From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Sun Mar  1 10:25:08 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 09:25:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] James Petras' critique of the Communist Manifesto
Message-ID: <436032.47073.qm@web180101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

James Petras' critique of the Communist Manifesto
________________________________

????* To: pen-l at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, marxism-international at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, cm150-l at xxxxxxx 
????* Subject: James Petras' critique of the Communist Manifesto 
????* From: Louis Proyect <lnp3 at xxxxxxxxxxxx> 
????* Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 09:57:28 -0500 
________________________________

The sequence of capitalist expansion,
?destruction of traditional bonds and
global integration was, according to Marx, the process of creating a
unified working class, conscious of its
?class interests and linked across
national boundaries. His chain of reasoning lacks a clear understanding of
the importance traditions and social bonds preceding capitalism played in
creating social solidarity for confronting 
capitalism and sustaining class
consciousness. When Marx describes the 
bourgeoisie as reducing human
relations to the "cash nexus" as a prelude to the development of class
consciousness, he is essentially 
describing the condition of the U.S.
working class--probably the least willing and able to identify its source
of exploitation let alone struggle against it. 
The stripping of older
beliefs--what Marx and Engels unfortunately called "philistine
sentimentalism"--includes the sense of 
community and not necessarily belief
in a "natural superior." Thus the assumption that the "everlasting
insecurity and agitation" that the Manifesto's 
authors associate with
capital's "revolutionizing of the means of production" does not necessarily
"compel [man] to face with sober senses,
?his real conditions of life and
his relations with his kind." In fact, economic processes are having the
opposite effects in deepening reaction, 
atomizing labor, stimulating ethnic
warfare and undermining a vast swath of economic production throughout
Latin America, Africa, the ex-USSR
?and elsewhere.

Thus the centrality of "tradition" and culture 
and community in defining
the formation of class consciousness is
?lost before Marx and Engels'
sweeping and uncritical celebration of the revolutionary potential of the
development of the forces of production.

Similarly, the savaging of the Third World labor
?force occurring under the
aegis of the internationalization of capital has not led to greater class
consciousness or "civilized" behavior. 
One look at free trade zones should
dissuade anyone of that notion. Instead, it has broken class ties and
fostered greater deference and servility.

Bourgeois globalization has not created
?"a world in its own image" as Marx
and Engels argued. Today these are the "sentimental pieties" printed out in
World Bank public relations handouts
?trumpeting the "modernization" of the
Third World. [And LM TV documentaries, I might add.]

Their lack of a sense of class consciousness 
directly related to the
producers and not derived from the capitalist process of production
explains the difficulties many "Marxists" 
have in creating an alternative
to capitalism. Today capitalists don't "call into existence the men who
will wield the weapons" to deal a death blow 
to capitalism. They create
millions of frightened, uncertain, temporary workers, tied to the cash
nexus. To become a Marxist in the sense
?of realizing the goals of the
Manifesto, one must reject Marx and Engels' false assumptions about the
"revolutionary role" of the bourgeoisie.
?To move toward working class
action, their conception of the transformation of workers into a
revolutionary class must be subjected to the harshest criticism.

Where Marx and Engels say that "man's 
consciousness changes with every
change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations
and in his social life" the changes that 
capitalism has wrought have
undermined the construction of a revolutionary consciousness at every
point. The notion that the bourgeoisie 
revolutionizes production through
competition and in the course "forces" workers to "confront" their
conditions and subsequently join together 
is false on all counts. The most
important change is not the revolutionizing of production, but the
transformation of political and social 
relations throughout the world in a
fashion that undermines the possibility of "material recognition of
proletarians."

To speak of the Manifesto today, one must 
move from the brilliant economic
analysis to the revolutionary conclusions by constructing a new theory of
revolutionary action.

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

The passage above appears in James Petras' article "The Manifesto's
Strength and Flaws," which is part of a symposium on the relevance of
Marxism on the 150th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto published in
the latest New Politics, Winter 1998. I highly recommend this issue. For
ordering information, check www.wilpaterson.edu/~newpol.

Louis proyect



From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Mar  1 11:59:04 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 13:59:04 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Black History Month 2009 Change and continuity
	6/end
Message-ID: <c35.52b32b9c.36dc34f8@aol.com>

 
In a message dated 2/28/2009 1:26:49 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
Waistline2 at aol.com writes:

Obama as  a "uniter" is an interesting Marxist approach. Perhaps if all of  
us  
was raised by a white parent and white grandparents, we too would be   
"uniters." 

Why not just read his book - "Dreams from my father?"  And then describe how  
being raised, during his formative years,  where he was raised mirror the 
life 
of  blacks in American Northern  or Southern cities and country side. I do 
not 
write  Obama is an  immigrant. His story - meaning the story that he tells, 
and 
to a   large degree the live he has lived, is that of the story of the 
immigrant  and  their first generation offspring. 

If you disagree with an  interpretation why not simply state something to  
the 
effect "that my  interpretation is" unless you are saying what Obama means is 
 
"I was  raised by one white parent and white grandparents and therefore I am 
a  
"uniter," with the small physiological disposition of the descendants  of  
Southern slavery. Without question he is African American, but  that does not 
 
really tell much.   

"Uniter!"  

Trust me on the following: Obama is CEO for the capitalist class.  

WL. 



>> Barack Obama wonderful book, "Dreams from  My Father," is the  immigrant  
story, a black immigrant, rather  than the history of the  Negro People, and 
his  
acute  awareness of this living history accounts  for his unique and  
individual  
ability to cross the color line. When  Obama  writes, "My identity might 
begin 

with the fact of my race, but   it didn?t, couldn?t, end there," what is 
meant is 
that my identity is  not  defined on the basis of the color factor in 
American 
history.  

The words of Obama reveals why no self respecting Marxist, born  and  reared  
as part of the "baby boomers," can deploy the  concept race,  other than the 
petty  bourgeois intellectuals  unable to fully digest  dialectics without 
opportunist  sauce.  << 

^^^^^
CB:  Obama's words don't mean that. Unlike  most
Black  people he was raised by White parents
and grandparents.  This gave him an  unusual 
ability to understand both aspects of his  
Duboisian double  consciousness. It allows
him to be a uniter, not  a divider.

Obama is not an immigrant. He had little contact
with his  immigrant  father. He was raised by
US natives
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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Mar  1 12:15:21 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 14:15:21 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Black History Month 2009 Change and continuity
	6/end
Message-ID: <bd1.4cda971e.36dc38c9@aol.com>

Trust me on the following: Obama is CEO for the capitalist class.  

WL. 

^^^^^^ CB: So were Lincoln and FDR. From my  observations, that's dogmatic 
,formulaic thinking ,and in this situation,  there  keep arising more 
indications that something new is going on here.  Need to try to think dialectically on 
this one. Again the first indicator is  getting all those White people to vote 
for him. That's breaking a quantitative  barrier. Then his first month as 
Pres is realistic , but making some changes  that are possible in this context , 
despite all the left haters say. I could  list the actions , but I'm not going 
to exert myself for the haters. Fuck em.  

The big crisis/problem is Afghanistan, and ,of course Palestine  He's going 
to have to be Houdini on that. I can't see how he'll do it. Unless he  just 
pretty soon , after this assessment he can get something like broker both a  
treaty with Hamas and a treaty with  the Taliban et al not to facilitate,  and to 
hinder any attack on the US by the bin Laden group.  I don't know  how he gets 
out of the obligation to capture bin Laden,  

***********

Reply 

To begin a  presentation - (the six part series for Black History Month, and 
the follow up  dialogue) with class, class struggles and class antagonism, and 
then point out  that Obama is the CEO of the capitalist class may very well 
be "dogmatic  ,formulaic thinking ," or a refusal to "try to think 
dialectically." But, there  is no way to see how one thinks other than as it is expressed 
in exposition. For  me this means class intersection and where the communist 
must push for the  concessions made possible on the basis of temporary "fields" 
of relative unity.  For instance health care has emerged as one of these 
fields and not because the  workers "need health care." 

This field emerges as a manifestation  of intersection because private 
industry large and small, is being crushed by  health care cost, along with 
insurance companies indirectly paying for the cost  or medical plans. Further, the 
cost of Medicare can be more rationalized and  driven downward by its 
reorganization around our new technological regime and  the cost of prescription drugs 
can also be driven down through regulation. Class  intersection of interest, 
rather than Obama as the "uniter" must inform our view  of the art of the 
possible. Another such "field" exist in the agricultural  sector, as the expansion of 
welfare and food stamps. Most certainly this  business sector is screaming 
through its lobbyists that "the people are hunger  and need food; our food." 
Through this intersection of interest arising the  demand to increase the 
consumption capacity of the masses, which also intersects  with a huge area of the 
economy driven by consumer demand. 

Here is the basis upon which Obama emerges as "uniter." 
 
This is not a bad thing, but a "thing" that must lend itself to a Marxist  
unraveling in its class dimensions. This is not to suggest being opposed to  
excursions into anthropology. This clamoring about white people is unsettling  
because 58 million, primarily whites voted in the historically fascist political 
 block anchored in the Southern political establishment. We really need to 
find  the means to propagandize class and popularize its meaning for America.  

I am of the opinion that the great polarity to be stuck and fought  for in 
American society is between fascists and non fascist. There are material  
reasons for this opinion bound up with this stage of decay of capital. 
 
In the pre and post WWII era it was possible for a section of world  politics 
to be anti-fascism and anti-communism because capitalism itself had not  
reached its historical barriers and the anti-communist/anti-fascists axis still  
had a task of sweeping the last institutions of feudalism from earth. Further,  
the era of the national colonial revolutions had not been completed and 
allowed  for a unique class intersection of forces that emerged as the politics of 
the  "Third World" movement. It mattered little that we communists screamed at 
the  top of our lungs that there is no such thing as a "Third Way," because 
the world  still had to complete its historical process bound up with the 
destruction of  direct colonialism and establishing the world hegemony of finance 
capital.  

Today, the world class alignment is such that the world  bourgeoisie and 
world proletariat faces each other along lines spoken of in the  Communist 
Manifesto. Further, a section of the world bourgeoisie and world  proletariat has 
been effectively cast outside of bourgeois production and face  each other in 
external collision. Without the connecting bond - tissue, that is  the unity of 
productive forces and social relations of production there is no  basis for 
unity with these extreme manifestation of the capital relations. If  you do not 
have a job or the prospect of getting one, you exist in external  collision 
with capital. Capital that is detached from production and existing in  external 
collision with productive capital, demanding government redistribution  of 
wealth rather than government aid in wealth production, signals the emergence  of 
class antagonism.  

How can a political mass today be  anti-fascist and opposed to socially 
necessary means of life being distributed  to the starving proletarian masses? 
Stated another way, in the post WW II period  one could be anti-fascist and 
anti-communists by fighting along the line of  satisfying the incredible commodity 
hunger of the world created as a by product  of the war. A hunger that could be 
effectively satisfied on the basis of the  expansion of capitalist 
production. If you can feed a huge section of the world  you are going to win the 
ideological and political struggle on the basis of  lifting the masses from the 
ravages of war. This was the material environment  for the consolidation of 
anti-fascist anti-communism as a political axis in the  post WWII era. This 
condition no longer exists. 

Thus the political  polarity to be fought for is between fascist and 
non-fascists.   

This penning away over "left haters," and "fuck em," seems to be a  misuse of 
energy inasmuch as the opposition to realizing "the possible" on the  basis 
of class intersection, comes from the fascists as expressed in the  Republican 
Party social and political base. For instance 58 million people who  voted for 
McCain, fundamentally but not exclusively white, expressing its own  self 
contained class intersection pivoted to thinly masked white supremacy  ideology 
and a platform of less government and anti-American liberalism seems to  me to 
be the Congressional base of opposition to the Obama agenda rather than  "left 
haters." 

I am not of the opinion that "let haters" are  "messing things up for us" and 
the "brother from another planet."  

I do agree with the presenting of Lincoln and Roosevelt as an  index; as 
individuals called forth by the changing boundaries in the capitalist  system to 
reform it. 
 
In Lincoln case the reform of the system meant the transferring of  political 
power from the agrarian aristocratic like capitalists to the  industrial 
capitalist, with the unexpected rise of finance capital produced  during the 
financing of the Civil War. In the process of this transfer of power  the issue of 
the emancipation of slaves emerged. What is interesting is that for  this 
transfer of power - (political authority), from one class sector to another  to 
take place required Civil War. My thin reading of world history indicates  that 
no where else on earth was Civil War required to transfer power from the  
agrarian capitalist to the industrial capitalist. Rather the Civil Wars in the  
rest of the world was bound up with the transfer of power from feudalists  to 
capitalists. 

In relationship to Obama as the Second Coming of  Christ, or rather Lincoln, 
he is called forth to reform the structural and  institutional relations 
between exactly whom or what sections and sectors of  classes? 
 
The comparison of Lincoln to Obama begs such questions and we must at least  
try to answer them as folks schooled in the theory of Marx. In my opinion 
Obama  is not called forth to effect the transfer of political power from one 
sector of  capital to another as was the case with Lincoln. There is no sector 
division  within capital analogous to the agrarian bourgeoisie and the industrial 
 bourgeoisie. There are sharp political divisions of a sectarian character 
within  the ruling political caste. The Southern political establishment is not  
economically rooted in a distinct economic sector of the economy. Thus, 
Senator  Richard Shelby of Alabama, a boll weevil Democrat turned Republican, 
demands the  auto workers in the North take cuts, or that industry move to his 
state.   Differences between such traditionally Southern Democrats turned 
Republican does  not express sector differences in capital, only sectarian political 
differences,  or methods of rule and how the government redistributes wealth.  

I believe it is wrong, going to get us in trouble, create terrible  
ideological and political confusion to paint Obama as Social Democrat and  the "others" 
- Republicans, as non-social democrats. Both parties are evolving  along an 
axis of an American version of Social democracy, to the degree that  both agree 
with government transfer of the workers created wealth into the  economy, but 
in different directions. Reagan and Bush busted the "budget" and  Clinton 
forever changed welfare, "as we know it," not the Republicans as such.  One of 
the exception was John Engler as governor in Michigan, who attacked the  states 
welfare program on the basis of eliminating "general assistance" for  single 
unemployed males.   

On the other hand society is  straining under the pressure of the growing 
antagonism that are the productive  forces in hostile conflict with the social 
relations of capital. We have to  explain this is all kinds of ways. What is 
Obama called forth to do?  

In the case of Roosevelt there was only the threats of a  political/military 
coup. 
 
The world of Roosevelt will not be repeated because it can't. 
 
Roosevelt positioned American society to enter the war and establish its  
political and productive - economic, hegemony over the capitalist world and  
ensure a half century of expansion of the capitalist system. No matter how much  
Obama appears as the new Roosevelt he cannot expand the system, only  
institutionalized the growing polarity within our society. I am not opposed to  
fighting along a line of class intersection because there does not exist any  other 
way to fight. The Roosevelt Coalition can only be recreated in form, not  
content and it is imperative that communists understand this or present the  
argument that in fact this is a repeat of history at the same level.  

History does repeats itself at the same level, the first time  tragedy the 
second time comedy - farce.  

"Left haters."  

Even during the period of Lincoln the abolitionists movement  remained the 
abolitionists movement, without being torn from its goals. This  movement 
contained its left and right wing with the right wing condemning the  left - 
"radical Republicans." Within "radical republicanism" was it most extreme  left 
expression in the shape and existence of the black abolitionists such as  the 
intellectual and theoretician David Walker.  David Walker, author of  "Walker's 
Appeal" was in his day understood as a "left hater."  

Analogies are fine but have their place on the spiraling staircase  of 
history. 
 
WL.  






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From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Sun Mar  1 12:36:55 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:36:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Black History Month 2009 Change and
	continuity	6/end
Message-ID: <30360523.1235936215947.JavaMail.root@whwamui-soar.pas.sa.earthlink.net>

Insofar as I understand what Waistline is saying here, I agree with all of it.

-----Original Message-----
>From: Waistline2 at aol.com
>Sent: Mar 1, 2009 11:15 AM
>To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu
>Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Black History Month 2009 Change and continuity	6/end
>
....................
>Reply 
>
>To begin a  presentation - (the six part series for Black History Month, and 
>the follow up  dialogue) with class, class struggles and class antagonism, and 
>then point out  that Obama is the CEO of the capitalist class may very well 
>be "dogmatic  ,formulaic thinking ," or a refusal to "try to think 
>dialectically." But, there  is no way to see how one thinks other than as it is expressed 
>in exposition. For  me this means class intersection and where the communist 
>must push for the  concessions made possible on the basis of temporary "fields" 
>of relative unity.  For instance health care has emerged as one of these 
>fields and not because the  workers "need health care." 
>............



From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Mar  1 12:43:38 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 14:43:38 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama: The brother form another planet
Message-ID: <ce8.4cd8620b.36dc3f6a@aol.com>

In a message dated 2/28/2009 5:50:26 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
_cdb1003 at prodigy.net_ (mailto:cdb1003 at prodigy.net)  writes:
 
Waistline2 Obama as a "uniter" is an interesting Marxist approach. 
 

^^^^^ CB: Marxist as in Workers of all nations and races , unite ! 
 
^^^^^ 
 
Perhaps if all of  us was raised by a white parent and white  grandparents, 
we too would be "uniters." 
 
^^^^^ CB: Makes sense. It would engender need for unity on a personal level  
for peace of mind. His mother seems to have taught him Black history type  
respect for Black people. He seems to have somewhat consciously constructed a  
Black identity of high integrity. Going to the hood to live, like an  
anthropologist joining his own culture. Now he's an interesting character. To  coin a 
phrase, he seems to be in the Presidential world , but not of it. Somehow  he 
comes across as confident in the sense of not worried, in the face of an  
extraordinary mess but not arrogant and not aloof. Engaged with horrific crises,  
but not scared and  not in the bliss of ignorance. I'm like "more power to  ya, 
Barry". So far, so good. 
 
******** 
 
Comment/Reply 
 
I tend to prefer a Marxist approach rather than psychological speculation  
and race theory. 
 
To conceive Obama personality traits as a call for  "Workers of all  nations 
and races , unite !" is an interesting proposition. Further, I reject  the 
concept that humanity is divided into races. I am convince with every fiber  of 
my being that those who cling to race and its usage will inevitably fail to  
approach issues from a class point of view, because a false theory of biology  
cannot be reconciled with a science of class and economic relations. Obama  
does not unite back and white people, devoid of any class conception of  society. 
  
 
Pardon, but whites in America are not united amongst themselves because  
class - economic interest, stratification, status and perception of class,  
divides them and have always divided them, along with a morality of "what is  right 
and wrong" about our society ills.  Barack's personal qualities,  which I most 
certainly have never ignored, which cast him a "uniter," is a class  thing 
also: to unite or maintain the polarizing unity that is the productive  forces 
and social relations of American society. 
 
That is his J.O.B. 
 
Obama's personal cool has more in common with Frank Sinatra rather than  
Miles Davis with the latter expressing a contempt and demeanor characteristic of  
the black middle class militant profoundly aware of the structural barriers of 
 Jim Crow. Personal qualities are important but should not overshadowed 
class;  and in Obama case, his set of polices designed to protect the unity of the  
productive forces and social relations. The race to the bottom, has nothing 
to  do with biological race, and will not stopped or be halted by any of 
Obama's  polices. The character of who hits bottom first, from the standpoint of the 
 color factor, is rooted in slavery and its aftermath. 
 
It is interesting to state that Obama went to live in the hood, when most  
Negroes in America were born in the "hood." The point being that this  
"anthropologist joining his own culture," is why the story of the American Dream  is 
shaped a certain why in Obama's hands. Me think we both agree and are saying  
the same thing, from different directions in respect to the personality of  
Obama. The stark different in our direction is that I tend to try and write  
specifically from the standpoint of class; class intersection, classes amongst  
whites and blacks and how in this intersection communist fight the daily battles  
of the proletarian masses. 
 
Class and communism are words generously used in everything I write. 
 
Our J.O.B., regardless to who is President is to fight for the victory of  
the workers, or whatever section of them are in motion, in the current struggle; 
 in the daily battle for concession and to acquire socially necessary means 
of  life in all their dimensions. All the while we remain true to Marx approach 
to  class. The reason why is to establish an economic communist polarity that 
 demands socially necessary means of life as a birth right. 
 
Socially necessary means of life as a birth right. This is the path that is  
easiest to walk. The only way for people without money, or little money, to  
secure these socially necessary means of life is for, the government to give  
such to them. There is simply no other way. If you work and still cannot  pay 
your bills or care for your family, what is one to do? Put on a ski mask and  
hide behind a tree waiting on some other proletarian with the same problems?  
Stick up a bank? 
 
To the degree that Obama's legislative mandates intersect with this demand  
is the degree to which his concessions and possible reforms are to be welcomed. 
 This does not require communists to be torn from our line of march and 
preaching  the gospel of class and economic communism. 

On this basis a huge section of the American proletariat, employed and  
unemployed will gravitate towards our economic and political pole, rather than  
merge directly with a political section of the bourgeoisie. 
 
*********** 
 
^^^^^ CB:  Maybe sort of half, but the other half is pretty American  native. 
I will say that he's sort of like "a brother from another planet". More  like 
an "immigrant" from ancient Egypt or something, somekind of higher  
civilization than America. His mother was an anthropologist, and he lived in  Indonesia 
for a while, which might give him some ability to view American  culture 
objectively like an immigrant, but his grandfather was a traveling  salesman and 
his grandmother worked in a bank, real regular Americans from  Kansas 
 
He's _sui generis_, a phenomon, breaking through a new "quantitative  
boundry" in personality type. He's got a lot of character, and, well../\.  
intelligence social intelligence and abstract intelligence. 
 
^^^^^^^^ 
 
Comment/Reply 
 
OK . . . Obama is: 
 
1). "sort of like "a brother from another planet". More like an "immigrant"  
from ancient Egypt or something, some kind of higher civilization than 
America." 
 
2).  "consciously constructed a Black identity of high integrity." 
 
3).  "Going to the hood to live, like an anthropologist joining his  own 
culture." 
 
4).  "Now he's an interesting character. To coin a phrase, he seems to  be in 
the Presidential world , but not of it. Somehow he comes across as  confident 
in the sense of not worried, in the face of an extraordinary mess but  not 
arrogant and not aloof." 
 
I think it is a serious mistake to imply that Obama or anyone else comes  
from a higher civilization. We most certainly are saying the same kind of  thing 
in respect to the immigrant quality of the story President Obama  articulates 
as the American Dream. It seems you may have thought I was saying  that Obama 
is not black or African American. Sorry if my writing caused that  kind of 
confusion. 
 
