am utterly confused. By eugenics what is meant is  
something totally different from what one finds when they access the word on  
line. 
 
As I understand things in my confusion, what is meant is the striving for  
"good health" through the selection of "positive" - (life affirming  
hereditary traits that strengthen the human organism and increases longevity)  more 
compatible "genetic material" in a mate.  If this  approximate your meaning 
then I suggest Arnold Ehret who describes how this  process spontaneous 
process operates amongst human beings.  Then he  describes what in the 
environment blunts this spontaneous process and how to  detoxify the human from the 
legacy of property and industrial society. 
 
*************
>> eugenics is universal among mammals and birds and  most other  
terrestrial animals.  It is the key factor making  evolution a  
conscious, not a random process. Darwin called it "sexual  selection.

communism is the *beginning* of history because only in a  communist  
society because only then will eugenics become a social  goal, the  
evolution of our species the object of a *fully* conscious  process.<<
 
 
Reply 
 
I do agree that only in a communist society - after the human has been  
detoxified of the muck of property, and roughly seven generation have had an  
opportunity to close the metabolic breach, the pursuit of good health becomes 
a  full societal goal. 

Until then finding the optimal mate is hit and miss,  due to the misfiring 
and dysfunction of the senses. Human's possess  the innate ability to smell 
ones optimal mate. However, property has distorted  our nose and makes it a 
liar. 
 
Not for nothing have men wrote poetry to the beauty of hair, which under  
optimal conditions operate as extensions of our sexual organs. The smell of 
hair  is a powerful thing to a healthy clear human body. Capital created 
fragrance to  cover up and replace natural smell. To this day we sing of "the 
touch of your  hand" because when one touches the optimal mate the electrical 
charge of the  cells are excited. Much of these sense perceptions have been 
lost and/or blunted  by property, capital and wrong consumption. 
 
Do read Ehret. 
 
There are some interesting proposition put forth by Zechariah Sitchin in  
his description of the genetic manipulation of man and the optimal hereditary 
 factors need to produced the healthiest offspring's. 
 
I am interested in any material suggested on this topic, provided it steers 
 clear of racial theory and natural selection based on ideological concepts 
of  class and/or class as a social index. 
 
 
WL.  
 
 
 
 


From farmelantj at juno.com  Fri Aug 21 05:46:57 2009
From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com)
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:46:57 GMT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <20090821.074657.15264.0@webmail23.vgs.untd.com>


It should be noted that before the
actions of the Third Reich had discredited
eugenics.  It was something that was
widely supported by intellectuals across
the board from far right to far left,
and all points in between.  Bertrand
Russell and G.B. Shaw were noted
supporters of eugenics.  It also
had the support of many Marxists
including for instance, Trotsky.
Thus Trotsky in his article,
"If America should go Communist"
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/08/ame.htm)
wrote the following concerning eugenics -
note the distinction that he drew between the
kind of eugenics that he supported and the
kind that the Nazis supported:

"While the romantic numskulls of Nazi 
Germany are dreaming of restoring the 
old race of Europe?s Dark Forest to its 
original purity, or rather its original 
filth, you Americans, after taking a firm 
grip on your economic machinery and your 
culture, will apply genuine scientific 
methods to the problem of eugenics. 
Within a century, out of your melting pot 
of races there will come a new breed of 
men ? the first worthy of the name of Man."

Jim F.

---------- Original Message ----------
From: Waistline2 at aol.com
To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:43:18 EDT

In a message dated 8/20/2009 6:36:34 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
shmage at pipeline.com writes:

>> Are you confused by the capitalization-to-start-sentences  style rule I  
(unfortunately) adhered to?  eugenics  (nonrestrictive noun) is not  
Eugenics (restrictive noun).  The  former's meaning is determined by  
the meaning of the words comprising  it: *eu* (good) plus *genics*  
(pertaining to heredity): its cognates  are such words as "euphoria"  
and "generation."  The latter, as  indicated by the upper-case E, has a  
meaning restricted to the  definition intended by the speaker, and  
there are indefinitely many  such definitions.<<

Reply
 
Well . . . yes, I am utterly confused. By eugenics what is meant is  
something totally different from what one finds when they access the word on  
line. 
 
As I understand things in my confusion, what is meant is the striving for  
"good health" through the selection of "positive" - (life affirming  
hereditary traits that strengthen the human organism and increases longevity)  more 
compatible "genetic material" in a mate.  If this  approximate your meaning 
then I suggest Arnold Ehret who describes how this  process spontaneous 
process operates amongst human beings.  Then he  describes what in the 
environment blunts this spontaneous process and how to  detoxify the human from the 
legacy of property and industrial society. 
 
*************
>> eugenics is universal among mammals and birds and  most other  
terrestrial animals.  It is the key factor making  evolution a  
conscious, not a random process. Darwin called it "sexual  selection.

communism is the *beginning* of history because only in a  communist  
society because only then will eugenics become a social  goal, the  
evolution of our species the object of a *fully* conscious  process.<<
 
 
Reply 
 
I do agree that only in a communist society - after the human has been  
detoxified of the muck of property, and roughly seven generation have had an  
opportunity to close the metabolic breach, the pursuit of good health becomes 
a  full societal goal. 

Until then finding the optimal mate is hit and miss,  due to the misfiring 
and dysfunction of the senses. Human's possess  the innate ability to smell 
ones optimal mate. However, property has distorted  our nose and makes it a 
liar. 
 
Not for nothing have men wrote poetry to the beauty of hair, which under  
optimal conditions operate as extensions of our sexual organs. The smell of 
hair  is a powerful thing to a healthy clear human body. Capital created 
fragrance to  cover up and replace natural smell. To this day we sing of "the 
touch of your  hand" because when one touches the optimal mate the electrical 
charge of the  cells are excited. Much of these sense perceptions have been 
lost and/or blunted  by property, capital and wrong consumption. 
 
Do read Ehret. 
 
There are some interesting proposition put forth by Zechariah Sitchin in  
his description of the genetic manipulation of man and the optimal hereditary 
 factors need to produced the healthiest offspring's. 
 
I am interested in any material suggested on this topic, provided it steers 
 clear of racial theory and natural selection based on ideological concepts 
of  class and/or class as a social index. 
 
 
WL.  
 
 
 
 


____________________________________________________________
Park City Express
Direct Private Transportation to Park City Resort and Deer Valley
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=OdMA2VXf9oldyBiUNY3sOQAAJ1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAUAAAAAAAAAAHsUbj47uU1E6-ilZBkve7YNejP3AAAAAA==


From shmage at pipeline.com  Fri Aug 21 08:11:01 2009
From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage)
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:11:01 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
In-Reply-To: <cc7.5bd3acc8.37bf71d6@aol.com>
References: <cc7.5bd3acc8.37bf71d6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <F57224DD-324E-45A6-B98A-CBE3321F03E3@pipeline.com>


On Aug 20, 2009, at 11:43 PM, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote:
>
> As I understand things in my confusion, what is meant is the  
> striving for
> "good health" through the selection of "positive" - (life affirming
> hereditary traits that strengthen the human organism and increases  
> longevity)  more
> compatible "genetic material" in a mate.
> *************
>>> >>"eugenics is universal among mammals and birds and  most other
> terrestrial animals.  It is the key factor making  evolution a
> conscious, not a random process. Darwin called it "sexual  selection."
>
> communism is the *beginning* of history because only in a  communist
> society because only then will eugenics become a social  goal, the
> evolution of our species the object of a *fully* conscious   
> process.<<"
>
>
> Reply
>
> I do agree that only in a communist society - after the human has been
> detoxified of the muck of property, and roughly seven generation  
> have had an
> opportunity to close the metabolic breach, the pursuit of [eugenic]  
> health becomes
> a  full societal goal.
>
> Until then finding the optimal mate is hit and miss,  due to the  
> misfiring
> and dysfunction of the senses....

We have developed beyond mere "natural" eugenics.  Genetic science  
already allows screening of any fetus for serious hereditary defects  
(remember how Palin trumpeted her disgenic "choice" to carry a  
defective fetus to term?) and women can and (most) do act eugenically  
to abort those fetuses.  *In vitro* fertilization allows even more  
direct choice of which (existing) hereditary characteristics to  
include in the makeup of one's offspring. And beyond that, it is only  
the stupid sexist/speciesist ideology of decaying capitalism that  
outlaws direct genetic intervention (of the sort already practiced on  
a commercial scale for exploitable species of plants and animals)  
permitting human mothers to create the best and even absolutely new  
genetic possibilities for their offspring.

So seven generations will not be needed before the people of a  
communist society will eagerly practice eugenics on a grand scale-- 
they will start just as soon as genetic technology is as freely  
available to all as it is *now* to a privileged few.  And beyond that  
is the incorporation (already on the scientific drawing boards) of  
cybernetic nanotechnologies into the human (and other animal) physical  
and mental organisms.  The scientific *means* for conscious direction  
of evolution, on a planetary scale, are already, or imminently, at  
hand.  And our species will adopt them--in the remote possibility that  
capitalism has not wiped it out before then.


Shane Mage

> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Aug 21 19:43:25 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:43:25 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics? (a long reply . .
	.sorry)
Message-ID: <bc6.4ee30474.37c0a73d@aol.com>

>> We have developed beyond mere "natural" eugenics. Genetic science  
already allows screening of any fetus for serious hereditary defects (remember  
how Palin trumpeted her disgenic "choice" to carry a defective fetus to 
term?)  and women can and (most) do act eugenically to abort those fetuses. *In 
vitro*  fertilization allows even more direct choice of which (existing) 
hereditary  characteristics to include in the makeup of one's offspring. And 
beyond that, it  is only the stupid sexist/speciesist ideology of decaying 
capitalism that  outlaws direct genetic intervention (of the sort already 
practiced on a  commercial scale for exploitable species of plants and animals) 
permitting human  mothers to create the best and even absolutely new genetic 
possibilities for  their offspring.<< 
 
Reply 
 

Whether one elects to abort a "defective fetus" is not the issue. Nor  was 
the issue posed as "genetic intervention" based on the positive results of  
the bio-genetic revolution. The sovereign rights of the individual is not at 
all  the question of the eugenics movement historically and present. 
 
Nor is in vitro (outside the organism) fertilization a desire for 99.9% of  
humanity. I do not oppose such options for the 0.1% but there is a material 
 reason why those who cannot have babies should not. Something is wrong 
with one  of the organisms. Moreover, because they cannot they should not. 
Artificial  pregnancy is an option for such people who should not give birth in 
the first  place. More, often than not all one has to do is carefully 
detoxify their body.  Most people prefer the old fashion penis-vagina routine. 
 
Why debate on the basis of 0.1% of humanity? 
 
The emerging science of bio-genetics is not eugenics or the meaning of the  
historic eugenics movement. 
 
Eugenics is the striving to create better people through destroying the  
surplus population created by capital and those deemed unfit by the stool  
pigeons of the bourgeoisie. What is wrong with eugenics, (the title of this  
thread), is that it is a totally bourgeois concept of human development 
detached  from property, class and the interactions within the mode of production. 
 Eugenics is 100% bourgeois ideology. The eugenics movement of the past 
century  has a recorded history that cannot be avoided or swept under the 
ideological  carpet or misrepresented by word trickery. 
 
"As a social movement eugenics reached its height of popularity in the  
early decades of the 20th century. By the end of World War II eugenics had been 
 largely abandoned,[3] though current trends in genetics have raised 
questions  amongst critical academics concerning parallels between pre-war 
attitudes about  eugenics and current "utilitarian" and social darwinistic 
theories[4]. At its  pre-war zenith, the movement often pursued pseudoscientific 
notions of racial  supremacy and purity.[5] 
 
Eugenics was practiced around the world and was promoted by governments,  
and influential individuals and institutions. Its advocates regarded it as a  
social philosophy for the improvement of human hereditary traits through 
the  promotion of higher reproduction of certain people and traits, and the 
reduction  of reproduction of certain people and traits.[6] 
 
Today it is widely regarded as a brutal movement which inflicted massive  
human rights violations on millions of people.[7] The "interventions" 
advocated  and practised by eugenicists involved prominently the identification and 
 classification of individuals and their families, including the poor, 
mentally  ill, blind, "promiscuous" women, homosexuals and entire "racial" groups
??such as  the Roma and Jews??as "degenerate" or "unfit"; the segregation 
or  institutionalisation of such individuals and groups, their 
sterilization,  euthanasia, and in the extreme case of Nazi Germany, their mass  
extermination.[8] 
 
The practices engaged in by eugenicists involving violations of privacy,  
attacks on reputation, violations of the right to life, to found a family, to 
 freedom from discrimination are all today classified as violations of 
human  rights. The practice of negative racial aspects of eugenics, after World 
War II,  fell within the definition of the new international crime of 
genocide, set out  in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime 
of Genocide.[9]"  _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics)  
 

In my streams of replies and "confusion," an attempt was made -  (evidently 
unsuccessful), to speak of the eugenics movement before and after the  
advent of the biogenetic revolution. Sir Francis Galton is the architect of  
modern eugenics or eugenic in the epoch of the bourgeois mode of production. 
(1) 
 
Specifically, the "scientific" quest for "better people," rather than  
healthy people, begins in 1865.  Arnold Ehret represents a material  juncture in 
the quest for better human health. Ehret?s concept is not better  people 
but healthy individuals. Ehret approaches human biology as a metabolic  
process, rather than the correct combination of genes.  Interestingly,  there is 
no evidence I am aware of that the eugenics movement accepted,  assimilated 
or advanced any of the teachings and scientific conclusions of  Ehret, 
although much of his scientific inquiry took place in Germany. In was in  1920?s 
Germany that Ehert conducted his most famous experiments in human health  
under the recording eye of the German government. The eugenics movement  
adamantly rejects any and all materialist conceptions of human health as a  
metabolic process - first and foremost, because it goal is destruction of the  
surplus population. 
 
The idea that the eugenics movement has concerned itself with improving  
human health is absurd. The idea that the eugenics movement has put forth a  
program of better health for the working class - humanity, rather than  
extermination of the surplus population demands verification. 
 
There have been and are various trends within "the better health movement," 
 including Timothy Leary. His basic concept is of the "robot gaining 
control of  his circuitry." In the 1990's this same trend emerged as the 
theoretical basis  for books like "Breaking the Godspell." (2) 
 
"Breaking the Godspell" - (Gospel!), has as it starting point material in  
the books of Zechariah Sitchin, a source previously mentioned. Sitchin's 
thesis  proceeds from two directions: a). studies done at the University of 
Michigan on  the basis of mitochondria DNA (genetic tracking based on the 
female genetic  material), and b). the scientific story behind the myth of "royal 
blood" or the  evolution of the so-called Aaron gene. His premise is that 
man is a product of  genetic manipulation. 
 
Specifically, I suggest examining all of "Chapter 9: The Mother Called Eve  
in "Genesis Revisited," if one has a desire to understand out genetic  
disposition. In addition it is suggested that one read page 183 and ponder why  
monkeys prefer mating with half brothers and not full brothers. If the issue 
is  spontaneous mating practices driven my keenly tuned sense perception 
(which you  raised in a round about fashion) then genetic manipulation based 
on modern  technique does not enter the equation. (3) 
 
There is much science to species mating and human mating, or rather the  
science (law system) behind human mating is better understood based on  
unraveling our spontaneous metabolic process and the operations of our undiluted  
sense perception, rather than "genetic tampering" torn from environment, 
history  and the complex of things that makes us and each generation who we 
are. 
 
In other words this is a partisan issue. You simply feel that eugenics is a 
 noble field of pursuit and I do not. The weight of evidence is that 
eugenics is  not the science and technique of modern bio-genetics, a form of 
"social  engineering" designed to destroy the surplus population created by 
capital. 
 
Seeking better people as species by genetic manipulation is so much  
bourgeois ideology. Not because the gene is manipulated, but because one must  
first unravel the environment in which genetic weakness is passed on and on 
what  basis it is passed. Seeking correction of a pre-birth defect is call 
genetic  engineering not eugenics. 
 
On the issue of human mating, Arnold Ehert solved this practical equation  
90 years ago, before the advent of bio-genetics. The sanitarian he set up is 
 most famous for those who have actually studied this issue. This issue is 
pose  as the metabolic process rather than genetic weakness. 
_http://www.arnoldehret.org/healthclub/library.htm_ 
(http://www.arnoldehret.org/healthclub/library.htm)   (4) 
 
The question is thus answered: 
 
What is wrong with eugenics is that eugenics is not science but ideology.  
There is no such thing as a science of eugenics. Eugenics is a philosophic  
concept of the human devoid of examination of property and social structures 
 that constitutes the material environment in which the metabolic process 
is  weakened and/or defeated. Heredity - as the passing on of the diseased 
state,  operates in a material environment with a history that can only be 
understood  within the context of the evolution of property and eating. 
Property emerges and  establishes itself on the basis of the control of scarcity or 
control of food  stuff. 
 
This will be explained. 
 
Genetic manipulation - in itself, cannot allow anyone to create "the best"  
and "absolutely new genetic (better) possibilities" for their offspring, 
because  "best" has to be "quantified and qualified" as that which "is in 
conformity with  THE metabolic process." Genetic testing - at this stage, allows 
one to eliminate  an unwanted fetus for any number of reasons. Genetic 
manipulation by definition  is a concept of "correcting" a defect and never 
poses the question "what is the  history and evolution of the defect." 
 
III. 
 
The science behind human health is an intense and partisan issue, argued on 
 this list before. The philosophic approach called "better people" is to 
remain  within the confines of bourgeois ideology and bourgeois outlook. 
General  healthiness for the human is impossible under capitalism for a number of 
 reasons, of which wrong and bourgeois consumption is most important. 
 
When this issue was discussed before - on this list between CB and myself,  
I used Engels fragment dealing with the role of labor in the transition 
from man  to ape. Engels is more than less accurate, in the context of his 
time. He is  historical incorrect after the writings of Arnold Ehert. The 
passage in dispute  is reproduced in footnote (5). 
 
I will respect your opinion because it remains within communism by  
indicating that the quest for optimal human health is only possible under  
communism. This is so because communism heals the metabolic breach or what Marx  
calls the metabolic rift, but my view is very different from those espousing  
eugenics and genetic screening and testing as the path forward for optimum 
human  health. 
 
Communism is not the simple abstract abolition and annihilation of property 
 but all the complex human relations (including a historical pattern of  
consumption), which grew up and took shape based on private property and  
ignorance. Communism does not mysteriously "save" the earth or "heal the earth"  
by magic.  By defeating property, bourgeois need can be defeated. Defeating 
 bourgeois need, a generations project, defeats a pattern of consumption  
thousands of generations deep. Once consumption is qualitatively changed so 
is  the human that consumes. What is consumed and has been consumed for 
thousands of  years produces the metabolic breach within man. 
 
Who does not know at this late date that all of human history is the story  
of the striving for nutrition? What bourgeois society calls nutrition is 
not,  but the very things that widen the metabolic breach. 
 
IV. 
 
Real life examples rather than philosophic assertions might help clarify a  
materialist approach to health and why eugenics has never ascended beyond 
the  bourgeois shape of science and ideological fascism. 
 
In discussion with CB, (on this list!) the specific example used and argued 
 was based on research and discussion of sickle cell anemia. Anemia means 
"blood  weakness" and sickle shape cell defines itself. The advocates of 
eugenics and  genetic manipulation (both are not identical) approach this defect 
seeking to  manipulate the cell shape that inhibits the absorption of 
oxygen or delete the  cell altogether. The blood weakness is diagnosed as "lack 
of protein" and the  individual protein intake is increased, which causes all 
patients - without  exception, to get sicker. 
 
What if a sickle cell is not a defective cell, much less a hereditary  
weakness?  What if the problem is the environment as fundamental and the  
secondary cause wrong consumption or bourgeois consumption? What appears as a  
defect is actually a defense response of the organism activated in a specific  
environment. The environment was Africa, and the sickle shaped cell starves  
certain pathogens of a hospitable environment. 
 
Illness identified with sickle cell blames the shape of the cell rather  
than the new environment of the cell that defeats the cells purpose. The new  
environment of the cell is a toxic state which comes from wrong consumption 
in  America. The solution is not genetic manipulation but cleaning up the 
blood  environment of the cell. Specifically, increasing its alkalinity 
content and  withdrawing from heavy protein consumption. 
 
How do I know this? 
 

From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Aug 21 21:32:24 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:32:24 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <bc9.53eef340.37c0c0c8@aol.com>



Comment 

Trotsky?s letter is 75 years old. In my way of thinking 75 years is two  
generation. 
Here is the problem for me. 
 
I cannot conceive and think things out from the standpoint of a person  
Trotsky?s age in 1934. I reread the letter in its entirety. Moreover, 
everything  in it seems horrible old because two generations have passed. This letter 
may  have made sense in 1934 - for many, but not today in regards to 
eugenics or a  Soviet America. History has run far beyond both conceptions of the 
social  process. . 
 
There is no good that can comes from discussing eugenics. 
 
Shane defines matters as thus: "Eugenics means good heredity. Disgenics  
means bad heredity." 
 
The moment one ask the simple question, "what is heredity," a huge partisan 
 debate unfolds because that is no agreement to the meaning of heredity 
other  than an abstract passing on of good traits (genes)? Are blue eyes a good 
trait?  Is pale skin a good trait? Actually, Arnold Ehret unravels these  
questions.  No good can come from a concept of passing on good and bad  
traits (genes).and the use of genetic manipulation to create ?better human  
beings.?  
 
The issue is optimum health. 
 
The issue of communist man is posed as the restoration of pre-private  
property man at a qualitative higher level of development of the productive  
forces. A new breed of man means a specific thing for me in August 2009:  negati
on of the man as he existed under the jackboot of 40 centuries of private  
property. 
 
Man is metabolic. A new breed of man must by definition be bound up with  
something fundamental to the metabolic unity of man and maintaining this 
unity.  What disrupts this metabolic unity is 40 centuries of wrong consumption. 
Every  single person in American society sense the issue and know in their 
heart we are  oppressed and beat down under the bourgeois mode of food 
reproduction. 
 
The problem is that we cannot yet overthrow this system of reproduction.  
99% of Americans die a horrible death from obesity, wrong food and chemical  
concoctions of the mad-hatter bourgeoisie. 
 
And everyone know this and sense the magnitude of the issue.  
.  
Why retreat into concepts of a new breed of man based on the science and  
ideology of the middle stage of the industrial revolution? 
 
Today, in real time the spontaneous movement for healthy human beings is  
against the modern food industry and the bourgeois mode of food production;  
against medical quackery and Big Pharma. This spontaneous path is actual the 
 right path forward. Gene manipulation is a tool to be used in extreme 
instances. 
 
Nothing good can come of the eugenics movement. All one has to do is  
examine its modality. It has none. It?s purpose is destruction of the surplus  
population pure and simple. 
 
That is took so long to discredit the eugenics movement is testimony to the 
 low level of consciousness of revolutionaries. Then again, I had to face 
an  almost fatal accident to seriously study health and healing. 
 
WL. 
 
 
>> It should be noted that before the actions of the Third Reich had  
discredited eugenics. It was something that was widely supported by  
intellectuals across the board from far right to far left, and all points in  between. 
Bertrand Russell and G.B. Shaw were noted supporters of eugenics. It  also 
had the support of many Marxists including for instance, Trotsky. Thus  
Trotsky in his article, "If America should go Communist" concerning eugenics -  
note the distinction that he drew between the kind of eugenics that he 
supported  and the kind that the Nazis supported: 
 
"While the romantic numskulls of Nazi Germany are dreaming of restoring the 
 old race of Europe?s Dark Forest to its original purity, or rather its 
original  filth, you Americans, after taking a firm grip on your economic 
machinery and  your culture, will apply genuine scientific methods to the problem 
of eugenics.  Within a century, out of your melting pot of races there will 
come a new breed  of men ? the first worthy of the name of Man." << 
 
Jim F. 
 
 


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 24 11:45:54 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:45:54 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908241045l647a8effs24e4e75a32c0cfa5@mail.gmail.com>

The idea of creating "better humans" presuppose qualifying what is "better"
 and according to the founder of the eugenics movement, "better" is a class
and  social construct based on economic status and productive worth for
capital.  Productive worth for capital is called survival of the fittest. Those
who cannot  find a buyer of their labor power are deemed unfit, with their
idleness serving  as prove of "unfitness" rather than prove of capital
inherent inability to grow  human productiveness free of crisis and
catastrophe.

One can simply punch in the word Eugenics and read the wealth of material
on this subject. Eugenics is a social movement reacting to capital's
creation of  a surplus population whose value to society - organized
as capital,
could only  be realized during periods of industrial boom.


*******

CB: On the other hand, there is some truth to the old saying that the
rich get richer and the poor get children under capitalism. That is,
those who are poor because they have trouble selling their labor power
may end up more fit than the rich in Darwinian sense of fitness :
being represented by children in future generations. The relative
surplus population may be more Darwinan fit than the rich, with all
their geniuses.


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Mon Aug 24 14:42:27 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:42:27 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <d5d.460e8812.37c45533@aol.com>

In a message dated 8/24/2009 1:46:13 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
cb31450 at gmail.com writes:

>> CB: On the other hand, there is some truth to the old saying  that the
rich get richer and the poor get children under capitalism. That  is,
those who are poor because they have trouble selling their labor  power
may end up more fit than the rich in Darwinian sense of fitness  :
being represented by children in future generations. The  relative
surplus population may be more Darwinan fit than the rich, with  all
their geniuses.<< 


Comment
 
Some within Marxism advocating for eugenics do not consider themselves  
advocates of racism or racists, although they are. American Marxism has always  
had its racist contingent. Their contention is their individual right to 
define  a social movement as they see fit. Consequently, deploring modern 
methods and  applications of the bio-genetic revolution is cause to assert that 
the historic  eugenics movement has undergone a radical transformation and 
is now to be  embraced by communists. 
 
Shane argues that the right to an abortion is not a matter of politics or a 
 question of political liberties, but a biological question and biological 
right  to be fought under the banner of eugenics. Jim F. Shane is a racist  
operating under the cloak of anti-Stalinism to prevent an unraveling of  
materialist concept  of history and society.  Racist are racist  precisely 
because they embrace a concept of races amongst humanity. 
 
At any rate, such is understandable given the history of the American  
Marxists movement. 
 
In respects to Leon Trotsky and his "Letter," it is apparent to anyone  
familiar with the struggle within Russian Marxism that Trotsky was always a  
racist. His writings on the national question and the posing of the national  
factor in opposition to the question of the overthrow of bourgeois property 
-  call the class question by the racist, has always been understood by my  
generation of Marxists as racial ideology. The racist Marxist code their  
language with concepts such as "class trumps race," thereby creating a false  
polarity between the color factor in American history and how this factor  
impacts the social struggle. Unlike in yesteryear, today the racist Marxist 
face  their historic defeat. 
 
Nothing good can come from the eugenics movement.  
 
Today, the majority of American Marxists oppose the eugenics movement. 
 