In a few words, Obama articulates the immigrant quality of the American  
Dream and adopts the historical character of the "carpet bagger," the "do  
gooder," to work amongst the natives, so to speak. This is not a bad thing, but  part 
of the logic of American history and society. There will always be  carpet 
baggers, of whom I am one. I did my "southern tour" of duty as a Tanned  Yankee 
or the infamous Northern Negro. ;-) 
 
Still, the world in which Obama as President resides, that he is not only  
"of" but manifest, is rent with class contradiction and emerging antagonism. "A  
brother from another planet" . . .  me think this statement is profoundly  
accurate. 
 
Obama: the brother from another planet. 
 
Our brother from another planet  . . . (wow!!!) . . . . is proposing a  set 
of legislative mandates aimed at reforming the capitalist system, which  cannot 
be reformed. What can be reformed is the institutional relations within  and 
between classes.  Where aspects of his mandate intersect with the needs  of 
our class is where we push for implementation of such programs. Not out of a  
sense of loyalty to Obama but as a function of our ideology and love of our  
class. 
 
I was certainly impressed with the honor President Obama bestowed upon  
Stevie Wonder and always feel pride when our country and its institutions fully  
acknowledge all of our history. Most people in America have had enough of  
pretense and the stupidity that accompanies all theories and doctrines of races  
amongst humanity. Obama did in fact help sections of America cross the Stevie  
Wonder boundary, which a huge cross section of America crossed decades ago. 
 
Still the tiny issue of class remains and will continue to express itself  no 
matter how much and who ignores class. 
 
There are certain inherent danger and opportunities involved in all  
struggles of our fight for what is decent, honorable and "just plain right to  do," 
and the greatest danger is being subsumed by bourgeois politics and notions  
that deny the class logic and structure of American society. 
 
Me think it is not dogmatic to speak of class, classes, and the capitalist  
class on a listserv that bills itself as Marxist. 
 
WL. 
 
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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Mar  1 13:06:44 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 15:06:44 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Black History Month 2009 - correction
Message-ID: <ca9.43b141d6.36dc44d4@aol.com>

Even during the period of Lincoln the  abolitionists movement  remained the 
abolitionists movement, without  being torn from its goals. This  movement 
contained its left and right  wing with the right wing condemning the  left - 
"radical Republicans."  Within "radical republicanism" was it most extreme  
left 
expression in  the shape and existence of the black abolitionists such as  
the  
intellectual and theoretician David Walker.  David Walker, author  of  
"Walker's 
Appeal" was in his day understood as a "left  hater."   



Correction 
 
Even during the period of Lincoln the abolitionists movement  remained  the 
abolitionists movement, without being torn from its goals. This   movement 
contained its left and right wing with the right wing condemning  the  left - 
"radical Republicans." Within "radical republicanism" was  it most extreme  
left 
expression in the shape and existence of the  black abolitionists such as  
the 
intellectual and theoretician David  Walker.  David Walker, author of  
"Walker's 
Appeal" was in his  day understood as a "left hater," BECAUSE OF HIS EXTREME 
OPPOSITION TO  SLAVERY.   



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From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Sun Mar  1 18:08:12 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 17:08:12 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama: The brother from another planet
Message-ID: <192803.75397.qm@web180109.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>





Waistline2 

Waistline2 Obama as a "uniter" is an interesting Marxist approach. 


^^^^^ CB: Marxist as in Workers of all nations and races , unite ! 

^^^^^ 

Perhaps if all of??us was raised by a white parent and white??grandparents, 
we too would be "uniters." 

^^^^^ CB: Makes sense. It would engender need for unity on a personal level??
for peace of mind. His mother seems to have taught him Black history type??
respect for Black people. He seems to have somewhat consciously constructed a??
Black identity of high integrity. Going to the hood to live, like an??
anthropologist joining his own culture. Now he's an interesting character. To??coin a 
phrase, he seems to be in the Presidential world , but not of it. Somehow??he 
comes across as confident in the sense of not worried, in the face of an??
extraordinary mess but not arrogant and not aloof. Engaged with horrific crises,??
but not scared and??not in the bliss of ignorance. I'm like "more power to??ya, 
Barry". So far, so good. 

******** 

Comment/Reply 

I tend to prefer a Marxist approach rather than psychological speculation??
and race theory.

^^^^^
CB: The Marxist approach to?an?individual's personality
would be a psychological approach too.

^^^^?

To conceive Obama personality traits as a call for??"Workers of all??nations 
and races , unite !" is an interesting proposition. 

^^^^
CB: He said he's a uniter not a divider, Given
he's Black , and of course that is a?prominent
feature of the public situation, race unity is
strongly suggested. So, it fits with
workers uniting. In the US racial unity
is an important version of the famous
unity slogan.

^^^^

Further, I reject??the 
concept that humanity is divided into races.

^^^^^
CB: You are ignoring social and historical?actuality.
What do you think the Civil Rights movement was
directed at ? An illusion ?

^^^^^^

?I am convince with every fiber??of 
my being that those who cling to race and its usage will inevitably fail to??
approach issues from a class point of view, because a false theory of biology??
cannot be reconciled with a science of class and economic relations.

^^^^
CB: Race is an invalid biological concept
Unfortunately, it is a real social, political
economic and historical category.
It inflects class.

^^^^^

?Obama??
does not unite back and white people, devoid of any class conception of??society. 

^^^^
CB: When I mention "Workers of the?all?nations and races
unite " I am?referring to his impact on uniting people
in?relation to a class conception of society.
That should be obvious.

^^^^^^^
??

Pardon, but whites in America are not united amongst themselves because??
class - economic interest, stratification, status and perception of class,??
divides them and have always divided them, along with a morality of "what is??right 
and wrong" about our society ills.

^^^^^^^
CB: Yes, but that doesn't mean White and Black
workers haven't been divided too.

^^^^^^^

??Barack's personal qualities,??which I most 
certainly have never ignored, which cast him a "uniter," is a class??thing 
also: to unite or maintain the polarizing unity that is the productive??forces 
and social relations of American society. 

^^^^
CB: Maybe. We'll see what happens.

^^^^^

That is his J.O.B. 

^^^^^^
CB:? So, far the effect of his campaign
has not been to do that job.

^^^^^^

Obama's personal cool has more in common with Frank Sinatra rather than??
Miles Davis with the latter expressing a contempt and demeanor characteristic of??
the black middle class militant profoundly aware of the structural barriers of 
Jim Crow. Personal qualities are important but should not overshadowed 
class;??and in Obama case, his set of polices designed to protect the unity of the??
productive forces and social relations. The race to the bottom, has nothing 
to??do with biological race, and will not stopped or be halted by any of 
Obama's??polices. The character of who hits bottom first, from the standpoint of the 
color factor, is rooted in slavery and its aftermath. 

^^^^
CB: You introduced the issue of individual
personality by your idea that he has an
immigrant personality. I'm not trying to override
class with personality. I'm pointing to the
impact of his campaign in contributing to
more unity between races, including
between White, Black and Brown workers, especially.
Reduction of racism in the middle strata enhances
the racial unity of the working class as well.
His mixed racial background logically helps 
him in leading a movement that unites
sections of the social classes. 

As to whether he does what you say,
we shall see. So, far it's not like that
His budget proposals to reverse Reaganism
and pledge to fight its opponents is the
opposite of what you predict. It is
fighting for the working class versus
the rich.

^^^^^^^^^

It is interesting to state that Obama went to live in the hood, when most??
Negroes in America were born in the "hood." The point being that this??
"anthropologist joining his own culture," is why the story of the American Dream??is 
shaped a certain why in Obama's hands. Me think we both agree and are saying??
the same thing, from different directions in respect to the personality of??
Obama. The stark different in our direction is that I tend to try and write??
specifically from the standpoint of class; class intersection, classes amongst??
whites and blacks and how in this intersection communist fight the daily battles??
of the proletarian masses. 

^^^^^
CB: No, I'd say I'm writing from the standpoint
of class too, inflected by race, which is 
necessary in discusing class in the US.
The hoos is the working class section
of the Black community. So, O went
to the working class section of the 
Black community when he could have
got rich.? Not too many Columbia grads
become community organizers, especially
in the 1980's.

^^^^^^^

Class and communism are words generously used in everything I write. 

^^^^^
CB: Me too.

^^^^^^

Our J.O.B., regardless to who is President is to fight for the victory of??
the workers, or whatever section of them are in motion, in the current struggle; 
in the daily battle for concession and to acquire socially necessary means 
of??life in all their dimensions. All the while we remain true to Marx approach 
to??class. The reason why is to establish an economic communist polarity that 
demands socially necessary means of life as a birth right. 

^^^^^
CB: Well, no not regardless who is President
this time. A quantitative electoral?boundary has
been crossed, but yes to the rest of what
you say.? Activate Obama's claim that
change comes from the bottom up. There's somebody
at the top who won't suppress the bottomup 
movement. He's signalling he will be like Lincoln
or FDR for a bottom up movement.

^^^^^^^^
Socially necessary means of life as a birth right. This is the path that is??
easiest to walk. The only way for people without money, or little money, to??
secure these socially necessary means of life is for, the government to give??
such to them. There is simply no other way. If you work and still cannot??pay 
your bills or care for your family, what is one to do? Put on a ski mask and??
hide behind a tree waiting on some other proletarian with the same problems???
Stick up a bank? 

To the degree that Obama's legislative mandates intersect with this demand??
is the degree to which his concessions and possible reforms are to be welcomed. 
This does not require communists to be torn from our line of march and 
preaching??the gospel of class and economic communism. 

On this basis a huge section of the American proletariat, employed and??
unemployed will gravitate towards our economic and political pole, rather than??
merge directly with a political section of the bourgeoisie. 

*********** 

^^^^^ CB:??Maybe sort of half, but the other half is pretty American??native. 
I will say that he's sort of like "a brother from another planet". More??like 
an "immigrant" from ancient Egypt or something, somekind of higher??
civilization than America. His mother was an anthropologist, and he lived in??Indonesia 
for a while, which might give him some ability to view American??culture 
objectively like an immigrant, but his grandfather was a traveling??salesman and 
his grandmother worked in a bank, real regular Americans from??Kansas 

He's _sui generis_, a phenomon, breaking through a new "quantitative??
boundry" in personality type. He's got a lot of character, and, well../\.??
intelligence social intelligence and abstract intelligence. 

^^^^^^^^ 

Comment/Reply 

OK . . . Obama is: 

1). "sort of like "a brother from another planet". More like an "immigrant"??
from ancient Egypt or something, some kind of higher civilization than 
America." 

2).??"consciously constructed a Black identity of high integrity." 

3).??"Going to the hood to live, like an anthropologist joining his??own 
culture." 

4).??"Now he's an interesting character. To coin a phrase, he seems to??be in 
the Presidential world , but not of it. Somehow he comes across as??confident 
in the sense of not worried, in the face of an extraordinary mess but??not 
arrogant and not aloof." 

I think it is a serious mistake to imply that Obama or anyone else comes??
from a higher civilization.

^^^^^
CB: No it's not a mistake at all. It's a kind of
?imaginative play on your idea of "immigrant"
which is more respectful than the connotation
of "immigrant" in today's context in the US

^^^^^^

?We most certainly are saying the same kind of??thing 
in respect to the immigrant quality of the story President Obama??articulates 
as the American Dream. It seems you may have thought I was saying??that Obama 
is not black or African American. Sorry if my writing caused that??kind of 
confusion. 

^^^^^^^
CB: Yes,? the connotation of immigrant is "foreigner" in
the US, with the unfortunate prejudice against them
that goes with it.? He really does not have a "foreigner"
feel about him , or he never would have gotten in as
President.? He's unique, a personality of a new type,
_sui generis_.??It helped him to bring out the best
in Americans, such as it is.?But anyway, enough celebration of
that, 'cause the crises are seeming very daunting
and he has an incredibly difficult "job" ahead of 
him that his personality won't do for him the
way it could win the election. He may have brought out the
best in Americans, but it's not clear that the
best in Americans is up to the current crisis.

^^^^^^

In a few words, Obama articulates the immigrant quality of the American??
Dream and adopts the historical character of the "carpet bagger," the "do??
gooder," to work amongst the natives, so to speak. This is not a bad thing, but??part 
of the logic of American history and society. There will always be??carpet 
baggers, of whom I am one. I did my "southern tour" of duty as a Tanned??Yankee 
or the infamous Northern Negro. ;-) 

^^^^
CB: I would n't say he _articulates_ the immigrant quality.
More that he has some of the objectivity in?consciousness?of some
outsider?/immigrant _and_ the consciousness a insider/native;
and then he's got both White and Black insider/native consciousness.
He _articulates_ the latter double , native consciousness which is
our potential "higher civilization".
That would be my take.?Now we'll see if this consciousness can
find a way to deal with the current crises.

^^^^^^

Still, the world in which Obama as President resides, that he is not only??
"of" but manifest, is rent with class contradiction and emerging antagonism. "A??
brother from another planet" . . .??me think this statement is profoundly??
accurate. 

^^^^^
CB: A planet with beings of higher intelligence, but
it's not sure if it's high enough.

^^^^^^

Obama: the brother from another planet. 

Our brother from another planet??. . . (wow!!!) . . . . is proposing a??set 
of legislative mandates aimed at reforming the capitalist system, which??cannot 
be reformed. What can be reformed is the institutional relations within??and 
between classes

^^^^^
CB: A key one still being to abate
racial difference between races.

^^^^^^

.??Where aspects of his mandate intersect with the needs??of 
our class is where we push for implementation of such programs. Not out of a??
sense of loyalty to Obama but as a function of our ideology and love of our??
class. 

^^^^^
CB: Yes.?? Obama's character is
interesting because of its success
so far in advancing the working class's
best interests, and projecting from that
potential for him to advance them further.
That goes without saying. The class must
have political leaders. He so far has
demonstrated? good leadership? qualities
Think of Lincoln, Lenin, FDR, Castro.
Of course, he's not there yet, but
he keeps on moving in the correct
direction, surprisingly. Who ever would
have thought it would get this far
a couple of years ago. 

^^^^^^

I was certainly impressed with the honor President Obama bestowed upon??
Stevie Wonder and always feel pride when our country and its institutions fully??
acknowledge all of our history. Most people in America have had enough of??
pretense and the stupidity that accompanies all theories and doctrines of races??
amongst humanity. Obama did in fact help sections of America cross the Stevie??
Wonder boundary, which a huge cross section of America crossed decades ago. 

^^^^^
CB: He is quoted as saying he wants
'to make the White House "The People's House"
Stevie is a Balladeer for Americans, and
his honor is a good step toward making it
"The People's House."

^^^^^^^^

Still the tiny issue of class remains and will continue to express itself??no 
matter how much and who ignores class. 

^^^^^^
CB: All of Obama's rhetoric is pro-working class
expressing empathy for the class, but using
'the terms that are acceptable "middle class" means
working class in US terminology. He is constantly
mentioning people who have suffered economic
trauma, using?examples.?He was a
community organizer. Today it's hard to express
allegience to the working class more than that
today.?All of his signals are very biased toward
everyday people. the folk.

^^^^^^^^

There are certain inherent danger and opportunities involved in all??
struggles of our fight for what is decent, honorable and "just plain right to??do," 
and the greatest danger is being subsumed by bourgeois politics and notions??
that deny the class logic and structure of American society. 

Me think it is not dogmatic to speak of class, classes, and the capitalist??
class on a listserv that bills itself as Marxist. 

WL. 

^^^^^^^
CB: No. I talk about class all the time.
The dogma was in the?reference to
his being the CEO of the capitalist class.
as if he can't advance the working class's
interests because he is in that office
So, were Lincoln and FDR, somehow
that did significantly for the working class.
? O may not
'make it, but he gives lots of indication
that he will do everything?he can?to
be the Leader of , by and for the People
"The People" being the traditional 
American way of referring to the working
masses. He may fail, but he seems
like he will give a better shot at it
than anything I imagined would come
along in this period.


From farmelantj at juno.com  Mon Mar  2 13:40:12 2009
From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com)
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2009 20:40:12 GMT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] Marx & religion & atheism
	refs in MIA
Message-ID: <20090302.154012.4150.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com>


In the piece, "Six Prominent American
Freethinkers," Mark Lindley and I discussed
Michael Harrington's take on Marx and religion.
See:
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/fl161208.html


-- Ralph Dumain <rdumain at autodidactproject.org> wrote:

Articles by Karl Marx in The Rheinische Zeitung
The Leading Article in No. 179 of the K?lnische Zeitung [58]

Source: MECW, Volume 2, p. 184.
Written: between June 29 and July 4, 1842
First Published: Supplement to Rheinische Zeitung Nos. 191, 193 + 195, July 10, 12 + 14, 1842;.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1842/07/10.htm


Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1852
Heroes of the Exile
IV
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/heroes-exile/ch04.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/heroes-exile/ch10.htm

1844 mss
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/epm/3rd.htm




Frederick William IV, King of Prussia by Frederick Engels
Christianity contains premises which. if developed, could lead to atheism. .... influence of the Enlightenment remained the basis of Prussian legislation. ...
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1842/10/king-prussia.htm - 22k - 

#
Irving Howe: Intellectuals' Flight From Politics (October 1947)
... pragmatism and existentialism; militant atheism and neo-mysticism; .... as it stemmed from the Enlightenment and twisted through the 20th century. ...
www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/howe/1947/10/intellectuals.htm - 43k - Cached - Similar pages
#
I. Origins of the Concept of Alienation
... from the various versions of ?deism? through ?humanistic atheism? to the ..... The insoluble dilemma of the whole movement of the Enlightenment is ...
www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/works/alien/meszaro1.htm

#
The Tasks of Communist Education
IT is frequently asserted that the task of Communist enlightenment consists in the ... We are of the opinion that atheism, as an inseparable element of the ...
www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sections/britain/periodicals/communist_review/1923/7/com_ed.htm - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

#
The German Ideology by Marx and Engels: Saint Max
... because he is a non-atheist, not yet an atheist or a hidden atheist. ... ?le sage? again in the eighteenth century in the philosophy of Enlightenment, ...
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch03a.htm - 90k - Cached - Similar pages
#
The Holy Family by Marx and Engels
The Enlightenment claimed to solve it by describing the religious ... of the Jew and the Christian to Critical religion ? atheism, the last stage of theism, ...
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch06_3_b.htm - 40k - 

Karl Marx: His Life and Works, Achievement Part II
He also advocated republicanism and atheism. ...... half-heartedness and the metaphysical spurious enlightenment of so-called naturalism?as we see, ...
www.marxists.org/archive/ruhle/1928/marx/ch07.htm - 77k 

Notes and Fragments for Dialectics of Nature, Frederick Engels 1883
... them to their not unpraiseworthy if narrow occupation of teaching atheism, etc., ... of the shallowest reflection of the German would-be Enlightenment, ...
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch07b.htm - 28k - Cached - Similar pages
#
Franz Mehring: Karl Marx (Chap.3)
... who regarded anarchism in politics as a development from atheism in ..... even the pioneers of the bourgeois enlightenment movement displayed no ...
www.marxists.org/archive/mehring/1918/marx/ch03.htm - 84k - Cached - Similar pages
#
Lenin: Socialism Demolished Again
O teacher charged with the enlightenment of Russian youth! ..... reaction in general, translated into the language of positivism, atheism and radicalism. ...
www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/mar/00.htm - 67k - Cached - Similar pages
#
Plekhanov: Monist View of History (Chap.5c)
The very same fund of ideas led to the militant atheism of the French .... must be looked for where the writers of the French Enlightenment sought far them. ...
www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1895/monist/ch05c.htm - 79k -

#
Kautsky: Ethics (Chap.2)
The Ethical Systems of The Period of the Enlightenment) ... Even materialism and atheism as well as ethics were subject in England to the spirit of ...
www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1906/ethics/ch02.htm - 20k - Cached - Similar pages
#
Felix Morrow: Gods and Society (January 1935)
For the bourgeois atheist, therefore, it is impossible to understand that the roots of religion today are social, that no amount of enlightenment can break ...
www.marxists.org/archive/morrow-felix/1935/01/godsociety.htm - 13k - Cached - Similar pages
#
The Holy Family by Marx and Engels
?Speaking exactly and in the prosaic sense?, the French Enlightenment of the .... not by atheism but by superstition and idolatry that man debases himself. ...
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch06_3_d.htm - 30k - 

The Holy Family by Marx and Engels [Chpt. 5 Abstract]
The simple fate of this Enlightenment was its decline in romanticism after .... is not by atheism but by superstition and idolatry that man debases himself. ...
www.marxists.org/subject/dialectics/marx-engels/holy-family.htm 

#
Franz Mehring: Karl Marx (Chap.2a)
Frederick the Great enjoyed a reputation for ?enlightenment? and that was ..... the anonymous pamphleteer bemoaned Hegel?s atheism in the accents of ...
www.marxists.org/archive/mehring/1918/marx/ch02.htm - 81k - Cached - Similar pages
#
Private Property and Communism, Marx, 1844
The philanthropy of atheism is therefore at first only philosophical, .... as a factor of enlightenment, utility, and of some special great discoveries. ...
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm -

Karl Marx: His Life and Works Part I
Voicing the outlook of the bourgeois enlightenment, he unsparingly stripped the ... this idea a stage further, to the extreme of antitheology and atheism. ...
www.marxists.org/archive/ruhle/1928/marx/ch01.htm - 87k

Eduard Bernstein: Cromwell and Communism (7. Democracy + Agreement ...
The fruits of the enlightenment which their prayers brought these pious men .... were frequently accused by their contemporaries and opponents of atheism, ...
www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bernstein/works/1895/cromwell/07-democracy.htm 

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Georg Lukacs 1936
He says: ?Yes, I am the atheist and Godless one who ... wishes to lie, ... It is very interesting ? and for relating Werther to the Enlightenment, ...
www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/1936/young-werther.htm 

Marx/Engels Letters
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat
present they confine themselves to the atheism of the young, ...... conception as the other apostles of the eighteenth century Enlightenment, with whom such ...
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Engels_Correspondence.pdf -


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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Mon Mar  2 17:08:33 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2009 19:08:33 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] symbols edited from Marxism
Message-ID: <ccf.4b00f88a.36ddcf01@aol.com>



Marxism/T list 3/02/09 index. Decoded. 2nd level.  

At each stage in the advance of science, the mystical passes a  threshold and 
enters the realm of the knowable. Nature becomes symbolized as a  spontaneous 
impulse of the mind seeking expression as words. Symbolic  expressions are 
fundamental to man as woman as the fundamental conduit for all  human impulses 
and interactions seeking articulation and the sharing of  experience. In 
Biblical parlance first comes the word seeking to articulate the  experience of 
genesis. 