 
WL. 
 


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Mon Aug 24 14:45:50 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:45:50 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics? (correction)
Message-ID: <cc1.5cd4d333.37c455fe@aol.com>

Jim F. Shane is a racist operating under the cloak of anti-Stalinism  to 
prevent an unraveling of  
materialist concept  of history and  society.  Racist are racist  precisely 
because they embrace a  concept of races amongst humanity. 


Correction 
 
Jim F. FALLS INTO THE TRAP. 
 
Shane is a racist operating under the cloak of anti-Stalinism to  prevent 
an unraveling of  
materialist concept  of history and  society.  Racist are racist  precisely 
because they embrace a  concept of races amongst humanity. 
 
 
Sorry . . . sentence was cut off. 
 
WL. 



From shmage at pipeline.com  Mon Aug 24 20:41:42 2009
From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage)
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:41:42 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
In-Reply-To: <d5d.460e8812.37c45533@aol.com>
References: <d5d.460e8812.37c45533@aol.com>
Message-ID: <74B1471A-55C9-42A6-AE64-6BB44BF59CE7@pipeline.com>


On Aug 24, 2009, at 4:42 PM, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote:
nothing worth remembering


Shane Mage

> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 26 06:27:13 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:27:13 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] It takes a fight to win
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908260527w2093bef5xf0c83c074e0b1cda@mail.gmail.com>

It takes a fight to win
By Sam Webb

It seems clear that the prospects for a bipartisan health care bill are
diminishing with each passing day. And as far as I'm concerned that is a
good thing. Nothing good, nothing resembling "reform" could come from
bipartisanship in this Congress. The Republicans have no appetite for real
health care reform. The health care system isn't broken in their view. So
why fix it? A few cosmetic changes maybe, but nothing more.

According to media reports, the Democrats have begun devising a strategy to
pass a bill without Republican support. I applaud them. While I can
understand President Obama's desire to pass a bipartisan bill, there is
nothing necessarily virtuous about bipartisanship, it should not be turned
into a principle of political governance. Conversely, political partisanship
is not necessarily a dirty word either. The appropriate method of governing
can't be decided abstractly.

Process in politics is important, but it shouldn't trump the democratic
will. Millions elected Barack Obama and a new Congress in the expectation
that they would bring real change to their lives. But the health care debate
is making crystal clear that the Republicans and to a degree some Democrats
are in no mood to assist the the legislative agenda of the Obama
administration, - an agenda that the majority of Americans elected him to
carry out.

The mission of the extreme right in the Republican Party (and the extreme
right dominates the GOP), in fact, is to sabotge health care reform and
Obama's Presidency by any means necessary. It will embrace bipartisanship
only in words and only to the degree that it stalls the reform agenda of the
President. Once negotiations become substantive, right wing extremists turn
nasty and let loose their attack dogs, including their gun toting ones, on
the President and other advocates of real change.
I know the American people would like to have less rancor and partisanship
in politics, but it is hard to imagine that changing anytime soon. For one
thing, the extreme right turned mean spirited and divisive politics into its
trademark three decades ago and there is little reason to think that will
change going forward. In fact, the noise from the right wing is becoming
more strident and shrill, more dangerous, and more irresponsible since
President Obama was elected.

For another thing, eras of deepgoing democratic reform - the 1930s and 1960s
come to mind - are a product of clashing partisan interests and political
coalitions. Feelings are intense, democratic life is charged, divisions
along class and social lines emerge in clearer form, and social inertia
gives way to social action. Like it or not, political leaders and ordinary
people take sides.

Franklin Roosevelt and John L. Lewis took sides in the New Deal era; so did
President Lyndon Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King in the Civil Rights era.
And in both eras, millions - most of whom were new to political activism -
threw themselves into the struggle for progressive social change. It wasn't
always pretty, but it was nearly always necessary. Had political leaders not
taken sides and had not people taken to the streets, progressive change
would have died stillborn.

With the wreckage of 30 years of right wing rule everywhere, an economic
crisis of immense proportions hanging over the country, an extreme right,
badly weakened, but still a part of the political equation, and powerful
corporate interests and their supporters in both parties who either want to
prevent or contain people's reforms, can we move this vast country in the
direction of economic justice, equality and peace without intense,
sustained, and partisan struggle with an increasingly anti-corporate thrust?
History and common sense say 'no.'

A reformer from an even earlier era famously said, "Power concedes nothing
without a struggle."

http://www.pww.org/


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 26 07:31:55 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:31:55 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Let's Argue About Sonic Youth's "Retro-necro
	reverence"!
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908260631y2f68f0fax640875a4392c54fa@mail.gmail.com>

[lbo-talk] Let's Argue About Sonic Youth's "Retro-necro reverence"!
Rebecca

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ok, provocateur!


Blaming Sonic Youth for nostalgia in music is just silly. All music is
a network of references to other music. Musicians, like other artists,
copy each other. Like other artists, they borrow from and pay homage
to contemporaries and predecessors. Most great musicians are also
great lovers of other people's music

Sometimes people into indie-rock are so into novelty that they like
stuff just because they think it dispenses with conventions even if it
sounds terrible (like most of uber-hip Dave Longstreth, who just seems
like a Saturday Night Live parody of earnest folk-rock to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdT0N4GOydo). Can't decide for
themselves what they like? Have no aesthetic criteria except what
other people say is cool? That's why I think a lot of these
hipper-than-thou music fans describe the most vanilla, hackneyed
pop-drivel as if its genius, &/or praise to the skies some completely
amateurish indy act who will disappear in a few years and while
dissing Sonic Youth for being past their prime.

As for the ATP "Don't Look Back" concerts - I've seen the criticisms
but I don't agree. Maybe it's because I'm older than most of the other
folks at the rock show, but I don't see what's so bad about enjoying
music that's all of twenty years old. Maybe it's even more nostalgic
to insist that classic records can only be enjoyed in the CD player
and never live (unless remixed or re-imagined by some youngster). the
Don't Look Back shows that I saw at Pitchfork fest in 07 and 08 were
great.

Thurston Moore also joined another elder, Yoko Ono for "Mulberry" the
following night when she headlined. Too bad the Stooges' reunion was
lame. It's not true of everyone. Public Enemy's performance of "It
Takes a Nation of Millions" in 2008 was fantastic and energizing. see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvSc-XQflek&feature=related


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 26 07:35:56 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:35:56 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Partial list of famous musical artists who died as
	young or younger than Michael Jackson
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908260635t16c737f6g6e7a9dd74fee6ffa@mail.gmail.com>

Nat King Cole



Nat King Cole
Genre(s) Vocal jazz, swing, traditional pop, jump blues
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, pianist
Voice type(s) Baritone[1]
Years active 1935?1965
Label(s) Decca, Excelsior, Capitol
Associated acts Natalie Cole, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 ? February 15, 1965), known
professionally as Nat "King" Cole, was an American musician who first
came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished
pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone
voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres. He was
the first black American to host a television variety show and has
maintained worldwide popularity over 40 years past his death; he is
widely considered one of the most important musical personalities in
United States history.

Contents [hide]
1 Childhood and Chicago
2 Los Angeles and the King Cole Trio
3 Early singing career
4 Making television history
5 Racism
6 1950s and beyond
7 Death and posthumous achievements
8 Marriage, children and other personal details
9 Politics
10 Notable TV appearances (other than his own show)
11 Discography
12 Filmography
12.1 Features
12.2 Short subjects
13 See also
14 References
15 External links



[edit] Childhood and Chicago
He was born Nathaniel Adams Coles in Montgomery, Alabama, on Saint
Patrick's Day in 1919[2] (some sources erroneously list his birth year
as 1917), and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, while he was
still a child. There his father became a Baptist minister. Cole
learned to play the organ from his mother, Perlina, the church
organist. His first performance, at age four, was of "Yes! We Have No
Bananas". He began formal lessons at the age of 12, eventually
learning not only jazz and gospel music but also European classical
music, performing, as he said, "from Johann Sebastian Bach to Sergei
Rachmaninoff".

Cole had three brothers, Eddie, Ike and Freddy. The family lived in
the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. Cole would sneak out of the
house and hang around outside the clubs, listening to artists such as
Louis Armstrong, Earl "Fatha" Hines, and Jimmie Noone. He participated
in Walter Dyett's renowned music program at DuSable High School.

Inspired by the playing of Earl Hines, Cole began his performing
career in the mid 1930s while still a teenager, adopting the name "Nat
Cole". His older brother, Eddie Coles, a bass player, soon joined
Cole's band, and the brothers made their first recording in 1936 under
Eddie's name. They were also regular performers at clubs. In fact,
Cole acquired his nickname "King" performing at one jazz club, a
nickname presumably reinforced by the otherwise unrelated nursery
rhyme about Old King Cole. He was also a pianist in a national touring
revival of Ragtime, the Ahrens and Flaherty musical, and Broadway
theatre legend Eubie Blake's revue, "Shuffle Along". When it suddenly
failed in Long Beach, California, Cole decided to remain there.


[edit] Los Angeles and the King Cole Trio
Cole and three other musicians formed the "King Cole Swingers" in Long
Beach and played in a number of local bars before getting a gig on the
Long Beach Pike for US$90 per week.

In January 1937, Cole married dancer Nadine Robinson, who was also in
the musical Shuffle Along, and moved to Los Angeles, where he formed
the Nat King Cole Trio. The trio consisted of Cole on piano, Oscar
Moore on guitar, and Wesley Prince on double bass. The trio played in
Los Angeles throughout the late 1930s and recorded many radio
transcriptions. Cole's role was that of piano player and leader of the
combo.

It is a common misconception that Cole's singing career did not start
until a drunken barroom patron demanded that he sing "Sweet Lorraine".
In fact, Cole has gone on record saying that the fabricated story
"sounded good, so I just let it ride." Cole frequently sang in between
instrumental numbers. Noticing that people started to request more
vocal numbers, he obliged. Yet the story of the insistent customer is
not without some truth. There was a customer who requested a certain
song one night, but it was a song that Cole did not know, so instead
he sang "Sweet Lorraine". The trio was tipped 15 cents for the
performance, a nickel apiece (Nat King Cole: An Intimate Biography,
Maria Cole with Louie Robinson, 1971).


The Capitol Records Building, known as "the house that Nat
built"During World War II, Wesley Prince left the group and Cole
replaced him with Johnny Miller. Miller would later be replaced by
Charlie Harris in the 1950s. The King Cole Trio signed with the
fledgling Capitol Records in 1943. Revenues from Cole's record sales
fueled much of Capitol Records' success during this period. The
revenue is believed to have played a significant role in financing the
distinctive Capitol Records building on Hollywood and Vine in Los
Angeles. Completed in 1956, it was the world's first circular office
building and became known as "the house that Nat built".

Cole was considered a leading jazz pianist, appearing, for example, in
the first Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts (credited on the Mercury
Record labels as "Shorty Nadine," apparently derived from the name of
his wife at the time). His revolutionary lineup of piano, guitar, and
bass in the time of the big bands became a popular setup for a jazz
trio. It was emulated by many musicians, among them Art Tatum, Erroll
Garner, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, Tommy Flanagan and blues pianists
Charles Brown and Ray Charles. He also performed as a pianist on
sessions with Lester Young, Red Callender, and Lionel Hampton. The
Page Cavanaugh Trio, with the same setup as Cole, came out of the
chute about the same time, at the end of the war. It's still a tossup
as to who was first, although it is generally agreed that the credit
goes to Cole.


[edit] Early singing career
Cole's first mainstream vocal hit was his 1943 recording of one of his
compositions, "Straighten Up and Fly Right," based on a black folk
tale that his father had used as a theme for a sermon. Johnny Mercer
invited him to record it for the fledgling Capitol Records label. It
sold over 500,000 copies, proving that folk-based material could
appeal to a wide audience. Although Cole would never be considered a
rocker, the song can be seen as anticipating the first rock and roll
records. Indeed, Bo Diddley, who performed similar transformations of
folk material, counted Cole as an influence.

Beginning in the late 1940s, Cole began recording and performing more
pop-oriented material for mainstream audiences, often accompanied by a
string orchestra. His stature as a popular icon was cemented during
this period by hits such as "The Christmas Song" (Cole recorded that
tune four times: on June 14, 1946, as a pure Trio recording, on August
19, 1946, with an added string section, on August 24, 1953, and in
1961 for the double album The Nat King Cole Story; this final version,
recorded in stereo, is the one most often heard today), "Nature Boy"
(1948), "Mona Lisa" (1950), "Too Young" (the #1 song in 1951),[3] and
his signature tune "Unforgettable" (1951). While this shift to pop
music led some jazz critics and fans to accuse Cole of selling out, he
never totally abandoned his jazz roots; as late as 1956, for instance,
he recorded an all-jazz album After Midnight. Cole had one of his last
big hits two years before his death, in 1963, with the classic "Those
Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer", which reached #6 on the Pop chart.


[edit] Making television history
On November 5, 1956, The Nat King Cole Show debuted on NBC-TV. The
Cole program was the first of its kind hosted by an African-American,
which created controversy at the time.[4]

Beginning as a 15-minute pops show on Monday night, the program was
expanded to a half hour in July 1957. Despite the efforts of NBC, as
well as many of Cole's industry colleagues?many of whom, such as Ella
Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, Frankie Laine, Mel Torm?, Peggy Lee, and
Eartha Kitt worked for industry scale (or even for no pay)[4] in order
to help the show save money?The Nat King Cole Show was ultimately done
in by lack of a national sponsorship.[4] Companies such as Rheingold
Beer assumed regional sponsorship of the show, but a national sponsor
never appeared.[4]

The last episode of "The Nat King Cole Show" aired December 17, 1957.
Cole had survived for over a year, and it was he, not NBC, who
ultimately decided to pull the plug on the show.[citation needed] NBC,
as well as Cole himself, had been operating at an extreme financial
loss.[citation needed] Commenting on the lack of sponsorship his show
received, Cole quipped shortly after its demise, "Madison Avenue is
afraid of the dark."[citation needed] This statement, with the passing
of time, has fueled the urban legend that Cole's show had to close
down despite enormous popularity. In fact, the Cole program was
routinely beaten by the competition at ABC, which was then riding high
with its travel and western shows.[citation needed] In addition,
musical variety series have always been risky enterprises with a
fickle public; among the one-season casualties are Frank Sinatra in
1957, Judy Garland in 1963, and Julie Andrews in 1972.

In 1964, Cole made his final television appearance on The Jack Benny
Program. In his typically magnanimous fashion, Benny allowed his guest
star to steal the show at a time when racism was still rampant in
America. Cole sang ?When I Fall in Love? in perhaps his finest and
most memorable performance. Cole was introduced as ?the best friend a
song ever had? and traded very humorous banter with Benny. Cole
highlighted a classic Benny skit in which Benny is upstaged by an
emergency stand-in drummer. Introduced as Cole?s cousin, five-year-old
James Bradley Jr. stunned Benny with incredible drumming talent and
participated with Cole in playful banter at Benny?s expense. Though it
would prove to be Cole's last, his dignified performance was years
ahead of its time.


[edit] Racism
 This article may be inaccurate in or unbalanced towards certain
viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on
neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (August
2009)
 This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Please
help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations of
additional sources. (January 2008)

Nat King Cole corner in the Hotel Nacional de CubaCole fought racism
all his life and refused to perform in segregated venues. In 1956, he
was assaulted on stage during a concert in Birmingham, Alabama, (while
singing the song "Little Girl") by three members of the North Alabama
White Citizens Council (a group led by Education of Little Tree author
Asa "Forrest" Carter, himself not among the attackers), who apparently
were attempting to kidnap him. The three male attackers ran down the
aisles of the auditorium towards Cole and his band. Although local law
enforcement quickly ended the invasion of the stage, the ensuing mel?e
toppled Cole from his piano bench and injured his back. Cole did not
finish the concert and never again performed in the South. A fourth
member of the group who had participated in the plot was later
arrested in connection with the act. All were later tried and
convicted for their roles in the crime.[5]

In 1956 he was contracted to perform in Cuba and wanted to stay at the
Hotel Nacional de Cuba, Havana, but was not allowed to because it
operated a color bar. Cole honored his contract, however, and the
concert at the Tropicana was a huge success. The following year, he
returned to Cuba for another concert, singing many songs in Spanish.
There is now a tribute to him in the form of a bust and a jukebox in
the Hotel Nacional.[6]


[edit] 1950s and beyond
Throughout the 1950s, Cole continued to rack up hit after hit,
including "Smile", "Pretend", "A Blossom Fell", and "If I May". His
pop hits were collaborations with well-known arrangers and conductors
of the day, including Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins, and Ralph
Carmichael. Riddle arranged several of Cole's 1950s albums, including
his first 10-inch long-play album, his 1953 Nat King Cole Sings For
Two In Love. In 1955, his single "Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup"
reached #7 on the Billboard chart. Jenkins arranged Love Is the Thing,
which hit #1 on the album charts in April 1957.

In 1958, Cole went to Havana, Cuba to record Cole Espa?ol, an album
sung entirely in Spanish. The album was so popular in Latin America,
as well as in the USA, that two others of the same variety followed: A
Mis Amigos (sung in Spanish and Portuguese) in 1959 and More Cole
Espa?ol in 1962. A Mis Amigos contains the Venezuelan hit "Ansiedad,"
whose lyrics Cole had learned while performing in Caracas in 1958.
Cole learned songs in languages other than English by rote.

After the change in musical tastes during the late 1950s, Cole's
ballad singing did not sell well with younger listeners, despite a
successful stab at rock n' roll with "Send For Me" (peaked at #6 pop).
Along with his contemporaries Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Tony
Bennett, Cole found that the pop singles chart had been almost
entirely taken over by youth-oriented acts. In 1960, Nat's longtime
collaborator Nelson Riddle left Capitol Records for Frank Sinatra's
newly formed Reprise Records label. Riddle and Cole recorded one final
hit album, Wild Is Love, based on lyrics by Ray Rasch and Dotty Wayne.
Cole later retooled the concept album into an off-Broadway show, "I'm
With You."

Cole did manage to record some hit singles during the 1960s, including
the country-flavored hit "Ramblin' Rose" in August 1962 as well as
"Dear Lonely Hearts", "Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days Of Summer" (his
final hit, reaching #6 pop), and "That Sunday, That Summer".

Cole performed in many short films, sitcoms, and television shows and
played W. C. Handy in the film St. Louis Blues (1958). He also
appeared in The Nat King Cole Story, China Gate, and The Blue Gardenia
(1953). Cat Ballou (1965), his final film, was released several months
after his death.


[edit] Death and posthumous achievements

Cole's vault at Forest Lawn Memorial ParkCole, a smoker of three packs
of cigarettes a day[citation needed], died of lung cancer on February
15, 1965.

His last album, L-O-V-E, was recorded in early December 1964?just a
few days before entering the hospital for lung cancer treatment?and
was released just prior to his death. It peaked at #4 on the Billboard
Albums chart in the spring of 1965. A "Best Of" album went gold in
1968. His 1957 recording of "When I Fall In Love" reached #4 in the UK
charts in 1987.

In 1983, an archivist for EMI Electrola Records, EMI (Capitol's parent
company) Records' subsidiary in Germany, discovered some songs Cole
had recorded but that had never been released, including one in
Japanese and another in Spanish ("Tu Eres Tan Amable"). Capitol
released them later that year as the LP "Unreleased."

Cole was inducted into both the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and the
Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. In 1990 he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime
Achievement Award and in 1997 was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz
Hall of Fame. In 2007, he was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of
Fame.

In 1991, Mosaic Records released "The Complete Capitol Recordings of
the Nat King Cole Trio," an 18-compact-disc set consisting of 349
songs. (This special compilation also was available as a 27
high-quality LP record set.)

Cole's youngest brother, Freddy Cole, and Cole's daughter Natalie Cole
are also singers. In the summer of 1991, Natalie Cole and her father
had an unexpected hit when Natalie Cole mixed her own voice with her
father's 1961 rendition of "Unforgettable" as part of her album paying
tribute to her father's music. The song and the album of the same name
won seven Grammy awards in 1992.


[edit] Marriage, children and other personal details
There has been some confusion as to Cole's actual year of birth. Cole
himself used four different dates on official documents: 1915, 1916,
1917, and 1919. However, Nathaniel is listed with his parents and
older siblings in the 1920 U.S. Federal census for Montgomery Ward 7
and his age is given as nine months old. Since this is a contemporary
record, it is very likely he was born in 1919. This is also consistent
with the 1930 census which finds him at age 11 with his family in
Chicago's Ward 3. In the 1920 census, the race of all members of the
family (Ed, Perlina, Eddie M., Edward D., Evelina and Nathaniel) is
recorded as mulatto. Cole's birth year is also listed as 1919 on the
Nat King Cole Society's web site.

Cole's first marriage, to Nadine Robinson, ended in 1948. On March 28,
1948 (Easter Sunday), just six days after his divorce became final,
Cole married singer Maria Hawkins Ellington. While Maria had sung with
Ellington's band, Ellington is no relation to Duke Ellington. They
were married in Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church by Adam Clayton
Powell, Jr. They had five children: daughter Natalie (born 1950);
adopted daughter Carol (the daughter of Maria's sister), (1944-2009),
who died of lung cancer aged 64; adopted son Nat Kelly Cole
(1959-1995), who died of AIDS at 36;[7] and twin girls Casey and
Timolin (born 1961).

In 1948, Cole purchased a house in the all-white Hancock Park
neighborhood of Los Angeles. The property owners association told Cole
they did not want any undesirables moving in. Cole retorted, "Neither
do I. And if I see anybody undesirable coming in here, I'll be the
first to complain." The Ku Klux Klan, still active in Los Angeles well
into the 1950s, responded by placing a burning cross on his front
lawn.

Cole carried on affairs throughout his marriage. By the time he
developed lung cancer, he was estranged from his wife Maria in favor
of actress Gunilla Hutton, best known as Nurse Goodbody of "Hee Haw"
fame. However, he was together with his wife during his illness, and
she stayed with him until his death. In an interview, his wife Maria
expressed no lingering resentment over his affairs. Instead, she
emphasized his musical legacy and the class he exhibited in all other
aspects of his life.

Cole was a heavy smoker of Kool menthol cigarettes. He believed
smoking kept his voice low. (He would, in fact, smoke several
cigarettes in quick succession before a recording for this very
purpose.) He died of lung cancer on February 15, 1965, at St. John's
Hospital in Santa Monica, California. His funeral was held at St.
James Episcopal Church on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. His
remains were interred inside Freedom Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial
Park in Glendale.


[edit] Politics
Cole sang at the 1956 Republican National Convention in the Cow
Palace, San Francisco, California, on August 23, 1956. There, his
"singing of 'That's All There Is To That' was greeted with applause."
[8] He was also present at the Democratic National Convention in 1960
to throw his support behind President John F. Kennedy. Cole was also
among the dozens of entertainers recruited by Frank Sinatra to perform
at the Kennedy Inaugural gala in 1961. Cole frequently consulted with
President Kennedy (and later President Johnson) on civil rights.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 26 07:46:59 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:46:59 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908260646x1a5648ap4d8477a112bca288@mail.gmail.com>

Waistline2 :


 Shane is a racist

^^^^
CB: In my opinion, based on reading Shane's many posts over the years,
his thinking and writing is not racist.


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Wed Aug 26 08:52:39 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:52:39 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <c48.407ec1a4.37c6a637@aol.com>

In a message dated 8/26/2009 9:47:14 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
cb31450 at gmail.com writes:

Shane is a racist

^^^^
CB: In my  opinion, based on reading Shane's many posts over the years,
his thinking and  writing is not racist.


Comment

What you call racist I call  white chauvinist. What I call racist is anyone 
proceeding from a concept or idea  that biological strata and substrata 
exist amongst humanity. Anyone advocating  eugenics is a racist, but not 
necessarily a white chauvinists, although the two  tend to go together . . .but 
not always. 
 
WL. 
 


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Wed Aug 26 09:46:54 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:46:54 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <c51.55fa5e22.37c6b2ee@aol.com>

In a message dated 8/24/2009 10:42:07 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
shmage at pipeline.com writes:

nothing worth remembering


Shane Mage
 
 
Comment
 
You asked the question "what's wrong with eugenics?" . . . not I. You claim 
 that the eugenics movement is a movement for good health and shifted focus 
to  the results of the bio-genetic revolution and the possibility of 
creating better  people. The problem is that you have not studied the issue of 
health - in  general. On a couple of listserv's your ideology was recognized 
for what it is  racism. The purpose of he eugenics movement is extermination 
of the surplus  population under capitalism. This proposition is impossible 
to avoid. 
 
There are deeper dimensions to the American ideology supporting the  
eugenics movement, as this ideology dovetails with anti-Sovietism. In America  
anti-Sovietism is a complex of anti-communism and white chauvinism and theories 
 of biological race. Racism is not the meaning of white chauvinism. Racism 
is an  ideological index; white chauvinism is a material index. White 
chauvinism is the  form of historic privileges splitting the working class 
movement. White  chauvinism has an ideological face but it is a material relations 
of class  stratification. 
 
Advancing and advocating eugenics dovetails with the al that is rotten in  
American history and culture. 
 
The next time you want to know what is wrong with the eugenics movements  
consider its history. 
 
WL. 


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 26 10:22:19 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:22:19 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
In-Reply-To: <c48.407ec1a4.37c6a637@aol.com>
References: <c48.407ec1a4.37c6a637@aol.com>
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908260922g53fc1631r581d2a3b3368304c@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/26/09, Waistline2 at aol.com > cb31450 at gmail.com writes:
>
> Shane is a racist
>
> ^^^^
> CB: In my  opinion, based on reading Shane's many posts over the years,
> his thinking and  writing is not racist.
>
>
> Comment
>
> What you call racist I call  white chauvinist. What I call racist is anyone
> proceeding from a concept or idea  that biological strata and substrata
> exist amongst humanity. Anyone advocating  eugenics is a racist, but not
> necessarily a white chauvinists, although the two  tend to go together . . .but
> not always.
>
> WL.

^^^^^
CB: Shane's posts are not racist/white chauvinist


>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
> Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu
> To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
>


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Wed Aug 26 10:35:39 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:35:39 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <d26.3b0c5ff8.37c6be5b@aol.com>

In a message dated 8/26/2009 12:22:48 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
cb31450 at gmail.com writes:

>> CB: Shane's posts are not racist/white  chauvinist.<<

Comment
 
Why the subterfuge? I wrote nothing about Shane's post. I responded to the  
question: "What's wrong with eugenics." Why not still to the point? 
 
What posts are you referring to? 

The striving to create better  people is racist. The eugenics movement is 
inherent racist. 

WL. 
 


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 26 11:23:11 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:23:11 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908261023i1b7e4bc2j2c88ba434140e44@mail.gmail.com>

Waistline2
cb31450 at gmail.com writes:

>> CB: Shane's posts are not racist/white  chauvinist.<<

Comment

Why the subterfuge ?  I wrote nothing about Shane's post. I responded to the
question: "What's wrong with eugenics." Why not still to the point?

^^^^^
CB: I'm replying to where you say  "Shane is a racist".  All I know of
Shane is his posts to these lists. I don't know what he does aside
from posting to these lists. His posting to these lists, including his
comment on eugenics are not racist or white chauvinist or white
supremicist, in my opinion.   His "what's wrong with eugenics ?"  I
took as half joking, not to advocate in favor of the well known
historically racist eugenics efforts.   Not all historical eugenic
theories were based on a theory of races.

I'd say Trotsky's discussion of eugenics is not racist in the sense of
espousing a theory of human races as the basis for making eugenics
decisions. There is some ignorance of how racist the American history
and situation was in that he looks to the US to lead in eugenics,
fails to understand that US racism would likely mare any eugenics
program here. Although , he does pose it as a Soviet America, which
would mean there had been a world historic defeat of racism in the US
as a premise to a Soviet America.

^^^^

What posts are you referring to?

^^^^^
CB: Shane's posts on this thread and through the years.

^^^^^^^

The striving to create better  people is racist. The eugenics movement is
inherent racist.

WL.

^^^^^
CB:  I can't say that I subscribe to any "old" eugenics theories, but
not all eugenics theories are based on the notion that there are
better and lesser races.

Today there is a potential for genetic engineering.  If there are
forms of genetically based blindness from birth, and there is
discovered a way to prevent that genetically based blindness, to
prevent it would not be racist or a bad thing in general. Some forms
of cancer, heart disease and other pretty much universally recognized
diseased conditions have genetic components to their etiologies.
Nothing wrong with curing these through genetic engineering

The notiion that it is preferable to be sighted than blind does not
entail a notion that the sighted and blind constitute two different
races. Same with cancered or not cancered , or heart diseased or not
heart diseased.


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Wed Aug 26 11:47:23 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:47:23 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <cbf.4358259d.37c6cf2b@aol.com>

In a message dated 8/26/2009 1:23:50 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
cb31450 at gmail.com writes:

>> His "what's wrong with eugenics ?"  I took as half  joking, not to 
advocate in favor of the well known
historically racist  eugenics efforts.   Not all historical eugenics 
theories were based on  a theory of races.<<
 
 
Comment
 
Fair enough. I did not think he was joking. Chalk it up to my bad sense of  
humor. My starting point was the founder of eugenics -  1865. My premise  
was as eugenics has been advocated for in America, rather than say Istanbul.  
What is wrong with eugenics - in the epoch of the bourgeois mode of 
production,  rather than the health movement of say 4,000 years ago, is its concept 
of  "creating better people." 
 
>> I'd say Trotsky's discussion of eugenics is not racist in the  sense of 
espousing a theory of human races as the basis for making eugenics  
decisions.<< 
 
Count my comments on Trotsky's statement in support of eugenics as half  
joking. His vision of a future America, as presented in the letter suggested 
by  a writer, was probably Trotsky half joking also. 
 
I of course do not support or advocate for eugenics. 
 
Do you? 
 
 
WL. 
 
 
 


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 26 13:30:28 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:30:28 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?windows-1252?q?Mitch_Miller=92s_part_in_pop_hi?=
	=?windows-1252?q?story?=
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908261230x1563d701x5b065266a6ca37f@mail.gmail.com>

Mitch Miller?s part in pop history
By Elijah Wald

Published: August 21 2009 14:38 | Last updated: August 21 2009 14:38


Record producer Mitch Miller took Rosemary Clooney?s ?Come On-a My
House? to the top of the pop charts for eight weeks in 1951


In the summer of 1966, Paul McCartney stood with his fellow Beatles on
stage at Tokyo?s Budokan Hall and counted off the opening beats of
?Paperback Writer?. They were starting their final tour and the
harmonies were a bit rough but the filmed performance still has a
loose infectious energy.

That performance is a highlight of The Beatles: Rock Band video game,
due to be released on September 9. But instead of using the actual
Budokan performance, the gamemakers have manipulated the concert
footage to match the studio-recorded version of the song.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/eeca345e-8de1-11de-93df-00144feabdc0.html


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 26 14:35:54 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:35:54 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908261335q1fe40998nc93d0ec575a67f81@mail.gmail.com>

I of course do not support or advocate for eugenics.

Do you?


WL.

^^^^^
CB: I support genetic engineering that would cure genetically based
blindness, cancer, heart disease or other universally recognized
diseases. See below





CB:  I can't say that I subscribe to any "old" eugenics theories, but
not all eugenics theories are based on the notion that there are
better and lesser races.

Today there is a potential for genetic engineering.  If there are
forms of genetically based blindness from birth, and there is
discovered a way to prevent that genetically based blindness, to
prevent it would not be racist or a bad thing in general. Some forms
of cancer, heart disease and other pretty much universally recognized
diseased conditions have genetic components to their etiologies.
Nothing wrong with curing these through genetic engineering

The notiion that it is preferable to be sighted than blind does not
entail a notion that the sighted and blind constitute two different
races. Same with cancered or not cancered , or heart diseased or not
heart diseased.


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Wed Aug 26 18:28:00 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:28:00 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <d3b.4b38848a.37c72d10@aol.com>

I of course do not support or advocate for eugenics.

Do  you?


WL.

^^^^^

CB: I can't say that I subscribe to any  "old" eugenics theories, but
not all eugenics theories are based on the  notion that there are
better and lesser races. 

************ 
What  is eugenics and the eugenics movement according to its founder? For 
instance I  can say what Marxism (scientific socialism) and the Marxist 
movement is to its  founders. Eugenics is not a theory of human development or a 
theory of human  health but rather, an ideology. If eugenics is a theory 
please provide the  information.  

Please provide any information that shows the  historic eugenics movement 
in America has championed individual health, rather  than extermination of 
the surplus population in America. If you asked I will  provide an abundance 
of information about the eugenics movement. Try starting  here: 
http://www.emmerich1.com/EUGENICS.htm (Introduction to Eugenics) 
 

http://hnn.us/articles/1796.html

****************

>>  Today there is a potential for genetic engineering.  . . .Some forms
of  cancer, heart disease and other pretty much universally recognized
diseased  conditions have genetic components to their etiologies.
Nothing wrong with  curing these through genetic engineering <<<

Comment

The  word eugenics does not and has never meant the same as the concept of  
modern "genetic engineering" in respect to the diseased state. If so 
provide the  information. 

What this has to do with the eugenics movement to  exterminate the surplus 
population is beyond me. Present the information where  the eugenics 
movement in America or anywhere else in the bourgeois world has  historically or in 
modern times been concerned with blindness. Genetic  engineering is not the 
meaning of the word eugenics.  

***************

>> The notiion that it is preferable to be  sighted than blind does not
entail a notion that the sighted and blind  constitute two different
races. Same with cancered or not cancered , or heart  diseased or not
heart diseased.<<

Please provide any information  where the American eugenics movement has 
sought to over come blindness, rather  than extermination of the surplus 
population. 

The social movement for  improved health in America and all countries, 
evolved very much separate from  the eugenics movement.  I am deeply interest in 
any source of material of  the eugenics movement in America. 
 
WL.  
 


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 27 09:52:54 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:52:54 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Monthly Review's 60th Anniversary (NYC)
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908270852m1021d97fxfea8f311c3a2233d@mail.gmail.com>

Monthly Review's 60th Anniversary (NYC)

MONTHLY REVIEW, the leading English language publisher
of socialist thought, is celebrating its 60th
anniversary with a gala celebration at 7pm on Thursday,
September 17, at the NY Society for Ethical Culture, 2
West 64th Street, NYC. Suggested donation: $20. Doors
open at 6:30pm; reception to follow. More information
at http://monthlyreview.org/our-60th-anniversary.php

Featured speakers include longtime activist Grace Lee
Boggs, MONTHLY REVIEW editor John Bellamy Foster,
author and media activist Robert W. McChesney,
prominent lawyer and author Michael E. Tigar, Rev.
Jeremiah Wright, and political economist Fred Magdoff.
The acclaimed genre-bending singer and songwriter Toshi
Reagon will also perform.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 27 11:30:30 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:30:30 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] class and classical music
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908271030k6366ed05l2d4b628913c96023@mail.gmail.com>

[lbo-talk] class and classical music
Mike Beggs

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-clip-Alex Ross (author of the great 'The Rest is Noise: Listening to
the 20th Century') has a very nice essay on this:

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/05/more_to_come_6.html

[...]

The twenties saw a huge change in music?s social function. Classical
music had given the middle class aristocratic airs; now popular music
helped the middle class to feel down and dirty. There is American
musical history in one brutally simplistic sentence. I recently
watched a silly 1934 movie entitled ?Murder at the Vanities,? which
seemed to sum up the genre wars of the era. It is set behind the
scenes of a Ziegfeld-style variety show, one of whose numbers features
a performer, dressed vaguely as Franz Liszt, who plays the Second
Hungarian Rhapsody. Duke Ellington and his band keep popping up behind
the scenes, throwing in insolent riffs. Eventually, they drive away
the effete classical musicians and play a takeoff called ?Ebony
Rhapsody?: ?It?s got those licks, it?s got those tricks / That Mr.
Liszt would never recognize.? Liszt comes back with a submachine gun
and mows down the band. The metaphor wasn?t so far off the mark.
Although many in the classical world were fulsome in their praise of
jazz?Ernest Ansermet lobbed the word ?genius? at Sidney Bechet?others
fired verbal machine guns in an effort to slay the upstart. Daniel
Gregory Mason, the man who wanted more throwing of mats, was one of
the worst offenders, calling jazz a ?sick moment in the progress of
the human soul.?


The contempt flowed both ways. The culture of jazz, at least in its
white precincts, was much affected by that inverse snobbery which
endlessly congratulates itself on escaping the ?lite. (The singer in
?Murder at the Vanities? brags of finding a rhythm that Liszt, of all
people, could never comprehend: what a snob.) Classical music became a
foil against which popular musicians could assert their earthy cool.
Composers, in turn, were irritated by the suggestion that they
constituted some sort of moneyed behemoth. They were the ones who were
feeling bulldozed by the power of cash. Such was the complaint made by
Lawrence Gilman, of the Tribune, after Paul Whiteman and his Palais
Royal Orchestra played ?Rhapsody in Blue? at Aeolian Hall. Gilman
didn?t like the ?Rhapsody,? but what really incensed him was
Whiteman?s suggestion that jazz was an underdog fighting against
symphony snobs. ?It is the Palais Royalists who represent the
conservative, reactionary, respectable elements in the music of
today,? Gilman wrote. ?They are the aristocrats, the Top Dogs, of
contemporary music. They are the Shining Ones, the commanders of huge
salaries, the friends of Royalty.? The facts back Gilman up. By the
late twenties, Gershwin was making at least a hundred thousand dollars
a year. In 1938, Copland, the best-regarded composer of American
concert music, had $6.93 in his checking account.


All music becomes classical music in the end. Reading the histories of
other genres, I often get a warm sense of d?j? vu. The story of jazz,
for example, seems to recapitulate classical history at high speed.
First, the youth-rebellion period: Satchmo and the Duke and Bix and
Jelly Roll teach a generation to lose itself in the music. Second, the
era of bourgeois grandeur: the high-class swing band parallels the
Romantic orchestra. Stage 3: artists rebel against the bourgeois
image, echoing the classical modernist revolution, sometimes by direct
citation (Charlie Parker works the opening notes of ?The Rite of
Spring? into ?Salt Peanuts?). Stage 4: free jazz marks the point at
which the vanguard loses touch with the mass and becomes a
self-contained avant-garde. Stage 5: a period of retrenchment. Wynton
Marsalis?s attempt to launch a traditionalist jazz revival parallels
the neo-Romantic music of many late-twentieth-century composers. But
this effort comes too late to restore the art to the popular
mainstream. Jazz recordings sell about the same as classical
recordings, three per cent of the market.


The same progression worms its way through rock and roll. What were my
hyper-educated punk-rock friends but Stage 3 high modernists,
rebelling against the bloated Romanticism of Stage 2 stadium rock?
Right now, there seems to be a lot of Stage 5 classicism going on in
what remains of rock and roll. The Strokes, the Hives, the Vines, the
Stills, the Thrills, and so on hark back to some lost pure moment of
the sixties or seventies. Their names are all variations on the Kinks.
Many of them use old instruments, old amplifiers, old soundboards. One
rocker was recently quoted as saying, ?I intentionally won?t use
something I haven?t heard before.?Macht Neues, kids! So far, hip-hop
has proved resistant to this kind of classicizing cycle, but you never
know. It is just a short step from old school to the Second Viennese
School.

[...]

Cheers, Mike

On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 12:31 PM, Michael Perelman<michael at
ecst.csuchico.edu> wrote:
> On Lou's Marxism list, there was a discussion about class and classical
> music.  This is a section from my Invisible Handcuffs book, which seemed
> relevant.  I am far from an expert on music, so I would appreciate any
> feedback you have:
>
> http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/class-and-classical-music/


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 27 14:57:38 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:57:38 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Change
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908271357v26bded05yd0a4cf64a554bdb6@mail.gmail.com>

PROMISES, PROMISES: Early Katrina praise for Obama
By BEN EVANS and BECKY BOHRER, Associated Press Writers Ben Evans And
Becky Bohrer, Associated Press Writers 1 hr 55 mins ago
WASHINGTON ? As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama pledged to
right the wrongs he said bogged down efforts to rebuild the Gulf Coast
after Hurricane Katrina. Seven months into the job, he's earning high
praise from some unlikely places.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., says Obama's team has brought a more
practical and flexible approach. Many local officials offer similar
reviews. Even Doug O'Dell, former President George W. Bush's recovery
coordinator, says the Obama administration's "new vision" appears to
be turning things around.

Not too long ago, Jindal said in a telephone interview, Louisiana
governors didn't have "very many positive things" to say about the
Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But Jindal said he had a lot of respect for the current FEMA chief,
Craig Fugate, and his team. "There is a sense of momentum and a desire
to get things done," the governor said.

Added O'Dell: "I think the results are self-evident."

The retired Marine general served what he calls a frustrating stint as
Bush's recovery coordinator last year. "What people have said to me is
that for whatever reason, problems that were insurmountable under
previous leadership are getting resolved quickly," O'Dell said.

"And I really hate to say that because (the top FEMA leaders) in my
time there were good, hardworking, earnest men, but they were also the
victims of their own bureaucracy."

It's not that Obama has miraculously mended the Gulf Coast since
Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005. The storm killed more than 1,600
people in Louisiana and Mississippi and caused more than $40 billion
in property damage. Hurricane Rita followed nearly a month later, with
billions of dollars in additional damage and at least 11 more deaths.

On the fourth anniversary of Katrina, many communities remain broken,
littered with boarded-up houses and overgrown vacant lots. Hundreds of
projects ? including critical needs such as sewer lines, fire stations
and a hospital ? are entangled in the bureaucracy or federal-local
disputes over who should pick up the tab.

Like Bush, Obama has critics who say he's not moving aggressively enough.

Chris Kromm, director of the Institute for Southern Studies, an
advocacy group, said the coast is "still waiting for Washington to
show leadership."

In many areas, such as long-term coastal rehabilitation and rebuilding
levees, it's too early to determine whether Obama will live up to the
many promises he made.

But on several fronts, there is evidence of progress.

Victor Ukpolo, chancellor of Southern University at New Orleans, said
the administration has been able to "move mountains" for his school,
virtually wiped out by Katrina and the breached levees.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has visited the campus
twice and awarded $32 million to replace four buildings.

"It's really awesome," Ukpolo said. "There's been so much progress."

Tommy Longo, mayor of Waveland, Miss., said it got so bad toward the
end of Bush's tenure that "you almost couldn't get them to return a
phone call, and you certainly weren't going to get them to make any
big decisions."

"It has been refreshing to be back working with people who are hungry
and want to make a difference," said Longo, a Democrat. "Who knows, a
few years from now, at the end of Obama's term it may be back to the
same ol', same ol', but it is refreshing now."

Obama backed up his pledge to name an experienced FEMA administrator
by appointing Fugate, a career emergency management professional from
Florida. By contrast, Bush's director was Michael Brown, a lawyer who
worked at the International Arabian Horse Association. He resigned
after Katrina.

In half a year, Obama's team says it has cleared at least 75 projects
that were in dispute, including libraries, schools and university
buildings. The administration has embraced a new, independent
arbitration panel for the most stubborn disputes, and assigned senior
advisers to focus on the rebuilding.

The administration recently reversed a FEMA rule that barred
communities from building fire stations and other critical projects in
vulnerable areas. Local officials said the rule could have effectively
killed off some places.

The Bush administration's flat-footed response to Katrina left a
lasting stain on Bush's legacy, and the sluggish pace of the long-term
recovery has drawn continued criticism.

Local officials and civic leaders long have complained about the
changing cast of FEMA representatives who review project worksheets
and demand repeated inspections or additional paperwork. In some
cases, agency workers have subtracted costs that local officials
thought were settled.

Along with battling red tape, community officials say FEMA often
stubbornly refused to pay for work that should have qualified for
federal aid.

Under Bush, FEMA frequently argued that local governments viewed the
storms as a chance to get rundown buildings replaced with federal
dollars. Delays also were blamed on disarray at the local and state
levels, with some projects stalled until local officials could decide
their own priorities or provide documentation to make their case.

Critics countered that some Bush officials seemed more concerned with
preventing fraud than getting people back on their feet.

Jindal and Paul Rainwater, the governor's recovery coordinator who
once stormed out of a meeting with Bush officials in frustration, said
plenty of headaches remain. Overall, Jindal gives the Obama
administration an "incomplete" because there is so much still to do. A
glaring example is the shuttered, 20-story Charity Hospital, which
served New Orleans' poor and uninsured. The state claims it is owed
nearly $500 million to replace it.

Despite high-level pleas, FEMA has denied the claim under both
administrations, saying Charity wasn't properly guarded against
further decay after the storm. The agency has offered $150 million,
the most it says it can do. The Obama administration rejected a
request to replace the hospital using economic stimulus money.

Jindal and Rainwater said the previous administration often wouldn't
recognize new information or acknowledge there were real disputes.
Sometimes, Rainwater said, Bush officials seemed blind to the
devastation around them and said they had to be good stewards of
public money.

"They never recognized the enormity of what we're working through,"
Rainwater said. "We're not just trying to rebuild buildings here but
entire communities."

"That's the difference" under Obama, Rainwater said. "It's the
recognition. ... We're all able to sit down around the table."

___

Bohrer reported from New Orleans.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 28 08:10:01 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:10:01 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Work song
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908280710u2758e392l9464239c7e5eabae@mail.gmail.com>

Work song


A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a specific form
of work, either sung while conducting a task (often to coordinate
timing) or a song linked to a task or trade which might be a connected
narrative, description, or protest song.

Contents
1 Definitions and categories
2 Hunting and pastoral songs
3 Agricultural work songs
4 African American work songs
5 Sea shanties
6 Cowboy songs
7 Industrial folk song
8 See also
9 Notes
10 External links



[edit] Definitions and categories
Records of work songs are roughly as old as historical records, and
anthropological evidence suggests that all agrarian societies tend to
have them.[1] Most modern commentators on work songs have included
both songs sung while working as well as songs about work, since the
two categories are seen as interconnected.[2] Norm Cohen divided
collected work songs into domestic, agricultural or pastoral, sea
shanties, African American (gang) worksongs, songs and chants of
direction, and street cries.[3] Ted Gioia further divided agricultural
and pastorals songs into hunting, cultivation and herding songs, and
highlighted the industrial or proto-industrial songs of: cloth
workers, factory workers, seamen, lumberjacks, cowboys and miners. He
also added prisoner songs and modern work songs.[1]


[edit] Hunting and pastoral songs
In societies without mechanical time keeping, songs of mobilisation,
calling members of a community together for a collective task, were
extremely important.[4] Both hunting and the keeping of livestock
tended to involve small groups or individuals, usually boys and young
men, away from the centres of settlement and with long hours to pass.
As a result it had been noted that tended to produce long narrative
songs, often sung individually, which might dwell on the themes of
pastoral activity or animals, designed to pass the time in the tedium
of work.[4] Hunting songs, like those of the Mbuti of the Congo, often
incorporated distinctive whistles and yodels so that hunters could
identity each others locations and those of their prey.[4]


[edit] Agricultural work songs
Most agricultural work songs are rhythmic a cappella songs sung by
people working on a physical and often repetitive task. The songs were
probably intended to increase productivity while reducing feelings of
boredom.[4] Rhythms of work songs can serve to synchronize physical
movement in a group or gang, as they are in parts of Africa with drums
as accompaniment to coordinate sowing and hoeing.[4] Frequently, the
usage of verses in work songs are often improvised and sung
differently each time. The improvisation provided the singers with a
sometimes subversive form of expression: improvised verses sung by
slaves had verses about escaping; improvised verses sung by sailors
had verses complaining about the captain and the work conditions. Work
songs also help to create a feeling of familiarity and connection
between the workers.


[edit] African American work songs
African American work songs originally developed in the era of
slavery, between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Because
they were part of an almost entirely oral culture they had no fixed
form and only began to be recorded as the era of slavery came to an
end after 1865. The first collection of African American 'slave songs'
was published in 1867 by William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware,
Lucy McKim Garrison.[5] Many had their origins in African song
traditions, and may have been sung to remind the slaves of home, while
others were instituted by the slave masters to raise morale and keep
slaves working in rhythm.[6] They have also been seen as a means of
withstanding hardship and expressing anger and frustration through
creativity or covert verbal opposition.[7]

A common feature of African American songs was the call-and-response
format, where a leader would sing a verse or verses and the others
would respond with a chorus. This came from African traditions of
agricultural work song and found its way into the spirituals that
developed once slaves began to convert to Christianity and from there
to both gospel music and the blues. Also evident were field hollers,
shouts, and moans, which may have been originally designed for
different bands or individuals to locate each other and narrative
songs that used folk tales and folk motifs, often making use of
homemade instruments.[8] In early slavery drums were used to provide
rhythm, but they were banned in later years because of the fear that
black slaves would use them to communicate in a rebellion,
nevertheless slaves managed to generate percussion and percussive
sounds, using other instruments or their own bodies.[9] Perhaps
surprisingly, there are very few examples of work songs linked to
cotton picking.[10]


[edit] Sea shanties
Main article: sea shanty
Work songs sung by sailors between the eighteenth and twentieth
centuries are known as sea shanties. These songs were typically
performed while adjusting the rigging, raising anchor, and other tasks
where men would need to pull in rhythm. These songs usually have a
very punctuated rhythm precisely for this reason, along with a
call-and-answer format. Well before the nineteenth century, sea songs
were common on rowing vessels. Such songs were also very rhythmic in
order to keep the rowers together. Because many cultures used slaves
to row, these songs might also be considered slave songs. These songs
were performed with and without the aid of a drum.


[edit] Cowboy songs
Main article: Western music (North America)
Western music was directly influenced by the folk music traditions of
immigrants in the nineteenth century as they moved west. They
reflecting the realities of the range and ranch houses where the music
originated, played a major part in combating the loneliness and
boredom that characterised cowboy life and western life in
general.[11] Such songs were often accompanied on mobile instruments
of guitars, fiddles, concertina and harmonica.[11] In the nineteenth
century cowboy bands developed and cowboy songs began to be collected
and published from the early twentieth century with books like John
Lomax's Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (1910).[12] As cowboys
were romanticised in the mid-twentieth century they became extremely
popular and played a part in the development of country and western
music.[11]


[edit] Industrial folk song
Main article: Industrial folk song
Industrial folk song emerged in Britain in the eighteenth century, as
workers took the forms of music with which they were familiar,
including ballads and agricultural work songs, and adapted them to
their new experiences and circumstances.[13] Unlike agricultural work
songs, it was often unnecessary to use music to synchronise actions
between workers, as the pace would be increasingly determined by
water, steam, chemical and eventually electric power, and frequently
impossible because of the noise of early industry.[14] As a result,
industrial folk songs tended to be descriptive of work, circumstances,
or political in nature, making them amongst the earliest protest songs
and were sung between work shifts or in leisure hours, rather than
during work. This pattern can be seen in textile production, mining
and eventually steel, shipbuilding, rail working and other industries.
As other nations industrialised their folk song underwent a similar
process of change, as can be seen for example in France, where
Saint-Simon noted the as the rise of 'Chansons Industriale' among
cloth workers in the early nineteenth century, and in the USA where
industrialisation expanded rapidly after the Civil War.[15] A.L. Lloyd
defined the industrial work song as 'the kind of vernacular songs made
by workers themselves directly out of their own experiences,
expressing their own interest and aspirations...'.[13] Lloyd also
pointed to various types of song, including chants of labour, love and
erotic occupational songs and industrial protest songs, which included
narratives of disasters (particularly among miners), laments for
conditions, as well as overtly political strike ballads.[13] He also
noted the existence of songs about heroic and mythical figures of
industrial work, like the coal miners the 'Big Hewer' or 'Big Isaac'
Lewis.[13] This tendency was even more marked in early American
industrial songs, where representative heroes like Casey Jones and
John Henry were eulogised in blues ballads from the nineteenth
century.[16] Industrial folk songs were largely ignored by early folk
song collectors, but gained attention in the second folk revival in
the twentieth century, being noted and recorded by figures such as
George Korson, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie in the USA and A. L.
Lloyd and Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in Britain.[17] The genre
declined in popularity with new forms of music and
de-industrialisation in the twentieth century, but has continued to
influence performers like Billy Bragg and Bruce Springsteen.[18]


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 28 08:11:15 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:11:15 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] John Henry
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908280711r3eac8779qff93e1e0851ded34@mail.gmail.com>

John Henry (folklore)



Statue of John Henry outside the town of Talcott in Summers County,
WVFor other uses, see John Henry.
John Henry is an American folk hero, famous for having raced against a
steam powered hammer and won, only to die in victory with his hammer
in his hand. He has been the subject of numerous songs, stories,
plays, and novels.

Like other "Big Men" such as Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill, John Henry
also served as a mythical representation of a group within the melting
pot of the 19th-century working class. In the most popular version of
the story, Henry is born into the world big and strong weighing 33
pounds. He grows to become the greatest "steel-driver" in the
mid-century push to erect the railroads across the mountains to the
West. When the owner of the railroad buys a steam-powered hammer to do
the work of his mostly black driving crew, to save his job and the
jobs of his men, John Henry challenges the owner to a contest: himself
alone versus the steam hammer. John Henry beats the machine, but
exhausted, collapses and dies.

In modern depictions John Henry is often portrayed as hammering down
rail spikes, but older versions depict him as being born with a hammer
in his hand; driving blasting holes into rock, part of the process of
excavating railroad tunnels and cuttings.