Generations build upon existing symbols  used to articulate and define 
reality. Society as the unity of productive forces  and social relations can be 
tracked and earmarked on the basis of the every  spiraling development and 
evolution of symbolic relations originating in nature.  The bookmark is always a 
certain stage or configuration of the means of  production. 

Capital in/as agricultural production discards  use-value as the reason for 
production, and replaces the nature/human/use  relations with the relentless 
logic of exchange value production; the drive and  thirst for the ultimate fruit 
 . . . juice: surplus value and the resulting  science of "extending the 
market life/value" of agricultural produce; applied  bourgeois science or science 
in the hands of the metaphysical bourgeoisie.   Specifically, this science 
approach of the bourgeoisie is classified as "the  metaphysics of properties" in 
the history of evolution of conscious dialectics.  

Juice is a material and symbolic thing. Extraction and  concentration becomes 
concentration and extraction of the world of social  processes. 

Capital has juice. Squeeze the fruit/labor.  

"Something is wrong" with my apples and  tomatoes.

Something is wrong with my baby, something is wrong with  me. 

Capital in agriculture is indifferent to all cycles of nature  and time 
frames except the cycle and time of it circulation and reproduction.  All time 
frames, including the previously existing industrial conception of  time, as 
mechanical motion, become so many barriers to capital reproduction.  Agrarian time 
frames as the meaning of pastoral life, strivings and longings  become 
replaced by machine time measured in increments of seconds. Then capital  reaches its 
zenith as 24/7. 

Who invented the second as a time  frame or rather the first second? 

Where did it come from or on  what material basis does it arise? 

Time arises as the self aware  man - person, who records passing sequences on 
the basis of the beating heart.  The biology inherent and inbred spontaneous 
nature of our species is its own  index and measure of reality. The "second" 
is only a name, but the name - word,  is a concept and the concept is a measure 
of the space between each beat of the  heart 

. . . . . and baby my heart beats only for you.  

Capital don't need no sun although it contains its own self index  of time - 
sequential passing's, measured by its realization as surplus value.  The 
American Indians historically weep over the destruction of time by capital,  
because it means the destruction of the earth, as it had existed forever.  Sunshine 
becomes indexed as and meaningless to capital as an index of  circulation, as 
it seeks to further commodify daylight savings time as a daytime  profit 
index. 

Spring forward, - one hour and shop, fall backwards.  

Capital is dark and my baby is blue. 

Death is blue  because we turn blue at death. Blue skies are the foreboding 
that ushers in  death of the body and the failure - death, of love. 

"Ain't I  blue?"
Ain't I blue?"
Ain't these tears in my eyes telling you?"  

There is something wrong with my baby, something wrong with my  lemons. 

The thick skin and lack of juice of my lemons produced as  exchange value, 
occurs because the object purpose of lemons becomes the  reproduction of capital 
juice, in machinery - dead labor, and advanced robotics  with touch and 
artificial sensory organs; the machine?s sensory organs call  forth a produce not 
spoiled and degraded by the machines sensory organs.   touch and handling 
of vegetation requires altering the texture of my lemons.  . . . To survive 
the 
process of removal, packaging, shipment to distant  markets, unpacking and 
then 
placement on display. 

Capital as  circulation and a circuit. 

Capital artificial sensory organs as  dead labor artificializes human sensory 
organs, because labor is fused to  capital as the nexus, giving life to 
production. . 

Polanyi called  it the destruction and recreation of localized markets by the 
state. Capital is  not of the earth, nor extraterrestrial.  its local markets 
do not  harmonious flow together as a law of osmosis - nature. Here there is 
no  spontaneous and harmonious penetration of the cells membrane and 
metaphomopisis.  The most violent and forceful rape is involved. The state intervenes 
to enforce  a nature like law on capital markets. This is so because the earth 
and humanity  has to be torn from 40 centuries of pastoral time frames and 
indexes giving  meaning to life, and reconstituted upon what is in polite company 
called the  industrial revolution; industrial time = indust-reality. The 
natural economy is  torn from nature as the precondition for the rise and 
consolidation of capital.  

The natural economy is superseded by and replaced with the money  economy.  

The world market for the proletariat will come to  mean an interactive web of 
local markets whose sum total = world system of  associated producers 
uninhibited by capital, in body, mind and spirit. Tine  itself shifts in the gigantic 
hands of the proletariat. Reality is cast anew.  The world turns green not 
capital. 

Your exploitation is  unbearable. 

The debasement of nature at the hands of capital  impacts and distorts the 
nature of our species and increases the species rate of  exploitation. 

A greater magnitude of money/capital is now required  to make the same amount 
of lemonade. 

What four lemons would yield  now requires two bags of lemons and 50% of the 
labor to harvest the  lemons.  

Capital juice for lemon juice. 

No more  lemonade stands because kids cannot afford the capital overhead and 
the  consumer is priced out of the small market. The state enters and demands 
 
everyone purchase world lemonade or drink the Kool Aid. 

The  science - radical and then revolutionary material, has not been lost but 
 preserved to be passed to the next generation. The key is the material  
conception of all and the most high. The most High is high because it is  creation 
itself . . .herself, and ?I love her.? 

Lemon juice was  once put in warm water and used as a cleaning agent for say 
glass and within  the nature that is species - human organism, to loosen 
sticky food substance  allowing undesirable toxins to be passed from the organism. 
That is why long ago  we called it "lemon help me" - aid . . . Lemonade. The 
symbol is materialisms  made into the words shaped by sound. 

Feet don't fail me now.  

Capital administers shock therapy on the economy and man while  lobotomizing 
the human brain without surgical instruments. The result is loss of  short and 
long term memory of proprieties and their symbolic expressions in  direct 
proportion to increase of capital. Not because science is bad, but  because the 
barriers to capital, defining its historical limitation, that first  appear as 
a metabolic breach in production and circulation, are also made  manifest as 
the barriers between man and nature. The social act of production  for exchange 
value separates the actors from nature and positions them as  antagonists to 
the spontaneous metabolic cycle and circuits of earth life. One  can prove 
this to themselves by working the third shift for say ten years.  

Color in nature is the proof of dialectics. Green defines itself  because it 
is the definitive definition my which all things that are green is to  be 
forever defined. 

Green is oxygen. In its symbolic expression  green means ?yes? or ?go? or 
affirmative.  and red is alkalinity because  colors in nature reveal their 
properties as color in nature.  

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Before our bourgeoisie wiped  out 
history and historical memory and recast it again, the third time, everyone  was 
taught the miracle and society role of Johnny Apple seed; the boy who  planted 
apple trees throughout this landmass, so the society could heal itself  from 
nature. The market did not like Johnny Appleseed; put him on trail and  executed 
him.  

Green means ?go? and red means ?stop and have  a relationship with me,? or 
stop digest me so that other pathways can flow  properly.  

?Stop in the name of Love.
. . .before  you break my heart
Think it over. 
Haven?t I been good to you.?  

The change in a natural color screams ?I am in decay, do not  eat/consume 
me." 

He was steaming with ?red,? is a point of measure  of the pH balance or 
alkalinity. 

I swear.   

Capital create ?natural flavor? as a favor neighbor. and natural  colors to 
hide and 
disguise nature's color and then . . .turn everything  money green . . . 

?The Color of Money? . . . Tom Cruise, was the  debasement of ?fast Eddie?. 

Gleason was brilliant: ?Fast Eddie I  can?t beat You.? 

Mans inhumanity and insanity to man is of course  the insanity in man. Man 
has lost his mind. 

(Level three: where  does the mind go when it is lost?) 

Who but an insane man conceives  of green money and "greenbacks," other than 
one who accepts capital reproduction  as a law of nature, on the back of 
nature and the nature in man?   

Green money = 
oxygen as capital.   

Greenbacks creates wetbacks. 

Baby got back. Over  accumulation localized in the butt. 

Really. 

(don't  tell the "sisters" I said that or I'm in big trouble.) 

Symbolic  language cannot hide itself. One has to grab possession of the Key, 
buried in  King Solomon Temple. Materialism opens the first door in the 
castle of a  thousand rooms. 

Marx saw through the symbolic language. Hegel  became Faygo, of which Marx 
drank.  

Capital as a social  relations of production, inverts production 
relations: slavery to capital as  "the social" driving the relations. 

Capital Money is the oxygen of  capital as it reproduces itself. Capital 
slowly strangles itself, without dying  a natural death, because Capital is not 
like a natural man. Strangulation as it  metabolizes labor . . . as this 
labor has its oxygen depleted, in turn  depleting the green of capital. The 
falling rate of oxygen. 

The  vicious cycle once again. 

The overfull obese starving body dieting  from lack of nutrients. Why do we 
die-it, when we can Michael Jackson 1983 . . .  . And just Beat It? 

Society decays  . . . Die it  . . .  from over eating = over accumulation of 
greenback capital, while the oxygen  supply is contaminated and depleted. This 
is a crime. It is not a misdemeanor.  

A Capital crime. The price will be paid. The jury is being  assembled. 

For the love of money. 

The capital  psychosis: I need some of that "mean green." 

I need some air . . .  .

Medicine means nature properties with healing qualities.  

Science as medical science, is science because it creates  properties that 
mimic healing properties in nature. Each evolution of this  mimicking of nature, 
distance the mimic from nature, which now appears to each  new generation as 
a symbolic extra nature relationship. Someone must tell  everyone why 
humanity, our humanity put the aid in lemonade, or the next  degeneration will not  . 
. . NO! 

Penicillin is the mimic of a  natural concoction as nature - mud and mold. 
Penicillin and her mimic other  "cillin's"  . . . be chillin, and constitute 
themselves on the chain of  development, not unlike the external form of the law 
that drives merchant  capital, industrial capital . . . fiction capital, 
finance capital and then the  emergence of capital as a notion - imaginary, value 
devoid of value. Everything  set into a cycle of reproduction - motion as a 
self sustaining cycle, contains  laws whose external expression cannot Not mimic 
laws of nature.  

The fiction capital is an expression - mirror, of real capital.  The mirror 
can be sold as a promissory note. The promise is based in value that  can be 
touched. 
when capital is reflected through 100 mirror images, 
and  the buying and selling of "mirrors" becomes the supreme law of high  
finance,

- derivative, financial instruments, CDOOOOOOOOOOOOO's and  . . . shit,

the 100th mirror image sold to the sucker
is a  notional value = super symbolic relations.

The King has no clothes  of value. 

Look with the minds eye very carefully at the 68th  mirror sold. See how the 
light bends in the mirror and the distortion  appears distorted? 

The enemy within GM is the property relations,  and ignorance of the laws of 
nature, but one cannot see the property relations  inside a pill. One cannot 
look at the apple and see its property relations at  work. 

Once you bite the apple, its Adam all over again.  

Can't blame Eve for that. 

The fetish blinds the  naked eye/I. 

?Man?s reflections on the forms of social life, and  consequently, also, his 
scientific analysis of those forms, take a course  directly opposite to that 
of their actual historical development. He begins,  post festum, with the 
results of the process of development ready to hand before  him. The characters 
that stamp products as commodities, and whose establishment  is a necessary 
preliminary to the circulation of commodities, have already  acquired the 
stability of natural, self-understood forms of social life, before  man seeks to 
decipher, not their historical character, for in his eyes they are  immutable, but 
their meaning.? 

Some one else, from a preceding  generation, had to tell me. 

Ask somebody. 


WL. 





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From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Tue Mar  3 14:19:37 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 13:19:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] symbols edited from Marxism
Message-ID: <491155.74492.qm@web180106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Waistline2 
Marxism/T list 3/02/09 index. Decoded. 2nd level.??

^^^^^

Wow !!! That's what I call real proletarian poetry.
A definite chapter in the new Ballad for Americans.
You go bro , the workers' T.S. Eliot

John Henry

Did you send it to the other lists ?


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Tue Mar  3 15:44:04 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 14:44:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Capitalism, Socialism and Crisis
Message-ID: <664179.5160.qm@web180114.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Capitalism, Socialism and Crisis
By Prabhat Patnaik??
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8201/

?Original source: People's Democracy (India) 

A common view of the current financial crisis of capitalism holds
?that it is essentially an aberration. Some attribute this aberration to specific mistakes committed in the past, for instance by the US Federal Reserve with regard to monetary
?policy. Some hold the lack of adequate regulatory mechanism as being responsible for this aberration. Paul Krugman, the current year?s Nobel laureate, blames it on
?insufficient supervision of the financial system. And even Joseph Stiglitz, the well-known radical economist and Nobel laureate, characterizes it as a ?system failure,? a term which makes the crisis a phenomenon that in principle could have been avoided with impunity.
?This entire perception however is untenable. The crisis is a result not of the failure of the system but of the system itself; it is a part of the mode of operation of contemporary capitalism rather than being unrelated or extraneous to it. 

Massive speculation 

In a ?free market? regime, asset markets tend to be subject to
?speculation. Speculators buy assets not because of the yield on these assets but because they expect its price to appreciate in the coming days. They have no long term
?interest in the assets and are concerned exclusively with capital
?gains. Since buying today to sell tomorrow entails carrying the asset during the intervening period for which a ?carrying cost? has to be incurred, the assets most suitable for speculation are those whose carrying costs are low; and these are typically financial assets
?which have virtually zero carrying costs (requiring only a few taps on computer keys to effect all necessary transactions). Financial asset markets therefore are
?always subject to massive speculation. 

Speculation generates bouts of euphoria or ?speculative excitement? 
which have the cumulative effect of pushing up asset prices. An initial rise in some asset prices, caused no matter how, gives rise to expectations of a further rise, and hence
?to an increase in the demand for the assets in question which actually raises their prices further; and so the process feeds upon itself and we have asset price ?bubbles.? 
Such ?bubbles? typically characterize financial assets, which, as already mentioned, are particularly prone to speculation; but they are not confined to financial assets
?alone (as the housing market ?bubble? in the United States has just demonstrated). 

Such ?bubbles? have an obvious impact on the real economy. The 
rise in asset prices fed by speculative euphoria improves for individuals who own these assets the estimation of their wealth position, and hence causes an increase in 
their consumption expenditure, and thereby in employment. Likewise such a rise in asset prices, where the assets in question are producible, causes an increase in
?investment expenditure on these assets, which leads to their larger production, and hence to larger employment. In short, speculative euphoria in the asset markets makes
?the boom in the real economy, stimulated by whatever had caused the initial rise in asset prices, more pronounced and prolonged. 

Precisely because of this however if for some reason the asset price
?increase wanes or comes to a halt, speculators attempt to get out of the assets in question causing a crash in the asset prices. This causes a fall in aggregate expenditure
?on goods and services; a collapse in the state of credit, as banks face insolvency; and a possible collapse even in the inclination of depositors for holding bank deposits (since they fear banks? insolvency), as had happened during the Great Depression. In short
?there is a collapse of the state of confidence all around, and hence a corresponding increase in liquidity preference; i.e. there is a disinclination to hold any asset other than 
pure cash, or in extreme cases only currency, and of course claims upon the government, which is considered to be the only safe and reliable borrower. Not all crises display
?this severity; but to a greater or lesser extent these features mark any crisis. 

Speculation therefore has the effect of making the boom more pronounced
?and prolonged; but it has also the effect of precipitating a severe crisis, as distinct from a mere cyclical downturn. In the absence of speculation the boom in the real economy will 
be a much more truncated and tame affair. But precisely because it is not a tame affair, it is followed by a crisis. 

Two conclusions follow from the above analysis. First, since speculation
?is endemic to modern capitalism, where financial markets play a major role, speculation-engendered euphoria and the consequent pronounced booms, together with the crises
?that invariably follow, are also endemic to modern capitalism. ?Bubbles? constitute in other words the mode of operation of the system. ?Bubbles,? together with the crises that
?follow their collapse, are not a ?system-failure?; they are the system. Secondly, if ?bubbles? are to be eliminated and speculation is to be curbed, then it is not enough to put 
in place some regulatory mechanisms; an alternative instrument for generating pronounced booms in the real economy has to be found, for otherwise the economy would remain
?perennially sunk in stagnation and large-scale mass unemployment. 

The alternative instrument suggested by John Maynard Keynes, the 
well-known English economist, was State intervention through fiscal measures to ensure that the level of demand remained as close to full employment as possible. Keynes? suggestion, made in the 1930s during the Great Depression, was strongly opposed by finance capital,
?which always opposes all State intervention that does not promote its own exclusive interest. The Keynesian remedy got accepted only in the post-war period when the
?balance of class forces had shifted, with the working class, which had made immense sacrifices during the war, acquiring greater social and political weight, and finance capital,
?experiencing a corresponding weakening of its position, forced to make concessions. 

Over time however this balance changed once again. ?Centralization of
?capital? and the formation of larger and larger blocs of finance capital, during the period of Keynesian demand management itself, forced open the barriers imposed on cross
?border financial flows. Finance capital consequently acquired the nature of international finance capital, through a process of ?globalization of finance.? Since the whims of
?international finance capital necessarily had to triumph over the autonomous predilections the nation-State, in order to avoid capital flight, Keynesian ?demand management? 
was rejected, and neo-liberal capitalism emerged triumphant again, bringing back the era of speculative financial crises, leading to real crises, in the capitalist world. This is the
?phenomenon we are currently witnessing, a phenomenon that has been compared with the Great Depression of the 1930s. 

Socialist economy immune to crises 

One of the hallmarks of the 1930s Great Depression is that the 
Soviet Union, the only socialist economy of the time, had been completely unaffected by it. In fact, when capitalism had been afflicted by the severe crisis, the Soviet Union 
had experienced such unprecedented economic construction that it had completely got rid of unemployment. This fact, as is well-known, had so impressed a 
whole generation of Indian freedom fighters, like E. M. S. Namboodiripad, that they had embraced Communism because of it. 

This contrast arises owing to a fundamental difference between the 
mode of operation of the two systems. A socialist economy is fundamentally immune not just to speculation-induced crises but to all crises arising from a deficiency
?of aggregate demand. This fact is recognized even by staunch opponents of socialism like the Hungarian economist Janos Kornai who calls capitalism a 
?demand-constrained system? and socialism a ?resource-constrained system? where the available resources are fully utilized without being constrained by insufficient demand. 

A socialist economy of course has the usual fiscal instrument 
suggested by Keynes for overcoming deficiency of aggregate demand, unlike a capitalist economy where the use of this instrument requires overcoming opposition from
?finance capital, and where, even when the instrument is perchance used, there is a limit to its use arising from the fact that the system, being based on antagonism,
?needs a sufficiently large reserve army of labour to prevent inflation and maintain ?work discipline.? But even apart from this, a socialist economy can overcome deficiency of aggregate demand in another way which brings out its basic character. 

In any economy where in any period the money wages are given, 
the production of a certain output requires a certain unit cost of production to be incurred. The term ?deficiency of aggregate demand? or ?insufficient demand? simply 
means that the level of demand in the economy is such that this output can be sold only at a price that falls below this unit cost of production plus the customary profit margin.
?When this happens, then in a capitalist economy firms cut back on output, so that there is unemployment; and this gives rise to a further reduction in demand 
since the workers? demand shrinks owing to unemployment; and this causes a further reduction in output and employment; and so the process, referred to as the ?multiplier? 
effect of the initial output/employment decline, goes on and the economy is caught in a crisis. 

In a socialist economy however since firms are socially owned, the 
State can issue a directive asking them to lower prices when they initially find that the demand for output at the base price, i.e. at the price equal to the unit cost plus profit
?margin, is less than the output. While issuing this directive it can assure the firms that any losses they make will be covered from the State budget. In such a case, firms
?simply lower their prices to clear the market, and there is no question of any unemployment to start with, and hence no question of any ?multiplier effect.? Putting it differently,
?in a capitalist economy any decrease in demand gives rise to ?output adjustment? and hence ?employment adjustment?; in a socialist economy it can give rise only to ?price adjustment? and keep output unchanged. 

Why does this difference arise? When price adjusts downwards, since
?the money wage rate is given, there is an increase in the real wage rate. So, a socialist economy, faced with a decline in aggregate demand, gets rid of it by raising real wages
?of workers, i.e. by raising the demand of the workers. But a capitalist economy, precisely because it is based on class antagonism, where the slightest increase in the wage
?rate is bitterly opposed by capitalists, will never raise real wages to get rid of demand deficiency. This is why any such deficiency gives rise to output adjustment, and hence mass unemployment. 

But now we come to the real crux of the matter. It was mentioned 
above that the socialist State, while directing firms to reduce prices to clear markets, would assure them that any losses they incur would be covered by the State budget, i.e.
?that they would get a State subsidy to cover their losses. The question may be asked: how does the State finance these losses? And the answer interestingly is that for all the firms taken together there will be no losses. In other words, while the State issues this directive it will never be actually called upon to make any additional budgetary provisions for subsidies. True, 
firms in the aggregate will make less profits after price adjustment than they otherwise would have done in the absence of the original deficiency of aggregate demand; but they will make profits in the aggregate all the same. The State may at the most have to divert the profits
?of some firms to cover the losses of others, but it will have to make no additional provisions. This follows from the fact that since profits in any period in a socialist economy 
are more or less synonymous with the savings of the economy, and since (ignoring external borrowing/lending), investment in any period must equal savings, 
as long as investment remains positive, profits in the aggregate must remain positive no matter what the level of aggregate demand. 

A socialist economy, being both free of antagonism (so that real 
wages can be raised) and free of anarchy (so that some firms? profits can be diverted to cover others? losses), has thus a mode of functioning that makes it in principle
?immune to crises, caused by the deficiency of aggregate demand, which afflict capitalism. 

In the present context 

So far we have discussed the inner workings of a socialist 
economy that is unconnected with world capitalism through trade and financial relations. Since the Soviet Union in the 1930s was unconnected with world capitalism, and even later had only tenuous links, it remained actually immune to crises of aggregate demand. But what can be said of a socialist economy that is closely linked to the capitalist world through trade and financial relationships? Does such an economy continue to remain immune to crises of aggregate demand, especially those emanating from the capitalist world? 

In an economy where all important means of production are socially
?owned, the answer in principle should still be ?yes.? When exports of such an economy decline, it is always open to it to raise domestic demand, either through the fiscal route suggested to capitalism by Keynes, i.e. through larger State expenditure, or through larger workers? 
consumption via a rise in the real wage rate, caused by the lowering of prices for a given money wage rate, as discussed above. Since the rationale of the socialist economy?s
?participation in the world market is that it has generally lower prices than the capitalist world (at the prevailing exchange rate), which after all is why it is able to out-compete the capitalist countries and have burgeoning trade with them, any further lowering of its domestic prices in 
response to the reduced demand owing to world recession, should cause no ?leakages? in the form of larger imports. Such reduction in other words should boost its own 
domestic demand, and, if anything, even help somewhat in countering export decline. Likewise, if it provided a larger fiscal stimulus, as China has announced it would, then
?the main impact of such a stimulus should be on its own domestic demand. In short the socialist weapons against crises mentioned earlier remain intact even when the
?socialist country has trade relations with the capitalist world. 