In almost all versions of the story, John Henry is a black man and
serves as a folk hero for all American working-class people,
representing their marginalization during changes entering the modern
age in America. While the character may or may not have been based on
a real person, Henry became an important symbol of the working class.
His story is usually seen as an archetypal illustration of the
futility of fighting the technological progress that was evident in
the 19th century upset of traditional physical labor roles. Some labor
advocates interpret the legend as illustrating that even the most
skilled workers of time-honored practices are marginalized when
companies are more interested in efficiency and production than in
their employees' health and well-being. Although John Henry proved
himself more powerful than the steam-drill, he worked himself to death
and was replaced by the machine anyway. Thus the legend of John Henry
has been a staple of American labor and mythology for well over one
hundred years.

Contents [hide]
1 History
2 In song
3 Animated shorts
4 Media references
5 See also
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links



[edit] History

The sign by the C&O railway lineThe truth about John Henry as the
strongest man alive is obscured by time and myth, but one legend has
it that he was a slave born in Missouri in the 1840s and fought his
famous battle with the steam hammer along the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railway in Talcott, West Virginia. A statue and memorial plaque have
been placed along a highway south of Talcott as it crosses over the
tunnel in which the competition may have taken place.

The railroad historian Roy C. Long found that there were multiple Big
Bend Tunnels along the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Railway. Also, the
C&O employed multiple black men who went by the name "John Henry" at
the time that those tunnels were being built. Though he could not find
any documentary evidence, he believes on the basis of anecdotal
evidence that the contest between man and machine did indeed happen at
the Talcott, West Virginia, site because of the presence of all three
(a man named John Henry, a tunnel named Big Bend, and a steam-powered
drill) at the same time at that place.[1]

The book Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an
American Legend by Scott Reynolds Nelson, an associate professor of
history at the College of William and Mary, argues that John William
Henry, a prisoner in Virginia leased by the warden to work on the C&O
Railway in the 1870s, is the basis for the legendary John Henry.
Nelson points out that a steam drill race at the Big Bend Tunnel would
have been impossible because railroad records do not indicate a steam
drill ever existing there. [2] Instead, he believes the contest took
place at the Lewis Tunnel, between Talcott and Milboro, VA. [3]

Retired chemistry professor and folklorist John Garst has argued that
the contest instead happened at the Coosa Mountain Tunnel or the Oak
Mountain Tunnel of the Columbus and Western Railway (now part of
Norfolk Southern) near Leeds, Alabama on September 20, 1887. Based on
documentation that corresponds with the account of C. C. Spencer, who
claimed in the 1920s to have witnessed the contest, Garst speculates
that John Henry may have been a man named Henry who was born a slave
to P.A.L. Dabney, the father of the chief engineer of that railroad,
in 1850.[4] The city of Leeds is making plans to honor John Henry's
legend with an exhibit in its Bass House historical museum and with a
planned annual festival culminating on the third Saturday of
September.[5][6]

Though no documentary proof has emerged to rule out either theory,
both Talcott and Leeds use their supposed connections with the legend
in promotional and educational literature and events. Every year, on
the weekend after the fourth of July, the town of Talcott hosts a
celebration known as "John Henry Days." The weekend includes many yard
sales, a parade, fireworks, and a rubber ducky race.


[edit] In song
 This section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for
details. (October 2008)
 This article contains too many minor or trivial fictional references.
Mere trivia, or references unimportant to the overall plot of a work
of fiction, should be deleted. See also what Wikipedia is not.

Songs featuring the story of John Henry have been sung by many blues,
folk, and rock musicians, such as: Lead Belly, Take This Hammer, Sonny
Terry & Brownie McGhee, Paul Robeson, Mississippi John Hurt, Woody
Guthrie, Merle Travis, Pete Seeger, Lonnie Donegan, Wookiefoot, Big
Bill Broonzy, Laura Veirs, Josh White, Odetta, Johnny Cash,John
Jackson,Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Doc Watson, Fred McDowell, Pink
Anderson, John Renbourn, John Fahey, Harry Belafonte, Roberta Flack,
Dave Van Ronk, The Gun Club, Little Jimmy Dickens, Bill Wood, John
Jacob Niles, Joe Bonamassa, Tangle Eye, Justin Townes Earle, Drive-By
Truckers and Those Poor Bastards.

Bill Monroe, "The Father of Bluegrass Music" and a main influence in
Americana music, sings "Nine Pound Hammer", which has become a classic
and a favorite in these genres. Matthew Sabatella did a John Henry
song called "This Old Hammer". Several versions have become standards
among bluegrass musicians. Specifically, John Henry Brown is the main
character in the song "Walk on Boy" recorded by both Doc Watson and
the Rice Brothers. Dave Dudley wrote his own variation called "John
Henry". Legendary country singer Johnny Cash wrote and performed "The
Legend Of John Henry's Hammer". This is one of many requested songs he
performed at his concert in Folsom Prison, California in 1968.

Northern Ireland band 'The Helfire Club' referenced the plight of John
Henry in their song "Dead Man's Funk." The Shane Daniel album Yours
Truly contains a song called "The Spirit of John Henry." Daniel said
this song was about the name John Henry not being used in modern
songs. Folk singer-songwriter Tobacco Pat has a song called
"Concerning John Henry's Urn", though the song does not mention John
Henry. The Supremes recorded a song in 1967 entitled "Treat Me Nice
John Henry" which explains a girl's love for John Henry growing and
growing and begging for him to be nice to her. Tom T. Hall performed a
song called "More About John Henry", which explored John Henry's
personal life. During the 1990s, Atlanta based band 'Burnin' Pork
Truck' included "John Henry" in every performance. Most recently,
Bruce Springsteen performs "John Henry" with a folk band on his 2006
album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. It was translated into
Norwegian as "Jon Henry" in 1973 by Odd B?rretzen.[7]

Van Morrison recorded a rock version of the folk song on his 1998
album The Philosopher's Stone. Henry Thomas also recorded a version of
the song. Indie rock/Alt-country group Songs: Ohia released the song
"John Henry Split My Heart" on their 2003 album Magnolia Electric
Co.[8], and fellow alt-country group Drive-By Truckers released the
song "The Day John Henry Died" on their 2004 album The Dirty South.
The Smothers Brothers have also used the "John Henry" song as part of
their folk satire routine. Canadian group "Cuff The Duke" have a hit
song titled "The Ballad of Poor John Henry", while New York art-metal
collective The Book of Knots just released a song titled just "The
Ballad of John Henry" on their new album, 'Traineater.'

American composer Aaron Copland arranged the traditional "John Henry"
for orchestra or chamber orchestra in 1940, a composition that appears
on the soundtrack for the Spike Lee film He Got Game (1998), among
other recordings.

Jerry Lee Lewis recorded the song as well in 1960. "Smokey and the
Bandit's" opening theme says, "You've heard about the legend of Jesse
James, and John Henry just to mention some names." With the lyrics
"...thinking how happy John Henry was that he fell down and died," the
singer-songwriter Gillian Welch makes reference to the folk hero in
"Elvis Presley Blues" from her 2001 album "Time (The Revelator)".
Welch also references the legend in the same album's final track, "I
Dream a Highway". Jeffrey Foucault makes reference to several legends
and folk heros including John Henry in the song "Secretariat" on the
album "Miles From the Lightning".

American Blues Rock virtuoso Joe Bonamassa released an album in 2009
entitled "The Ballad Of John Henry". The title track of the record
sports lyrics like "Who Killed John Henry... In the battle of sinners
and saints" and "Give me the hammer that killed John Henry... 'cause
it won't kill me no more."

Finally, a British folk-punk band, The Cropdusters, from Hampshire,
also recorded a song called "John Henry" in the 1980s. Buck 65 also
makes reference to "the hammer that killed John Henry" in the song
"Rough House Blues." There is also a southern metal band located in
Wichita Falls, Texas called "John Henry vs. The Machine." John
McCutcheon sings about John Henry's partner in the song "Greatest
Story Never Told [1]".

Steve Earle also refers to John Henry in the song "Steve's Hammer (For
Pete)" on his 2007 album "Washington Square Serenade".

MF DOOM references John Henry in the track "Batty Boyz" off his 2009
release "Born Like This" rapping "He work harder than a steam engine
like John Henry, Turn dirt to dollars like Don Henley".


[edit] Animated shorts
Stop-motion animator George Pal made the 7-minute short "John Henry
and the Inky-Poo" in 1946. It was nominated for an Oscar the following
year for best short subject/cartoons.

In 1973, Nick Bosustow with David Adams co-produced an eleven minute
animated short, The Legend of John Henry[9] for Paramount Pictures. It
featured narration by Roberta Flack who also sings a song detailing
the legend of John Henry. It was nominated for an oscar in 1974 for
best short subject animated films.

In 2000, Walt Disney Feature Animation completed a short subject film
based on John Henry, produced at the satellite studio in Orlando,
Florida, directed by Mark Henn, written by Shirley Pierce and produced
by Steven Keller. Keller, Henn and Pierce worked collaboratively with
the Grammy Award winning group "Sounds of Blackness" to create all new
songs for the film. The film also featured the voice talent of actress
Alfre Woodard. "John Henry" created a strong positive response around
the animation community[citation needed], won several film festivals
both domestically and abroad, and was one of seven finalists for the
2001 academy awards in its category. It also stars Tim Hodge, the
future Big Idea Productions associate. However aside from film
festivals, industry screenings and limited theater screenings required
for Academy Award consideration, a slightly cut down version of John
Henry was released only as part of a video compilation entitled
Disney's American Legends in 2001. This became the nation's
top-selling children's video for several weeks upon its release.
Disney Educational Productions has also made the film available as a
stand-alone product for video use in schools. The film is often shown
on the Disney Channel, particularly during Black History Month.


[edit] Media references
 This article contains too many minor or trivial fictional references.
Mere trivia, or references unimportant to the overall plot of a work
of fiction, should be deleted. See also what Wikipedia is not.

Henry is the subject of the 1931 Roark Bradford novel John Henry,
illustrated by noted woodcut artist J. J. Lankes. It was adopted into
a stage musical in 1940, starring Paul Robeson in the title role.
In 1996, the U.S. Post Office issued a John Henry 32 cent postage stamp.
An episode of The Cosby Show features Dr. Cliff Huxtable telling his
son Theo and Theo's college roommate the story of John Henry, and also
about his own college pranks. Later, when wife Clair tells him that
Theo and the roommate have gotten in trouble because they recreated
the prank, Cliff tries to deflect blame by saying, "I also told them
about John Henry. Did the boys try to drive any steel?"
The alternative band They Might Be Giants named their 1994 album John
Henry, referencing the man vs. machine fable and roughly alluding to
the band's switch to more conventional instrumentation, especially the
newly established use of a human drummer instead of a drum
machine.[citation needed]
Colson Whitehead's 2001 novel John Henry Days uses the John Henry myth
as story background.
Mark Knopfler's song "Song for Sonny Liston", from the album
Shangri-La (2004), compares Sonny Liston's left jab to that of Henry's
hammer.
The legend of John Henry was the inspiration for the third version of
the DC Comics superhero Steel -- also known as John Henry Irons.
John Henry is used in the D.C. Comics mini-series New Frontier, set in
the 1950s, as a near folk hero who fights the KKK in Southern America
in a variation of John Henry Irons.
John Henry's visage was used in the 2006 The Transformers: Evolutions
comic-book series Hearts of Steel.
John Henry appeared in an episode of Saul of the Mole Men, where he
was depicted as a steampunk cyborg portrayed by Tom Lister, Jr.
In an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Grim tells
Billy and Irwin the story of John Henry, with John Henry as Irwin, and
Sperg driving the steam hammer. Grim apparently was betting on the
steam engine to win, so he used his scythe to make the machine more
powerful. John Henry was said to have tunneled so fast that he broke
the laws of physics and was sucked into the 8th dimension.
In 2007, an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants parodied the tale of John
Henry, entitled "SpongeBob vs. the Patty Gadget."
John Henry is mentioned in the television series Terminator: The Sarah
Connor Chronicles in the episode "Strange Things Happen at the One Two
Point". The artificial intelligence under development by ZeiraCorp,
based on "The Turk", is also given the name John Henry. The name is
used metaphorically, as John Henry beat the machine itself, but could
not stop progress. In the realm of the Terminator series, "progress"
refers to Judgment Day.
John Henry is referenced in the Cold Case episode "Sabotage".
The folklore is expanded upon with an investigation into John Henry's
death in a 12-page comic strip by Jesse Mesa Toves and Gerimi Burleigh
in the Iconic trade paperback by members of the Comicbook Aritsts
Guild.
John Henry Eden is the acting president of the United States in the
2008 game Fallout 3 by Bethesda Softworks.
The film Gettysburg features a scene in which the 20th Maine regiment
find a runaway slave, a big man who is referred to by character Buster
Kilrain as a John Henry.
The young adult novel The Nine Pound Hammer by John Claude Bemis tells
the story of John Henry's son, Conker (as created by the book's
author), a strong giant who works for a traveling show in the late
19th century American South.[10]

[edit] See also
John Henryism

[edit] References
^ Long, Roy C. (1991). "Big Bend Times". C&O History.
^ Grimes, William. "Taking Swings at a Myth, With John Henry the Man",
New York Times, Books section, October 18, 2006.
^ Downes, Lawrence. "John Henry Days", New York Times, Books section,
April 18, 2008.
^ Garst, John (2002). "Chasing John Henry in Alabama and Mississippi:
A Personal Memoir of Work in Progress". Tributaries: Journal of the
Alabama Folklife Association 5: 92?129.
^ Thornton, William (September 3, 2006). "Leeds' plans for saluting
Henry". Birmingham News.
^ Clowers, Don (September 14, 2006). "John Henry - Leeds connection
doesn't exist". Leeds News.
^ "Odd B?rretzen & Alf Cranner". This is Music From Norway.
http://www.musicfromnorway.com/default.aspx?norwegian=album&music=14640.
^ http://www.magnoliaelectricco.com/archives/82
^ Who's Who in Animated Cartoons by Jeff Lenburg, p.33
^ http://www.johnclaudebemis.com/

[edit] Further reading
Johnson, Guy B. (1929) John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press
Chappell, Louis W. (1933) John Henry; A Folk-Lore Study. Reprinted
1968. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press
Keats, Ezra Jack (1965) John Henry, An American Legend. New York:
Pantheon Books.
Williams, Brett (1983) John Henry: A Bio-Bibliography by Brett
Williams. Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press
Nelson, Scott. (Summer 2005) "Who Was John Henry? Railroad
Construction, Southern Folklore, and the Birth of Rock and Roll."
Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas Vol. 2. No. 2,
pp. 53?79.
Nelson, Scott (2006) Steel Drivin' Man. Oxford University Press. ISBN
978-0195300109
Garst, John (November 27, 2006) "On the Trail of the Real John Henry".
History News Network. (includes rebuttal by Scott Nelson)

[edit] External links
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Henry
John Henry - The Steel Driving Man Includes a page with the updated
abstract of Garst (2002) above.
John Henry, Present at the Creation
John Henry Statue at Heritagepreservation.org
Three Rivers Travel Council - John Henry InformationThe Legend of John Henry


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 28 09:08:57 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:08:57 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908280808s5e7398f3x70d2dd606a54c5b7@mail.gmail.com>

Alberta Eugenics Board

In 1928, the Province of Alberta, Canada, passed legislation that
enabled the government to perform involuntary sterilizations on
individuals classified as mentally deficient. In order to implement
the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta in 1928, a four-person Alberta
Eugenics Board was created. These four individuals were responsible
for approving sterilization procedures. In 1972, the Sexual
Sterilization Act was repealed, and the Eugenics Board dismantled.
During the 43 years of the Eugenics Board, it approved nearly 5,000
individual sterilizations, and 2,832 procedures were actually
performed.

Contents [hide]
1 Historical context
1.1 Like begets like
2 Structure of the Alberta Eugenics Board
2.1 The original four members
3 Proceedings of the Eugenics Board
4 Board controversy
5 The end of the Eugenics Board
6 References


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 28 09:25:37 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:25:37 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908280825g7593541ep6acec0fded02372d@mail.gmail.com>

Racial hygiene

Racial hygiene (often labeled a form of "scientific racism") is the
selection, by a government, of the putatively most physical,
intellectual and moral persons to raise the next generation (selective
breeding) and a close alignment of public health with eugenics.

Racial hygiene was historically tied to traditional notions of public
health, but usually with an enhanced emphasis on heredity. The use of
social measures to attempt to preserve or enhance biological
characteristics was first proposed by Francis Galton in his early
work, starting in 1869, on what would later be called eugenics.

Contents [hide]
1 In Germany
2 After World War II
3 See also
4 Further reading
5 References



[edit] In Germany
It was the German eugenicist Alfred Ploetz who introduced the term
Rassenhygiene in his "Racial hygiene basics" (Grundlinien einer
Rassenhygiene) in 1895. In its earliest incarnation it was concerned
more with the declining birthrate of the German state and the
increasing number of mentally ill and disabled in state institutions
(and their costs to the state) than with the "Jewish question" and
"de-nordification" (Entnordung) which would come to dominate its
philosophy in Germany from the 1920s through the second World War.

One of the confusing aspects of "racial hygiene" is that "race" was
often interchangeably used to mean "human race" as well as "German
race" as well as "Aryan race" ? three quite different concepts with
three quite different implications. In the 1930s, under the expertise
of eugenicist Ernst R?din, it was this latter use of "racial hygiene"
which was embraced by the followers of Nazi ideology, who demanded
"Aryan" racial purity and condemned miscegenation. This belief in
importance of German racial purity often served as the theoretical
backbone of Nazi policies of racial superiority and later genocide.
These policies began in 1935, when the Nazis enacted the Nuremberg
Laws, which legislated "racial purity" by forbidding marriage between
non-Jewish and Jewish Germans.

A key part of Nazism was the concept of racial hygiene and during
their rule the field was elevated to the primary philosophy of the
German medical community, first by activist physicians within the
medical profession, particularly amongst psychiatrists. This was later
codified and institutionalized during and after the Nazis' rise to
power in 1933, during the process of Gleichschaltung (literally,
"coordination" or "unification") which streamlined the medical and
mental hygiene (mental health) profession into a rigid hierarchy with
Nazi-sanctioned leadership at the top.

Racial hygienists played key roles in the Holocaust, the Nazi effort
to purge Europe of Jews, Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals, political
dissidents, the mentally retarded and the insane.


[edit] After World War II
After World War II, such attempts have been widely reviled as cruel
and brutal, and the racialist ideology behind them as un-scientific
and pseudoscience. What the racial hygienists didn't concern
themselves with, was the fact that it is the variety and diversity
within the human genome that accounts for the health and beauty of an
observable human specimen, for it is the practice of inbreeding and
isolation within a racial sect that accounts for at least some of the
physical and mental deformities and retardations that the eugenicists
observed and used as evidence of undesired genetic "flaws" that could
be bred out by only allowing the "pure" Aryan race to procreate.
However, in the days of the most influential eugenicists, little was
known about genetic heredity and DNA, and it relationship to diseases
such as Down Syndrome.


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 28 09:06:48 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:06:48 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908280806o28723829teafc69660a878439@mail.gmail.com>

Please provide any information  where the American eugenics movement has
sought to over come blindness, rather  than extermination of the surplus
population.

The social movement for  improved health in America and all countries,
evolved very much separate from  the eugenics movement.  I am deeply
interest in
any source of material of  the eugenics movement in America.

WL.

^^^^^
CB: It is fine by me to exclude "benevolent" genetic engineering from
the definition of "eugenics" or the eugenics movement in America.  I
just mention it because some people might label such genetic
engineering as a form of eugenics. Sort of full disclosure.


Eugenics

From bogus@does.not.exist.com  Wed Aug 26 11:37:20 2009
From: bogus@does.not.exist.com ()
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:37:20 -0000
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <mailman.8.1251474157.2548.marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>

"Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution": Logo from the
Second International Eugenics Conference, 1921, depicting it as a tree
which unites a variety of different fields.[1]Eugenics is "the study
of, or belief in, the possibility of improving the qualities of the
human species or a human population by such means as discouraging
reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have
inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging
reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits
(positive eugenics)."[2] Prominent in the late 19th century and the
Progressive Era, eugenics became a core tenet of some of the policies
behind Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.

Contents [hide]
1 Overview
2 Meanings and types of eugenics
2.1 Implementing eugenics
3 Leading Eugenicists
4 History
4.1 Pre-Galtonian eugenic philosophies
4.2 Galton's theory
4.3 Britain
4.4 United States
4.5 Australia
4.6 Canada
4.7 Germany
4.8 Japan
4.9 China
4.10 Sweden
4.11 Other countries
4.12 Marginalization after World War II
5 Modern eugenics, genetic engineering, and ethical re-evaluation
5.1 Suggestions and ideas
5.2 Cyprus
5.3 United States
5.4 Israel
5.5 Ethical re-assessment
6 Criticism
6.1 Diseases vs. traits
6.2 Ethics
6.3 Genetic diversity
6.4 Heterozygous recessive traits
7 See also
8 References
9 Sources
10 External links
10.1 Historical resources



[edit] Overview
As a social movement eugenics reached its height of popularity in the
early decades of the 20th century. By the end of World War II eugenics
had been largely abandoned,[3] though current trends in genetics have
raised questions amongst critical academics concerning parallels
between pre-war attitudes about eugenics and current "utilitarian" and
social darwinistic theories[4]. At its pre-war zenith, the movement
often pursued pseudoscientific notions of racial supremacy and
purity.[5]

Eugenics was practiced around the world and was promoted by
governments, and influential individuals and institutions. Its
advocates regarded it as a social philosophy for the improvement of
human hereditary traits through the promotion of higher reproduction
of certain people and traits, and the reduction of reproduction of
certain people and traits.[6]

Today it is widely regarded as a brutal movement which inflicted
massive human rights violations on millions of people.[7] The
"interventions" advocated and practised by eugenicists involved
prominently the identification and classification of individuals and
their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, "promiscuous"
women, homosexuals and entire "racial" groups=E2=80=94=E2=80=94such as the =
Roma and
Jews=E2=80=94=E2=80=94as "degenerate" or "unfit"; the segregation or
institutionalisation of such individuals and groups, their
sterilization, euthanasia, and in the extreme case of Nazi Germany,
their mass extermination.[8]

The practices engaged in by eugenicists involving violations of
privacy, attacks on reputation, violations of the right to life, to
found a family, to freedom from discrimination are all today
classified as violations of human rights. The practice of negative
racial aspects of eugenics, after World War II, fell within the
definition of the new international crime of genocide, set out in the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide.[9]

The modern field and term were first formulated by Sir Francis Galton
in 1883,[10] drawing on the recent work of his half-cousin Charles
Darwin. At its peak of popularity eugenics was supported by prominent
people, including Margaret Sanger,[11][12] Marie Stopes, H. G. Wells,
Woodrow Wilson, Prescott Bush, Theodore Roosevelt, Emile Zola, George
Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg, Winston
Churchill, Linus Pauling[13] and Sidney Webb.[14][15][16] Its most
infamous proponent and practitioner was however Adolf Hitler who
praised and incorporated eugenic ideas in Mein Kampf, and emulated
Eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had
been pioneered in the United States.[17]

G. K. Chesterton was an early critic of the philosophy of eugenics,
expressing this opinion in his book, Eugenics and Other Evils.
Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and
universities, and received funding from many sources.[18] Three
International Eugenics Conferences presented a global venue for
eugenicists with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and 1932 in
New York. Eugenic policies were first implemented in the early 1900s
in the United States.[19] Later, in the 1920s and 30s, the eugenic
policy of sterilizing certain mental patients was implemented in a
variety of other countries, including Belgium,[20] Brazil,[21]
Canada,[22] and Sweden,[23] among others. The scientific reputation of
eugenics started to decline in the 1930s, a time when Ernst R=C3=BCdin used
eugenics as a justification for the racial policies of Nazi Germany,
and when proponents of eugenics among scientists and thinkers prompted
a backlash in the public. Nevertheless, the second largest known
eugenics program, created by social democrats in Sweden, continued
until 1975.[23]

Since the postwar period, both the public and the scientific
communities have associated eugenics with Nazi abuses, such as
enforced racial hygiene, human experimentation, and the extermination
of "undesired" population groups. However, developments in genetic,
genomic, and reproductive technologies at the end of the 20th century
have raised many new questions and concerns about what exactly
constitutes the meaning of eugenics and what its ethical and moral
status is in the modern era.


[edit] Meanings and types of eugenics
The word eugenics derives from the Greek word eu (good or well) and
the suffix -gen=C4=93s (born), and was coined by Sir Francis Galton in
1883, who defined it as "the study of all agencies under human control
which can improve or impair the racial quality of future
generations".[24]

Eugenics has, from the very beginning, meant many different things to
many different people. Historically, the term has referred to
everything from prenatal care for mothers to forced sterilization and
euthanasia. Much debate has taken place in the past, as it does
today=E2=80=94as to what exactly counts as eugenics.[25] Some types of
eugenics deal only with perceived beneficial and/or detrimental
genetic traits. These are sometimes called =E2=80=9Cpseudo-eugenics=E2=80=
=99 by
proponents of strict eugenics.

The term eugenics is often used to refer to movements and social
policies influential during the early twentieth century. In a
historical and broader sense, eugenics can also be a study of
"improving human genetic qualities." It is sometimes broadly applied
to describe any human action whose goal is to improve the gene pool.
Some forms of infanticide in ancient societies, present-day
reprogenetics, preemptive abortions and designer babies have been
(sometimes controversially) referred to as eugenic.

Because of its normative goals and historical association with
scientific racism, as well as the development of the science of
genetics, the western scientific community has mostly disassociated
itself from the term "eugenics", although one can find advocates of
what is now known as liberal eugenics. Despite its ongoing criticism
in the United States, several regions globally practice different
forms of eugenics.

Eugenicists advocate specific policies that (if successful) they
believe will lead to a perceived improvement of the human gene pool.
Since defining what improvements are desired or beneficial is
perceived by many as a cultural choice rather than a matter that can
be determined objectively (e.g., by empirical, scientific inquiry),
eugenics has often been deemed a pseudoscience.[26] The most disputed
aspect of eugenics has been the definition of "improvement" of the
human gene pool, such as what is a beneficial characteristic and what
is a defect. This aspect of eugenics has historically been tainted
with scientific racism.

Early eugenicists were mostly concerned with perceived intelligence
factors that often correlated strongly with social class. Many
eugenicists took inspiration from the selective breeding of animals
(where purebreds are often strived for) as their analogy for improving
human society. The mixing of races (or miscegenation) was usually
considered as something to be avoided in the name of racial purity. At
the time this concept appeared to have some scientific support, and it
remained a contentious issue until the advanced development of
genetics led to a scientific consensus that the division of the human
species into unequal races is unjustifiable.

Eugenics has also been concerned with the elimination of hereditary
diseases such as hemophilia and Huntington's disease. However, there
are several problems with labeling certain factors as genetic defects.
In many cases there is no scientific consensus on what a genetic
defect is. It is often argued that this is more a matter of social or
individual choice. What appears to be a genetic defect in one context
or environment may not be so in another. This can be the case for
genes with a heterozygote advantage, such as sickle cell anemia or
Tay-Sachs disease, which in their heterozygote form may offer an
advantage against, respectively, malaria and tuberculosis. Although
some birth defects are uniformly lethal, disabled persons can succeed
in life. Many of the conditions early eugenicists identified as
inheritable (pellagra is one such example) are currently considered to
be at least partially, if not wholly, attributed to environmental
conditions. Similar concerns have been raised when a prenatal
diagnosis of a congenital disorder leads to abortion (see also
preimplantation genetic diagnosis).

Eugenic policies have been conceptually divided into two categories.
Positive eugenics is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the
genetically advantaged. Possible approaches include financial and
political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, in vitro
fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning.[27] Negative eugenics is
aimed at lowering fertility among the genetically disadvantaged. This
includes abortions, sterilization, and other methods of family
planning.[27] Both positive and negative eugenics can be coercive.
Abortion by "fit" women was illegal in Nazi Germany and in the Soviet
Union during Stalin's reign.

During the 20th century, many countries enacted various eugenics
policies and programs, including: genetic screening, birth control,
promoting differential birth rates, marriage restrictions, segregation
(both racial segregation as well as segregation of the mentally ill
from the rest of the population), compulsory sterilization, forced
abortions or forced pregnancies and genocide. Most of these policies
were later regarded as coercive and/or restrictive, and now few
jurisdictions implement policies that are explicitly labeled as
eugenic or unequivocally eugenic in substance. However, some private
organizations assist people in genetic counseling, and reprogenetics
may be considered as a form of non-state-enforced liberal eugenics.


[edit] Implementing eugenics
There are three main ways by which the methods of eugenics can be
applied.[citation needed] One is mandatory eugenics or authoritarian
eugenics, in which the government mandates a eugenics program.
Policies and/or legislation is often seen as being coercive and
restrictive.

Another is promotional voluntary eugenics, in which eugenics is
voluntarily practiced and promoted to the general population, but not
officially mandated. This is a form of non-state enforced eugenics,
using a liberal or democratic approach, which can mostly be seen in
the 1900s.[28] The third is private eugenics, which is practiced
voluntarily by individuals and groups, but not promoted to the general
population.


[edit] Leading Eugenicists
Charles Davenport, a scientist from the United States stands out as
history's leading eugenicist. He took eugenics from a scientific idea
to a worldwide movement implemented in many countries.[29]. Davenport
obtained funding to establish the Biological Experiment Station at
Cold Spring Harbor in 1904[30] and the Eugenics Records Office in
1910, which provided the scientific basis for later Eugenic
policies.[31] He was eventually to become the first President of the
International Federation of Eugenics Organizations (IFEO) in 1925, an
organization he was instrumental in building.[32].

In 1932 Davenport welcomed Ernst R=C3=BCdin, a prominent Swiss eugenicist
and race scientist, as his successor in the position of President of
the IFEO.[33] R=C3=BCdin worked closely with Alfred Ploetz, his
brother-in-law and co-founder with him of the German Society for the
Racial Hygiene.[34] Other prominent figures in the Eugenics included
Harry Laughlin (United States), Irving Fischer (United States), Eugen
Fischer (Germany), Madison Grant (United States) and Lucien Howe
(United States)[35].


[edit] History

[edit] Pre-Galtonian eugenic philosophies
The basic ideals of eugenics can be found from the beginnings of
humanity. Tribes such as the Fans, aboriginal tribes and ancient
Prussian tribes all carried out policies reminiscent of eugenics.[36]
The philosophy was most famously expounded by Plato, who believed
human reproduction should be monitored and controlled by the state.
However, Plato understood this form of government control would not be
readily accepted, and proposed the truth be concealed from the public
via a fixed lottery. Mates, in Plato=E2=80=99s Republic, would be chosen by=
 a
=E2=80=9Cmarriage number=E2=80=9D in which the quality of the individual wo=
uld be
quantitatively analyzed, and persons of high numbers would be allowed
to procreate with other persons of high numbers. In theory, this would
lead to predictable results and the improvement of the human race.
However, Plato acknowledged the failure of the =E2=80=9Cmarriage number=E2=
=80=9D since
=E2=80=9Cgold soul=E2=80=9D persons could still produce =E2=80=9Cbronze sou=
l=E2=80=9D
children.[citation needed] This might have been one of the earliest
attempts to mathematically analyze genetic inheritance, which was not
perfected until the development of Mendelian genetics and the mapping
of the human genome. Other ancient civilizations, such as Rome,
Athens[37] and Sparta, practiced infanticide through exposure as a
form of phenotypic selection. In Sparta, newborns were inspected by
the city's elders, who decided the fate of the infant. If the child
was deemed incapable of living, it was usually exposed[38] in the
Apothetae near the Taygetus mountain. It was more common for boys than
girls to be killed this way in Sparta.[39] Trials for babies included
bathing them in wine and exposing them to the elements. To Sparta,
this would ensure only the strongest survived and procreated.[40]
Adolf Hitler considered Sparta to be the first "V=C3=B6lkisch State," and
much like Ernst Haeckel before him, praised Sparta due to its
primitive form of eugenics practice of selective infanticide policy
which was applied on deformed children though the Nazis believed the
children were killed outright and not exposed.[41][42][43]

The Twelve Tables of Roman Law, established early in the formation of
the Roman Republic, stated in the fourth table that deformed children
must be put to death. In addition, patriarchs in Roman society were
given the right to "discard" infants at their discretion. This was
often done by drowning undesired newborns in the Tiber River. The
practice of open infanticide in the ancient world did not subside
until the Christianization of the Roman empire.


[edit] Galton's theory

Sir Francis Galton initially developed the ideas of eugenics using
social statistics.Sir Francis Galton systematized these ideas and
practices according to new knowledge about the evolution of man and
animals provided by the theory of his cousin Charles Darwin during the
1860s and 1870s. After reading Darwin's Origin of Species, Galton
built upon Darwin's ideas whereby the mechanisms of natural selection
were potentially thwarted by human civilization. He reasoned that,
since many human societies sought to protect the underprivileged and
weak, those societies were at odds with the natural selection
responsible for extinction of the weakest; and only by changing these
social policies could society be saved from a "reversion towards
mediocrity," a phrase he first coined in statistics and which later
changed to the now common "regression towards the mean."[44]

Galton first sketched out his theory in the 1865 article "Hereditary
Talent and Character," then elaborated further in his 1869 book
Hereditary Genius.[45] He began by studying the way in which human
intellectual, moral, and personality traits tended to run in families.
Galton's basic argument was "genius" and "talent" were hereditary
traits in humans (although neither he nor Darwin yet had a working
model of this type of heredity). He concluded since one could use
artificial selection to exaggerate traits in other animals, one could
expect similar results when applying such models to humans. As he
wrote in the introduction to Hereditary Genius:

I propose to show in this book that a man's natural abilities are
derived by inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the
form and physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently,
as it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by careful
selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses gifted with peculiar
powers of running, or of doing anything else, so it would be quite
practicable to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious
marriages during several consecutive generations.[46]
Galton claimed that the less intelligent were more fertile than the
more intelligent of his time. Galton did not propose any selection
methods; rather, he hoped a solution would be found if social mores
changed in a way that encouraged people to see the importance of
breeding.

Galton first used the word eugenic in his 1883 Inquiries into Human
Faculty and Its Development,[47] a book in which he meant "to touch on
various topics more or less connected with that of the cultivation of
race, or, as we might call it, with 'eugenic' questions." He included
a footnote to the word "eugenic" which read:

That is, with questions bearing on what is termed in Greek, eugenes
namely, good in stock, hereditary endowed with noble qualities. This,
and the allied words, eugeneia, etc., are equally applicable to men,
brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the
science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions
of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes
cognizance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to
give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of
prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would
have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea; it is
at least a neater word and a more generalized one than viticulture
which I once ventured to use.[48]
In 1904 he clarified his definition of eugenics as "the science which
deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race;
also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage."[49]

Galton's formulation of eugenics was based on a strong statistical
approach, influenced heavily by Adolphe Quetelet's "social physics".
Unlike Quetelet, however, Galton did not exalt the "average man" but
decried him as mediocre. Galton and his statistical heir Karl Pearson
developed what was called the biometrical approach to eugenics, which
developed new and complex statistical models (later exported to wholly
different fields) to describe the heredity of traits. However, with
the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's hereditary laws, two separate camps
of eugenics advocates emerged. One was made up of statisticians, the
other of biologists. Statisticians thought the biologists had
exceptionally crude mathematical models, while biologists thought the
statisticians knew little about biology.[50]

Eugenics eventually referred to human selective reproduction with an
intent to create children with desirable traits, generally through the
approach of influencing differential birth rates. These policies were
mostly divided into two categories: positive eugenics, the increased
reproduction of those seen to have advantageous hereditary traits; and
negative eugenics, the discouragement of reproduction by those with
hereditary traits perceived as poor. Negative eugenic policies in the
past have ranged from attempts at segregation to sterilization and
even genocide. Positive eugenic policies have typically taken the form
of awards or bonuses for "fit" parents who have another child.
Relatively innocuous practices like marriage counseling had early
links with eugenic ideology.

Eugenics is superficially related to what would later be known as
Social Darwinism. While both claimed intelligence was hereditary,
eugenics asserted new policies were needed to actively change the
status quo towards a more "eugenic" state, while the Social Darwinists
argued society itself would naturally "check" the problem of
"dysgenics" if no welfare policies were in place (for example, the
poor might reproduce more but would have higher mortality rates).[51]


[edit] Britain

Galton's view of the British class structure was the basis and
emphasis of the eugenics movement in Britain.In Britain, eugenics
never received significant state funding, but it was supported by many
prominent figures of different political persuasions before World War
I, including: Liberal economists William Beveridge and John Maynard
Keynes; Fabian socialists such as Irish author George Bernard Shaw, H.
G. Wells and Sidney Webb; the future Prime Minister Winston Churchill;
and Conservatives such as Arthur Balfour.[16] Furthermore, its
emphasis was more upon class, rather than race.[52] Indeed, Galton
expressed these views during a lecture in 1901 in which he placed the
British society into groups. These groupings are shown in the figure
and indicate the proportion of society falling into each group and
their perceived genetic worth. Galton suggested that negative eugenics
(i.e. an attempt to prevent them from bearing offspring) should be
applied only to those in the lowest social group (the "Undesirables"),
while positive eugenics applied to the higher classes. However, he
appreciated the worth of the higher working classes to society and
industry.

Sterilisation programmes were never legalised, although some were
carried out in private upon the mentally ill by clinicians who were in
favour of a more widespread eugenics plan.[52] (Sterilization had, in
fact, been carried out to prevent masturbation in mentally ill
patients since the 1820s, long before the eugenics movement.) Indeed,
those in support of eugenics shifted their lobbying of Parliament from
enforced to voluntary sterilization, in the hope of achieving more
legal recognition.[52] But leave for the Labour Party Member of
Parliament Major A. G. Church, to propose a Private Member's Bill in
1931, which would legalise the operation for voluntary sterilization,
was rejected by 167 votes to 89.[53]

The limited popularity of eugenics in Britain was reflected by the
fact that only two universities established courses in this field
(University College London and Liverpool University). The Galton
Institute, affiliated to UCL, was headed by Galton's prot=C3=A9g=C3=A9, Kar=
l
Pearson.


[edit] United States
One of the earliest modern advocates of eugenics (before it was
labeled as such) was Alexander Graham Bell. In 1881 Bell investigated
the rate of deafness on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. From this he
concluded that deafness was hereditary in nature and, through noting
that congenitally deaf parents were more likely to produce deaf
children, tentatively suggested that couples where both were deaf
should not marry, in his lecture Memoir upon the formation of a deaf
variety of the human race presented to the National Academy of
Sciences on 13 November 1883.[54] However, it was his hobby of
livestock breeding which led to his appointment to biologist David
Starr Jordan's Committee on Eugenics, under the auspices of the
American Breeders Association. The committee unequivocally extended
the principle to man.[55]

Beginning with Connecticut in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws
with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic, imbecile
or feeble-minded" from marrying. In 1898 Charles B. Davenport, a
prominent American biologist, began as director of a biological
research station based in Cold Spring Harbor where he experimented
with evolution in plants and animals. In 1904 Davenport received funds
from the Carnegie Institution to found the Station for Experimental
Evolution. The Eugenics Record Office opened in 1910 while Davenport
and Harry H. Laughlin began to promote eugenics.[56]

Eugenics was supported by Woodrow Wilson, and, in 1907, helped to make
Indiana the first of more than thirty states to adopt legislation
aimed at compulsory sterilization of certain individuals.[57] Although
the law was overturned by the Indiana Supreme Court in 1921,[58] the
U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a Virginia law
allowing for the compulsory sterilization of patients of state mental
institutions in 1927.[59]

During the 20th century, researchers became interested in the idea
that mental illness could run in families and conducted a number of
studies to document the heritability of such illnesses as
schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. Their findings were
used by the eugenics movement as proof for its cause. State laws were
written in the late 1800s and early 1900s to prohibit marriage and
force sterilization of the mentally ill in order to prevent the
"passing on" of mental illness to the next generation. These laws were
upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927 and were not abolished until
the mid-20th century. All in all, 60,000 Americans were
sterilized.[60]

In years to come, the ERO collected a mass of family pedigrees and
concluded that those who were unfit came from economically and
socially poor backgrounds. Eugenicists such as Davenport, the
psychologist Henry H. Goddard and the conservationist Madison Grant
(all well respected in their time) began to lobby for various
solutions to the problem of the "unfit". (Davenport favored
immigration restriction and sterilization as primary methods; Goddard
favored segregation in his The Kallikak Family; Grant favored all of
the above and more, even entertaining the idea of extermination.)[61]
Though their methodology and research methods are now understood as
highly flawed, at the time this was seen as legitimate scientific
research.[62] It did, however, have scientific detractors (notably,
Thomas Hunt Morgan, one of the few Mendelians to explicitly criticize
eugenics), though most of these focused more on what they considered
the crude methodology of eugenicists, and the characterization of
almost every human characteristic as being hereditary, rather than the
idea of eugenics itself.[63]

Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the 20th century. The
U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the state
of Virginia could sterilize those it thought unfit. The most
significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963,
when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic
legislation in the United States.[64] A favorable report on the
results of sterilization in California, the state with the most
sterilizations by far, was published in book form by the biologist
Paul Popenoe and was widely cited by the Nazi government as evidence
that wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane.
When Nazi administrators went on trial for war crimes in Nuremberg
after World War II, they justified the mass sterilizations (over
450,000 in less than a decade) by citing the United States as their
inspiration.[60] American eugenicists inspired and supported Hitler's
racial purification laws, and failed to understand the connection
between those policies and the eventual genocide of the Holocaust.[65]


A pedigree chart from The Kallikak Family meant to show how one
illicit tryst could lead to an entire generation of imbeciles.The idea
of "genius" and "talent" is also considered by William Graham Sumner,
a founder of the American Sociological Society (now called the
American Sociological Association). He maintained that if the
government did not meddle with the social policy of laissez-faire, a
class of genius would rise to the top of the system of social
stratification, followed by a class of talent. Most of the rest of
society would fit into the class of mediocrity. Those who were
considered to be defective (mentally retarded, handicapped, etc.) had
a negative effect on social progress by draining off necessary
resources. They should be left on their own to sink or swim. But those
in the class of delinquent (criminals, deviants, etc.) should be
eliminated from society ("Folkways", 1907).

However, methods of eugenics were applied to reformulate more
restrictive definitions of white racial purity in existing state laws
banning interracial marriage: the so-called anti-miscegenation laws.
The most famous example of the influence of eugenics and its emphasis
on strict racial segregation on such "anti-miscegenation" legislation
was Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924. The U.S. Supreme Court
overturned this law in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia, and declared
anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.

With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, eugenicists for the
first time played an important role in the Congressional debate as
expert advisers on the threat of "inferior stock" from eastern and
southern Europe.[66] This reduced the number of immigrants from abroad
to 15 percent from previous years, to control the number of
"unfit"[citation needed] individuals entering the country. While
eugenicists did support the act, the most important backers were union
leaders like Samuel Gompers[67]. The new act, inspired by the eugenic
belief in the racial superiority of "old stock" white Americans as
members of the "Nordic race" (a form of white supremacy), strengthened
the position of existing laws prohibiting race- mixing.[68] Eugenic
considerations also lay behind the adoption of incest laws in much of
the U.S. and were used to justify many anti-miscegenation laws.[69]


Anthropometry demonstrated in an exhibit from a 1921 eugenics
conference.Stephen Jay Gould asserted that restrictions on immigration
passed in the United States during the 1920s (and overhauled in 1965
with the Immigration and Nationality Act) were motivated by the goals
of eugenics. During the early 20th century, the United States and
Canada began to receive far higher numbers of Southern and Eastern
European immigrants. Influential eugenicists like Lothrop Stoddard and
Harry Laughlin (who was appointed as an expert witness for the House
Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1920) presented
arguments they would pollute the national gene pool if their numbers
went unrestricted.[citation needed] It has been argued that this
stirred both Canada and the United States into passing laws creating a
hierarchy of nationalities, rating them from the most desirable
Anglo-Saxon and Nordic peoples to the Chinese and Japanese immigrants,
who were almost completely banned from entering the country.[70]
However, several people, in particular Franz Samelson, Mark Snyderman
and Richard Herrnstein, have argued, based on their examination of the
records of the congressional debates over immigration policy, Congress
gave virtually no consideration to these factors. According to these
authors, the restrictions were motivated primarily by a desire to
maintain the country's cultural integrity against a heavy influx of
foreigners.[71]

In the USA, eugenic supporters included Theodore Roosevelt[citation
needed] , pre-1960's Democratic Party[citation needed], the National
Academy of Sciences[citation needed], the American Medical
Association[citation needed] and the National Research
Council[citation needed]. Research was funded by distinguished
philanthropies and carried out at prestigious universities.[citation
needed] It was taught in college and high school classrooms.[citation
needed] Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood of America to urge
the legalization of contraception for the lower classes.[citation
needed] In its time eugenics was touted by some as scientific and
progressive[citation needed], the natural application of knowledge
about breeding to the arena of human life. Before the realization of
death camps in World War II, the idea that eugenics would lead to
genocide was not taken seriously by the average American.

The Negro Project conspiracy theory is an alleged eugenics program.
The project, according to proponents of the theory, was originated by
Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and supposedly aims to
reduce or eliminate the black population through use of abortion.[72]

United States President Richard Nixon believed abortion was necessary
as a form of eugenics to prevent interracial breeding, particularly
between "a black and a white".[73]

Although the U.S. state of Oregon didn't repeal its forced
sterilization law until 1983, the last known forced sterilization
there was performed in 1978. [74]


[edit] Australia
The policy of removing Aboriginal children from their parents emerged
from an opinion based on Eugenics theory in late nineteenth and early
twentieth-century Australia that the 'full-blood' tribal Aborigine
would be unable to sustain itself, and was doomed to inevitable
extinction, as at the time huge numbers of aborigines were in fact
dying out, from diseases caught from European settlers.[75] An
ideology at the time held that mankind could be divided into a
civilizational hierarchy. This notion supposed that Northern Europeans
were superior in civilization and that Aborigines were inferior.
According to this view, the increasing numbers of mixed-descent
children in Australia, labeled as 'half-castes' (or alternatively
'crossbreeds', 'quadroons' and 'octoroons'). In the first half of the
twentieth century, this led to policies and legislation that resulted
in the removal of children from their tribe.[76] The stated aim was to
culturally assimilate mixed-descent people into contemporary
Australian society. In all states and territories legislation was
passed in the early years of the twentieth century which gave
Aboriginal protectors guardianship rights over Aborigines up to the
age of sixteen or twenty-one. Policemen or other agents of the state
(such as Aboriginal Protection Officers), were given the power to
locate and transfer babies and children of mixed descent, from their
communities into institutions. In these Australian states and
territories, half-caste institutions (both government or missionary)
were established in the early decades of the twentieth-century for the
reception of these separated children.[77][78] The 2002 movie
Rabbit-Proof Fence portrays this system and the harrowing consequences
of attempting to overcome it.

In 1922 A.O. Neville was appointed the second Western Australia State
Chief Protector of Aborigines. During the next quarter-century, he
presided over the now notorious 'Assimilation' policy of removing
mixed-race Aboriginal children from their parents. This policy in turn
created the Stolen Generations and set in motion a grieving process
that has become known as the[who?] concept of trans-generational
grief,[citation needed] and would affect many generations to come.
Albert Namatjira, Ernie Dingo, Lionel Rose, Cathy Freeman, Nova
Peris-Kneebone, Michael Long, Gavin Wanganeen, and many other
successful Australian Aboriginals, were all products of the "Stolen
Generation".[citation needed] In 1936 Neville became the Commissioner
for Native Affairs, a post he held until his retirement in 1940.

Neville believed that biological absorption was the key to 'uplifting
the Native race.' Speaking before the Moseley Royal Commission, which
investigated the administration of Aboriginals in 1934, he defended
the policies of forced settlement, removing children from parents,
surveillance, discipline and punishment, arguing that "they have to be
protected against themselves whether they like it or not. They cannot
remain as they are. The sore spot requires the application of the
surgeon's knife for the good of the patient, and probably against the
patients will."

In his twilight years Neville continued to actively promote his
policy. Towards the end of his career, Neville published Australia's
Coloured Minority, a text outlining his plan for the biological
absorption of aboriginal people into white Australia.[79][80]


[edit] Canada
In Canada, the eugenics movement took place early in the 20th century,
particularly in Alberta, and was quite popular. The Sexual
Sterilization Act of Alberta was enacted in 1928, focusing the
movement on the sterilization of mentally deficient individuals, as
determined by the Alberta Eugenics Board. The campaign to enforce this
action was backed by groups such as the United Farm Women's Group,
including key member Emily Murphy.[81]

Individuals were assessed using IQ tests like the Stanford-Binet. This
posed a problem to new immigrants arriving in Canada, as many had not
mastered the English language, and often their scores denoted them as
having impaired intellectual functioning. As a result, many of those
sterilized under the Sexual Sterilization Act were immigrants who were
unfairly categorized.[82]

The popularity of the eugenics movement peaked during the Depression.
Individuals sought an explanation for the financial problems of the
nation, and the notion of defective breeding became a scapegoat;
citizens blamed individuals considered to be subhuman. The end of the
Canadian eugenics movement was brought about when the Sexual
Sterilization Act was repealed in 1972.[citation needed]


[edit] Germany
Main article: Nazi eugenics

Nazi propaganda for their compulsory "euthanasia" program: "This
person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000
Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money,
too."
"We do not stand alone": Nazi poster from 1936 with flags of other
countries with, or considering introducing, compulsory sterilization
legislation.Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler was infamous for eugenics
programs which attempted to maintain a "pure" German race through a
series of programs that ran under the banner of racial hygiene. Among
other activities, the Nazis performed extensive experimentation on
live human beings to test their genetic theories, ranging from simple
measurement of physical characteristics to the experiments carried out
by Josef Mengele for Otmar von Verschuer on twins in the concentration
camps. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazi regime forcibly sterilized
hundreds of thousands of people whom they viewed as mentally and
physically unfit, an estimated 400,000 between 1934 and 1937. The
scale of the Nazi program prompted one American eugenics advocate to
seek an expansion of their program, with one complaining that "the
Germans are beating us at our own game".[83] The Nazis went further,
however, killing tens of thousands of the institutionalized disabled
through compulsory "euthanasia" programs such as Aktion T4.[84]

They also implemented a number of positive eugenics policies, giving
awards to Aryan women who had large numbers of children and encouraged
a service in which "racially pure" single women could deliver
illegitimate children. Allegations that such women were also
impregnated by SS officers in the Lebensborn were not proven at the
Nuremberg trials, but new evidence (and the testimony of Lebensborn
children) has established more details about Lebensborn practices.[85]
Also, "racially valuable" children from occupied countries were
forcibly removed from their parents and adopted by German people. Many
of their concerns for eugenics and racial hygiene were also explicitly
present in their systematic killing of millions of "undesirable"
people including Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses and
homosexuals during the Holocaust (much of the killing equipment and
methods employed in the death camps were first developed in the
euthanasia program). The scope and coercion involved in the German
eugenics programs along with a strong use of the rhetoric of eugenics
and so-called "racial science" throughout the regime created an
indelible cultural association between eugenics and the Third Reich in
the postwar years.[86]

Two scholars, John Glad and Seymour W. Itzkoff of Smith College, have
questioned the relation between eugenics and the Holocaust. They argue
that, contrary to popular beliefs Hitler did not regard the Jews as
intellectually inferior and did not send them to the concentration
camps on these grounds. They argue that Hitler had different reasons
for his genocidal policies toward the Jews.[87] Seymour W. Itzkoff
writes that the Holocaust was "a vast dysgenic program to rid Europe
of highly intelligent challengers to the existing Christian domination
by a numerically and politically minuscule minority". Therefore,
according to Itzkoff, "the Holocaust was the very antithesis of
eugenic practice."[88] However, this proposition is not supported by
most researchers. Hitler did regard Jews as being intelligent, but
also considered them inferior in all other ways - morally,
spiritually, artistically and physically. In his view, their
intelligence enabled them to thrive, but only by undermining and
perverting the civilisation of other races. The extensive Nazi
propaganda comparing Jews to plagues of rats demonstrates that the
Holocaust was indeed a eugenics program in its conception.[original
research?]


[edit] Japan
Main article: Eugenics in Showa Japan
In the early part of the Sh=C5=8Dwa era, Japanese governments executed a
eugenic policy to limit the birth of children with "inferior" traits,
as well as aiming to protect the life and health of mothers.[89]

The Race Eugenic Protection Law was submitted from 1934 to 1938 to the
Diet. After four amendments, this draft was promulgated as the
National Eugenic Law in 1940 by the Konoe government.[90] According to
the Eugenic Protection Law (1948), sterilization could be enforced on
criminals "with genetic predisposition to commit crime", patients with
genetic diseases such as total color-blindness, hemophilia, albinism
and ichthyosis, and mental affections such as schizophrenia,
manic-depressiveness and epilepsy.[91] Mental illnesses were added in
1952.