Of course switching from export production to production for the home market may take some time, during which there may be transitional unemployment, but this is very
?different from the unemployment encountered in capitalist countries during a crisis. 

The problem however may arise from a different source, namely when
?in the process of entering into relations with capitalist countries, the socialist economy has also accommodated within its midst a large private sector, owned by
?powerful capitalists from home and abroad. There would be resistance from them to the use of the standard socialist weapons against crises, just as there is resistance from capitalists in capitalist countries to the use of similar weapons, and indeed for the very same reasons.
?It follows in such a case that the capacity of the socialist economy to thwart a crisis arising from the deficiency of aggregate demand, depends upon the strength of the
?socialist State in confronting the opposition of the internal capitalists to the socialist measures against the crisis. 


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Tue Mar  3 16:46:02 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 18:46:02 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Capitalism, Socialism and Crisis
Message-ID: <d60.445c3d99.36df1b3a@aol.com>

Capitalism, Socialism and Crisis By Prabhat Patnaik  
_http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8201/_ 
(http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8201/) 
 
is one of the worse, if not the worst economic analysis, I have read (under  
the banner of Marxism) in perhaps the past decade. 
 
WL. 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Tue Mar  3 18:09:01 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 20:09:01 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] symbols edited from Marxism
Message-ID: <cdd.49112700.36df2ead@aol.com>

Reply
 
Yes, Marxism List. 
 
The initial article grew out of a discussion of GM - genetically modified  
commodities, although the issue was framed as genetically altered food in Cuba. 
 
 
I remember basically having the same discussion on Marxism the better part  
of 10 years ago and wanted to avoid the pitfalls and this determined the  
extremely obscure form, which basically could only be unlocked - decoded, by  
someone familiar with the concepts and symbolism. The first imprint is really  raw 
and written upside down with sentences deliberately put in the wrong order.  
Plus, you know that much of Marxism can be fairly hostile to my particular  
history and political orientation. I am extremely careful about what I write  
there, and try to leave no room for disagreement over political orientation and  
political ideology; and generally discuss nothing historical including 
American  history. 
 
I do not mind being "baited" on this list since I can more than adequately  
explain my reasoning of issues of tension. :-) 
 
Actually, the piece is not obscure at all if you are really rooted in  
America's evolving culture or know how to locate the "key" - Rosetta stone. 
 
I suspected you would get having studied anthropology and the nature of  
symbols. Plus I wanted to preserve two copies in archives. 
 
I might do the three level which answers the question about what happens  
when someone loses their mind: "where does the mind go when it is lost?" 
 
 
WL. 

In a message dated 3/3/2009 4:20:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
cdb1003 at prodigy.net writes:

Waistline2 
Marxism/T list 3/02/09 index. Decoded. 2nd level.   

^^^^^

Wow !!! That's what I call real proletarian poetry.
A  definite chapter in the new Ballad for Americans.
You go bro , the workers'  T.S. Eliot

John Henry

Did you send it to the other lists ?
 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Tue Mar  3 19:12:31 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 21:12:31 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?Obama=E2=80=99s_Politics_of_Change_and?=
 =?utf-8?q?_US_Policy_on_China?=
Message-ID: <c3e.43915bc7.36df3d8f@aol.com>

http://henryckliu.com/page182.html

Obama?s Politics of Change and  US Policy on China 

By Henry C.K. Liu 


Foreign policy is  fundamentally based on national interests that change only 
slowly and  infrequently except under crisis situations. Still, even in 
normal times,  electoral changes of administration inevitably bring changes in 
style and nuance  in the formulation and implementation of foreign policy within a 
context of  continuity. 

Yet the Obama administration has come into power at a time  of unprecedented 
and severe global financial and economic crises that have  profound 
implications in US national interests and US position in a changing  
geo-economic-political world order. Crisis conditions that are crying out for  change are 
enhancing the new president?s ability to live up to his campaign  slogan of ?Obama 
for Change? not just domestically, but also in foreign policy.  The question is 
whether Obama?s campaign for change can survive his politics of  change. 

It is necessary to point out that Obama did not merely call for  change for 
change?s sake, but for change that ?we can believe in?. The campaign  slogan 
of ?yes we can? is soaked with ideological energy. It presumably means  change 
that will reorder the systemic dysfunctionality that has built up in  recent 
decades that has landed the world in its currency sorrowful state. It  
declares a commitment to more effective government to bring about a more  equitable 
society at home and a more just world order internationally.  

The popular desire for change was the prime reason for Obama?s election  
victory. Yet, unfortunately, a more equitable society at home and aboard within  a 
more just world order has not always aligned perfectly with US national  
interests historically. Clearly, a redefinition of US national interests is  
critical to the success of President Obama?s agenda of change. 

US  National Interests 

The definition of US national interests was sharply  distorted by the 2001 
terrorist attacks of 9:11 in the first year of the George  W. Bush 
administration. Foreign policy under Bush had been framed by an  over-the-top militancy 
with two distinct characteristics: US unilateralism based  on superpower 
exceptionalism and a transformational diplomacy agenda promoted by  US 
neo-conservatism. This dubious militancy, as delineated in National Security  Council 
document The National Security Strategy of the United States, released  on September 
20, 2002, a year after the September 11 terrorist attacks, has led  to 
disastrous failures in US foreign policy on many fronts. These failures in  turn have 
created not only an erosion of US observation of human rights overseas  but 
also a decline of civil liberty domestically.

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From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Tue Mar  3 20:53:22 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 19:53:22 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama , getting money to the working class pronto
Message-ID: <827445.52117.qm@web180102.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Obama , getting money to the working class,?pronto

3/3/09 Notice of Certain Benefits Unemployed Workers May Be Eligiole For Under the Economic Stimulus Package.

1)Extra $25 per week in unemployment benefits
2)Period for Collecting Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extended
3)Partial? (first $2,400)Suspension of Federal Income Tax On Unemployment Benefits for Tax Year 2009



Obama , Obama , Obama !



From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Tue Mar  3 22:59:53 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 21:59:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Capitalism, Socialism and Crisis
Message-ID: <314407.36292.qm@web180110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

?Waistline2 at aol.com?

________________________________

Capitalism, Socialism and Crisis By Prabhat Patnaik??
_http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8201/_ 
(http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8201/) 

is one of the worse, if not the worst economic analysis, I have read (under??
the banner of Marxism) in perhaps the past decade. 

WL. 

^^^^^^
CB: This is one of the worst unsupported, conclusory
assertions I've seen since
Ralph's embarrassing posts a couple of days 
ago. An empty outburst, with no thought in it
whatsoever. Who cares what you "think"
without any argumentation ?


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Wed Mar  4 13:06:37 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 15:06:37 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Capitalism, Socialism and Crisis
Message-ID: <d5d.340b0ae4.36e0394d@aol.com>

OK . . . fair enough. Maybe later. 
It was so bad I was embarrassed to actually comment on it. 
 
WL. 
 
 
In a message dated 3/4/2009 1:00:13 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
cdb1003 at prodigy.net  writes:
________________________________

Capitalism, Socialism and  Crisis By Prabhat Patnaik  

is one of the worse, if not the worst  economic analysis, I have read (under  
the banner of Marxism) in  perhaps the past decade. 

WL. 

^^^^^^
CB: This is one of the  worst unsupported, conclusory
assertions I've seen since
Ralph's  embarrassing posts a couple of days 
ago. An empty outburst, with no thought  in it
whatsoever. Who cares what you "think"
without any argumentation  ?
 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Wed Mar  4 19:03:24 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 18:03:24 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Language of Looting
Message-ID: <596071.18746.qm@web180106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

What "Nationalize the Banks" and the "Free Market" Really Mean in Today's Looking-Glass World 
The Language of Looting 
By MICHAEL HUDSON 
"Banking shares began to plunge Friday morning after Senator Dodd,
?the Connecticut Democrat who is chairman of the banking committee, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that he was concerned the government might
?end up nationalizing some lenders ?at least for a short time.? Several other prominent policy makers ? including Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina ? have echoed that view recently.? 
--Eric Dash, ?Growing Worry on Rescue Takes a Toll on Banks,? 
The New York Times, February 20, 2009
How is it that Alan? Greenspan, free-market lobbyist for Wall Street, recently announced that he favored nationalization of America?s banks ? and indeed, mainly the biggest
?and most powerful? Has the old disciple of Ayn Rand gone Red in the night? Surely not.
The answer is that the rhetoric of ?free markets,? ?nationalization? 
and even ?socialism? (as in ?socializing the losses?) has been turned into the language of deception to help the financial sector mobilize government power to support
?its own special privileges. Having undermined the economy at large, Wall Street?s public relations think tanks are now dismantling the language itself.
Exactly what does ?a free market? mean? Is it what the classical 
economists advocated ? a market free from monopoly power, business fraud, political insider dealing and special privileges for vested interests ? a market protected by the
?rise in public regulation from the Sherman Anti-Trust law of 1890 to the Glass-Steagall Act and other New Deal legislation? Or is it a market free for predators to exploit
?victims without public regulation or economic policemen ? the kind of free-for-all market that the Federal Reserve and Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) have created 
over the past decade or so? It seems incredible that people should accept today?s neoliberal idea of ?market freedom? in the sense of neutering government watchdogs, 
Alan Greenspan-style, letting Angelo Mozilo at Countrywide, Hank Greenberg at AIG, Bernie Madoff, Citibank, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers loot without hindrance or sanction, plunge the economy into crisis and then use Treasury bailout money to pay the highest 
salaries and bonuses in U.S. history.
Terms that are the antithesis of ?free market? also are being turned into the opposite of what they historically have meant. Take today?s discussions about nationalizing 
the banks. For over a century nationalization has meant public takeover of monopolies or other sectors to operate them in the public interest rather than leaving them so special interests. But when neoliberals use the word ?nationalization? they mean a bailout, a government giveaway 
to the financial interests. 
Doublethink and doubletalk with regard to ?nationalizing? or ?socializing? the banks and other sectors is a travesty of political and economic discussion from the 17th through mid-20th 
centuries. Society?s basic grammar of thought, the vocabulary to discuss political and economic topics, is being turned inside-out in an effort to ward off discussion of the policy solutions posed by the classical economists and political philosophers that made Western civilization ?Western.? 
Today?s clash of civilization is not really with the Orient; it is with our own 
past, with the Enlightenment itself and its evolution into classical political economy and Progressive Era social reforms aimed at freeing society from the surviving trammels of 
European feudalism. What we are seeing is propaganda designed to deceive, to distract attention from economic reality so as to promote the property and financial interests from whose predatory grasp classical economists set out to free the world. What is being attempted 
is nothing less than an attempt to destroy the intellectual and moral edifice of what took Western civilization eight centuries to develop, from the 12th century Schoolmen
?discussing Just Price through 19th and 20th century classical economic value theory. 
Any idea of ?socialism from above,? in the sense of ?socializing the risk,? is old-fashioned oligarchy ? kleptocratic statism from above. Real nationalization occurs when 
governments act in the public interest to take over private property. The 19th-century program to nationalize the land (it was the first plank of the Communist Manifesto) 
did not mean anything remotely like the government taking over estates, paying off their mortgages at public expense and then giving it back to the former landlords free and 
clear of encumbrances and taxes. It meant taking the land and its rental income into the public domain, and leasing it out at a user fee ranging from actual operating cost to a
?subsidized rate or even freely as in the case of streets and roads.
Nationalizing the banks along these lines would mean that the government would supply the nation?s credit needs. The Treasury would become the source of new money, 
replacing commercial bank credit. Presumably this credit would be lent out for economically and socially productive purposes, not merely to inflate asset prices while loading 
down households and business with debt as has occurred under today?s commercial bank lending policies.
How neoliberals falsify the West?s political history
The fact that today?s neoliberals claim to be the intellectual descendants of Adam Smith make it necessary to restore a more accurate historical perspective.
?Their concept of ?free markets? is the antithesis of Smith?s. It is the opposite of that of the classical political economists down through John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx
?and the Progressive Era reforms that sought to create markets free of extractive rentier claims by special interests whose institutional power can be traced back to 
medieval Europe and its age of military conquest. 
Economic writers from the 16th through 20th centuries recognized that free markets required government oversight to prevent monopoly pricing and other charges levied by 
special privilege. By contrast, today?s neoliberal ideologues are public relations advocates for vested interests to depict a ?free market? is one free of government regulation,
??free? of anti-trust protection, and even of protection against fraud, as evidenced by the SEC?s refusal to move against Madoff, Enron, Citibank et al.). The neoliberal ideal of free 
markets is thus basically that of a bank robber or embezzler, wishing for a world without police so as to be sufficiently free to siphon off other peoples? money without constraint.
The Chicago Boys in Chile realized that markets free for predatory
?finance and insider privatization could only be imposed at gunpoint. These free-marketers closed down every economics department in Chile, every social science department
?outside of the Catholic University where the Chicago Boys held sway. Operation Condor arrested, exiled or murdered tens of thousands of academics, intellectuals, labor leaders and artists. Only by totalitarian control over the academic curriculum and public media backed by an 
active secret police and army could ?free markets? neoliberal style be imposed. The resulting privatization at gunpoint became an exercise in what Marx called ?primitive accumulation?
?? seizure of the public domain by political elites backed by force. It is a free market William-the-Conqueror or Yeltsin-kleptocrat style, with property parceled out to the 
companions of the political or military leader.
All this was just the opposite of the kind of free markets that Adam Smith had in mind when he warned that businessmen rarely get together but to plot ways to fix markets to their
?advantage. This is not a problem that troubled Mr. Greenspan or the editorial writers of the New York Times and Washington Post. There really is no kinship between their neoliberal ideals and those of the Enlightenment political philosophers. For them to promote an idea of free 
markets as ones ?free? for political insiders to pry away the public domain for themselves is to lower an intellectual Iron Curtain on the history of economic thought.
The classical economists and American Progressives envisioned markets free of economic rent and interest ? free of rentier overhead charges and monopoly price gouging,
?free of land-rent, interest paid to bankers and wealthy financial institutions, and free of taxes to support an oligarchy. Governments were to base their tax systems on collecting 
the ?free lunch? of economic rent, headed by that of favorable locations supplied by nature and given market value by public investment in transportation and other infrastructure, not by the efforts of landlords themselves. 
The argument between Progressive Era reformers, socialists, anarchists 
and individualists thus turned on the political strategy of how best to free markets from debt and rent. Where they differed was on the best political means to achieve it, above 
all the role of the state. There was broad agreement that the state was controlled by vested interests inherited from feudal Europe?s military conquests and the world that was
?colonized by European military force. The political question at the turn of the 20th century was whether peaceful democratic reform could overcome the political and even military 
resistance wielded by the Old Regime using violence to retain its ?rights.? The ensuing political revolutions were grounded in the Enlightenment, in the legal philosophy of 
men such as John Locke, political economists such as Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Marx. Power was to be used to free markets from the predatory property and financial 
systems inherited from feudalism. Markets were to be free of privilege and free lunches, so that people would obtain income and wealth only by their own labor and enterprise. 
This was the essence of the labor theory of value and its complement, the concept of economic rent as the excess of market price over socially necessary cost-value.
Although we now know that markets and prices, rent and interest, contractual formalities and nearly all the elements of economic enterprise originated in the ?mixed economies? 
of Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BC and continued throughout the mixed public/private economies of classical antiquity, the discussion was so politically polarized that the idea of a mixed economy with checks and balances received scant attention a century ago.
Individualists believed that all that shrinking central governments would shrink the control mechanism by which the vested interests extracted wealth without work or enterprise of 
their own. Socialists saw that a strong government was needed to protect society from the attempts of property and finance to use their gains to monopolize economic and political power. Both ends of the political spectrum aimed at the same objective ? to bring prices down to 
actual costs of production. The common aim was to maximize economic efficiency so as to pass on the fruits of the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions to the population at large.
?This required blocking the rentier class of interlopers from grabbing the public domain and controlling the allocation of resources. Socialists did not believe this could be done without taking the state?s political and legal power into their own hands. Marxists believed that a revolution was 
necessary to reclaim property rent for the public domain, and to enable governments to create their own credit rather than borrow at interest from commercial bankers and wealthy
?bondholders. The aim was not to create a bureaucracy but to free society from the surviving absentee ownership power of the vested property and financial interests. 
All this history of economic thought has been as thoroughly expunged from today?s academic curriculum as it has from popular discussion. Few people remember the great debate 
at the turn of the 20th century: Would the world progress fairly quickly from Progressive Era reforms to outright socialism ? public ownership of basic economic infrastructure, 
natural monopolies (including the banking system) and the land itself (and to Marxists, of industrial capital as well)? Or, could the liberal reformers of the day ? individualists, land taxers, classical economists in the tradition of Mill, and American institutionalists such as 
Simon Patten ? retain capitalism?s basic structure and private property ownership? If they could do so, they recognized that it would have to be in the context of regulating markets 
and introducing progressive taxation of wealth and income. This was the alternative to outright ?state? ownership. Today?s extreme ?free market? idea is a dumbed-down caricature of this position.
All sides viewed the government as society?s ?brain,? its forward planning 
organ. Given the complexity of modern technology, humanity would shape its own evolution. Instead of evolution occurring by ?primitive accumulation,? it could be planned deliberately. Individualists countered that no human planner was sufficiently imaginative to manage the complexity
?of markets, but endorsed the need to strip away all forms of unearned income ? economic rent and the rise in land prices that Mill called the ?unearned increment.? This involved 
government regulation to shape markets. A ?free market? was an active political creation and required regulatory vigilance.
As public relations advocates for the vested interests and special rentier privilege, today?s ?neoliberal? advocates of ?free? markets seek to maximize economic rent ? the free 
lunch of price in excess of cost-value, not to free markets from rentier charges. So misleading a pedigree only could be achieved by outright suppression of knowledge of what Locke, Smith and Mill really wrote. Attempts to regulate ?free markets? and limit monopoly pricing and privilege are conflated with ?socialism,? even with Soviet-style bureaucracy. The aim is to deter the
?analysis of what a ?free market? really is: a market free of unnecessary costs: monopoly rents, property rents and financial charges for credit that governments can create freely. 
Political reform to bring market prices in line with socially necessary cost-value was the great economic issue of the 19th century. The labor theory of intrinsic cost-value found its
?counterpart in the theory of economic rent: land rent, monopoly price gouging, interest and other returns to special privilege that increased market prices purely by institutional property claims. The discussion goes all the way back to the medieval churchmen defining Just Price. 
The doctrine originally was applied to the proper fees that bankers could charge, and later was extended to land rent, then to the monopolies that governments created and sold off 
to creditors in an attempt to extricate themselves from debt.
Reformists and more radical socialists alike sought to free capitalism of its egregious inequities, above all its legacy from Europe?s Dark Age of military conquest when invading 
warlords seized lands and imposed an absentee landlord class to receive the rental income, which was used to finance wars of further land acquisition. As matters turned out, hopes that industrial capitalism could reform itself along progressive lines to purge itself of its legacy from
?feudalism have come crashing down. World War I hit the global economy like a comet, pushing it into a new trajectory and catalyzing its evolution into an unanticipated form of finance capitalism.
It was unanticipated largely because most reformers spent so much effort advocating progressive policies that they neglected what Thorstein Veblen called the vested interests. Their
?Counter-Enlightenment is creating a world that would have been deemed a dystopia a century ago ? something so pessimistic that no futurist dared depict a world run by venal and corrupt bankers, protecting as their prime customers the monopolies, real estate speculators 
and hedge funds whose economic rent, financial gambling and asset-price inflation is turned into a flow of interest in today?s rentier economy. Instead of industrial capitalism increasing capital formation we are seeing finance capitalism strip capital, and instead of the promised world of 
leisure we are being drawn into one of debt peonage.
The financial travesty of democracy
The financial sector has redefined democracy by claiming claims that the
?Federal Reserve must be ?independent? from democratically elected representatives, in order to act as the bank lobbyist in Washington. This makes the financial sector exempt 
from the democratic political process, despite the fact that today?s economic planning is now centralized in the banking system. The result is a regime of insider dealings and oligarchy ? rule by the wealthy few.
The economic fallacy at work is that bank credit is a veritable factor of
?production, an almost Physiocratic source of fertility without which growth could not occur. The reality is that the monopoly right to create interest-bearing bank credit is a free 
transfer from society to a privileged elite. The moral is that when we see a ?factor of production? that has no actual labor-cost of production, it is simply an institutional privilege.
So this brings us to the most recent debate about ?nationalizing? or 
?socializing? the banks. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) so far has been used for the following uses that I think can be truly deemed anti-social, not ?socialist? in any form.
By the end of last year, $20 billion was used to pay bonuses and salaries
?to financial mismanagers, despite the plunge of their banks into negative equity. And to protect their interests, these banks continued to pay lobbying fees to persuade legislators 
to give them yet more special privileges.
While Citibank and other major institutions threatened to bring the financial system crashing down by being ?too big to fail,? over $100 billion of TARP funds was used to make
?them even bigger. Already teetering banks bought affiliates that had grown by making irresponsible and outright fraudulent loans. Bank of America bought Angelo Mozilo?s 
Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, while JP Morgan Chase bought Bear Stearns and other big banks bought WaMu and Wachovia.
Today?s policy is to ?rescue? these giant bank conglomerates by enabling
?them to ?earn? their way out of debt ? by selling yet more debt to an already over-indebted U.S. economy. The hope is to re-inflate real estate and other asset prices. But do we really want to let banks ?pay back taxpayers? by engaging in yet more predatory financial practices
?vis-?-vis the economy at large? It threatens to maximize the margin of market price over direct costs of production, by building in higher financial charges. This is just the opposite policy from trying to bring prices for housing and infrastructure in line with technologically necessary 
costs. It certainly is not a policy to make the U.S. economy more globally competitive.
The Treasury?s plan to ?socialize? the banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions is simply to step in and take bad loans off their books, shifting the loss onto
?the public sector. This is the antithesis of true nationalization or ?socialization? of the financial system. The banks and insurance companies quickly got over their initial knee-jerk 
fear that a government bailout would occur on terms that would wipe out their bad management, along with the stockholders and bondholders who backed this bad management.
?The Treasury has assured these mismanagers that ?socialism? for them is a free gift. The primacy of finance over the rest of the economy will be affirmed, leaving management 
in place and giving stockholders a chance to recover by earning more from the economy at large, with yet more tax favoritism. (This means yet heavier taxes shifted onto consumers, raising their living costs accordingly.) 
The bulk of wealth under capitalism ? as under feudalism ?always has come 
primarily from the public domain, headed by the land and formerly public utilities, capped most recently by the Treasury?s debt-creating power. In effect, the Treasury creates a new 
asset ($11 trillion of new Treasury bonds and guarantees, e.g. the? $5.2 trillion to Fannie and Freddie). Interest on these bonds is to be paid by new levies on labor, not on property. This is what is supposed to re-inflate housing, stock and bond prices ? the money freed from property and 
corporate taxes will be available to be capitalized into yet new loans. 
So the revenue hitherto paid as business taxes will still be paid ? in the form of interest ? while the former taxes will still be collected, but from labor. The fiscal-financial burden
?thus will be doubled. This is not a program to make the economy more competitive or raise living standards for most people. It is a program to polarize the U.S. economy 
even further between finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) at the top and labor at the bottom. 
Neoliberal denunciations of public regulation and taxation as ?socialism? is
?really an attack on classical political economy ? the ?original? liberalism whose ideal was to free society from the parasitic legacy of feudalism. A truly socialized Treasury policy
?would be for banks to lend for productive purposes that contribute to real economic growth, not merely to increase overhead and inflate asset prices by enough to extract interest 
charges. Fiscal policy would aim to minimize rather than maximizing the price of home ownership and doing business, by basing the tax system on collecting the rent that is
?now being paid out as interest. Shifting the tax burden off wages and profits onto rent and interest was the core of classical political economy in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as the Progressive Era and Social Democratic reform movements in the United States and Europe prior
?to World War I. But this doctrine and its reform program has been buried by the rhetorical smokescreen organized by financial lobbyists seeking to muddy the ideological waters 
sufficiently to mute popular opposition to today?s power grab by finance capital and monopoly capital. Their alternative to true nationalization and socialization of finance is debt peonage, oligarchy and neo-feudalism. They have called this program ?free markets.?
Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist. A Distinguished Research
?Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed.,
?Pluto Press, 2002) He can be reached via his website, mh at michael-hudson.com