The Leprosy Prevention laws of 1907, 1931 and 1953, the last one only
repealed in 1996, permitted the segregation of patients in sanitarium
where forced abortions and sterilization were common, even if the laws
did not refer to it, and authorized punishmement of patients
"disturbing peace" as most Japanese leprologists believed that the
body constitution vulnerable to the disease was inheritable.[92] There
were a few Japanese leprologists such as Noburo Ogasawara who argued
against the "isolation-sterilization policy" but he was denounced as a
traitor to the nation at 15th conference of the Japanese Association
of Leprology in 1941.[93]

Center staff also attempted to discourage marriage between Japanese
women and Korean men who had been recruited from the peninsula as
laborers following its annexation by Japan in 1910. In 1942, a survey
report argued that "the Korean laborers brought to Japan, where they
have established permanent residency, are of the lower classes and
therefore of inferior constitution...By fathering children with
Japanese women, these men could lower the caliber of the Yamato
minzoku."[94]

One of the last eugenic measure of the Sh=C5=8Dwa regime was taken by the
Higashikuni government. On 19 August 1945, the Home Ministry ordered
local government offices to establish a prostitution service for
allied soldiers to preserve the "purity" of the "Japanese race". The
official declaration stated that : "Through the sacrifice of thousands
of "Okichis" of the Sh=C5=8Dwa era, we shall construct a dike to hold back
the mad frenzy of the occupation troops and cultivate and preserve the
purity of our race long into the future..."[95]


[edit] China
Eugenics was one of many ideas and programs debated in the 1920s and
1930s in China, as a means of improving society and raising China's
stature in the world. The principal Chinese proponent of eugenics was
the prominent sociologist Pan Guangdan, and a significant number of
intellectuals entered into the debate, including Gao Xisheng,
biologist Zhou Jianren, sociologist Chen Da, and Chen Jianshan, and
many others.[96][97]

Chen Da is notable for the link he provides to the family planning
policy and One Child Policy enacted in China after the establishment
of the People's Republic of China.


[edit] Sweden
See also: Homo Sapiens 1900 and Herman Lundborg
In Sweden, the "Sterilization Act of 1934" provided for the voluntary
sterilization of some mental patients. The law was passed while the
Swedish Social Democratic Party was in power, though it was also
supported by all other political parties in Parliament at the time, as
well as the Lutheran Church and much of the medical profession.[98]

From bogus@does.not.exist.com  Wed Aug 26 11:37:20 2009
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Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:37:20 -0000
Subject: No subject
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people, with Herman Lundborg in the lead of the project.[99] Sweden
sterilized more people than any other European state except Nazi
Germany.[100] More people were sterilized in 1948 than any other year.

Sweden's large-scale eugenics program targeted the deviant and the
mentally ill. Most sterilizations were voluntary[citation needed]
(though voluntary does not necessarily mean free from persuasion or
exhortation), but nine per cent of the sterilized were more or less
forced to do so[citation needed]. As was the case in other programs,
ethnicity and race were believed to be connected to mental and
physical health. Still, a comprehensive critical investigation
appointed by the government showed there is no evidence the Swedish
sterilization programme targeted ethnic minorities.[101]

There is proof that the program targeted women. The goal of the
program was to decrease deviant offspring. If one member of a family
was considered deviant the whole family became the target of an
investigation. It was perceived to be easier to persuade a woman to be
sterilized than it was to persuade a man. For this reason women were
more often sterilized than men, despite the fact that the medical
procedure involved in the sterilization was simpler to carry out on a
man.[102]

Even as far as 1996, social democrats rejected paying compensation to
victims, which was criticized by some former members of the
party.[100] In 1999 the Swedish government began paying compensation
to the victims and their families, but only 21,000 USD and only to
those who had "not consented" and who applied for the
compensation.[23]


[edit] Other countries
Almost all non-Catholic[citation needed] Western nations adopted some
eugenic legislations. In July 1933 Germany passed a law allowing for
the involuntary sterilization of "hereditary and incurable drunkards,
sexual criminals, lunatics, and those suffering from an incurable
disease which would be passed on to their offspring."[103] Two
provinces in Canada carried out thousands of compulsory
sterilizations, and these lasted into the 1970s. Many First Nations
(native Canadians) were targeted, as well as immigrants from Eastern
Europe, as the program identified racial and ethnic minorities to be
genetically inferior[citation needed]. Besides the large-scale program
in the United States, other nations included Australia, Norway,
France, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, and Switzerland with
programs to sterilize people the government declared to be mentally
deficient. Singapore practiced a limited form of eugenics that
involved discouraging marriage between university graduates and the
rest through segregation in matchmaking agencies, in the hope that the
former would produce better children, although this point is
contestable.[104] Most notably its government introduced the "Graduate
Mother Scheme" in the early 1980s to entice graduate women with
incentives to get married, which was eventually scrapped due to public
criticism and the implications it had on meritocracy.[105]


[edit] Marginalization after World War II

In the decades after World War II, eugenics became increasingly
unpopular within academic science. Many organizations and journals
that had their origins in the eugenics movement began to distance
themselves from the philosophy, such as when Eugenics Quarterly became
Social Biology in 1969.After the experience of Nazi Germany, many
ideas about "racial hygiene" and "unfit" members of society were
publicly renounced by politicians and members of the scientific
community. The Nuremberg Trials against former Nazi leaders revealed
to the world many of the regime's genocidal practices and resulted in
formalized policies of medical ethics and the 1950 UNESCO statement on
race. Many scientific societies released their own similar "race
statements" over the years, and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, developed in response to abuses during the Second World War,
was adopted by the United Nations in 1948 and affirmed, "Men and women
of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or
religion, have the right to marry and to found a family."[106] In
continuation, the 1978 UNESCO declaration on race and racial prejudice
states that the fundamental equality of all human beings is the ideal
toward which ethics and science should converge.[107]

In reaction to Nazi abuses, eugenics became almost universally reviled
in many of the nations where it had once been popular (however, some
eugenics programs, including sterilization, continued quietly for
decades). Many pre-war eugenicists engaged in what they later labeled
"crypto-eugenics", purposefully taking their eugenic beliefs
"underground" and becoming respected anthropologists, biologists and
geneticists in the postwar world (including Robert Yerkes in the U.S.
and Otmar von Verschuer in Germany). Californian eugenicist Paul
Popenoe founded marriage counseling during the 1950s, a career change
which grew from his eugenic interests in promoting "healthy marriages"
between "fit" couples.[108]

The American Life League, an opponent of abortion, charges that
eugenics was merely "re-packaged" after the war, and promoted anew in
the guise of the population-control and environmentalism movements.
They claim, for example, that Planned Parenthood was funded and
cultivated by the Eugenics Society for these reasons. Julian Huxley,
the first Director-General of UNESCO and a founder of the World
Wildlife Fund was also a Eugenics Society president and a strong
supporter of eugenics[109]

[E]ven though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be
for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be
important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with
the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues
at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become
thinkable. --Julian Huxley[110]

High school and college textbooks from the 1920s through the '40s
often had chapters touting the scientific progress to be had from
applying eugenic principles to the population. Many early scientific
journals devoted to heredity in general were run by eugenicists and
featured eugenics articles alongside studies of heredity in nonhuman
organisms. After eugenics fell out of scientific favor, most
references to eugenics were removed from textbooks and subsequent
editions of relevant journals. Even the names of some journals changed
to reflect new attitudes. For example, Eugenics Quarterly became
Social Biology in 1969 (the journal still exists today, though it
looks little like its predecessor). Notable members of the American
Eugenics Society (1922=E2=80=9394) during the second half of the 20th centu=
ry
included Joseph Fletcher, originator of Situational ethics; Dr.
Clarence Gamble of the Procter & Gamble fortune; and Garrett Hardin, a
population control advocate and author of the essay The Tragedy of the
Commons.

In the United States, the eugenics movement had largely lost most
popular and political support by the end of the 1930s while forced
sterilizations mostly ended in the 1960s with the last performed in
1981.[111] Many US states continued to prohibit biracial marriages
with "anti-miscegenation laws" such as Virginia's The Racial Integrity
Act of 1924, until they were over-ruled by the Supreme Court in 1967
in Loving v. Virginia.[112] The Immigration Restriction Act of 1924,
which was designed to limit the immigration of "dysgenic" Italians,
and eastern European Jews, was repealed and replaced by the
Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965.[113]

However, some prominent academics continued to support eugenics after
the war. In 1963 the Ciba Foundation convened a conference in London
under the title =E2=80=9CMan and His Future,=E2=80=9D at which three distin=
guished
biologists and Nobel laureates (Hermann Muller, Joshua Lederberg, and
Francis Crick) all spoke strongly in favor of eugenics.[114]

A few nations, notably Sweden and the Canadian province of Alberta,
maintained large-scale eugenics programs, including forced
sterilization of mentally handicapped individuals, as well as other
practices, until the 1970s.[115]


[edit] Modern eugenics, genetic engineering, and ethical re-evaluation
Beginning in the 1980s, the history and concept of eugenics were
widely discussed as knowledge about genetics advanced significantly.
Endeavors such as the Human Genome Project made the effective
modification of the human species seem possible again (as did Darwin's
initial theory of evolution in the 1860s, along with the rediscovery
of Mendel's laws in the early 20th century). The difference at the
beginning of the 21st century was the guarded attitude towards
eugenics, which had become a watchword to be feared rather than
embraced.[citation needed]


[edit] Suggestions and ideas
A few scientific researchers such as psychologist Richard Lynn,
psychologist Raymond Cattell, and scientist Gregory Stock have openly
called for eugenic policies using modern technology, but they
represent a minority opinion in current scientific and cultural
circles.[116] One attempted implementation of a form of eugenics was a
"genius sperm bank" (1980=E2=80=9399) created by Robert Klark Graham, from
which nearly 230 children were conceived (the best known donors were
Nobel Prize winners William Shockley and J.D.Watson). In the U.S. and
Europe, though, these attempts have frequently been criticized as in
the same spirit of classist and racist forms of eugenics of the 1930s.
Because of its association with compulsory sterilization and the
racial ideals of the Nazi Party, the word eugenics is rarely used by
the advocates of such programs.

Eugenicists have argued that immigration from countries with low
national IQ is undesirable. According to Raymond Cattell "when a
country is opening its doors to immigration from diverse countries, it
is like a farmer who buys his seeds from different sources by the
sack, with sacks of different average quality of contents."[117]


[edit] Cyprus
A similar screening policy (including prenatal screening and abortion)
intended to reduce the incidence of thalassemia exists in both
jurisdictions on the island of Cyprus. Since the program's
implementation in the 1970s, it has reduced the ratio of children born
with the hereditary blood disease from 1 out of every 158 births to
almost zero. Tests for the gene are compulsory for both partners,
prior to church wedding.[118][119]


[edit] United States
There are some states that require a blood test prior to
marriage.[120] While these tests are typically restricted to the
detection of the sexually transmitted disease syphilis (which was the
most common STD at the time these laws were enacted), some partners
will voluntarily test for other diseases and genetic
incompatibilities.

Harris polls in 1986 and 1992 recorded majority public support for
limited forms of germ-line intervention, especially to prevent
"children inheriting usually fatal genetic disease".[121]

In 1971, lobbying by the US organization The International Association
for Voluntary Sterilization (AVS), led politicians and officials at
the Office for Equal Opportunity to pay for voluntary sterilization of
low income Americans for birth-control purposes.[citation needed] AVS
also focused on the International community, and its lobbying led to a
US foreign policy and funding from the U.S. Agency for International
Development to encourage Third World/Developing World countries to
utilise abortion and sterilization in order to control their
population growth.[citation needed] For further information see
EngenderHealth.


[edit] Israel
Main article: Dor Yeshorim
Dor Yeshorim, a program which seeks to reduce the incidence of
Tay-Sachs disease, Cystic Fibrosis, Canavan disease, Fanconi anemia,
Familial Dysautonomia, Glycogen storage disease, Bloom's Syndrome,
Gaucher Disease, Niemann-Pick Disease, and Mucolipidosis IV among
certain Jewish communities, is another screening program which has
drawn comparisons with liberal eugenics.[122] In Israel, at the
expense of the state, the general public is advised to carry out
genetic tests to diagnose these diseases early in the pregnancy. If a
fetus is diagnosed with one of these diseases, among which Tay-Sachs
is the most commonly known, the pregnancy may be terminated, subject
to consent. Most other Ashkenazi Jewish communities also run screening
programs because of the higher incidence of genetic diseases. In some
Jewish communities, the ancient custom of matchmaking (shidduch) is
still practiced, and some matchmakers require blood tests so that they
can avoid making matches between individuals who share the same
recessive disease traits. In order to attempt to prevent the tragedy
of infant death which always results from being homozygous for
Tay-Sachs, associations such as the strongly observant Dor Yeshorim
(which was founded by a rabbi who lost four children to Tay-Sachs with
the purpose of preventing others from suffering the same tragedy) test
young couples to check whether they carry a risk of passing on fatal
conditions. If both the young man and woman are Tay-Sachs carriers, it
is common for the match to be broken off. Judaism, like numerous other
religions, discourages abortion unless there is a risk to the woman,
in which case her needs take precedence. The effort is not aimed at
eradicating the hereditary traits, but rather at the occurrence of
homozygosity. The actual impact of this program on allele frequencies
is unknown, but little impact would be expected because the program
does not impose genetic selection. Instead, it encourages
disassortative mating.


[edit] Ethical re-assessment
Modern inquiries into the potential use of genetic engineering have
led to an increased invocation of the history of eugenics in
discussions of bioethics, most often as a cautionary tale. Some
ethicists suggest that even non-coercive eugenics programs would be
inherently unethical[citation needed], though this view has been
challenged by such thinkers as Nicholas Agar.[123] Jacob M. Appel has
even argued that eugenics should be mandatory under certain
circumstances [124]

In modern bioethics literature, the history of eugenics presents many
moral and ethical questions. Commentators have suggested the new
eugenics will come from reproductive technologies that will allow
parents to create "designer babies" (what the biologist Lee M. Silver
prominently called "reprogenetics"). It has been argued[who?] that
this more subtly coercive form of biological improvement will be
predominantly motivated by individual competitiveness and the desire
to create the best opportunities for children, rather than an urge to
improve the species as a whole, which characterized the early
20th-century forms of eugenics. Because of its less obviously coercive
nature, lack of involvement by the state and a difference in goals,
some commentators[who?] have questioned whether such activities are
eugenics or something else altogether. But critics note that Francis
Galton did not advocate coercion when he defined the principles of
eugenics.[125] In other words, eugenics does not mean coercion. It is,
according to Galton who originated the term, the proper label for
bioengineering of better human beings. Critics counter that conformity
and other pressures make legal eugenics programs coercive.

A growing example of support for designer babies comes in the form of
arguments made in favor of parents being able to avoid raising
homosexual children by using screening technologies.[126] The
scientific consensus in America, which stems from the 1956 research of
Dr. Evelyn Hooker, is that homosexuality is not a disorder. Therefore,
it cannot be treated as a defective trait that is justifiably screened
for as part of legitimate medical practice.[127]

Daniel Kevles argues that eugenics and the conservation of natural
resources are similar propositions. Both can be practiced foolishly so
as to abuse individual rights, but both can be practiced wisely.

Some disability activists[who?] argue that, although their impairments
may cause them pain or discomfort, what really disables them as
members of society is a sociocultural system that does not recognize
their right to genuinely equal treatment. They express skepticism that
any form of eugenics could be to the benefit of the disabled
considering their treatment by historical eugenic campaigns.[citation
needed]

James D. Watson, the first director of the Human Genome Project,
initiated the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Program (ELSI)
which has funded a number of studies into the implications of human
genetic engineering (along with a prominent website on the history of
eugenics), because:

In putting ethics so soon into the genome agenda, I was responding to
my own personal fear that all too soon critics of the Genome Project
would point out that I was a representative of the Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory that once housed the controversial Eugenics Record Office.
My not forming a genome ethics program quickly might be falsely used
as evidence that I was a closet eugenicist, having as my real
long-term purpose the unambiguous identification of genes that lead to
social and occupational stratification as well as genes justifying
racial discrimination.[128]
Distinguished geneticists including Nobel Prize-winners John Sulston
("I don't think one ought to bring a clearly disabled child into the
world")[129] and Watson ("Once you have a way in which you can improve
our children, no one can stop it")[130] support genetic screening.
Which ideas should be described as "eugenic" are still controversial
in both public and scholarly spheres. Some observers such as Philip
Kitcher have described the use of genetic screening by parents as
making possible a form of "voluntary" eugenics.[131]

Some modern subcultures[who?] advocate different forms of eugenics
assisted by human cloning and human genetic engineering, sometimes
even as part of a new religious movement (see Ra=C3=ABlism, Cosmotheism, or
Prometheism). These groups[who?] also talk of "neo-eugenics".
"conscious evolution", or "genetic freedom".

Behavioral traits often identified as potential targets for
modification through human genetic engineering include intelligence,
depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, sexual behavior (and
orientation) and criminality.[citation needed]


[edit] Criticism
 This section is currently being developed or reviewed. Some
statements may be disputed, incorrect, unverified, biased or otherwise
objectionable. Please read the discussion on the talk page before
making substantial changes. (August 2009)


[edit] Diseases vs. traits
 This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help
improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2009)

While the science of genetics has increasingly provided means by which
certain characteristics and conditions can be identified and
understood, given the complexity of human genetics, culture, and
psychology there is at this point no agreed objective means of
determining which traits might be ultimately desirable or undesirable.
Eugenic manipulations that reduce the propensity for criminality and
violence, for example, might result in the population being enslaved
by an outside aggressor it can no longer defend itself against. On the
other hand, genetic diseases like hemochromatosis can increase
susceptibility to illness, cause physical deformities, and other
dysfunctions. Eugenic measures against many of these diseases are
already being undertaken in societies around the world, while measures
against traits that affect more subtle, poorly understood traits, such
as criminality, are relegated to the realm of speculation and science
fiction. The effects of diseases are essentially wholly negative, and
societies everywhere seek to reduce their impact by various means,
some of which are eugenic in all but name. The other traits that are
discussed have positive as well as negative effects and are not
generally targeted at present anywhere.[citation needed]


[edit] Ethics
A common criticism of eugenics is that it inevitably leads to measures
that are unethical (Lynn 2001[citation needed]). A hypothetical
scenario posits that if one racial minority group is on average less
intelligent than the racial majority group, then it is more likely
that the racial minority group will be submitted to a eugenics program
rather than the least intelligent members of the whole population.

H. L. Kaye wrote of "the obvious truth that eugenics has been
discredited by Hitler's crimes," (Kaye 1989[citation needed]). R. L.
Hayman argued "the eugenics movement is an anachronism, its political
implications exposed by the Holocaust," (Hayman 1990[citation
needed]).

Steven Pinker has stated that it is "a conventional wisdom among
left-leaning academics that genes imply genocide." He has responded to
this "conventional wisdom" by comparing the history of Marxism, which
had the opposite position on genes to that of Nazism:

But the 20th century suffered "two" ideologies that led to genocides.
The other one, Marxism, had no use for race, didn't believe in genes
and denied that human nature was a meaningful concept. Clearly, it's
not an emphasis on genes or evolution that is dangerous. It's the
desire to remake humanity by coercive means (eugenics or social
engineering) and the belief that humanity advances through a struggle
in which superior groups (race or classes) triumph over inferior
ones.[132]

Richard Lynn broadens his criticism of eugenics, by arguing that any
social philosophy is capable of ethical misuse. Though Christian
principles have aided in the abolition of slavery and the
establishment of welfare programs, he notes that the Christian church
has also burned many dissidents at the stake and allowed for the
killing of large numbers of innocent people by Crusaders. Lynn argues
the appropriate response is to condemn these killings, but believes
Christianity does not "inevitably [lead] to the extermination of those
who do not accept its doctrines," (Lynn 2001[citation needed]).


[edit] Genetic diversity
Eugenic policies could also lead to loss of genetic diversity, in
which case a culturally accepted improvement of the gene pool could
very likely, as evidenced in numerous instances in isolated island
populations (e.g. the Dodo, Raphus cucullatus, of Mauritius) result in
extinction due to increased vulnerability to disease, reduced ability
to adapt to environmental change and other factors both known and
unknown. A long-term species-wide eugenics plan might lead to a
scenario similar to this because the elimination of traits deemed
undesirable would reduce genetic diversity by definition. (Galton
2001, 48[citation needed]).

Proponents of eugenics argue that in any one generation any realistic
program would make only minor changes in a fraction of the gene pool,
giving plenty of time to reverse direction if unintended consequences
emerge, reducing the likelihood of the elimination of desirable genes.
Proponents of eugenics argue that any appreciable reduction in
diversity is so far in the future that little concern is needed for
now.[133]

The possible elimination of the autism genotype is a significant
political issue in the autism rights movement, which claims autism is
a form of neurodiversity. Many advocates of Down's Syndrome rights
also consider Down's Syndrome (Trisomy-21) a form of
neurodiversity.[citation needed]


[edit] Heterozygous recessive traits
In some instances efforts to eradicate certain single-gene mutations
would be nearly impossible. In the event the condition in question was
a heterozygous recessive trait, the problem is that by eliminating the
visible unwanted trait, there are still many carriers for the genes
without, or with fewer, phenotypic effects due to that gene. With
genetic testing it may be possible to detect all of the heterozygous
recessive traits, but only at great cost with the current technology.
Under normal circumstances it is only possible to eliminate a dominant
allele from the gene pool. Recessive traits can be severely reduced,
but never eliminated unless the complete genetic makeup of all members
of the pool was known, as aforementioned. As only very few undesirable
traits, such as Huntington's disease, are dominant, the practical
value for "eliminating" traits is quite low.

However, there are examples of eugenic acts that managed to lower the
prevalence of recessive diseases, although not influencing the
prevalence of heterozygote carriers of those diseases. The elevated
prevalence of certain genetically transmitted diseases among the
Ashkenazi Jewish population (Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, Canavan's
disease and Goucher's disease), has been decreased in current
populations by the application of genetic screening.[134]


[edit] See also


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Sat Aug 29 13:07:14 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:07:14 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Soviet philosophy online -- recent additions (1)
Message-ID: <E1MhTIK-0001XG-Ux@elasmtp-mealy.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

I haven't read this, but I see that Robert Cymbala has digitized yet 
another book out of the archives of Soviet philosophy:

M. E. Omelyanovsky (H. C. Creighton, trans.),
Dialectics in Modern Physics
  <http://leninist.biz/en/1979/DMP383/>en/1979/DMP383/

Here's where you can keep track of new books added:

http://leninist.biz/en/Whatsnew


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 31 06:17:24 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:17:24 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Ghosts of Germany's Communist Past Return for
	Election
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908310517n4789da5egd1355e5101fa5bb@mail.gmail.com>

Ghosts of Germany's Communist Past Return for Election

By: Erik Kirschbaum

- Erik Kirschbaum is a Reuters correspondent in Berlin. August 28th, 2009
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate-uk/2009/08/28/ghosts-of-germanys-communist-past-return-for-election/

Will the party that traces its roots to Communist East
Germany's SED party that built the Berlin Wall soon be
in power in a west German state?

Or is the rise of the far-left "Linke" (Left party) in
western Germany to the brink of its first role as a
coalition partner in a state government with the
centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) simply a political
fact-of-life now so many years after the Wall fell and
the two Germanys were reunited?

Will a "red" government in Saarland scare away
investors and doom the state, as its conservative state
premier Peter Mueller argues in a desperate fight to
his job?

Or will the new leftist alliance in Saarland be able to
better tackle state's woes, as the SPD state premier
candidate Heiko Maas insists?

Depending on your Weltanschauung, that's what Sunday's
election in three German states boils down to - an
emotional debate about whether the ex "Communists" in
the form of the Left party should be allowed to be part
of the next Saarland government or not.

It doesn't matter that the Left has already been in
eastern state governments and will probably also be
part of the next state government in the eastern state
of Thuringia, which also elects a new state assembly on
Sunday.

The "Cold War" has flared up again in Germany ahead of
Sunday's elections in three German states, a closely
watched warm-up for the national election on Sept. 27
when Chancellor Angela Merkel will be seeking a second
term.

It's hard to explain to anyone outside Germany why the
Left party has been seated in state and local
governments throughout eastern Germany for the last 15
years with hardly a murmur while it was until recently
an absolute taboo in western Germany. It's also not
easy to explain to some Germans, especially those born
after the Cold War.

But here goes: Many western voters have until now had a
knee-jerk reaction to the Left party - as well as its
predecessor the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS),
which is the direct descendent of Erich Honecker's SED.
Westerners remember the Wall, the shoot-to-kill orders,
the barbed wire and the Iron Curtain that divided post-
war Germany.

"It's not a big deal in Saarland anymore," Maas, the
SPD candidate in Saarland, told me in an interview on
the campaign trail in Saarbruecken this week. "The CDU
is trying to make a scandal out of it. They've been
trying to whip up fears about `red-red' for months but
there hasn't been any movement in the opinion polls. I
think that shows people aren't interested in the
parties mud-slinging about coalitions. They're tired of
those games. They want political leaders to resolve
their problems."

Many eastern voters long ago realised the Left party is
not the SED that built the Wall. In the east, the Left
has become the most powerful party in many regions
partly due to nostalgia for East Germany but mainly due
to its fighting for leftist ideals as well as standing
up for the so-called "losers" of unification.

"A `red-red' government would send Saarland down the
tubes," said CDU leader Mueller.  And Merkel added at a
rally in Saarbruecken: "This state cannot be allowed to
fall into the hands of `red-red'." She does not use
that line in her campaign speeches in the former
Communist east, where she was raised, because she knows
it would sound ridiculous to eastern ears.

The SPD rules out a "red-red" coalition with the Left
party at the national level because of deep differences
over foreign and economic policy. But it now says it is
ready to open the door to such alliances in western
states - after some painful experiences in the last few
years. And Maas in Saarland could be the first to go
through. The SPD will probably drop that ban on "red-
red" coalitions at the national level someday as well
after having abandoned it for eastern Germany in 1994.

So is it "The Commies are at the Gate in Saarland?"  Or
is it just part of a democratic evolution that the
renamed, reborn East German Communists are about to
gain a small but important foothold in western Germany?


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 31 06:32:10 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:32:10 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Japan opposition takes on economy after landslide
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908310532v13935edboef3ed29b327f7490@mail.gmail.com>

Japan opposition takes on economy after landslide
By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer Eric Talmadge, Associated
Press Writer 1 hr 53 mins ago
TOKYO ? Japan's likely next prime minister rushed to select Cabinet
ministers Monday after his party trounced the ruling conservatives in
elections and inherited a mountain of problems, including how to
revive the world's second-largest economy.

Yukio Hatoyama spoke only briefly with reporters before huddling with
party leaders. In a victory speech late Sunday, he said he would focus
on a quick and smooth transition and make a priority of choosing
Japan's next finance minister.

He has also said he wants to redefine Tokyo's relationship with its
key ally, Washington.

Prime Minister Taro Aso, conceding defeat, said he would step down as
president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

"As head of the party, I feel strong responsibility and it is my
intention to resign," Aso told a news conference Monday. His successor
as party leader is expected to be named in late September.

Although the nation gave the Democratic Party of Japan a landslide
win, most voters were seen as venting dissatisfaction with the LDP and
the status quo.

The staunchly pro-U.S. LDP ? teaming up with big business,
conservative interests and the powerful national bureaucracy ?
governed Japan for virtually all of the past 54 years. Their election
loss has been attributed primarily to frustration with the economy,
which is in its worst slump since World War II.

Official results were still being counted, but exit polls by all major
media said Hatoyama's party had won more than 300 of the 480 seats in
the lower house of parliament. That would easily be enough to ensure
that he is installed as prime minister in a special session of
parliament that is expected in mid-September.

The Democrats controlled the less powerful upper house of parliament
with two smaller allies since 2007, but if they fail to quickly
deliver on their promises, the LDP could resurge in elections for that
house next year.

The task ahead for the Democrats is daunting.

Japan managed to climb out of a yearlong recession in the second
quarter, but its economy remains weak. Unemployment and anxiety over
falling wages threaten to undermine any recovery. The jobless rate has
risen to a record 5.7 percent. After a rapid succession of three
administrations in three years, Japan is facing its worst crisis of
confidence in decades.

It must also figure out how to cope with a rapidly aging and shrinking
population ? meaning fewer people paying taxes and more collecting
pensions. Government estimates predict the population will drop to 115
million in 2030 and fall below 100 million by the middle of the
century.

The Democrats' solution is to move Japan away from a corporate-centric
economic model to one that focuses on helping people. They have
proposed an expensive array of initiatives: cash handouts to families
and farmers, toll-free highways, a higher minimum wage and tax cuts.
The estimated bill comes to 16.8 trillion yen ($179 billion) when
fully implemented starting in the 2013 fiscal year.

The party has said it plans to cut waste and rely on untapped
financial reserves to fund their programs. But with Japan's public
debt heading toward 200 percent of gross domestic product, the
Democrats' plan has been criticized as a financial fantasy that would
worsen Japan's precarious fiscal health.

Japan's stock market surged early Monday on the news of the election,
but then fell back ? indicating uncertainty among investors about what
the Democrats will bring.

"The key difference is the Liberal Democrats' spending on public
projects and infrastructure, but the Democrats spend on family and
education," said Martin Schulz, a senior economist at the Fujitsu
Research Institute.

"The Democrats have a year to show results," he added, noting next
year's elections are looming.

The Democrats are also under scrutiny for their positions on national
security and foreign policy.

Hatoyama has been vocal about distancing Japan from Washington and
forging closer ties with its Asian neighbors.

He has said he will end a refueling mission in the Indian Ocean in
support of U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, and wants to
review the role of the 50,000 U.S. troops stationed across Japan under
a post-World War II mutual security treaty.

He is not expected to make any radical departures that would harm
relations with Washington, however, and the new U.S. ambassador to
Japan said President Barack Obama is looking forward to working with
the administration in Tokyo.

"The challenges we face are many, but through our partnership our two
great democracies will meet them in a spirit of cooperation and
friendship," Ambassador John V. Roos said in a statement Monday.

The Democrats' first task will be to convince a skeptical public that
they can actually lead.

The party is made up of an inexperienced group of left-wing activists
and LDP defectors. It is just 11 years old, and only a handful have
served in top government positions.

But Ichiro Ozawa, co-founder of the party, expressed a quiet confidence.

"We have no fear, and we will steadily achieve our campaign promises
one by one," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Jay Alabaster contributed to this report.


From steiger2001 at centrum.cz  Mon Aug 31 07:15:21 2009
From: steiger2001 at centrum.cz (steiger2001 at centrum.cz)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:15:21 +0200
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Ghosts of Germany's Communist Past Return
	forElection
In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230908310517n4789da5egd1355e5101fa5bb@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5c2e4d230908310517n4789da5egd1355e5101fa5bb@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1251724521.166922.11040.nullmailer@mail1011.cent>

This is a partly at least misleading report not taking into account the changes that one of the constituent elements of Die Linke - ie the former PDS which arose from the eastern Communist Party, SED - went through nor does it take into account what the "West German" element, originally called WASG, represented. In spite of the differences the union of these two former parties may stiil have inside the united one a question if former (!) East German party could take power in a West German region (Land) sounds like an American anti-communist slander. Neither does the correspondent consider the conditions prevailing both on German political stage and in the economic conditions?of present-day Germany.?If a non-European wants to really understand what is going on he (she) has to read a "countervailing" reports by ot er journalists (in differenr media).
Stephen Steiger, Praue, Czech Republic??

______________________________________________________________
> Od: "c b" 
> Komu: Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and thethinkers he inspired ,a-list at lists.econ.utah.edu
> Datum: 31.08.2009 14:17
> P?edm?t: [Marxism-Thaxis] Ghosts of Germany's Communist Past Return forElection
>
Ghosts of Germany's Communist Past Return for Election

By: Erik Kirschbaum

- Erik Kirschbaum is a Reuters correspondent in Berlin. August 28th, 2009
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate-uk/2009/08/28/ghosts-of-germanys-communist-past-return-for-election/

Will the party that traces its roots to Communist East
Germany's SED party that built the Berlin Wall soon be
in power in a west German state?

Or is the rise of the far-left "Linke" (Left party) in
western Germany to the brink of its first role as a
coalition partner in a state government with the
centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) simply a political
fact-of-life now so many years after the Wall fell and
the two Germanys were reunited?

Will a "red" government in Saarland scare away
investors and doom the state, as its conservative state
premier Peter Mueller argues in a desperate fight to
his job?

Or will the new leftist alliance in Saarland be able to
better tackle state's woes, as the SPD state premier
candidate Heiko Maas insists?

Depending on your Weltanschauung, that's what Sunday's
election in three German states boils down to - an
emotional debate about whether the ex "Communists" in
the form of the Left party should be allowed to be part
of the next Saarland government or not.

It doesn't matter that the Left has already been in
eastern state governments and will probably also be
part of the next state government in the eastern state
of Thuringia, which also elects a new state assembly on
Sunday.

The "Cold War" has flared up again in Germany ahead of
Sunday's elections in three German states, a closely
watched warm-up for the national election on Sept. 27
when Chancellor Angela Merkel will be seeking a second
term.

It's hard to explain to anyone outside Germany why the
Left party has been seated in state and local
governments throughout eastern Germany for the last 15
years with hardly a murmur while it was until recently
an absolute taboo in western Germany. It's also not
easy to explain to some Germans, especially those born
after the Cold War.

But here goes: Many western voters have until now had a
knee-jerk reaction to the Left party - as well as its
predecessor the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS),
which is the direct descendent of Erich Honecker's SED.
Westerners remember the Wall, the shoot-to-kill orders,
the barbed wire and the Iron Curtain that divided post-
war Germany.

"It's not a big deal in Saarland anymore," Maas, the
SPD candidate in Saarland, told me in an interview on
the campaign trail in Saarbruecken this week. "The CDU
is trying to make a scandal out of it. They've been
trying to whip up fears about `red-red' for months but
there hasn't been any movement in the opinion polls. I
think that shows people aren't interested in the
parties mud-slinging about coalitions. They're tired of
those games. They want political leaders to resolve
their problems."

Many eastern voters long ago realised the Left party is
not the SED that built the Wall. In the east, the Left
has become the most powerful party in many regions
partly due to nostalgia for East Germany but mainly due
to its fighting for leftist ideals as well as standing
up for the so-called "losers" of unification.

"A `red-red' government would send Saarland down the
tubes," said CDU leader Mueller. ?And Merkel added at a
rally in Saarbruecken: "This state cannot be allowed to
fall into the hands of `red-red'." She does not use
that line in her campaign speeches in the former
Communist east, where she was raised, because she knows
it would sound ridiculous to eastern ears.

The SPD rules out a "red-red" coalition with the Left
party at the national level because of deep differences
over foreign and economic policy. But it now says it is
ready to open the door to such alliances in western
states - after some painful experiences in the last few
years. And Maas in Saarland could be the first to go
through. The SPD will probably drop that ban on "red-
red" coalitions at the national level someday as well
after having abandoned it for eastern Germany in 1994.

So is it "The Commies are at the Gate in Saarland?" ?Or
is it just part of a democratic evolution that the
renamed, reborn East German Communists are about to
gain a small but important foothold in western Germany?

_______________________________________________
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu
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From cb31450 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 31 07:52:04 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:52:04 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Ghosts of Germany's Communist Past Return
	forElection
In-Reply-To: <1251724521.166922.11040.nullmailer@mail1011.cent>
References: <5c2e4d230908310517n4789da5egd1355e5101fa5bb@mail.gmail.com>
	<1251724521.166922.11040.nullmailer@mail1011.cent>
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908310652n2a18c511heeb7a95f49ae1b24@mail.gmail.com>

 If a non-European wants to really
> understand what is going on he (she) has to read a "countervailing" reports
> by ot er journalists (in differenr media).

> Stephen Steiger, Praue, Czech Republic
>
^^^^^^^
CB  Got any countervailing reports ?


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 31 14:05:11 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:05:11 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Japan Votes for Multipolarity
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908311305o700e9f2esa73a2157208bb337@mail.gmail.com>

 Japan Votes for Multipolarity
dredmond

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Voters roundly reject the LDP's watered-down variant of a
US-subservient neoliberalism:
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200908300210.html

Japan, it should be noted, is the second-largest foreign creditor of
the US (slightly behind China). Hint, hint!

-- DRR


From cb31450 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 31 14:30:06 2009
From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:30:06 -0400
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Earth
Message-ID: <5c2e4d230908311330t2708c4f0rc97bd2c24bd585cf@mail.gmail.com>

Astronomers: The Earth Will Soon Be Uninhabitable

On a Cosmological Timescale, the Earth's Period of
Habitability Is Nearly Over

By Sigurd
Published: 10 August 2009
http://spacefellowship.com/2009/08/10/on-a-cosmological-timescale-the-earths-period-of-habitability-is-nearly-over/

One of the hottest topics at this year's XXVIIth
General Assembly of the International Astronomical
Union (IAU) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil involves the
study of the astrophysical conditions favourable for
the development and survival of primordial life. New
research shows that compared to middle-aged stars like
the Sun, newly formed stars spin faster generating
strong magnetic fields that result in emission of more
intense levels of X-rays, ultraviolet rays and charged
particles -- all of which could wreak havoc on budding
atmospheres and have a dramatic effect on the
development of emerging life forms.

Just how rare life is in the Universe is one of the key
questions in the natural sciences today. By pulling in
multidisciplinary expertise from biology, geology,
physics and astronomy, astrobiologists are addressing
different facets of this very profound question, and
notably how the conditions around different types of
stars in an early stage of development might help or
hinder the emergence of life in a solar system. Several
scientists at the forefront of this research have just
concluded IAU Symposium 264 on "Solar and Stellar
Variability -- impact on Earth and Planets".

The Sun is awe-inspiring and fearsome -- a superheated
ball about 300,000 times as heavy as the Earth,
radiating immense amounts of energy and hurling great
globs of hot plasma millions of kilometres out into
space. The intense radiation from this giant powerhouse
would be fatal close to the Sun, but for a planet like
Earth, orbiting at a safe distance from these violent
outbursts, and bathed by a gentler radiation, the Sun
can provide the steady energy supply needed to sustain
life. Now sedate and middle-aged, at around 4.5 billion
years old, the Sun's wild youth is behind it.

Edward Guinan, a professor of astronomy and
astrophysics at Villanova University in the USA, and
his "Sun-in-Time" project team have studied stars that
are analogues of the Sun at both early and late stages
of its lifecycle. These "solar proxies" enable
scientists to look through a window in time to see the
harsh conditions prevailing in the early or future
Solar System, as well as in planetary systems around
other stars. These studies could lead to profound
insights into the origin of life on Earth and reveal
how likely (or unlikely) the rise of life is elsewhere
in the cosmos. This work has revealed that the Sun
rotated more than ten times faster in its youth (over
four billion years ago) than today. The faster a star
rotates, the harder the magnetic dynamo at its core
works, generating a stronger magnetic field, so the
young Sun emitted X-rays and ultraviolet radiation up
to several hundred times stronger than the Sun today.

A team led by Jean-Mathias Grie??meier from ASTRON in
the Netherlands looked at another type of magnetic
fields -- that around planets. They found that the
presence of planetary magnetic fields plays a major
role in determining the potential for life on other
planets as they can protect against the effects of both
short-lived intense particle storms when the star
ejects mass from its corona and the persistent
onslaught of particles from the stellar wind.
Grie??meier says: "Planetary magnetic fields are
important for two reasons: they protect the planet
against the incoming charged particles, thus preventing
the planetary atmosphere from being blown away, and
also act as a shield against high energy cosmic rays.
The lack of an intrinsic magnetic field may be the
reason why today Mars does not have an atmosphere".

Guinan explains a surprising realisation that emerged
from their work: "The Sun does not seem like the
perfect star for a system where life might arise.
Although it is hard to argue with the Sun's `success'
as it so far is the only star known to host a planet
with life, our studies indicate that the ideal stars to
support planets suitable for life for tens of billions
of years may be a smaller slower burning `orange dwarf'
with a longer lifetime than the Sun -- about 20-40
billion years. These stars, also called K stars, are
stable stars with a habitable zone that remains in the
same place for tens of billions of years. They are 10
times more numerous than the Sun, and may provide the
best potential habitat for life in the long run". He
continues: "On the more speculative side we have also
found indications that planets like Earth are also not
necessarily the best suited for life to thrive. Planets
two to three times more massive than the Earth, with a
higher gravity, can retain the atmosphere better. They
may have a larger liquid iron core giving a stronger
magnetic field that protects against the early
onslaught of cosmic rays. Furthermore, a larger planet
cools more slowly and maintains its magnetic
protection. This kind of planet may be more likely to
harbour life. I would not trade though -- you can't
argue with success".

Manfred Cuntz, an associate professor of physics at the
University of Texas at Arlington, USA, and his
collaborators have examined both the damaging and the
favourable effects of ultraviolet radiation from stars
on DNA molecules. This allows them to study the effect
on other potential carbon-based extraterrestrial life
forms in the habitable zones around other stars. Cuntz
says: "The most significant damage associated with
ultraviolet light occurs from UV-C, which is produced
in enormous quantities in the photosphere of hotter F-
type stars and further out, in the chromospheres, of
cooler orange K-type and red M-type stars. Our Sun is
an intermediate, yellow G-type star. The ultraviolet
and cosmic ray environment around a star may very well
have `chosen' what type of life could arise around it".

Rocco Mancinelli, an astrobiologist with the Search for
Extraterrestrial Life (SETI) Institute in the USA,
observes that as life arose on Earth at least 3.5
billion years ago, it must have withstood a barrage of
intense solar ultraviolet radiation for a billion years
before the oxygen released by these life forms formed
the protective ozone layer. Mancinelli studies DNA to
delve into some of the ultraviolet protection
strategies that evolved in early life forms and still
persist in a recognisable form today. As any life in
other planetary systems must also contend with
radiation from their host stars, these methods for
repairing and protecting organisms from ultraviolet
damage serve as models for life beyond Earth.
Mancinelli says "We also see ultraviolet radiation as a
kind of selection mechanism. All three domains of life
that exist today have common ultraviolet protection
strategies such as a DNA repair mechanism and
sheltering in water or in rocks. Those that did not
were likely wiped out early on".

The scientists agree that we do yet know how ubiquitous
or how fragile life is, but as Guinan concludes: "The
Earth's period of habitability is nearly over -- on a
cosmological timescale. In a half to one billion years
the Sun will start to be too luminous and warm for
water to exist in liquid form on Earth, leading to a
runaway greenhouse effect in less than 2 billion
years".

The IAU is the international astronomical organisation
that brings together almost 10,000 distinguished
astronomers from all nations of the world. Its mission
is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in
all its aspects through international cooperation. The
IAU also serves as the internationally recognised
authority for assigning designations to celestial
bodies and the surface features on them. Founded in
1919, the IAU is the world's largest professional body
for astronomers.

_____________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.

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From jannuzi at gmail.com  Mon Aug 31 23:48:15 2009
From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ)
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 14:48:15 +0900
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Japan opposition takes on economy after
	landslide
Message-ID: <ffbe0f7e0908312248p1c9f630clb45de7a8d0781004@mail.gmail.com>

The thing to remember is this: the NEW RULING party is simply a set of
factions that emerged from the OLD RULING party over 10 years ago.
They ran as opposition on MORE FREE MARKETS, DEREGULATION,
LIBERALIZATION and appeasement of big business interests that seek to
co-habit with American big business interests and the US military.
It's true that they said they were going to re-think the postal
privatization (now that everyone realizes it's about the only thing in
the country that appeasing American interests hasn't yet ruined), but
it's also important to remember that, at the time the simpleton
Koizumi of the old ruling party (LDP) was arguing for privatization
and running on this issue, the DPJ was vaguely arguing the
privatization didn't go far or deep enough.

One would expect the usual interests of the American national security
state empire to argue that Japan started its reforms too late or did
too little--except the collapse of the US bubbles leaves them so
thoroughly repudiated by their own stupid free market rhetoric (which
was more about making Japan pay for more of the US's military spending
while securing insider deals and monopolized markets with US-Japan
trade anyway).

The LDP truly sucked, the DPJ promises to suck even harder.

CJ


From bogus@does.not.exist.com  Sat Aug 29 21:05:35 2009
From: bogus@does.not.exist.com ()
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:05:35 -0000
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <mailman.40.1252699894.10217.marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>

structures of consciousness. The metaphysical problem of establishing
the material reality of what we perceive was of little interest to
Husserl in spite of his being a transcendental idealist. Husserl
proposed that the world of objects and ways in which we direct
ourselves toward and perceive those objects is normally conceived of
in what he called the "natural standpoint", which is characterized by
a belief that objects materially exist and exhibit properties that we
see as emanating from them. Husserl proposed a radical new
phenomenological way of looking at objects by examining how we, in our
many ways of being intentionally directed toward them, actually
"constitute" them (to be distinguished from materially creating
objects or objects merely being figments of the imagination); in the
Phenomenological standpoint, the object ceases to be something simply
"external" and ceases to be seen as providing indicators about what it
is, and becomes a grouping of perceptual and functional aspects that
imply one another under the idea of a particular object or "type". The
notion of objects as real is not expelled by phenomenology, but
"bracketed" as a way in which we regard objects instead of a feature
that inheres in an object's essence founded in the relation between
the object and the perceiver. In order to better understand the world
of appearances and objects, phenomenology attempts to identify the
invariant features of how objects are perceived and pushes
attributions of reality into their role as an attribution about the
things we perceive (or an assumption underlying how we perceive
objects).

In a later period, Husserl began to wrestle with the complicated
issues of intersubjectivity, specifically, how communication about an
object can be assumed to refer to the same ideal entity (Cartesian
Meditations, Meditation V). Husserl tries new methods of bringing his
readers to understand the importance of phenomenology to scientific
inquiry (and specifically to psychology) and what it means to
"bracket" the natural attitude. The Crisis of the European Sciences is
Husserl's unfinished work that deals most directly with these issues.
In it, Husserl for the first time attempts a historical overview of
the development of Western philosophy and science, emphasizing the
challenges presented by their increasingly (one-sidedly) empirical and
naturalistic orientation. Husserl declares that mental and spiritual
reality possess their own reality independent of any physical
basis,[2] and that a science of the mind ('Geisteswissenschaft') must
be established on as scientific a foundation as the natural sciences
have managed:

"It is my conviction that intentional phenomenology has for the first
time made spirit as spirit the field of systematic scientific
experience, thus effecting a total transformation of the task of
knowledge."[3]

[edit] The Nazi era
Professor Husserl was denied the use of the library at Freiburg as a
result of the anti-Jewish legislation the National Socialists (Nazis)
passed in April 1933. It is rumoured that his former pupil and Nazi
Party member, Martin Heidegger, informed Husserl that he was
discharged, but Heidegger later denied this, labelling it as
slander[4]. Heidegger (whose philosophy Husserl considered to be the
result of a faulty departure from, and grave misunderstanding of,
Husserl's own teachings and methods) removed the dedication to Husserl
from his most widely known work, Being and Time, when it was reissued
in 1941. This was not due to diminishing relations between the two
philosophers, however, but rather as a result of a suggested
censorship by Heidegger's publisher who feared that the book may be
banned by the Nazi regime[4]. The dedication can still be found in a
footnote on page 38, thanking Husserl for his guidance and generosity.
The philosophical relation between Husserl and Heidegger is discussed
at length by Bernard Stiegler in the film The Ister.

After his death, Husserl's manuscripts, amounting to approximately
40,000 pages of "Gabelsberger" stenography and his complete research
library, were smuggled to Belgium by Herman Van Breda in 1939 and
deposited at Leuven to form the Husserl-Archives of the Higher
Institute of Philosophy. Much of the material in his research
manuscripts has been published in the Husserliana critical edition
series.


From bogus@does.not.exist.com  Sat Aug 29 21:05:35 2009
From: bogus@does.not.exist.com ()
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:05:35 -0000
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <mailman.41.1252699988.10217.marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>

(published in 1939), Husserl expressed clearly the difference between
meaning and object. He identified several different kinds of names.
For example, there are names that have the role of properties that
uniquely identify an object. Each of these names express a meaning and
designate the same object. Examples of this are "the victor in Jena"
and "the loser in Waterloo", or "the equilateral triangle" and "the
equiangular triangle"; in both cases, both names express different
meanings, but designate the same object. There are names which have no
meaning, but have the role of designating an object: "Aristotle",
"Socrates", and so on. Finally, there are names which designate a
variety of objects. These are called "universal names"; their meaning
is a "concept" and refers to a series of objects (the extension of the
concept). The way we know sensible objects is called "sensible
intuition".

Husserl also identifies a series of "formal words" which are necessary
to form sentences and have no sensible correlates. Examples of formal
words are "a", "the", "more than", "over", "under", "two", "group",
and so on. Every sentence must contain formal words to designate what
Husserl calls "formal categories". There are two kinds of categories:
meaning categories and formal-ontological categories. Meaning
categories relate judgments; they include forms of conjunction,
disjunction, forms of plural, among others. Formal-ontological
categories relate objects and include notions such as set, cardinal
number, ordinal number, part and whole, relation, and so on. The way
we know these categories is through a faculty of understanding called
"categorial intuition".

Through sensible intuition our consciousness constitutes what Husserl
calls a "situation of affairs" (Sachlage). It is a passive
constitution where objects themselves are presented to us. To this
situation of affairs, through categorial intuition, we are able to
constitute a "state of affairs" (Sachverhalt). One situation of
affairs through objective acts of consciousness (acts of constituting
categorially) can serve as the basis for constituting multiple states
of affairs. For example, suppose a and b are two sensible objects in a
certain situation of affairs. We can use it as basis to say, "a<b" and
"b>a", two judgments which designate different states of affairs. For
Husserl a sentence has a proposition or judgment as its meaning, and
refers to a state of affairs which has a situation of affairs as a
reference base.


[edit] Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics
Husserl believed that truth-in-itself has as ontological correlate
being-in-itself, just as meaning categories have formal-ontological
categories as correlates. Logic is a formal theory of judgment, that
studies the formal a priori relations among judgments using meaning
categories. Mathematics, on the other hand, is formal ontology; it
studies all the possible forms of being (of objects). Hence for both
logic and mathematics, the different formal categories are the objects
of study, not the sensible objects themselves. The problem with the
psychological approach to mathematics and logic is that it fails to
account for the fact that this approach is about formal categories,
and not simply about abstractions from sensibility alone. The reason
why we do not deal with sensible objects in mathematics is because of
another faculty of understanding called "categorial abstraction."
Through this faculty we are able to get rid of sensible components of
judgments, and just focus on formal categories themselves.

Thanks to "eidetic intuition" (or "essential intuition"), we are able
to grasp the possibility, impossibility, necessity and contingency
among concepts and among formal categories. Categorial intuition,
along with categorial abstraction and eidetic intuition, are the basis
for logical and mathematical knowledge.

Husserl criticized the logicians of his day for not focusing on the
relation between subjective processes that give us objective knowledge
of pure logic. All subjective activities of consciousness need an
ideal correlate, and objective logic (constituted noematically) as it
is constituted by consciousness needs a noetic correlate (the
subjective activities of consciousness).

Husserl stated that logic has three strata, each further away from
consciousness and psychology than those that precede it.

The first stratum is what Husserl called a "morphology of meanings"
concerning a priori ways to relate judgments to make them meaningful.
In this stratum we elaborate a "pure grammar" or a logical syntax, and
he would call its rules "laws to prevent non-sense", which would be
similar to what logic calls today "formation rules". Mathematics, as
logic's ontological correlate, also has a similar stratum, a
"morphology of formal-ontological categories".
The second stratum would be called by Husserl "logic of consequence"
or the "logic of non-contradiction" which explores all possible forms
of true judgments. He includes here syllogistic classic logic,
propositional logic and that of predicates. This is a semantic
stratum, and the rules of this stratum would be the "laws to avoid
counter-sense" or "laws to prevent contradiction". They are very
similar to today's logic "transformation rules". Mathematics also has
a similar stratum which is based among others on pure theory of
pluralities, and a pure theory of numbers. They provide a science of
the conditions of possibility of any theory whatsoever. Husserl also
talked about what he called "logic of truth" which consists of the
formal laws of possible truth and its modalities, and precedes the
third logical third stratum.
The third stratum is metalogical, what he called a "theory of all
possible forms of theories." It explores all possible theories in an a
priori fashion, rather than the possibility of theory in general. We
could establish theories of possible relations between pure forms of
theories, investigate these logical relations and the deductions from
such general connection. The logician is free to see the extension of
this deductive, theoretical sphere of pure logic.
The ontological correlate to the third stratum is the "theory of
manifolds" In formal ontology, it is a free investigation where a
mathematician can assign several meanings to several symbols, and all
their possible valid deductions in a general and indeterminate manner.
It is, properly speaking, the most universal mathematics of all.
Through the posit of certain indeterminate objects (formal-ontological
categories) as well as any combination of mathematical axioms,
mathematicians can explore the apodeictic connections between them, as
long as consistency is preserved.

According to Husserl, this view of logic and mathematics accounted for
the objectivity of a series of mathematical developments of his time,
such as n-dimensional manifolds (both Euclidean and non-Euclidean),
Hermann Grassmann's theory of extensions, William Rowan Hamilton's
Hamiltonians, Sophus Lie's theory of transformation groups, and
Cantor's set theory.


From bogus@does.not.exist.com  Sat Aug 29 21:05:35 2009
From: bogus@does.not.exist.com ()
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:05:35 -0000
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <mailman.42.1252700087.10217.marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>

(published in 1939), Husserl expressed clearly the difference between
meaning and object. He identified several different kinds of names.
For example, there are names that have the role of properties that
uniquely identify an object. Each of these names express a meaning and
designate the same object. Examples of this are "the victor in Jena"
and "the loser in Waterloo", or "the equilateral triangle" and "the
equiangular triangle"; in both cases, both names express different
meanings, but designate the same object. There are names which have no
meaning, but have the role of designating an object: "Aristotle",
"Socrates", and so on. Finally, there are names which designate a
variety of objects. These are called "universal names"; their meaning
is a "concept" and refers to a series of objects (the extension of the
concept). The way we know sensible objects is called "sensible
intuition".