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Wed Mar  4 19:27:28 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 18:27:28 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Finance Capitalism Hits a Wall
Message-ID: <19876.84787.qm@web180102.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Finance Capitalism Hits a Wall 
The Oligarchs' Escape Plan 
By MICHAEL HUDSON 
The financial ?wealth creation? game is over. Economies
?emerged from World War II relatively free of debt, but the 60-year global run-up has run its course. Finance capitalism is in a state of collapse, and marginal
?palliatives cannot revive it. The U.S. economy cannot ?inflate its way out of debt,? because this would collapse the dollar and end its dreams of global empire by
?forcing foreign countries to go their own way. There is too little manufacturing to make the economy more ?competitive,? given its high housing costs, transportation,
?debt and tax overhead. A quarter to a third of U.S. real estate has fallen into negative equity, so no banks will lend to them. The economy has hit a debt wall and is
?falling into negative equity, where it may remain for as far as the eye can see until there is a debt write-down.
Mr. Obama?s ?recovery? plan, based on infrastructure spending, will 
make real estate fortunes for well-situated properties along the new public transport routes, but there is no sign of cities levying a windfall property tax to save their finances.
?Their mayors would rather keep the cities broke than to tax real estate and finance. The aim is to re-inflate property markets to enable owners to pay the banks, not to help 
the public sector break even. So state and local pension plans will remain underfunded while more corporate pension plans go broke. 
One would think that politicians would be willing to do the math and realize 
that debts that can?t be paid, won?t be. But the debts are being kept on the books, continuing to extract interest to pay the creditors that have made the bad loans. The resulting 
debt deflation threatens to keep the economy in depression until a radical shift in policy occurs ? a shift to save the ?real? economy, not just the financial sector and the wealthiest 
10 per cent of American families.
There is no sign that Mr. Obama?s economic advisors, Treasury officials
?and heads of the relevant Congressional committees recognize the need for a write-down. After all, they have been placed in their positions precisely because they do not 
understand that debt leveraging is a form of economic overhead, not real ?wealth creation.? But their tunnel vision is what makes them ?reliable? to Wall Street, which doesn?t
?like surprises. And the entire character of today?s financial crisis continues to be labeled ?surprising? and ?unexpected? by the press as each new surprisingly pessimistic statistic 
hits the news. It?s safe to be surprised; suspicious to have expected bad news and being a ?premature doomsayer.? One must have faith in the system above all. And the system 
was the Greenspan Bubble. That is why ?Ayn Rand Alan? was put in charge in the first place, after all.
So the government tries to recover the happy Bubble Economy years by getting debt growing again, hoping to re-inflate real estate and stock market prices. That was, after all,
?the Golden Age of finance capital?s world of using debt leverage to bid up the book-price of fictitious capital assets. Everyone loved it as long as it lasted. Voters thought 
they had a chance to become millionaires, and approved happily. And at least it made Wall Street richer than ever before ? while almost doubling the share of wealth held 
by the wealthiest 1 per cent of America?s families. For Washington policy makers, they are synonymous with ?the economy? ? at least the economy for which national economic policy is being formulated these days.
The Obama-Geithner plan to restart the Bubble Economy?s debt 
growth so as to inflate asset prices by enough to pay off the debt overhang out of new ?capital gains? cannot possibly work. But that is the only trick these ponies know. 
We have entered an era of asset-price deflation, not inflation. Economic data charts throughout the world have hit a wall and every trend has been plunging vertically downward 
since last autumn. U.S. consumer prices experienced their fastest plunge since the Great Depression of the 1930s, along with consumer ?confidence,? international shipping, 
real estate and stock market prices, oil and the exchange rate for British sterling. The global economy is falling into depression, and cannot recover until debts are written down. 
Instead of doing this, the government is doing just the opposite. It
?is proposing to take bad debts onto the public-sector balance sheet, printing new Treasury bonds give the banks ? bonds whose interest charges will have to be paid by taxing labor and industry.
The oligarchy?s plans for a bailout (at least of its own financial position)
In periods of looming collapse, wealthy elites protect their funds.
?In times past they bought gold when currencies started to weaken. (Patriotism never has been a characteristic of cosmopolitan finance capital.) Since the 1950s the
?International Monetary Fund has made loans to support Third World exchange rates long enough to subsidize capital flight. In the United States over the past half-year, 
bankers and Wall Street investors have tapped the Treasury and Federal Reserve to support prices of their bad loans and financial gambles, buying out or guaranteeing $12 trillion of these junk debts. Protection for the U.S. financial elite thus takes the form of domestic 
public debt, not foreign currency.
It is all in vain as far as the real economy is concerned. When the Treasury gives banks newly printed government bonds in ?cash for trash? swaps, it leaves today?s unpayably
?high private-sector debt in place. All that happens is that this debt is now owed to (or guaranteed by) the government, which will have to impose taxes to pay the interest charges.
The new twist is a variant on the IMF ?stabilization? plans that lend 
money to central banks to support their currencies ? for long enough to enable local oligarchs and foreign investors to move their savings and investments offshore at a good
?exchange rate. The currency then is permitted to collapse, enabling currency speculators to rake in enough gains to empty out the central bank?s reserves. Speculators 
view these central bank holdings as a target to be raided ? the larger the better. The IMF will lend a central bank, say, $10 billion to ?support the currency.? Domestic holders
?will flee the currency at a high exchange rate. Then, when the loan proceeds are depleted, the currency plunges. Wages are squeezed in the usual IMF austerity program,
?and the economy is forced to earn enough foreign exchange to pay back the IMF. 
As a condition for getting this kind of IMF ?support,? governments are told to run a budget surplus, cut back social spending, lower wages and raise taxes on labor so as to 
squeeze out enough exports to repay the IMF loans. But inasmuch as this kind ?stabilization plan? cripples their domestic economy, they are obliged to sell off public
?infrastructure at distress prices ? to foreign buyers who themselves borrow the money. The effect is to make such countries even more dependent on less ?neoliberalized? 
economies.
Latvia is a poster child for this kind of disaster. Its recent agreement with Europe is a case in point. To help the Swedish banks withdraw their funds from the sinking ship,
?EU support is conditional on Latvia?s government agreeing to cut salaries in the private sector ? and not to raise property taxes (currently almost zero). 
The problem is that Latvia, like other post-Soviet economies, has 
scant domestic output to export. Industry throughout the former Soviet Union was torn up and scrapped in the 1990s. (Welcome to victorious finance capitalism, Western-style.) 
What they had was real estate and public infrastructure free of debt ? and hence, available to be pledged as collateral for loans to finance their imports. Ever since its independence 
from Russia in 1991, Latvia has paid for its imported consumer goods and other purchases by borrowing mortgage credit in foreign currency from Scandinavian and other banks. The effect has been one of the world?s biggest property bubbles ? in an economy with no means of 
breaking even except by loading down its real estate with more and more debt. In practice the loans took the form of mortgage borrowing from foreign banks to finance a real 
estate bubble ? and their import dependency on foreign suppliers. 
So instead of helping it and other post-Soviet nations develop self-reliant economies, the West has viewed them as economic oysters to be broken up to indebt them in 
order to extract interest charges and capital gains, leaving them empty shells. This policy crested on January 26, 2009, when Joaquin Almunia of the European Commission 
wrote a letter to Latvia?s Prime Minister spelling out the terms on which Europe will bail out the Swedish and other foreign banks operating in Latvia ? at Latvia?s own expense:
Extended assistance is to be used to avoid a balance of payments crisis, 
which requires ? restoring confidence in the banking sector [now entirely foreign owned], and bolstering the foreign reserves of the Bank of Latvia. This implies financing ?
?outstanding government debt repayments (domestic and external). And if the banking sector were to experience adverse events, part of the assistance would be used for 
targeted capital infusions or appropriate short-term liquidity support. However, financial assistance is not meant to be used to originate new loans to businesses and households. ?
? it is important not to raise ungrounded expectations among the
?general public and the social partners, and, equally, to counter misunderstandings that may arise in this respect. Worryingly, we have witnessed some recent evidence in 
Latvian public debate of calls for part of the financial assistance to be used inter alia for promoting export industries or to stimulate the economy through increased spending 
at large. It is important actively to stem these misperceptions.
Riots broke out last week, and protesters stormed the Latvian Treasury. Hardly surprising! There is no attempt to help Latvia develop the export capacity to cover its imports. 
After the domestic kleptocrats, foreign banks and investors have removed their funds from the economy, the Latvian lat will be permitted to depreciate. Foreign buyers then 
can come in and pick up local assets on the cheap once again.
The practice of European banks riding the crest of the post-Soviet real estate bubble is backfiring to wreck the European economies that have engaged in this predatory 
lending to neighboring economies as well. As one reporter has summarized:
In Poland 60 percent of mortgages are in Swiss francs. The zloty has just halved against the franc. Hungary, the Balkans, the Baltics, and Ukraine are all suffering variants 
of this story. As an act of collective folly ? by lenders and borrowers ? it matches America?s sub-prime debacle. There is a crucial difference, however. European banks are 
on the hook for both. US banks are not. Almost all East bloc debts are owed to West Europe, especially Austrian, Swedish, Greek, Italian, and Belgian banks.
This was the West?s alternative to Stalinism. It did not help these countries
?emulate how Britain and America got rich by protectionist policies and publicly nurtured industrialization and infrastructure spending. Rather, the financial rape and industrial 
dismantling of the former Soviet economies was the most recent exercise in Western colonialism. At least U.S. investors were smart enough to stand clear and merely ride the stock market run-up before jumping ship.
But now, the government?s plan to ?save? the economy is to ?save the banks,?
?along similar lines to the West trying to save its banks from their adventure in the post-Soviet economies. This is the basic neoliberal economic plan, after all. The U.S.
?economy is about to be ?post-Sovietized.?
The U.S. giveaway to banks, masquerading as ?help for troubled homeowners?
The Obama bank bailout is arranged much like an IMF loan to support the 
exchange rate of foreign currency, but with the Treasury supporting financial asset prices for U.S. banks and other financial institutions. Instead of banks and oligarchs abandoning the
?dollar, the aim is to enable them to dump their bad mortgages and CDOs and get domestic Treasury bonds. Private-sector debt will be moved onto the U.S. Government balance 
sheet, where ?taxpayers? will bear losses ? mainly labor not Wall Street, inasmuch as the financial sector has been freed of income-tax liability by the ?small print? in last fall?s Paulson-Bush bailout package. But at least the U.S. Government is handling the situation entirely
?in domestic dollars.
As in Third World austerity programs, the effect of keeping the debts in place at the ?real? economy?s expense will be to shrink the domestic U.S. market ? while providing 
opportunities for hedge funds to pick up depreciated assets cheaply as the federal government, states and cities sell them off. This is called letting the banks ?earn their way out
?of debt.? It?s strangling the ?real? economy, because not a dollar of the government?s response has been devoted to reducing the overall debt volume.
Take the much-vaunted $50 billion program designed to renegotiate mortgages downward for ?troubled homeowners.? Upon closer examination it turns out that the real 
beneficiaries are the giant leading banks such as Citibank and Bank of America that have made the bad loans. The Treasury will take on the bad debt that banks are stuck with, 
and will permit mortgagees to renegotiate their monthly payment down to 38 per cent of their income. But rather than the banks taking the loss as they should do for over-lending,
?the Treasury itself will make up the difference ? and pay it to the banks so that they will be able to get what they hoped to get. The hapless mortgage-burdened family stuck in 
their negative-equity home turns out to be merely a passive vehicle for the Treasury to pass debt relief on to the commercial banks.
Few news stories have made this clear, but the Financial Times spelled the 
details buried in small print. It added that the Treasury has not yet decided whether to write down the debt principal for the estimated 15 million families with negative equity 
(and perhaps 30 million by this time next year as property prices continue to plunge). No doubt a similar deal will be made: For every $100,000 of write-down in debt owed by 
over-mortgaged homeowners, the bank will receive $100,000 from the Treasury. Government debt will rise by $100,000, and the process will continue until the Treasury has transferred $50,000,000 to the banks that made the reckless loans. 
There is enough for just 500,000 of these renegotiations of $100,000 
each. It may seem like a big amount, but it?s only about 1/30th of the properties underwater. Hardly enough to make much of a dent, but the principle has been put in place 
for many further bailouts. It will take almost an infinity of them, as long as the Treasury tries to support the fiction that ?the miracle of compound interest? can be sustained for 
long. The economy may be dead by the time saner economic understanding penetrates the public consciousness.
In the mean time, bad private-sector debt will be shifted onto the government?s balance sheet. Interest and amortization currently owed to the banks will be replaced by 
obligations to the U.S. Treasury. Taxes will be levied to make up the bad debts with which the government is stuck. The ?real? economy will pay Wall Street ? and 
will be paying for decades!
Calling the $12 trillion giveaway to bankers a ?subprime crisis? makes it appear that bleeding-heart liberals got Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into trouble by insisting that 
these public-private institutions make irresponsible loans to the poor. The party line is, ?Blame the victim.? But we know this is false. The bulk of bad loans are concentrated in the largest banks. It was Countrywide and other banksters that led the irresponsible lending and 
brought heavy-handed pressure on Fannie Mae. Most of the nation?s smaller, local banks didn?t make such reckless loans. The big mortgage shops didn?t care about loan quality, because they were run by salesmen. The Treasury is paying off the gamblers and billionaires by 



supporting the value of bank loans, investments and derivative gambles, leaving the Treasury in debt.
U.S./Post-Soviet Convergence?
It may be time to look once again at what Larry Summers and his 
Rubinomics gang did in Russia in the mid-1990s and to Third World countries during his tenure as World Bank economist to see what kind of future is being planned for the U.S.
?economy over the next few years. Throughout the Soviet Union the neoliberal model established ?equilibrium? in a way that involved demographic collapse: shortening
?life spans, lower birth rates, alcoholism and drug abuse, psychological depression, suicides, bad health, unemployment and homelessness for the elderly (the neoliberal mode of Social Security reform).
Back in the 1970s, people speculated whether the US and Soviet 
economies were converging. Throughout the 20th century, of course, everyone expected government regulation, infrastructure investment and planning to increase. It looked like the spread of democratically elected governments would go hand in hand with people voting in their 
own economic interest to raise living standards, thereby closing the inequality gap.
This is not the kind of convergence that has occurred since 1991. 
Government power is being dismantled, living standards have stagnated and wealth is concentrating at the top of the economic pyramid. Economic planning and resource allocation has passed into the hands of Wall Street, whose alternative to Hayek?s ?road to serfdom? is debt 
peonage for the economy at large. There does need to be a strong state, to be sure, to keep the financial and real estate rentier power in place. But the West?s alternative to the old Soviet bureaucracy is a financial planning. In place of a political overhead, we have a financial and 
real estate overhead.
Stalinist Russia and Maoist China achieved high technology without land-rent, monopoly rent and interest overhead. This purging of rentier income was the historical task of 
classical political economy, and it became that of socialism. The aim was to create a Clean Slate financially, bringing prices in line with technologically necessary costs of 
production. The aim was to provide everyone with the fruits of their labor rather than letting banks and landlords siphon off the economic surplus.
Ideas of economic efficiency and ?wealth creation? today are an utterly different kind of liberalism and ?free markets.? Commercial banks lend money not to increase production
?but to inflate asset prices. Some 70 per cent of bank loans are mortgage loans for real estate, and most of the rest is for corporate takeovers and raids, to finance stock buy-backs 
or simply to pay dividends. Asset-price inflation obliges people to go deeper into debt than ever before to obtain access to housing, education and medical care. The economy is being ?financialized,? not industrialized. This has been the plan as much for the post-Soviet states 
as for North America, Western Europe and the Third World. 
But we are far from having reached the end of the line. Celebrations that our present financialized economy represents the ?end of history? are laughingly premature. Today?s
?policies look more like a dead end. But that does not mean that, like the Roman Empire, they won?t lead us down toward a new Dark Age. That?s what tends to happen when
?oligarchies do the planning.
Is America a Failed Economy?
It may be time to ask whether neoliberal pro-rentier economics has turned America and the West into a Failed Economy. Is there really no alternative? Have the neoliberals made the 
shift of planning from governments to the financial oligarchy irreversible?
Let?s first dispose of the ?foundation myth? of the idea still guiding the United States and Europe. Free-market economists pretend that prices can be brought into line most efficiently
?with technologically necessary costs of production under capitalism, and indeed, under finance capitalism. The banks and stock market are supposed to allocate resources
?most efficiency. That at least is the dream of self-regulating markets. But today it looks like only a myth, public relations patter talk to get a generation of increasingly indebted voters not to act in their own self-interest.
Industrial capitalism always has been a hybrid, a symbiosis with its feudal 
legacy of absentee property ownership, oligarchic finance and public debts rather than the government acting as net creditor. The essence of feudalism was extractive, not productive. 
That is why it created industrial capitalism as state policy in the first place ? if only to increase its war-making powers. But the question must now be raised as to whether only 
socialism can complete the historical task that classical political economy set out for itself ? the ideal that futurists in the 19th and 20th centuries believed that an unpurified capitalism might still be able bring about without shedding its legacy of commercial banking indebting property 
and carving infrastructure out of the public domain.
Today it is easier to see that the Western economies cannot go on the way they have been. They have reached the point where the debts exceed the ability to pay. Instead of 
recognizing this fact and scaling debts back into line with the ability to pay, the Obama-Geithner plan is to bail out the big banks and hedge funds, keeping the volume of debt in 
place and indeed, growing once again through the ?magic of compound interest.? The result can only be an increasingly extractive economy, until households, real estate and 
industrial companies, states and cities, and the national government itself is driven into debt peonage.
The alternative is a century and a half old, and emerged out of the ideals of the classical economic doctrines of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and the last 
great classical economist, Marx. Their common denominator was to view rent and interest are extractive, not productive. Classical political economy and its successor Progressive Era socialism sought to nationalize the land (or at least to fully tax its rent as the fiscal base). 
Governments were to create their own credit, not leave this function to wealthy elites via a bank monopoly on credit creation. So today?s neoliberalism paints a false picture of what the classical economists envisioned as free markets. They were markets free of 
economic rent and interest (and taxes to support an aristocracy or oligarchy). Socialism was to free economies from these overhead charges. Today?s Obama-Geithner 
rescue plan is just the reverse.
Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist. A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including 
Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002) He can be reached via his website, mh at michael-hudson.com 


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Wed Mar  4 20:07:46 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 19:07:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Capitalism, Socialism and Crisis
Message-ID: <946006.28825.qm@web180114.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>



OK . . . fair enough. Maybe later. 
It was so bad I was embarrassed to actually comment on it. 

WL. 

^^^^^^

CB:? You haven't been too embarrassed
to post bad stuff yourself in the past.
When did you get to be?so sensitive ? (smile)



From rasherrs at eircom.net  Thu Mar  5 06:27:01 2009
From: rasherrs at eircom.net (Paddy Hackett)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 13:27:01 -0000
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Economic Crisis and Ireland
Message-ID: <000b01c99d96$112fa480$338eed80$@net>

The world capitalist economy has plunged into a sustained economic
depression. The signs are that this depression shall be deep and prolonged.
The principal way by which capitalism can come out of the depression is by
reducing both the living standards and employment conditions of the working
class. The only other solution is social revolution involving the seizure of
power by the working class from the capitalist class necessitating the
establishment of a world communist federation. Because of the peculiarities
of the Irish situation: booms powered by bubbles and a Fianna Fail dominated
government that instead of storing up its surplus revenue, in anticipation
of future contingencies, largely squandered it. These funds were largely
used to bribe the electorate into voting the Fianna Fail party back into
power. It was also used to support its capitalist friends such as Irish
property developers and bankers.
Since the outset of the depression the same Irish government has been
engaged in a sustained attack on the working class. It endeavours to achieve
this by splitting the working class --pitting worker against worker. By
maximising the fragmentation of the working class it is rendered more
vulnerable to crushing defeat. Immigrant workers are split from indigenous
workers; public workers from private workers; female workers from male
workers; unskilled workers from skilled workers etc. In its current attack
the government has singled out the public sector workers. To achieve a cut
back in the income of these workers it has actively led a sustained campaign
against them entailing the polarisation of pubic and private worker. This is
the basis from which it has imposed substantial pension levy on the public
worker. Success here will render it easier for the state to reinforce this
cutback with ensuing cutbacks in the incomes of the entire working class.
Its declared intention of widening and further increasing income tax within
the next month is irrefutable evidence of this. The government also hopes to
continue the reorganisation of the public sector work force. "An Bord Snip"
with its mandate to focus on slashing employee numbers and spending within
the public service forms part of this plan. The consequent reorganisation
and diminution of the public service will lead to a weaker and harder
pressed workforce. It is hoped to ultimately reduce the public service
worker more or less to the same condition as that of the average factory or
shop worker. Then capitalism will have a cheaper and more docile workforce.
The European bourgeoisie is watching this conflict with keen interest. Cowan
will be Europe's new hero should he succeed in defeating the public sector
workers and indeed the working class in Ireland as a whole. His success may
provide them with encouragement to attempt to impose similar conditions on
their own public sector. The present struggle in Ireland is not just a local
matter. It also has a European dimension that may influence events in the
European Union.
In view of this it is imperative that the working class meet this capitalist
onslaught, led by its state, with stiff resistance and the correct politics.
Working class action must involve strikes culminating in the general strike
together with the setting up of workers' councils for the organisation and
administration of economic, social and political life. In the struggle the
conservative unions must be replaced by communist unions. In connection with
this communists must struggle to set up workplace committees as a means of
organising against the bosses and the leadership of the conservative trade
unions. In solidarity with the working class in Ireland the European working
class must strenuously resist their own ruling class too in the struggle for
power.
The government has been actively encouraging the mass immigration of workers
into the Irish Republic on an unprecedented scale. This is but a further way
of promoting more division within the working class. Immigration is a social
engineering device intended to drive down the price of labour power through
competition. It is also intended to hinder the prospects of the working
class in Ireland evolving into a unified revolutionary class force. The
working class based in Ireland must overcome this division by endeavouring
to create unity among migrant and indigenous sections of the working class
in Ireland on a principled revolutionary basis.
None of the political elements represented in the Oireachtas can offer a
solution other than essentially the same solution as that of the Fianna Fail
Party. They are all bourgeois in character including the Labour Party, the
Green Party and Sinn Fein. They simply attempt to dress the same solution up
in different clothes. They all actively support a solution to the capitalist
crisis at the expense of the working class. The leader of the Labour Party,
Eamon Gilmore, has expressed his opposition to strike action and does not
reject a pension levy in principle. Neither is he, in principle, against
increased taxation being imposed on the working class. He merely calls for
"fairness" in taxation. The Labour Party and Fine Gael claim that the cut
backs in the living standards of the working class are necessary and
correct. Their difficulty with Fianna Fail is their alleged lack of fairness
together with the unscrupulous way in which they are imposed. The opposition
of Fine Gael and Labour hinges on matters of ethics. Fine Gael presents
itself as free from corruption unlike Fianna Fail. They oppose the form as
opposed to the substance of Fianna Fail's politics. They thereby present a
false opposition since ethically there can be no essential difference
between the parties. Fine Gael and Labour would be largely as dirty as
Fianna Fail were they in government under the same conditions as  Fine Fail.
It also claims that it would make a more competent party than Fianna Fail.
Again this is a rather derivative difference and of no significance. In
effect the main party in power and the opposition are similar. Consequently
the opposition concentrate their opposition around matters of corruption and
competence. These constitute matters of secondary importance that obstruct
the healthy development of class politics.
The voluntary reduction of salaries by high profile figures from the
business and media world is merely a ploy designed to exert further pressure
on the working class to accept living standards.
The growing army of the unemployed means that the production of surplus
value, total profits, has diminished. This means that fewer resources exist
from which to pay for state expenditure. This forces the state to cut
spending, increase taxes and borrowing. Borrowing is a form of future
taxation with a difference. Interest must be paid which amounts to an
addition to future taxation. This constitutes a further deduction from total
profits which further adversely affects investment conditions. This tends to
bring about a downwards spiral. Consequently the Irish economy is forced to
further contract in order to reproduce the conditions for recovery. Spending
cuts, taxation and borrowing must be further increased.
The present depression is a result of the bourgeoisie's refusal to let the
economic system follow its "natural" cyclical downswing whereby capitalism
cleanses itself of less profitable forms of capital. This leads to a
restoration of profitability and greater sustained economic activity.
Instead the capitalist class through the medium of its state modified the
downswings through counter-cyclical interventionist activity. The ruling
class fear a generalised depression because its destabilising consequences
may lead to revolution. In general the more the cyclical behaviour of
capitalism is modified and prevented from completing its "natural" cycle the
greater, more intense the crisis. The evidence suggests that the capitalist
social system has plunged into depression. No amount of state intervention
can arrest it from assuming an acute form this time round. We have now
entered a new historical epoch. Politics can never be the same again. Under
these new conditions of sustained and deep stagnation the class struggle
sharpens. Consequently capitalism's obsolescent character becomes
increasingly visible.              
At present the leadership of the working class (trade union and political
leadership) has been offering solutions intended to rescue capitalism from
its demise. Capitalism can only be rescued at the expense of the working
class. There exist no significant political forces advocating a solution
necessitating the transcendence of capitalism. Communists must endeavour to
create communist current within the working class. This can begin by
organising circles of communist intellectuals. Such a communist
intelligentsia conducts an intellectual struggle to propagate communist
doctrine. As this intelligentsia develops and spreads its influence it has
the basis for linking into the more advanced sections of the working class
to form a communist strand within the working class. This is the basis on
which a revolutionary communist movement can be built. 
Under the present critical conditions a communist movement would draw up an
action plan as the basis for struggle against this sustained attack on the
working class.

Paddy Hackett










From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Thu Mar  5 13:24:29 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 12:24:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Human language gene's origin not as recent as
	thought
Message-ID: <945997.61138.qm@web180101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

This implies that language originated earlier in human
evolution than thought.

CB

http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/

The Neanderthal genome includes the human version of the 
FOXP2 gene. In my most recent post on that finding (see: Narrowing Down the Suspects) I said:
The original dating of the appearance of the FOXP2 gene in its 
human form put it between 200 and 100 thousand years ago. 
Many arguments about the recency of language have claimed 
authority based on that date, and now find their cards are very weak. ... In November 2006 this blog reported on a paper presented at a conference in Stellenbosch, 
South Africa claiming that the original dating effort on FOXP2 had been grossly in error and the true date of the human version of the gene was 1.8 to 1.9 million years ago. ... I have emailed the paper?s main author, Karl Diller, to ask for an update on his work, but have 
not yet had a response.
Now I have gotten a response. In a nutshell, he is sticking by his earlier findings:
It is true that the [original] date for FOXP2 was widely cited before the 
Neanderthal results, but I would say that hardly anyone believes anymore 
that the FOXP2 mutations were recent. The accepted date for the common 
ancestor with Neanderthals is ~660,000 years ago. We stand by the genomic 
evidence and our date of 1.8 or 1.9 million years ago for the FOXP2 
mutations.
More
Carl Zimmer reminds me of a letter Molecular Biology and 
Evolution (here) arguing that the Neanderthal gene is a contaminant from inbreeding with Homo sapiens. These things will be argued for some time, and as I said in my 
Narrowing Down the Suspects post:
... all dates on this gene are likely to be taken with several grains of salt without multiple, independent confirmations.



From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Thu Mar  5 13:29:42 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 12:29:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] FOXP2 and the Evolution of Language
Message-ID: <389888.63541.qm@web180109.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

FOXP2 and the Evolution of Language
Alec MacAndrew
?
Introduction?
This article addresses the history and the significance of the discovery of the 
relevance of FOXP2 in the development of speech. It is a remarkable scientific detective story that has been in the making for some time. ?In its earlier stages,?there was serious 
disagreement within the scientific community about how the scientific findings should be interpreted, and this was set against a background of sensationalist reporting by the
?popular press.

Background

Background
The story goes like this: The KE family were brought to the attention of the 
scientific community in about 1990. Over three generations of this family, about half the family members suffer from a number of problems, the most obvious of which is severe 
difficulty in speaking, to such an extent that the speech of the affected people is largely unintelligible, and they are taught signs as a supplement to speech as children. It is
?a complicated condition including elements of impairment in speech articulation and other linguistic skills, and broader intellectual and physical problems. From the outset
?it seemed quite likely, from the pattern of inheritance, that the disorder is associated with a mutation in a single autosomal-dominant gene. It is rather surprising that such
?a diffuse condition should be linked to a single genetic defect, but it turned out to be so for reasons that we shall see later.

From the beginning, there has been a range of views in the 
professional scientific community with regard to whether the gene in question is a `language' or a `grammar' specific gene. Those disagreements continue in 
a somewhat abated form today.



http://www.evolutionpages.com/FOXP2_language.htm



From Waistline2 at aol.com  Thu Mar  5 17:50:08 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 19:50:08 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Capitalism, Socialism and Crisis
Message-ID: <d23.383bab49.36e1cd40@aol.com>

A Non-Orthodox View 
 
by Walden Bello 
 
ZNet (February 22 2009) 
 
This is the longer version of an essay by the author released by the  British 
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on February 06 2009. 
 

Week after week, we see the global economy contracting at a pace worse  than 
predicted by the gloomiest analysts.  We are now, it is clear, in no  ordinary 
recession but are headed for a global depression that could last for  many 
years. 
 

The Fundamental Crisis: Overaccumulation 
 
Orthodox economics has long ceased to be of any help in understanding the  
crisis.  Non-orthodox economics, on the other hand, provides  extraordinarily 
powerful insights into the causes and dynamics of the current  crisis.  From the 
progressive perspective, what we are seeing is the  intensification of one of 
the central crises or "contradictions" of global  capitalism: the crisis of 
overproduction, also known as overaccumulation or  overcapacity.  This is the 
tendency for capitalism to build up, in the  context of heightened 
inter-capitalist competition, tremendous productive  capacity that outruns the 
population's capacity to consume owing to income  inequalities that limit popular 
purchasing power.  The result is an erosion  of profitability, leading to an economic 
downspin. 
 
To understand the current collapse, we must go back in time to the  so-called 
Golden Age of Contemporary Capitalism, the period from 1945 to  
1975.  This was a period of rapid growth both in the center economies  and in 
the underdeveloped economies - one that was partly triggered by the  massive 
reconstruction of Europe and East Asia after the devastation of the  Second 
World War, and partly by the new socioeconomic arrangements and  instruments 
based on a historic class compromise between Capital and Labor that  were 
institutionalized under the new Keynesian state. 
 
But this period of high growth came to an end in the mid-1970s, when the  
center economies were seized by stagflation, meaning the coexistence of low  
growth with high inflation, which was not supposed to happen under neoclassical  
economics. 
 
Stagflation, however, was but a symptom of a deeper cause: the  
reconstruction of Germany and Japan and the rapid growth of industrializing  economies like 
Brazil, Taiwan, and South Korea added tremendous new productive  capacity and 
increased global competition, while income inequality within  countries and 
between countries limited the growth of purchasing power and  demand, thus 
eroding profitability. This was aggravated by the massive oil price  rises of the 
seventies. 
 
The most painful expression of the crisis of overproduction was global  
recession of the early 1980s, which was the most serious to overtake the  
international economy since the Great Depression, that is, before the current  crisis. 
 
Capitalism tried three escape routes from the conundrum of overproduction:  
neoliberal restructuring, globalization, and financialization 
 

Escape Route #1: Neoliberal Restructuring 
 
Neoliberal restructuring took the form of Reaganism and Thatcherism in the  
North and Structural Adjustment in the South.  The aim was to invigorate  
capital accumulation, and this was to be done by (1) removing state constraints  on 
the growth, use, and flow of capital and wealth; and (2) redistributing  
income from the poor and middle classes to the rich on the theory that the rich  
would then be motivated to invest and reignite economic growth. 
 
The problem with this formula was that in redistributing income to the  rich, 
you were gutting the incomes of the poor and middle classes, thus  
restricting demand, while not necessarily inducing the rich to invest more in  
production.  In fact, it could be more profitable to invest in speculation. 
 
In fact, neoliberal restructuring, which was generalized in the North and  
south during the eighties and nineties, had a poor record in terms of growth:  
Global growth averaged 1.1 percent in the 1990s and 1.4 percent in the 1980s,  
compared with 3.5 percent in the 1960s and 2.4 percent in the 1970s, when 
state  interventionist policies were dominant. Neoliberal restructuring could not 
shake  off stagnation. 
 

Escape Route #2: Globalization 
 
The second escape route global capital took to counter stagnation was  
"extensive accumulation" or globalization, or the rapid integration of  
semi-capitalist, non-capitalist, or pre-capitalist areas into the global market  economy. 
Rosa Luxemburg, the famous German radical economist, saw this long ago  in her 
classic The Accumulation of Capital (1913) as necessary to shore up the  rate 
of profit in the metropolitan economies. 
 
How?  By gaining access to cheap labor, by gaining new, albeit  limited, 
markets, by gaining new sources of cheap agricultural and raw material  products, 
and by bringing into being new areas for investment in infrastructure.  
Integration is accomplished via trade liberalization, removing barriers to the  
mobility of global capital, and abolishing barriers to foreign investment. 
 
China is, of course, the most prominent case of a non-capitalist area to be  
integrated into the global capitalist economy over the last 25 years. 
 
By the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, roughly forty to  
fifty percent of the profits of US corporations came from their operations and  
sales abroad, especially in China. 
 
The problem with this escape route from stagnation is that it exacerbates  
the problem of overproduction because it adds to productive capacity.  A  
tremendous amount of manufacturing capacity has been added in China over the  last 
25 years, and this has had a depressing effect on prices and profits.   Not 
surprisingly, by around 1997, the profits of US corporations stopped  growing.  
According to one calculation, the profit rate of the Fortune 500  went from 
7.15 in 1960-69 to 5.30 in 1980-90 to 
2.29 in 1990-99 to 1.32 in  2000-2002.  By the end of the 1990s, with excess 
capacity in almost every  industry, the gap between productive capacity and 
sales was the largest since  the Great Depression. 
 

Escape Route #3: Financialization 
 
Given the limited gains in countering the depressive impact of  
overproduction via neoliberal restructuring and globalization, the third escape  route - 
financialization - became very critical for maintaining and raising  
profitability. 
 
With investment in industry and agriculture yielding low profits owing to  
overcapacity, large amounts of surplus funds have been circulating in or  
invested and reinvested in the financial sector - that is, the financial sector  is 
turning on itself. 
 
The result is an increased bifurcation between a hyperactive financial  
economy and a stagnant real economy.  As one financial executive noted in  the 
pages of the Financial Times, "there has been an increasing disconnection  between 
the real and financial economies in the last few years. The real economy  has 
grown ... but nothing like that of the financial economy - until it  
imploded".  What this observer does not tell us is that the disconnect  between the 
real and the financial economy is not accidental - that the  financial economy e
xploded precisely to make up for the stagnation owing to  overproduction of 
the real economy. 
 
One indicator of the super-profitability of the financial sector is that  
while profits in the US manufacturing sector came to one percent of US gross  
domestic product (GDP), profits in the financial sector came to two  percent.  
Another is the fact that forty percent of the total profits of US  financial and 
non-financial corporations is accounted for by the financial  sector although 
it is responsible for only five percent of US gross domestic  product (and 
even that is likely to be an overestimate). 
 
The problem with investing in financial sector operations is that it is  
tantamount to squeezing value out of already created value. It may create  profit, 
yes, but it does not create new value - only industry, agricultural,  trade, 
and services create new value.  Because profit is not based on value  that is 
created, investment operations become very volatile and prices of  stocks, 
bonds, and other forms of investment can depart very radically from  their real 
value - for instance, the stock of Internet startups may keep rising  to 
heights unknown, driven mainly by upwardly spiraling financial valuations. 
 
Profits then depend on taking advantage of upward price departures from the  
value of commodities, then selling before reality enforces a "correction", 
that  is a crash back to real values.  The radical rise of prices of an asset far 
 beyond real values is what is called the formation of a bubble. 
 
Profitability being dependent on speculative coups, it is not surprising  
that the finance sector lurches from one bubble to another, or from one  
speculative mania to another.  Because it is driven by speculative mania,  
finance-driven capitalism has experienced about 100 financial crises since  capital 
markets were deregulated and liberalized in the 
1980s, the most  serious before the current crisis being the Asian Financial 
Crisis of 1997. 
 

Dynamics of the Subprime Implosion 
 
The current Wall Street collapse has its roots in the Technology Bubble of  
the late 1990s, when the price of the stocks of Internet startups skyrocketed,  
then collapsed, resulting in the loss of $7 trillion worth of assets and the  
recession of 2001 to 2002. 
 
The loose money policies of the Fed under Alan Greenspan had encouraged the  
Technology Bubble, and when it collapsed into a recession, Greenspan, trying 
to  counter a long recession, cut the prime rate to a 
45-year low of one percent  in June 2003 and kept it there for over a year. 
This had the effect of  encouraging another bubble - the real estate bubble. 
 
As early as 2002, progressive economists were warning about the real estate  
bubble.  However, as late as 2005, then Council of Economic Advisers  Chairman 
and now Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke attributed the rise  in 
US housing prices to "strong economic fundamentals" instead of speculative  
activity.  Is it any wonder that he was caught completely off guard when  the 
Subprime Crisis broke in the summer of 2007? 
 
The subprime mortgage crisis was not a case of supply outrunning real  
demand.  The "demand" was largely fabricated by speculative mania on the  part of 
developers and financiers that wanted to make great profits from their  access 
to foreign money - most of it Asian and Chinese in origin - that flooded  the 
US in the last decade.  Big ticket mortgages were aggressively sold to  
millions who could not normally afford them by offering low "teaser" interest  rates 
that would later be readjusted to jack up payments from the new  homeowners. 
 
How did problematic mortgages become such a massive problem?  The  reason is 
that these assets were then "securitized" - that is converted into  spectral 
commodities called "collateralized debt obligations" (CDOs) that  enabled 
speculation on the odds that the mortgage would not be paid. These were  then 
traded by the mortgage originators working with different layers of  middlemen who 
understated risk so as to offload them as quickly as possible to  other banks 
and institutional investors. These institutions in turn offloaded  these 
securities onto other banks and foreign financial institutions. 
 
The idea was to make a sale quickly, get your money upfront, and make a  tidy 
profit, while foisting the risk on the suckers down the line - the hundreds  
of thousands of institutions and individual investors that bought the  
mortgage-tied securities. This was called "spreading the risk", and it was  actually 
seen as a good thing because it lightened the balance sheet of  financial 
institutions, enabling them to engage in other lending activities. 
 
When the interest rates were raised on the subprime loans, adjustable  
mortgage, and other housing loans, the game was up. There are about four million  
subprime mortgages which will likely go into default in the next two years, and  
five million more defaults from adjustable rate mortgages and other "flexible 
 loans" that were geared to snag the most reluctant potential homebuyer will  
occur over the next several years.  But securities whose value run into as  
much as $2 trillion had already been injected, like virus, into the global  
financial system.  Global capitalism's gigantic circulatory system was  fatally 
infected.  And, as with a plague, we don't know who and how many  are fatally 
infected until they keel over because the whole financial system has  become so 
non-transparent owing to lack of regulation. 
 
For Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns,  
Bank of America, and Citigroup, the losses represented by these toxic 
securities  simply overwhelmed their reserves.  Iceland's banks and many European  
financial institutions have since joined the list of victims. Some, like Lehman  
Brothers, have been allowed to die, but most have been kept alive with massive  
injections of taxpayers' cash by governments that want the banks to lend to 
keep  the real economy going. 
 

Collapse of the Real Economy 
 
But instead of performing their primordial task of lending to facilitate  
productive activity, the banks are holding on to their cash or buying up rivals  
to strengthen their financial base. Not surprisingly, with global capitalism's 
 circulatory system seizing up, it was only a matter of time before the real  
economy would contract, as it has with frightening speed in the last few 
weeks.  Woolworth, a retail icon, has folded in Britain, the US auto industry is 
on  emergency care, and even mighty Toyota has suffered an unprecedented 
decline in  its profits.  With American consumer demand plummeting, China and East 
Asia  have seen their goods rotting on the docks, bringing about a sharp 
contraction  of their economies and massive layoffs. 
 
Globalization has ensured that economies that went up together in the boom  
would also go down together, with unparalleled speed, in the bust, the end of  
which is nowhere to be discerned. 
 
_____
 
Walden Bello is professor at the University of the Philippines, Diliman;  
senior analyst at Focus on the Global South; and president of the Freedom from  
Debt Coalition.  He can be reached at _waldenbello at yahoo.com_ 
(mailto:waldenbello at yahoo.com)  ..  This  article was first published by the Philippine Daily 
Inquirer on February 11  2009, and it is reproduced here for educational 
purposes. 
 
Source: MR Zine _http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bello200209.html_ 
(http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bello200209.html)  
 
_http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20638_ 
(http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20638)  
 

_http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com_ (http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com)   
_http://www.ashisuto.co.jp_ (http://www.ashisuto.co.jp) 
 
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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Thu Mar  5 18:05:37 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 20:05:37 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Wither the car?
Message-ID: <bf4.46b2f4f1.36e1d0e1@aol.com>

_http://www.truthout.org/030509G#1_ (http://www.truthout.org/030509G#1) 
 
The causes of the euphemization of the automobile industry's social  movement 
are various. The first lies in the significant reduction of the number  of 
employees, and, in particular, of workers on production sites over the last  
thirty years: Renault-Flins, which produces the Clio, went from 23,000 employees  
in the 1960s to 3,500. At Peugeot-Sochaux, manpower has fallen from 42,000  
employees in 1978 to a little less than 18,000 today. 
 
These reductions are not only the result of technical progress that  
substituted robots or automation for people; these drops in manpower come both  from 
outsourcing to regions with lower manpower costs and sub-contracting  
(manufacturers no longer produce more than 30 percent of value-added internally,  
versus 70 to 75 percent during the 1970s). At most sub-contractors, and  especially 
at second and third-tier subcontractors, there are no unions, but  very high 
levels of part-time workers hired and fired at the complete pleasure  of 
management. Salaries may be 30-50 percent lower than those obtained at the  
manufacturers. 
 
To summarize, the globalization of the automobile industry's markets and of  
the capital likely to invest in it tend to align the work conditions and  
salaries of industrialized countries with those of lowest-bidder countries. And  
that alignment began at the same time as the explosion of that organizational  
revolution which occurred almost unnoticed in France, that is, the  
"Japanization" of production with the generalization of the principle of  just-in-time 
inventory management. 
 
That principle rests on the disappearance of work-in-progress and buffer  
stocks that would allow workers to "breathe" on the production line. The end of  
work-in-progress means that if a single link out of 100 to 200 (men or work  
stations) fails, the whole line stops, entailing significant cost-overruns. 
This  increased fragility of the production process is purposeful and constitutes 
a  vicious cycle constructed by company management to mobilize its personnel; 
 moreover, this organizational model involves a drastic reduction of  
manpower.
 
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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Thu Mar  5 18:17:48 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 20:17:48 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Capitalism, Socialism and Crisis
Message-ID: <caa.3fc769f2.36e1d3bc@aol.com>

Capitalism, Socialism and Crisis
By Prabhat Patnaik  
_http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8201/_ 
(http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8201/) 
 
 Original source: People's Democracy (India) 
 
 
Comment
 
Having read this article several times and gone to its location source  
above, I could find nothing that indicates that this article purports to be a  
Marxist analysis. My initial response was based on a false premise. Critiquing  an 
article for failing to be Marxists, when nothing states that the article is  
submitted as a Marxist analysis, is wrong. 
 