Husserl also identifies a series of "formal words" which are necessary
to form sentences and have no sensible correlates. Examples of formal
words are "a", "the", "more than", "over", "under", "two", "group",
and so on. Every sentence must contain formal words to designate what
Husserl calls "formal categories". There are two kinds of categories:
meaning categories and formal-ontological categories. Meaning
categories relate judgments; they include forms of conjunction,
disjunction, forms of plural, among others. Formal-ontological
categories relate objects and include notions such as set, cardinal
number, ordinal number, part and whole, relation, and so on. The way
we know these categories is through a faculty of understanding called
"categorial intuition".

Through sensible intuition our consciousness constitutes what Husserl
calls a "situation of affairs" (Sachlage). It is a passive
constitution where objects themselves are presented to us. To this
situation of affairs, through categorial intuition, we are able to
constitute a "state of affairs" (Sachverhalt). One situation of
affairs through objective acts of consciousness (acts of constituting
categorially) can serve as the basis for constituting multiple states
of affairs. For example, suppose a and b are two sensible objects in a
certain situation of affairs. We can use it as basis to say, "a<b" and
"b>a", two judgments which designate different states of affairs. For
Husserl a sentence has a proposition or judgment as its meaning, and
refers to a state of affairs which has a situation of affairs as a
reference base.


[edit] Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics
Husserl believed that truth-in-itself has as ontological correlate
being-in-itself, just as meaning categories have formal-ontological
categories as correlates. Logic is a formal theory of judgment, that
studies the formal a priori relations among judgments using meaning
categories. Mathematics, on the other hand, is formal ontology; it
studies all the possible forms of being (of objects). Hence for both
logic and mathematics, the different formal categories are the objects
of study, not the sensible objects themselves. The problem with the
psychological approach to mathematics and logic is that it fails to
account for the fact that this approach is about formal categories,
and not simply about abstractions from sensibility alone. The reason
why we do not deal with sensible objects in mathematics is because of
another faculty of understanding called "categorial abstraction."
Through this faculty we are able to get rid of sensible components of
judgments, and just focus on formal categories themselves.

Thanks to "eidetic intuition" (or "essential intuition"), we are able
to grasp the possibility, impossibility, necessity and contingency
among concepts and among formal categories. Categorial intuition,
along with categorial abstraction and eidetic intuition, are the basis
for logical and mathematical knowledge.

Husserl criticized the logicians of his day for not focusing on the
relation between subjective processes that give us objective knowledge
of pure logic. All subjective activities of consciousness need an
ideal correlate, and objective logic (constituted noematically) as it
is constituted by consciousness needs a noetic correlate (the
subjective activities of consciousness).

Husserl stated that logic has three strata, each further away from
consciousness and psychology than those that precede it.

The first stratum is what Husserl called a "morphology of meanings"
concerning a priori ways to relate judgments to make them meaningful.
In this stratum we elaborate a "pure grammar" or a logical syntax, and
he would call its rules "laws to prevent non-sense", which would be
similar to what logic calls today "formation rules". Mathematics, as
logic's ontological correlate, also has a similar stratum, a
"morphology of formal-ontological categories".
The second stratum would be called by Husserl "logic of consequence"
or the "logic of non-contradiction" which explores all possible forms
of true judgments. He includes here syllogistic classic logic,
propositional logic and that of predicates. This is a semantic
stratum, and the rules of this stratum would be the "laws to avoid
counter-sense" or "laws to prevent contradiction". They are very
similar to today's logic "transformation rules". Mathematics also has
a similar stratum which is based among others on pure theory of
pluralities, and a pure theory of numbers. They provide a science of
the conditions of possibility of any theory whatsoever. Husserl also
talked about what he called "logic of truth" which consists of the
formal laws of possible truth and its modalities, and precedes the
third logical third stratum.
The third stratum is metalogical, what he called a "theory of all
possible forms of theories." It explores all possible theories in an a
priori fashion, rather than the possibility of theory in general. We
could establish theories of possible relations between pure forms of
theories, investigate these logical relations and the deductions from
such general connection. The logician is free to see the extension of
this deductive, theoretical sphere of pure logic.
The ontological correlate to the third stratum is the "theory of
manifolds" In formal ontology, it is a free investigation where a
mathematician can assign several meanings to several symbols, and all
their possible valid deductions in a general and indeterminate manner.
It is, properly speaking, the most universal mathematics of all.
Through the posit of certain indeterminate objects (formal-ontological
categories) as well as any combination of mathematical axioms,
mathematicians can explore the apodeictic connections between them, as
long as consistency is preserved.

According to Husserl, this view of logic and mathematics accounted for
the objectivity of a series of mathematical developments of his time,
such as n-dimensional manifolds (both Euclidean and non-Euclidean),
Hermann Grassmann's theory of extensions, William Rowan Hamilton's
Hamiltonians, Sophus Lie's theory of transformation groups, and
Cantor's set theory.


From bogus@does.not.exist.com  Sat Aug 29 21:05:35 2009
From: bogus@does.not.exist.com ()
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:05:35 -0000
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <mailman.43.1252700153.10217.marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>

(published in 1939), Husserl expressed clearly the difference between
meaning and object. He identified several different kinds of names.
For example, there are names that have the role of properties that
uniquely identify an object. Each of these names express a meaning and
designate the same object. Examples of this are "the victor in Jena"
and "the loser in Waterloo", or "the equilateral triangle" and "the
equiangular triangle"; in both cases, both names express different
meanings, but designate the same object. There are names which have no
meaning, but have the role of designating an object: "Aristotle",
"Socrates", and so on. Finally, there are names which designate a
variety of objects. These are called "universal names"; their meaning
is a "concept" and refers to a series of objects (the extension of the
concept). The way we know sensible objects is called "sensible
intuition".

Husserl also identifies a series of "formal words" which are necessary
to form sentences and have no sensible correlates. Examples of formal
words are "a", "the", "more than", "over", "under", "two", "group",
and so on. Every sentence must contain formal words to designate what
Husserl calls "formal categories". There are two kinds of categories:
meaning categories and formal-ontological categories. Meaning
categories relate judgments; they include forms of conjunction,
disjunction, forms of plural, among others. Formal-ontological
categories relate objects and include notions such as set, cardinal
number, ordinal number, part and whole, relation, and so on. The way
we know these categories is through a faculty of understanding called
"categorial intuition".

Through sensible intuition our consciousness constitutes what Husserl
calls a "situation of affairs" (Sachlage). It is a passive
constitution where objects themselves are presented to us. To this
situation of affairs, through categorial intuition, we are able to
constitute a "state of affairs" (Sachverhalt). One situation of
affairs through objective acts of consciousness (acts of constituting
categorially) can serve as the basis for constituting multiple states
of affairs. For example, suppose a and b are two sensible objects in a
certain situation of affairs. We can use it as basis to say, "a<b" and
"b>a", two judgments which designate different states of affairs. For
Husserl a sentence has a proposition or judgment as its meaning, and
refers to a state of affairs which has a situation of affairs as a
reference base


From bogus@does.not.exist.com  Sat Aug 29 21:05:35 2009
From: bogus@does.not.exist.com ()
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:05:35 -0000
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <mailman.44.1252700236.10217.marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>

(published in 1939), Husserl expressed clearly the difference between
meaning and object. He identified several different kinds of names.
For example, there are names that have the role of properties that
uniquely identify an object. Each of these names express a meaning and
designate the same object. Examples of this are "the victor in Jena"
and "the loser in Waterloo", or "the equilateral triangle" and "the
equiangular triangle"; in both cases, both names express different
meanings, but designate the same object. There are names which have no
meaning, but have the role of designating an object: "Aristotle",
"Socrates", and so on. Finally, there are names which designate a
variety of objects. These are called "universal names"; their meaning
is a "concept" and refers to a series of objects (the extension of the
concept). The way we know sensible objects is called "sensible
intuition".

Husserl also identifies a series of "formal words" which are necessary
to form sentences and have no sensible correlates. Examples of formal
words are "a", "the", "more than", "over", "under", "two", "group",
and so on. Every sentence must contain formal words to designate what
Husserl calls "formal categories". There are two kinds of categories:
meaning categories and formal-ontological categories. Meaning
categories relate judgments; they include forms of conjunction,
disjunction, forms of plural, among others. Formal-ontological
categories relate objects and include notions such as set, cardinal
number, ordinal number, part and whole, relation, and so on. The way
we know these categories is through a faculty of understanding called
"categorial intuition".

Through sensible intuition our consciousness constitutes what Husserl
calls a "situation of affairs" (Sachlage). It is a passive
constitution where objects themselves are presented to us. To this
situation of affairs, through categorial intuition, we are able to
constitute a "state of affairs" (Sachverhalt). One situation of
affairs through objective acts of consciousness (acts of constituting
categorially) can serve as the basis for constituting multiple states
of affairs. For example, suppose a and b are two sensible objects in a
certain situation of affairs. We can use it as basis to say, "a<b" and
"b>a", two judgments which designate different states of affairs. For
Husserl a sentence has a proposition or judgment as its meaning, and
refers to a state of affairs which has a situation of affairs as a
reference base.


From bogus@does.not.exist.com  Sat Aug 29 21:05:35 2009
From: bogus@does.not.exist.com ()
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:05:35 -0000
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <mailman.45.1252700551.10217.marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>

19th century, whom Engels was addressing, and who had not gone through
or closely observed a single great revolution, it could not have been
otherwise. They could not understand at all what a =93self-acting armed
organization of the population=94 was. When asked why it became
necessary to have special bodies of armed men placed above society and
alienating themselves from it (police and a standing army), the
West-European and Russian philistines are inclined to utter a few
phrases borrowed from Spencer of Mikhailovsky, to refer to the growing
complexity of social life, the differentiation of functions, and so
on.

Such a reference seems =93scientific=94, and effectively lulls the
ordinary person to sleep by obscuring the important and basic fact,
namely, the split of society into irreconcilable antagonistic classes.

Were it not for this split, the =93self-acting armed organization of the
population=94 would differ from the primitive organization of a
stick-wielding herd of monkeys, or of primitive men, or of men united
in clans, by its complexity, its high technical level, and so on. But
such an organization would still be possible.

It is impossible because civilized society is split into antagonistic,
and, moreover, irreconcilably antagonistic classes, whose
=93self-acting=94 arming would lead to an armed struggle between them. A
state arises, a special power is created, special bodies of armed men,
and every revolution, by destroying the state apparatus, shows us the
naked class struggle, clearly shows us how the ruling class strives to
restore the special bodies of armed men which serve it, and how the
oppressed class strives to create a new organization of this kind,
capable of serving the exploited instead of the exploiters.

In the above argument, Engels raises theoretically the very same
question which every great revolution raises before us in practice,
palpably and, what is more, on a scale of mass action, namely, the
question of the relationship between =93special=94 bodies of armed men and
the =93self-acting armed organization of the population". We shall see
how this question is specifically illustrated by the experience of the
European and Russian revolutions.

But to return to Engel's exposition.

He points out that sometimes =97 in certain parts of North America, for
example =97 this public power is weak (he has in mind a rare exception
in capitalist society, and those parts of North America in its
pre-imperialist days where the free colonists predominated), but that,
generally speaking, it grows stronger:

=93It [the public power] grows stronger, however, in proportion as class
antagonisms within the state become more acute, and as adjacent states
become larger and more populous. We have only to look at our
present-day Europe, where class struggle and rivalry in conquest have
tuned up the public power to such a pitch that it threatens to swallow
the whole of society and even the state."

This was written not later than the early nineties of the last
century, Engel's last preface being dated June 16, 1891. The turn
towards imperialism =97 meaning the complete domination of the trusts,
the omnipotence of the big banks, a grand-scale colonial policy, and
so forth =97 was only just beginning in France, and was even weaker in
North America and in Germany. Since then =93rivalry in conquest=94 has
taken a gigantic stride, all the more because by the beginning of the
second decade of the 20th century the world had been completely
divided up among these =93rivals in conquest", i.e., among the predatory
Great Powers. Since then, military and naval armaments have grown
fantastically and the predatory war of 1914-17 for the domination of
the world by Britain or Germany, for the division of the spoils, has
brought the =93swallowing=94 of all the forces of society by the rapacious
state power close to complete catastrophe.

Engels' could, as early as 1891, point to =93rivalry in conquest" as one
of the most important distinguishing features of the foreign policy of
the Great Powers, while the social-chauvinist scoundrels have ever
since 1914, when this rivalry, many time intensified, gave rise to an
imperialist war, been covering up the defence of the predatory
interests of =93their own" bourgeoisie with phrases about =93defence of
the fatherland", =93defence of the republic and the revolution", etc.!


From bogus@does.not.exist.com  Sat Aug 29 21:05:35 2009
From: bogus@does.not.exist.com ()
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:05:35 -0000
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <mailman.78.1253794159.10217.marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>

had a demonstration.  They were teachers, and taught me that we have
to fight for what we need, because that's the only way to achieve
anything. Even before the war, it was dangerous to be involved with a
union.  After the war started, many died protesting.

I was nineteen years old when I came to the U.S. to care for an
elderly woman. My family was very poor and when the opportunity came I
didn't hesitate.  The woman eventually returned to El Salvador, but I
stayed on with her family.  I thought I was going to earn money and
help my family, but they didn't pay me for an entire year.  They told
me I had to repay the transportation fee and all the money they'd
spent on me.

A friend of my grandmother told me I was being treated as a slave.
She said she'd rescue me, so I found my passport where they'd hidden
it, grabbed my bag and left.  But my rescuer took me to another home,
to care of another elderly woman.  They hardly paid me anything --
just $100 a month.  When I said I wanted to go to school, they told me
immigration officers would get me.

Finally I met my husband - a carpenter who'd come to put in new
windows.  He rescued me and we got married.  That was 1974, and we've
been married ever since.  When I married him I no longer felt like a
slave.

I already had a Social Security number -- it wasn't so hard to get a
number back then - and in 1986 I got my green card  through the
amnesty.  I brought my brothers here too, but  I told them that they
would never suffer like I did.

In those years we could live in San Francisco  because the rent was
only $150 for a one-bedroom apartment.  Now living in San Francisco is
almost impossible, and we moved to the East Bay.

After my first daughter was three I told my husband I wanted to go
back to work.  I found good daycare and applied at the Hilton.  They
hired me right away as a housekeeper, the same job I've been doing for
29 years.

Since I've been here for so long I work on only one floor.  It's a
very big hotel, with three buildings.  At the beginning of the day I
fill my cart with new linens, towels, pens and everything I'll need.
We carry everything from toilet paper to a vacuum cleaner, and the
cart easily weighs 100 pounds.

When I get to a room I first organize the hangers in the closet, and
make sure it has one pillow and blanket.  Then I empty the garbage
cans and make the beds.  I continue on to the bathroom, clean the tub
and toilet, and restock the toilet paper, towels and Kleenex.  I clean
the mirror, sink and counter - they have to be spotless.  It's hard
work to clean the mirrors and shower doors because you have to stretch
so much to do it.

Making the beds is backbreaking because they're a lot larger now and
you have to lift up the mattress.  You have to put three sheets on --
the fitted sheet, flat sheet and down comforter.  Work wasn't as hard
when I first started there because the beds were small with one pillow
per bed.  Now beds are bigger and some have four pillows.  Sometimes
guests even ask for four more.

They switched accessories from plastic to silver, which weigh a lot
more.  We have to lift the ice bucket with both hands to clean it with
Windex, soap or sometimes hot water.  The garbage cans are also
silver.  They warn us that they don't want any fingerprints on them,
and managers follow us into the rooms to check.  It takes an extra
half an hour everyday just to clean the silver accessories.

We have to finish  all 14 assigned rooms by the end of the day.  Some
of us don't go on breaks or take shorter lunch breaks in order to
finish.  Recently I had a room with a big family, but in a room with
only one bed.  I wasted an extra forty minutes because the room was so
messy.  At the end of the day I was exhausted.  When I got home I just
wanted to sleep.

Llike it or not, there is pressure to have the room spotless.  I've
seen other workers weep because the job is so hard.  It's never good
enough and managers want more.   I've heard them tell housekeepers
that they came to the U.S. to work, so they should work harder.  They
call them crybabies.  I tell them it's not right to make women cry -
it just makes it harder to do the work.  Because I've been there for
so long and I'm very outspoken, they don't follow me around, but I
feel pressured too.

In the long run you end up with permanent problems working this way.
I now have to wear a brace on my arm.  When I don't have it on my arms
hurt tremendously.  I had to go on disability because my tendons hurt
so much.  When I returned to work I couldn't taken a morning or
afternoon break because my legs hurt too much for me to walk down to
the break room.  I simply stayed up on the floor.

My hands tingle and ache, and my fingers go numb.  Sometimes my arms
start to hurt during the night and I can't sleep.    The pain starts
about 3am and I can't stand it.  The doctor said I have carpal tunnel
syndrome, and gave me two braces, one for each hand.  My hands now
feel better, but I still use them during the day.  I take a motrin
pill before leaving for work in the morning and another one in the
afternoon and before going to bed.  I don't want to be dependent on
them, but it's hard.  My doctor told me many housekeepers have the
same problem.  It's very difficult to work in pain.  It's something I
cannot get used to.

I have to continue working because I need the insurance.  If I don't
work, I'm not accumulating hours, and my insurance stops.  I had to
return to work because I had no insurance left.  My husband, daughter
and myself depend on it.  My daughter's nineteen, and she needs
medical checkups and to go to the dentist. My husband has high blood
pressure and clogged arteries so he needs expensive medication daily.

My back and knees hurt from moving the heavy cart every day.  I don't
want to get even more injured than I already am because I'll be
replaced.  There are many workers still working with disabilities
right now.  It's like a circus in there when we're changing into
uniforms.  We all smell like Bengay and have braces all over.  We all
have medical conditions.  They say it's the handicap room, because
we're all injured.

With the union at least we feel we have someone who will back us up.
I was suspended a few years ago.  The manager was upset because I had
criticized her during a meeting.  The other workers were in an uproar.
 My union representative told the general manager they were going to
protest in the lobby.  They called me that afternoon to say I could
return to work the next morning.  We all fight for each other.

Medical insurance is the most important issue for us this year.
They're talking of increasing the hours needed to qualify for health
benefits.   That is what we're trying to avoid.  I just have a few
years left until I can retire.  I'm lost my health at the hotel, and
all they think about is money.  We made them millions of dollars, and
they complain about paying insurance.


Lupe Chavez' union, UNITE HERE Local 2, is currently in negotiations
with San Francisco's Class A hotels, and workers and their supporters
are again out in the streets.  The old contract has expired, and
health care benefits are one of the central issues.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------=
-----

For more articles and images on immigration, see
http://dbacon.igc.org/Imgrants/imgrants.htm


See also Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and
Criminalizes Immigrants  (Beacon Press, 2008)
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=3D2002


See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US
Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=3D4575


See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border
(University of California, 2004)
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html


--


From bogus@does.not.exist.com  Sat Aug 29 21:05:35 2009
From: bogus@does.not.exist.com ()
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:05:35 -0000
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <mailman.81.1253820448.10217.marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>

now only employs 500. Bill is one of them, and glad to
be.  When I ask him about the future, he laughs and
says he knows the old jobs won't come back again but he
hopes to make his 30 and out.  "Of course, he says,
"they're working those of us who are there like there's
no tomorrow, with 14hour back to back shifts.  I'm just
taking it one hour at a time."

He is a calm man, for whom pacing is important.  These
next five years are particularly critical since they
also coincide with his 14 year-old son's high school
and emerging adult years.  He would like them to be as
stable as possible.  Commenting on the current economic
situation, he says," In order to see reality, sometimes
you have to feel pain.  This is a wake-up call to us.
In the old days, you'd have a job; jou were in the
union; that meant something.  Not to say you didn't
have to fight for your rights; but at least you could.
Not now.  Take the most recent contract:  we had one
day to vote.  One day.  No discussion.  The biggest
change was that up `til now, the person working next to
you on the line must get the same pay as you.  The
union had fought for that principle foryears.  Now new
hires only get half.  If you get $28 an hour, they get
$14 with no benefits, health insurance, or pension. And
for senior workers like myself , every wage increase
and cost of living benefit has been rescinded and
health care costs for retirees will be paid for in the
form of stock, not cash, Who knows what that will be
worth?"

"As for management, I see the `new GM' still making a
lot of the old GM mistakes.  For example, we operate on
a `team'concept, the whole point being, as I see it,
that team leaders should replace the need for
`supervision.' But we are still top heavy.  Also, the
basic plant equipment has long exceeded its `life
expectancy' already, causing more breakdowns and
injuries, especially to new workers."

"What I have learned is that we can't rely on the
system; we need to take care of each other.  When I was
a child, my mother raising me as a single parent, used
to spend a lot of her time working a stall at the Flea
Markets that were common in Detroit then.  I used to be
ashamed.  Now I understand.  Then I didn't even get
what she was actually providing.  That was her way of
hustling for an independent living and creating a
support network, too.  Through one of her contacts, a
woman at GM's human resources division, I got hired at
GM and have been there ever since.  Now yard sales are
coming back.  People are learning how to make what they
have go farther."

He continues,"Your immediate community allows you to
have and do certain things.  It decides what amount of
damage you can cause and how to correct that damage.  I
need the person on the corner to peep out the window or
come on the porch, to be there for the block.  Constant
back up, for when a sewer line collapses or a tire gets
slashed."

"Living off the land should always be something we do.
Produce.  Grow things.  We used to call the `plant'
the' plantation'.  We forgot that even under slavery we
maintained an independent subsistence economy.  Well,
we're remembering now how important that is to
survival."

                  ***************

Bill is not alone in reaching these conclusions.  On
Detroit's Eastside, Mark Covington, 37, started by
cleaning the garbage off three lots adjacent to his
home. A married father of eight, he decided it was a
good time and place to begin gardening.  This native
Detroiter, who was an environmental service technician
cleaning oil refineries in Toledo and other Midwestern
cities until he lost his job in Dec. 2007, now is an
urban farmer. He says, "This is now my full-time job.
I grow produce on ten lots and people are welcome to
come and take what they need  -  for free. I help out
with The Greening of Detroit (a non-profit that helps
11,000 people in Detroit, Highland Park, and Hamtramck
build and maintain 800 gardens) which pays me to till
gardens.  It's all about self-sustainability. The goal
with current gardens is to provide the community with
food."

68 year old Cornelius Williams is owner of Vandalia
Gardens Urban Farmers LLC, building gardens for people
from Detroit to Grand Rapids. He grows collards,
cucumbers lettuce, kale, squash and other vegetables in
100 garden beds in Detroit alone.  Sometimes people
tell him his approach is a `step backward.' He
recalls,"Somebody asked me if gardening wasn't
reverting back to slavery.  I said,"I ain't growing
cotton."

On the Northwest side of town black educator Malik
Yakini's Detroit Black Community Food Security Network
is taking root on 2 acres in Rouge Park allocated by
the city council for urban farming projects. "Gardens
enable us to become producers rather than consumers,"
says Yakini.  Volunteers there cultivate organic
vegetables, two beehives, a composting operation and
hoop house for year-round food production.  Produce is
sold at the growing number of farmers' markets in the
metro area.  In the summer, a city-initiated jobs for
youth program places over 45,000 highschool age youth
in these agricultural projects.

The examples multiply and more vacant lots become
garden plots. Adjacent to them, the foreclosed brick
homes that used to be valued at $200,000 are now going
at auction for $5,000.  And they are being bought - not
by speculators to flip for profit, but by families to
rebuild and live in for posterity.

                   ******************

Fortunately, there is one person in city government who
has seen the significance of the current structural
crisis and been heartened by the activity of Detroit's
people at the grassroots.  Her name is JoAnn Watson.
She is President pro-tem of Detroit's Common Council.
And in addition to hope and faith, which she has in
abundance, she has a plan..

It is 8:30 am on a typical workday. JoAnn Watson has
already been at her desk working for an hour. Her staff
is on duty and her phones are answered by a human being
who knows her schedule.  As we sit having coffee and
our conversation opens, she says, "The post-mortems
that the white racist media is pronouncing on Detroit
do not define us.  We are not pitiful, poor, or
powerless.  We just don't know, or forgot, what to do
with the resources we have.  Wind, water, arable land.
Now that the manufacturing system has completrely
crashed, we have an unprecedented opportunity to start
over." "That is why I authored the Resolution passed by
Common Council a year ago to bail out Detroit.  Since
then I have been working with Dr.Soji Adelaja, Director
of the Land Policy Institute at Michigan State Univ.,
to develop a new green direction for the rebuilding of
our local economy. Identifying  regional natural assets
on which to base the plan is critical. The expertise of
Dr. Adelaja and his team has been invaluable.  The
political argument is obvious:  "How do you bail out
the auto industry and not the workers?  Come on, now.
You can't bypass Detroit."  But, more importantly, we
realize that a whole new economic paradigm is needed.
Not bandaids for the old one.  And this is what we call
Detroit's Marshall Plan and what we have received
approval for at the gubernatorial level and pursued
just last month with a presentation to Pres. Obama's
Urban Policy and Affairs staff.  That presentation by
the Michigan Delegation was very positively received
and it was praised for being highly consistent with
their emerging national policy on how to revitalize
major metropolitan areas.  So, we are "on the table"
for further discussion."

She continues,"I am not worried.  The epicenter of the
movement for social change has been Detroit from the
Abolitionist Mvt., the rise of organized labor, Black
Consciousness from Civil Rights to Reparations, to
"What's Goin' On' and having been touched and shaped by
many currents of that movement from the age of 14, I
feel it in my soul." "I know the richness of our
history and the energy of our community when it pulls
together.as it does in times of crisis, as it has
always done."  "We have the knowledge and the physical
capacity to create a healthy future here  if we only
have the political will."

               **********************

One test of Detroit's political will is in the offing
next summer, as it prepares to host the U.S. Social
Forum from June 22-26,2010.  At that time between
30,000 and 35,000 activists from all over the nation
are expected to convene to discuss labor rights, social
justice issues, new economic strategies, and
participate in a schedule of educational tours and
cultural events. The five anchor groups charged with
the planning and implementation of this major event are
Michigan Water Rights Org, Jobs With Justice, Centro
Obrero, East Michigan Enviromental Council, and
Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice.

I attended a planning meeting of these organizers which
takes place every two weeks at Central Methodist Church
in downtown Detroit and is open to the public.
Committee reports concerned everything from checking
total handicapped accessability of conference meeting
and living accomodations to how neighborhoods would be
chosen for murals being planned by the youth.  All
committee members: old and young, black, latino, and
anglo, male and female, addressed their issues and each
other with calm good nature, united in a common effort.

After the meeting, Elena Herrada, Director of Centro
Obrero (a legal and educational organization that
serves Detroit's Latino community) remarked,"It's
exciting.  The old road has ended and we're making a
new one.  We've been looted of all resources here and
we have to start over together. We've gotta do
something.  People are being forced into transformative
postures.  We want the U./S. Social Forum to be a
channel for that energy."

This year in Detroit, I saw signs everywhere of the
energy generated when people rally in defense of each
other and their own best interests.

If the future is in these hands, I'm not worried,
either.

May the detritus not trip us.  Stay tuned.