Sorry for my misunderstanding. 
 
WL. 
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From jannuzi at gmail.com  Thu Mar  5 18:37:56 2009
From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 10:37:56 +0900
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Capitalism, Socialism and Crisis
Message-ID: <ffbe0f7e0903051737s19b38c80of9d5e30a5f91ccd3@mail.gmail.com>

>>CB: This is one of the  worst unsupported, conclusory
assertions I've seen since
Ralph's  embarrassing posts a couple of days
ago. An empty outburst, with no thought  in it
whatsoever. Who cares what you "think"
without any argumentation  ?<<

I thought it was a fairly good piece (assertion for now unsupported),
but I'd be curious as to why WL thought it was so bad it was beneath
at least some sort of explanatory comment.

CJ


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Thu Mar  5 23:29:19 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 22:29:19 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Work Ethic
Message-ID: <850135.77482.qm@web180111.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Marxism in the Realm of Necessity as negation of the attitudes toward work in the classical European period
I happened to read the below and it occurred to 
me that a lot of Marx's fundamental?concepts on work and 
labor are almost simple negations of the attitudes toward 
them in the European classical periods. 
In standing Hegel off his head onto his feet 
they were doing the same to classical philosophy.

For Marxism ,?the Realm of Freedom, communism,
is a negation of this negation, as work
becomes a combination of the?source of 
material wealth and?the ancient notion of "leisurely"
on a different level at the same time.?It is productive
of necessities , but not toil.?
? 
CB 
? 
http://www.coe.uga.edu/~rhill/workethic/hist.htm 
? 
Attitudes Toward Work During the Classical Period 
One of the significant influences on the culture of the western 
world has been the Judeo-Christian belief system. Growing awareness of the multicultural dimensions of contemporary society has moved educators to consider 
alternative viewpoints and perspectives, but an understanding of western thought is an important element in the understanding of the history of the United States. 
Traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs state that sometime after the dawn 
?of creation, man was placed in the Garden of Eden "to work it and take care of it" (NIV, 1973, Genesis 2:15). What was likely an ideal work situation was disrupted when 
?sin entered the world and humans were ejected from the Garden. Genesis 3:19 described the human plight from that time on. "By the sweat of your brow you will eat 
your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return" (NIV, 1973). Rose stated that the Hebrew belief 
system viewed work as a "curse devised by God explicitly to punish the disobedience and ingratitude of Adam and Eve" (1985, p. 28). Numerous scriptures from the 
Old Testament in fact supported work, not from the stance that there was any joy in it, but from the premise that it was necessary to prevent poverty and destitution (NIV; 1973; Proverbs 10:14, Proverbs 13:4, Proverbs 14:23, Proverbs 20:13, Ecclesiastes 9:10). 
^^^^^^ 
CB: For Marx material labor is essential 
to human existence, of course 
? 

Capital I: "So far therefore as labour is a creator 
of use value, is useful labour, it is a 
necessary condition, independent of all forms of 
society, for the existence of the human race; 
it is an eternal nature-imposed necessity, 
without which there can be no material exchanges 
between man and Nature, and therefore no life. "

^^^^^^ 
? 
The Greeks, like the Hebrews, also regarded work as a curse 
?(Maywood, 1982). According to Tilgher (1930), the 
Greek word for work was ponos, taken from the Latin poena, which meant sorrow. Manual labor was for slaves. The cultural norms allowed free men to pursue 
warfare, large-scale commerce, and the arts, especially architecture or sculpture (Rose, 1985). 
? 
^^^^^^ 
CB: Contrast this with Marx's 
attitude to material or "manual
labor" above. 
? 
^^^^^^ 
? 
Mental labor was also considered to be work and 
was denounced by the Greeks. The mechanical arts 
were deplored because they required a person to use practical thinking, "brutalizing the mind till it was unfit for thinking of truth" (Tilgher, 1930, p. 4). 
? 
^^^^^ 
CB: Consider Marx's Second Thesis 
on Feuerbach wherein he declares 
that the of the truth of theory is practice. 
Marx , in contrast with the above concept 
makes "practical thinking" essential 
to "thinking the truth". 
? 
^^^^^^ 
? 
? 
?Skilled crafts were accepted and recognized as having 
?some social value, but were not regarded as much better than work appropriate for slaves. Hard work, whether due to economic need or under the orders of 
a master, was disdained. 
It was recognized that work was necessary for the satisfaction of material needs, but philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle made it clear that the purpose for 
?which the majority of men labored was "in order that the minority, 
?the ?lite, might engage in pure exercises of the mind--art, 
philosophy, and politics" (Tilgher, 1930, p. 5). 
? 
^^^^^ 
CB;?This?seems related to? Engels' 
focus on the contrast between 
materialism and idealism's 
attitude to the relationship 
between thought and being. 
? 
^^^^^^ 
? 
?Plato recognized the notion of a division of labor, separating them 
first into categories of rich and poor, and then into categories 
by different kinds of work, and he argued that such an arrangement 
could only be avoided by abolition of private property (Anthony, 1977). 
? 
^^^^^ 
CB: Which argument Marx and 
Engels make in the _Manifesto 
of the Communist Party_ 
? 
^^^^^^ 
Aristotle supported the ownership of private property and wealth. 
?He viewed work as a corrupt waste of time that would make a citizen's 
?pursuit of virtue more difficult (Anthony, 1977). 
Braude (1975) described the Greek belief that a person's prudence, 
morality, and wisdom was directly proportional to the amount of leisure 
?time that person had. A person who worked, when there was no 
?need to do so, would run the risk 
of obliterating the distinction between slave and master. 
? 
^^^^^^ 
CB: Do tell . 
? 
^^^^^^ 
? 
?Leadership, in the Greek state and culture, was based on the 
?work a person didn't have to do, and any person who broke 
?this cultural norm was acting to subvert the state itself. 
The Romans adopted much of their belief system from the 
culture of the Greeks and they also held manual labor in low 
regard (Lipset, 1990). The Romans were industrious, however, 
and demonstrated competence in organization, administration, 
?building, and warfare. Through the empire that they established, 
the Roman culture was spread through much of the civilized world 
during the period from c500 BC until c117 AD (Webster Encyclopedia, 1985). The Roman empire spanned most of Europe, the Middle East, Egypt, 
?and North Africa and greatly influenced the Western culture in which the theoretical constructs underlying this study were developed. 
Slavery had been an integral part of the ancient world 
prior to the Roman empire, but the employment of slaves was much more widely utilized by the Romans than by the Greeks before them (Anthony, 1977). 
Early on in the Roman system, moderate numbers of slaves were held and they were treated relatively well. As the size of landholdings grew, however, thousands 
of slaves were required for large-scale grain production on some estates, and their treatment grew worse. Slaves came to be viewed as cattle, with no rights as human beings 
?and with little hope of ever being freed. In fact, in some instances cattle received greater care than slaves, since cattle were not as capable of caring for 
themselves as were slaves (Anthony, 1977). 
For the Romans, work was to be done by slaves, and only two occupations were suitable for a free man--agriculture and big business (Maywood, 1982). A goal 
?of these endeavors, as defined by the Roman culture, was to achieve an "honorable retirement into rural peace as a country gentleman" (Tilgher, 1930, p. 8). 
Any pursuit of handicrafts or the hiring out of a person's arms was considered to be vulgar, dishonoring, and beneath the dignity of a Roman citizen. 
Philosophically, both the Greeks and the Romans viewed the 
?work that slaves performed and the wealth that free men possessed 
?as a means to achieve the supreme ideal of life--man's independence of external things, self-sufficiency, and satisfaction with one's self (Tilgher, 1930). 
? 
^^^^^^ 
CB: Sounds like bougeois individualism 
and Robinsonade. 
? 
^^^^^^ 
Although work was 
something that would degrade virtue, wealth was not 
directly related to virtue except in the matter of how it was used. 
The view of Antisthenes that wealth and virtue were incompatible 
and the view of the Stoics that wealth should be pursued for the purpose of generosity and social good represented extremes of philosophical thought. The most accepted 
view was that pursuit of gain to meet normal needs was appropriate. 
From the perspective of a contemporary culture, respect for workers 
?upon whom the economic structure of a nation and a society 
rested would have been logical for the Greeks and the Romans, but no such respect was evident. Even free men, who were not privileged to be wealthy and were obliged 
to work along side slaves, were not treated with any sense of gratitude,
?but were held in contempt. 

^^^^^^^
CB: To do otherwise would subvert
the fundamental class structure.

^^^^^^
The cultural norms of the classical era 
regarding work were in stark contrast to the work ethic of the latter day. 

Attitudes Toward Work During the Medieval Period 
The fall of the Roman empire marked the beginning of a period generally known as the Middle Ages. During this time, from c400 AD until c1400 AD, Christian 
thought dominated the culture of Europe (Braude, 1975). Woven into the Christian conceptions about work, however, were Hebrew, Greek, and Roman themes. 
Work was still perceived as punishment by God for man's original sin, but to this purely negative view was added the positive aspect of earnings which prevented one from
?being reliant on the charity of others for the physical needs of life (Tilgher, 1930). 
Wealth was recognized as an opportunity to share with those who might be less fortunate and work which produced wealth therefore became acceptable. 
Early Christian thought placed an emphasis on the shortness
?of time until the second coming of Christ and the end of the world. Any attachment to physical things of the world or striving to accumulate excessive wealth was frowned 
upon. 

^^^^^
CB: In this regard the Christian movement
as a revolutionary movment of the 
slaves against the Roman society 
was at least theoretical successful.
The transformation from Rome to
the Middle Ages was the result of
class struggle and an oppressed/
exploited class partial victory.

^^^^^^

^^^^^

As time passed and the world did not end, the Christian 
church began to turn its attention to social structure and the organization of the believers on earth. Monasteries were formed where monks performed the religious
and intellectual work of the church (reading, copying manuscripts, etc.),
?but lay people tended to the manual labor needed to supply the needs of the community. People who were wealthy were expected to meet their own needs, but to 
give the excess of their riches to charity.

^^^^^
CB: ??? Thought they were
extracting surpluses from
serfs/peasants/craftpeople
by direct extortion ???

^^^^^

?Handicraft, farming, and small scale commerce were acceptable 
for people of moderate means, but receiving interest for money loaned, charging more than a "just" price, and big business were not acceptable (Tilgher, 1930). 
As was the case for the Greeks and the Romans, social status 
within the medieval culture was related to the work a person did. Aristotelianism was also evident in the system of divine law taught by the Catholic church during this time 
(Anthony, 1977). A hierarchy of professions and trades was developed by St. Thomas Aquinas as part of his encyclopedic consideration of all things human and 
divine (Tilgher, 1930). Agriculture was ranked first, followed by the handicrafts and then commerce. These were considered to be the work of the world, however, 
and the work of the church was in a higher category (Rose, 1985). The ideal occupation was the monastic life of prayer and contemplation of God (Braude, 1975; Tilgher, 1930).
?Whether as a cleric or in some worldly occupation, each person embarked on a particular work course as a result of the calling of God, and it was the duty of a worker to
?remain in his class, passing on his family work from father to son. 
In the culture of the medieval period, work still held no intrinsic value.
?The function of work was to meet the physical needs of one's family and community, and to avoid idleness which would lead to sin (Tilgher, 1930). 
Work was a part of the economic structure of human society which, like all other things, was ordered by God.?

^^^^^^
CB:?This section is off and
blind to the feudal lords and
ladies of the manor, knights
etc.

^^^^^
?
Protestantism and the Protestant Ethic 
With the Reformation, a period of religious and political 
upheaval in western Europe during the sixteenth century, came 
a new perspective on work. Two key religious leaders who influenced the development of western culture during this period were Martin Luther and John Calvin. Luther was
?an Augustinian friar who became discontent with the Catholic church and was a leader within the Protestant movement. He believed that people could serve God 
through their work, that the professions were useful, that work was the universal base of society and the cause of differing social classes, and that a person should work 
diligently in their own occupation and should not try to change from the profession to which he was born. To do so would be to go against God's laws since God assigned
?each person to his own place in the social hierarchy (Lipset, 1990; Tilgher, 1930). 
The major point at which Luther differed from the medieval 
concept of work was regarding the superiority of one form of work over another. Luther regarded the monastic and contemplative life, held up as the ideal during 
the middle ages, as an egotistic and unaffectionate exercise on the part of the monks, and he accused them of evading their duty to their neighbors (Tilgher, 1930). 
For Luther, a person's vocation was equated as his calling, but all calling's were of equal spiritual dignity. This tenant was significant because it affirmed manual labor. 
Luther still did not pave the way for a profit-oriented economic
?system because he disapproved of commerce as an occupation (Lipset, 1990; Tilgher, 1930). From his perspective, commerce did not involve any real work. Luther also
?believed that each person should earn an income which would meet his basic needs, but to accumulate or horde wealth was sinful. 
According to Weber (1904, 1905), it was John Calvin who
?introduced the theological doctrines which combined with those of Martin Luther to form a significant new attitude toward work. Calvin was a French theologian whose 
concept of predestination was revolutionary. Central to Calvinist 
belief was the Elect, those persons chosen by God to inherit eternal life. All other people were damned and nothing could change that since God was unchanging. 
While it was impossible to know for certain whether a person was one of the Elect, one could have a sense of it based on his own personal encounters with God. 
Outwardly the only evidence was in the person's daily life and deeds, and success in one's worldly endeavors was a sign of possible inclusion as one of the Elect. 
A person who was indifferent and displayed idleness was most 
certainly one of the damned, but a person who was active, austere, and hard-working gave evidence to himself and to others that he was one of God's chosen ones (Tilgher, 1930). 
Calvin taught that all men must work, even the rich, because to 
work was the will of God. It was the duty of men to serve as God's instruments here on earth, to reshape the world in the fashion of the Kingdom of God, and to become a 
part of the continuing process of His creation (Braude, 1975). 
Men were not to lust after wealth, possessions, or easy living, but were to reinvest the profits of their labor into financing further ventures. Earnings were thus to be 
reinvested over and over again, ad infinitum, or to the end of time (Lipset, 1990).

^^^^^^^
CB: Hmmm That sounds familiar.
No wonder Weber referred to the 
"spirit" of capitalism.

^^^^^^^


?Using profits to help others rise from a lessor level of subsistence 
violated God's will since persons could only demonstrate that they were among the Elect through their own labor (Lipset, 1990). 
Selection of an occupation and pursuing it to achieve the greatest 
profit possible was considered by Calvinists to be a religious duty. 
Not only condoning, but encouraging the pursuit of unlimited profit 
was a radical departure from the Christian beliefs of the middle ages. In addition, unlike Luther, Calvin considered it appropriate to seek an occupation which would 
provide the greatest earnings possible. If that meant abandoning 
the family trade or profession, the change was not only allowed, but it was considered to be one's religious duty (Tilgher, 1930). 
The norms regarding work which developed out of the Protestant 
Reformation, based on the combined theological teachings of Luther and Calvin, encouraged work in a chosen occupation with an attitude of service to God, viewed 
work as a calling and avoided placing greater spiritual dignity on one
?job than another, approved of working diligently to achieve maximum profits, required reinvestment of profits back into one's business, allowed a person to change 
from the craft or profession of his father, and associated success in one's work with the likelihood of being one of God's Elect. 

Two Perspectives of the Protestant Ethic 
The attitudes toward work which became a part of the culture 
during the sixteenth century, and the economic value system which they nurtured, represented a significant change from medieval and classical ways of thinking 
about work (Anthony, 1977). Max Weber, the German economic sociologist, coined a term for the new beliefs about work calling it the "Protestant ethic." The key 
elements of the Protestant ethic were diligence, punctuality, 
deferment of gratification, and primacy of the work domain (Rose, 1985). Two distinct perspectives were evident in the literature with regard to the development of the 
Protestant ethic. 
One perspective was the materialist viewpoint which stated that 
the belief system, called the Protestant ethic, grew out of changes in the economic structure and the need for values to support new ways of behavior. Anthony (1977) 
attributes this view to Karl Marx. The other perspective, delineated by Max Weber (1904, 1905), viewed changes in the economic structure as an outgrowth of shifts 
in theological beliefs. Regardless of the viewpoint, it is evident that a rapid expansion in commerce and the rise of industrialism coincided with the Protestant Reformation (Rose, 1985). 
Bernstein (1988), in an argument supporting the materialist
?viewpoint, enumerated three sixteenth century trends which 
probably contributed to the support by Luther and Calvin of diligence: (1) a rapid population increase of Germany and Western Europe, (2) inflation, and (3) a high
?unemployment rate. Probably the most serious of these 
was the rapid expansion in population. Between 1500 and 1600, the population of Germany increased by 25% and the British population increased by 40% (Bernstein, 1988).
?In the cities, the increases were even greater as people from rural areas were displaced by enclosure of large tracts of land for sheep farming. In addition, the import 
of large quantities of silver and gold from Mexico and Peru contributed
?to inflation in general price levels of between 300% and 400%, and even higher inflation in food prices (Bernstein, 1988). Along with the growth in population and the
?inflation problems, unemployment was estimated at 20% in some cities (Bernstein, 1988). People without jobs became commonplace on the streets of cities,
?begging and struggling to survive. 
European cities acted to alleviate the problems of unemployment
?and begging on the streets by passing laws which prohibited begging. 
The general perception of the time was that work was available for those who wanted to work, and that beggars and vagrants were just lazy. The reality was that the
?movement of people into the cities far exceeded the capacity of the urban areas to provide jobs. The theological premise that work was a necessary penance for 
original sin caused increased prejudice toward those without work. Bernstein (1988) suggested that a fundamental misunderstanding of the economic realities facing
?the poor contributed to the theological development of the Protestant ethic. 
From a marxist view, what actually occurred was the development of a religious base of support for a new industrial system which required workers who would accept
?long hours and poor working conditions (Anthony, 1977; Berenstein, 1988). Berenstein did not accuse the theological leaders of the Protestant Reformation of deliberately constructing a belief system which would support the new economic order, but proposed that 
they did misconstrue the realities of the poor and the unemployed of their day. 
From the perspective of Max Weber (1904, 1905), the theological beliefs 
came first and change in the economic system resulted. Motivation of persons to work hard and to reinvest profits in new business ventures was perceived as an 
outcome primarily of Calvinism. Weber further concluded that countries with belief systems which were predominantly Protestant prospered more under capitalism 
than did those which were predominantly Catholic (Rose, 1985).?

The Work Ethic and the Rise of Capitalism 
During the medieval period, the feudal system became the 
dominant economic structure in Europe. This was a social, economic, and political system under which landowners provided governance and protection to those who 
lived and worked on their property. Centralization of government, the growth of trade, and the establishment of economically powerful towns, during the 
fifteenth century, provided alternative choices for subsistence, and the feudal system died out (Webster Encyclopedia, 1985). One of the factors that made the feudal
?system work was the predominant religious belief that it was sinful for people to seek work other than within the God ordained occupations fathers passed on to their sons.
?With the Protestant Reformation, and the spread of a 
theology which ordained the divine dignity of all occupations as well as the right of choosing one's work, the underpinnings of an emerging capitalist economic system were established. 
Anthony (1977) described the significance of an ideology 
advocating regular systematic work as essential to the transformation from the feudal system to the modern society. In the emerging capitalist system, 
work was good. It satisfied the economic interests of an increasing number of small businessmen and it became a social duty--a norm. Hard work brought respect 
and contributed to the social order and well being of the community. The dignity with which society viewed work brought dignity for workers as well, and 
contempt for those who were idle or lazy. 
The Protestant ethic, which gave "moral sanction to profit making through hard work, organization, and rational calculation" (Yankelovich, 1981, p. 247), 

^^^^^
CB: While they?conveniently?ignored that most
of the work upon which the profit
was made was done by slaves
in imperial colonies, and masses
of poor workers for the Elect.

The fictional character Robinson
Crusoe had stored up and delivered
to him a fortune from his slave 
plantation in Brazil after 28 years
when?he finally
got off the island where he did
"so much" diligent and hard work, but
not nearly enough to make the 
fortune that his slaves did for him.
The amazing thing was the plantation
just sort of fell into his ownership
without even his having any money
capital ahead of time , as he went
there penniless?after escaping from pirates
in North Africa. It seemed to be
his status as an Englishman that
naturally bestowed upon him the
status of?slave owning capitalist. 
And his capital , plant-plantation
just kept on operating for him
all the while he was stranded on
the island.

^^^^^^

spread throughout Europe and to America through the Protestant sects. In particular, the English Puritans, the French Huguenots, and the Swiss and Dutch
?Reformed subscribed to Calvinist theology that was especially conducive to productivity and capital growth (Lipset, 1990). As time passed, attitudes and 
beliefs which supported hard work became secularized, and were woven into the norms of Western culture (Lipset, 1990; Rodgers, 1978; Rose, 1985; Super, 1982). 
Weber (1904, 1905) especially emphasized the popular writings of Benjamin Franklin as an example of how, by the eighteenth century, diligence in work, scrupulous
?use of time, and deferment of pleasure had become a part of the popular philosophy of work in the Western world.?

The Work Ethic in America 
Although the Protestant ethic became a significant factor
?in shaping the culture and society of Europe after the sixteenth century, its impact did not eliminate the social hierarchy which gave status to those whose wealth 
allowed exemption from toil and made gentility synonymous with leisure (Rodgers, 1978). The early adventurers who first found America were searching, not for 
a place to work and build a new land, but for a new Eden 
where abundance and riches would allow them to follow Aristotle's
?instruction that leisure was the only life fitting for a free man.
^^^^^
CB: And like Aristotle's society
the abundance and riches didn't
all just fall from heaven but some?were
produced by the? labor
of brutalized?slaves, whom the gentile
Europeans oppressed and
exploited with the?major force
of the state power.

^^^^^^^

?The New England Puritans, the Pennsylvania Quakers, and 
others of the Protestant sects, who eventually settled in America, however, came with no hopes or illusions of a life of ease. 
The early settlers referred to America as a wilderness, in part because they sought the spiritual growth associated with coming through the wilderness in the Bible (Rodgers, 1978).
?From their viewpoint, the moral life was one of hard work and determination, and they approached the task of building a new world in the wilderness as an opportunity to prove 
their own moral worth. What resulted was a land preoccupied with toil. 
When significant numbers of Europeans began to visit the new world in the early 1800's, they were amazed with the extent of the transformation (Rodgers, 1978). Visitors 
to the northern states were particularly impressed by the industrious pace. They often complained about the lack of opportunities for amusement, and they were perplexed by 
the lack of a social strata dedicated to a life of leisure. 
Work in preindustrial America was not incessant, however. The 
work of agriculture was seasonal, hectic during planting
?and harvesting but more relaxed during the winter months. Even in workshops and stores, the pace was not constant. Changing demands due to the seasons, varied
?availability of materials, and poor transportation and communication contributed to interruptions in the steadiness of work. The work ethic of this era did not demand 
the ceaseless regularity which came with the age of machines,
?but supported sincere dedication to accomplish those tasks a person might have before them. The work ethic "was not a certain rate of business but a way of thinking" (Rodgers, 1978, p. 19). 

^^^^^^^
CB: Ballad for Americans, Appalachian Spring
the rational kernel of America to which
Obama appeals...except...
Well, there was the genocidal usurpation
of the Indigenous Peoples' aboriginal home

^^^^^^

The Work Ethic and the Industrial Revolution 
As work in America was being dramatically affected by the
?industrial revolution in the mid-nineteenth century, the work ethic had become secularized in a number of ways. The idea of work as a calling had been replaced by
?the concept of public usefulness. Economists warned of the poverty and decay that would befall the country if people failed to work hard, and moralists stressed 
the social duty of each person to be productive (Rodgers, 1978). Schools taught, along with the alphabet and the spelling book, that idleness was a disgrace. The work ethic
?also provided a sociological as well as an ideological explanation for the origins of social hierarchy through the corollary that effort expended in work would 
be rewarded (Gilbert, 1977). 
Some elements of the work ethic, however, did not bode well 
with the industrial age. One of the central themes of the work ethic was that an individual could be the master of his own fate through hard work. Within the context 
of the craft and agricultural society this was true. A person could advance his position in life through manual labor and the economic benefits it would produce. Manual labor,
?however, began to be replaced by machine manufacture and intensive division of labor came with the industrial age. As a result, individual control over the quantity 
and methods of personal production began to be removed (Gilbert, 1977). 
The impact of industrialization and the speed with which it spread 
during the second half of the nineteenth century was notable. Rodgers (1978) reported that as late as 1850 most American manufacturing was still being done in 
homes and workshops. This pattern was not confined to rural areas,
?but was found in cities also where all varieties of craftsmen plied their trades. Some division of labor was utilized, but most work was performed using time-honored hand 
methods. A certain measure of independence and creativity 
could be taken for granted in the workplace. No one directly supervised 
home workers or farmers, and in the small shops and mills, supervision was mostly unstructured. The cotton textile industry of New England was the major exception. 
Rodgers (1978) described the founding, in the early 1820's, of 
Lowell, Massachusetts as the real beginning of the industrial age in America. By the end of the decade, nineteen textile mills were in operation in the city, and 5,000 
workers were employed in the mills. During the years that followed, factories were built in other towns as competition in the industry grew. These cotton mills were 
distinguished from other factories of the day by their size, the discipline demanded of their workers, and the paternalistic regulations imposed on employees (Rodgers, 1978). Gradually the patterns of employment and management initiated in the cotton mills spread 
to other industries, and during the later half of the nineteenth century, the home and workshop trades were essentially replaced by the mass production of factories. 
In the factories, skill and craftsmanship were replaced by discipline
?and anonymity. A host of carefully preserved hand trades--tailoring, barrel making, glass blowing, felt-hat making, pottery making, and shoe making--disappeared as they 
were replaced by new inventions and specialization of labor (Rodgers, 1978). Although new skills were needed in some factories, the trend was toward a semiskilled labor force, typically operating one machine to perform one small piece of a manufacturing process. 
The sense of control over one's destiny was missing in the new workplace, and the emptiness and lack of intellectual stimulation in work threatened the work ethic 
(Gilbert, 1977). In the secularized attitudes which comprised the work ethic up until that time, a central component was the promise of psychological reward for efforts 
in one's work, but the factory system did little to support a sense of purpose or self-fulfillment for those who were on the assembly lines. 
The factory system also threatened the promise of economic 
reward--another key premise of the work ethic. The output of products
?manufactured by factories was so great that by the 1880's industrial capacity exceeded that which the economy could absorb (Rodgers, 1978). Under the system of home 
and workshop industries, production had been a virtue, and excess goods were not a problem. Now that factories could produce more than the nation could use, hard work
?and production no longer always provided assurance of prosperity. 
In the first half of the twentieth century, the industrial system continued to dominate work in America and much of the rest of the world. Technology continued to advance, but 
innovation tended to be focused on those areas of manufacture which had not yet been mastered by machines. Little was done to change the routine tasks of feeding 
materials into automated equipment or other forms of semiskilled labor which were more economically done by low wage workers (Rodgers, 1978). 

The Work Ethic and Industrial Management 
Management of industries became more systematic and 
structured as increased competition forced factory owners to hold costs down. The model of management which developed, the traditional model, was
?characterized by a very authoritarian style which did not acknowledge the work ethic. To the contrary, Daft and Steers (1986) described this model as holding "that the average worker was basically lazy and was motivated almost entirely by money (p. 93)." Workers 
were assumed to neither desire nor be capable of autonomous or self-directed work.
?As a result, the scientific management concept was developed, predicated on specialization and division of jobs into simple tasks. Scientific management was claimed to 
increase worker production and result in increased pay. It was therefore seen as beneficial to workers, as well as to the company, since monetary gain was viewed as the 
primary motivating factor for both. 
As use of scientific management became more widespread in 
the early 1900's, it became apparent that factors other than pay were significant to worker motivation. Some workers were self-starters and didn't respond well to 
close supervision and others became distrustful of management when pay increases failed to keep pace with improved productivity (Daft and Steers, 1986). Although unacknowledged
?in management practice, these were indicators of continued viability of the work ethic in employees. 
By the end of World War II scientific management was considered 
inadequate and outdated to deal with the needs of industry (Jaggi, 1988). At this point the behaviorist school of thought emerged to provide alternative theories for guiding 
the management of workers. Contrary to the principles of scientific management, the behaviorists argued that workers were not intrinsically lazy. They were adaptive. 
If the environment failed to provide a challenge, workers became lazy, but if appropriate opportunities were provided, workers would become creative and motivated. 
In response to the new theories, managers turned their attention 
to finding various ways to make jobs more fulfilling for workers. Human relations became an important issue and efforts were made to make people feel useful and
?important at work. Company newspapers, employee awards, and company social events were among the tools used by management to enhance the job environment 
(Daft and Steers, 1986), but the basic nature of the workplace remained unchanged. The adversarial relationship between employee and employer persisted. 
In the late 1950's job enrichment theories began to provide the
?basis for fundamental changes in employer-employee relationships. Herzberg, Mausner, and Snyderman (1959) identified factors such as achievement, recognition, 
responsibility, advancement, and personal growth which, when provided as an intrinsic component of a job, tended to motivate workers to perform better. Factors such 
as salary, company policies, supervisory style, working conditions, and relations with fellow workers tended to impair worker performance if inadequately provided for, but did not particularly improve worker motivation when present. 
In 1960, when the concepts of theory "X" and theory "Y" were 
introduced by McGregor, the basis for a management style conducive to achieving job enrichment for workers was provided (Jaggi, 1988). Theory "X" referred to the authoritarian management style characteristic of scientific management but theory "Y" supported a participatory style of management. 
Jaggi (1988) defined participatory management as
?"a cooperative process in which management and workers work together to accomplish a common goal (p. 446)." Unlike authoritarian styles of management, which
?provided top-down, directive control over workers assumed to be unmotivated and in need of guidance, participatory management asserted that worker involvement in 
decisionmaking provided valuable input and enhanced employee satisfaction and morale. Yankelovich and Immerwahr (1984) described participatory management as a 
system which would open the way for the work ethic to be a powerful resource in the workplace. They stated, however, that the persistence of the traditional model in 
American management discouraged workers, even though many wanted to work hard and do good work for its own sake. 

The Work Ethic in the Information Age 
Just as the people of the mid-nineteenth century encountered 
tremendous cultural and social change with the dawn of the industrial age, the people of the late twentieth century experienced tremendous cultural and 
social shifts with the advent of the information age. Toffler (1980) likened these times of change to waves washing over the culture, bringing with it changes in norms and
?expectations, as well as uncertainty about the future. 
Since 1956 (Naisbitt, 1984) white-collar workers in technical, managerial, and clerical positions have outnumbered workers in blue-collar jobs. Porat (1977), 
in a study for the U.S. Department of Commerce, examined over 400 occupations in 201 industries. He determined that in 1967, the economic contribution
?of jobs primarily dealing with production of information, as compared with goods-producing jobs, accounted for 46% of the GNP and more than 53% of the income earned. Some jobs in manufacturing and industry also became more technical and necessitated 
a higher level of thinking on the job as machines were interfaced with computers and control systems became more complex. 
Yankelovich and Immerwahr (1984) contrasted the work required of most people during the industrial age with the work of the information age. Industrial age jobs were 
typically low-discretion, required little decisionmaking, and were analyzed and broken into simple tasks which required very little thinking or judgement on the part of 
workers. Information age jobs, in contrast, were high-discretion and required considerable thinking and decisionmaking on the part of workers (Miller, 1986). In the
?workplace characterized by high-discretion, the work ethic became a much more important construct than it was during the manipulative era of machines. 
Maccoby (1988) emphasized the importance, in this setting, of giving employees authority to make decisions which would meet the needs of customers as well as support the goals of their own companies. 
As high-discretion, information age jobs provided opportunities for greater self-expression by workers, people began to find more self-fulfillment in their work. 
Yankelovich and Harmon (1988) reported that a significant transformation in the meaning of the work ethic resulted. Throughout history, work had been associated with pain, sacrifice, and drudgery. The previously mentioned Greek word for work, ponos, also meant "pain."
?For the Hebrews as well as for the medieval Christians, the unpleasantness of work was associated with Divine punishment for man's sin. The Protestant ethic maintained that work was a sacrifice that demonstrated moral worthiness, and it stressed the importance of postponed gratification. With the information age, however, came work which was perceived as good and rewarding in itself. Most workers were satisfied with their work and wanted to be successful in it (Wattenberg, 1984). 

According the Yankelovich and Harmon (1988), the work ethic 
of the 1980's stressed skill, challenge, autonomy, recognition, and the quality of work produced. Autonomy was identified as a particularly important factor 
in worker satisfaction with their jobs. Motivation to work involved trust, caring, meaning, self-knowledge, challenge, opportunity for personal growth, and dignity (Maccoby, 1988; Walton, 1974). Workers were seeking control over their work and a sense of empowerment 
and many information age jobs were conducive to meeting these needs. As a result, the work ethic was not abandoned during the information age, but was transformed 
to a state of relevance not found in most industrial age occupations. 
Even though the information age was well established by the 
1980's and 1990's, not all jobs were high-discretion. Some occupations continued to consist primarily of manual labor and allowed minimal opportunity for worker
?involvement in decisionmaking. In addition, authoritarian forms of management continued to be utilized and the potential of the work ethic was wasted. Statistics
?reported by Yankelovich and Immerwahr (1984) indicated that by the early 1980's, 43% of the workforce perceived their jobs as high-discretion and 21% of the workforce perceived their jobs as low-discretion. The high-discretion workers were likely to be better educated, to be in white-collar or service jobs, and to have experienced technological changes in their work. 
The low-discretion workers were more likely to be union members, to be in blue-collar jobs, and to be working in positions characterized by dirt, noise, and pollution.?
?
The Work Ethic and Empowerment 
As a result of the rapid changes associated with the Information Age workplace, codified and systematized knowledge not limited to a specific organizational context was important during the 1980's and 1990's (Maccoby, 1983). Higher levels of education became necessary along with skills at solving problems, managing people, and applying the latest information to the tasks at hand. With increased education, higher expectations and aspirations for careers emerged. 
Young people, in particular, entering the workforce with high school and college educations, expected opportunities for advancement (Maccoby, 1983; Sheehy, 1990). They anticipated that talent and hard work would be the basis for success rather than chance or luck. In essence, information age workers expected application of a positive work ethic to result in rewards, and they sometimes became impatient if progress was not experienced in a relatively short period of time (Sheehy, 1990). 
For workers who acquired positions of supervision or ownership, motivation to accomplish personal goals through success in the organization enhanced the expression of work ethic attributes. Barnard (1938) identified the process of persons in an organization coordinating their activities to attain common goals as important to the well-being of the organization. One of the essential elements for this process was the creation and allocation of satisfaction among individuals (Barnard, 1938). 
Further explanation for organizational behavior was provided by a model developed by Getzels and Guba (Getzels, 1968). The major elements of the model were institution, role, and expectation which formed the normative dimension of activity in a social system; and individual, personality, and need-disposition which constituted the personal dimension of activity in a social system (Getzels, 1968). To the extent that a person's work ethic beliefs influenced personality and need-disposition, the observed behavior of that individual within the context of the workplace would be affected. Particularly in the high-discretion workplace of the information age, role and expectations found within the workplace would tend to be reinforced by a strong work ethic. 

Other Changes in the Workplace 
Besides changes in the jobs people performed, changes in the levels of education required for those jobs, and changes in the extent to which people were given control or empowerment in their work, the workforce of the 1980's and 1990's reflected a larger number of women and a reduced number of workers older than 65. Changes in gender and age of workers had a significant impact on the culture of the later twentieth century and influenced the pattern of work related norms such as the work ethic. 
Rodgers (1978) told of the growing restlessness of women in the late 1800's and the early 1900's. As the economic center of society was moved out of the home or workshop and into the factory, women were left behind. Some women became operatives in textile mills, office workers, or salesclerks, and increased numbers were employed as teachers (Sawhill, 1974). Women comprised a relatively small percentage of the workforce, however, and their wages were about half that of men. Those who labored at housework and child-rearing received no pay at all and often were afforded little respect or appreciation for what they did. 
It was not until World War II and the years following that women began to enter the workplace in great numbers. In 1900 women made up 18% of the nation's workforce, but by 1947 they comprised 28% of the workforce (Levitan & Johnson, 1983). By 1980 42.5% of the nation's workers were women (Stencel, 1981). In 1990 the number of women workers was approaching 50% of the workforce, and Naisbitt and Aburdene (1990) reported that women held 39.3% of all executive, administrative, and management jobs. Due to the increase in the number of women working outside the home, their attitudes about work have become a significant influence on the work ethic in the contemporary workplace. 
Comparisons of attitudes of men and women in the workplace have shown that men tended to be more concerned with earning a good income, having freedom from close supervision, having leadership opportunities, and having a job that enhanced their social status. Women were inclined to seek job characteristics which allowed them to help others, to be original and creative, to progress steadily in their work, and to work with people rather than things (Lyson, 1984). Women, more than men, also tended to seek personal benefits such as enjoyment, pride, fulfillment, and personal challenge (Bridges, 1989). 
Another trend which shaped the workforce of the later twentieth century was an increase in the number of older workers who retired from their jobs. Statistics reported by Quinn (1983) showed that in 1950, persons 65 years old and older comprised 45.8% of the workforce as compared to 18.4% in 1981. Part of this trend can be explained by the continued shift away from agriculture and self-employment--occupations which traditionally had high older worker participation rates. In addition, increased provision for retirement income, as a result of pensions or other retirement plans, has removed the financial burden which necessitated work for many older adults in the past. 
Deans (1972) noted a trend on the part of younger workers to view work differently than older workers. He found less acceptance, among young people entering the workforce, of the concept that hard work was a virtue and a duty and less upward striving by young workers compared to that of their parents and grandparents. Yankelovich (1981) reported findings which contradicted the view that younger workers were less committed to the work ethic, but he did find a decline in belief that hard work would pay off. This was a significant shift because pay and "getting ahead" were the primary incentives management used to encourage productivity during the industrial age. If economic reward had lost its ability to motivate workers, then productivity could be expected to decline, in the absence of some other reason for working hard (Yankelovich, 1981). Within this context, the work ethic, and a management style which unfettered it, was a significant factor for
 maintaining and increasing performance. 
Previous Section 
Influences Shaping the Contemporary Work Ethic 
The work ethic is a cultural norm that places a positive moral value on doing a good job and is based on a belief that work has intrinsic value for its own sake (Cherrington, 1980; Quinn, 1983; Yankelovich & Immerwahr, 1984). Like other cultural norms, a person's adherence to or belief in the work ethic is principally influenced by socialization experiences during childhood and adolescence. Through interaction with family, peers, and significant adults, a person "learns to place a value on work behavior as others approach him in situations demanding increasing responsibility for productivity" (Braude, 1975, p. 134). Based on praise or blame and affection or anger, a child appraises his or her performance in household chores, or later in part-time jobs, but this appraisal is based on the perspective of others. As a child matures, these attitudes toward work become internalized, and work performance is less dependent on the reactions of others. 
Children are also influenced by the attitudes of others toward work (Braude, 1975). If a parent demonstrates a dislike for a job or a fear of unemployment, children will tend to assimilate these attitudes. Parents who demonstrate a strong work ethic tend to impart a strong work ethic to their children. 
Another significant factor shaping the work attitudes of people is the socialization which occurs in the workplace. As a person enters the workplace, the perceptions and reactions of others tend to confirm or contradict the work attitudes shaped in childhood (Braude, 1975). The occupational culture, especially the influence of an "inner fraternity" of colleagues, has a significant impact on the attitudes toward work and the work ethic which form part of each person's belief system. 
Among the mechanisms provided by society to transfer the culture to young people is the public school. One of the functions of schools is to foster student understanding of cultural norms, and in some cases to recognize the merits of accepting them. Vocational education, for example, has as a stated goal that it will promote the work ethic (Gregson, 1991; Miller, 1985). Reubens (1974) listed "inculcation of good work attitudes" as one of the highest priorities for high school education. In the absence of early socialization which supports good work attitudes, schools should not be expected to completely transform a young person's work ethic orientation, but enlightening students about what the work ethic is, and why it is important to success in the contemporary workplace, should be a component of secondary education. 
Previous Section 
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Yankelovich, D. & Harmon, S. (1988). Starting with the people. Boston: Houghton Miffin. 
Yankelovich, D. & Immerwahr, J. (1984). Putting the work ethic to work. Society, 21(2), 58-76.



From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Mar  6 09:07:38 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 11:07:38 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Civil War:USNA  . . . after the collapse
Message-ID: <d34.4864ff43.36e2a44a@aol.com>

full: _http://www.truthout.org/022709F_ (http://www.truthout.org/022709F) 
 
 
Poor though it was, the Soviet food distribution system never collapsed  
completely. In particular, the deliveries of bread continued even during the  
worst of times, partly because has always been such an important part of the  
Russian diet, and partly because access to bread symbolized the pact between the  
people and the Communist government, enshrined in oft-repeated revolutionary  
slogans. Also, it is important to remember that in Russia most people have 
lived  within walking distance of food shops, and used public transportation to 
get out  to their kitchen gardens, which were often located in the countryside  
immediately surrounding the relatively dense, compact cities. This 
combination  of factors made for some lean times, but very little malnutrition and no  
starvation. 
 
In the United States, the agricultural system is heavily industrialized,  and 
relies on inputs such as diesel, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and,  
perhaps most importantly, financing. In the current financial climate, the  
farmers' access to financing is not at all assured. This agricultural system is  
efficient, but only if you regard fossil fuel energy as free. In fact, it is a 
 way to transform fossil fuel energy into food with a bit of help from 
sunlight,  to the tune of 10 calories of fossil fuel energy being embodied in each 
calorie  that is consumed as food. The food distribution system makes heavy use 
of  refrigerated diesel trucks, transforming food over hundreds of miles to 
resupply  supermarkets. The food pipeline is long and thin, and it takes only a 
couple of  days of interruptions for supermarket shelves to be stripped bare. 
Many people  live in places that are not within walking distance of stores, 
not served by  public transportation, and will be cut off from food sources 
once they are no  longer able to drive. 
 
Besides the supermarket chains, much of the nation's nutrition needs are  
being met by an assortment of fast food joints and convenience stores. In fact,  
in many of the less fashionable parts of cities and towns, fast food and  
convenience store food is all that is available. In the near future, this trend  
is likely to extend to the more prosperous parts of town and the suburbs.
 
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from 
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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Mar  6 09:30:23 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 11:30:23 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama Health Care Plan/Push: class intersection
Message-ID: <d25.46c46ef9.36e2a99f@aol.com>

"Every voice has to be heard. Every idea must be considered ... The status  
quo is the one option that is not on the table," Obama said during the White  
House forum on what he calls the greatest threat to the U.S. economy ? rising  
health care costs. Mindful of the demise of the Clinton plan, Obama warned,  
"Those who seek to block any reform at all, any reform at any cost, will not  
prevail this time around."

The U.S. system is the world's costliest; the country spends some $2.4  
trillion a year on health care. It leaves an estimated 48 million people  
uninsured, and many others lack adequate insurance." 
 
As Chief Operating Executive for the capitalist, President Obama is  
extremely astute, skilled in the art of politics and the art of the  possible. 
Watching his presentation on television and his skillful handling of  diverse 
interest should serve as a training manual for Marxist, who seek to make  sense of 
today's new and crisis. Obama's attempt - concerted push, to reform the  health 
care system - today, is the result of crisis of the system and a specific  
alignment, intersection of class interest. All of the interest of intersecting  
classes and class fragments and their expression in political lobbies, were  
present at his "health care summit."  
 
The only interest absence was that of a coherent communist political  
polarity, in society and the Health Care Summit. In America, at this time there  is 
not a communist political lobby, although there is forming a rather large  
communist contingent of American society. Those who need and desire health care  
coverage, but have no money to pay for such are an objective communists  
contingent. This communist contingent - an objective material configuration in  the 
population, cuts across rigid concepts of class as a fixed economic  category. 
 
Class intersection of interest and how the communist fight to articulate  the 
voice of the proletariat, from the lens of the poorest workers and how their  
interest intersect with various layers of the working class and other  
strata, is the political framework by which communist operate and prevents us  from 
being co opted by the bourgeoisie.   
 
WL. 

**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Fri Mar  6 09:33:18 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:33:18 -0500
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama Health Care Plan/Push: class intersection
In-Reply-To: <d25.46c46ef9.36e2a99f@aol.com>
References: <d25.46c46ef9.36e2a99f@aol.com>
Message-ID: <E1Lfd1V-0006IC-BQ@elasmtp-curtail.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Intersection of class interests explains 
Obama.  It's one reason he can't be trusted, and 
another that he could be an engine of significant 
reform if pushed hard enough from a mass social democratic movement.

At 11:30 AM 3/6/2009, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote:
>"Every voice has to be heard. Every idea must be 
>considered ... The status  quo is the one option 
>that is not on the table," Obama said during the 
>White  House forum on what he calls the greatest 
>threat to the U.S. economy ?? rising  health 
>care costs. Mindful of the demise of the Clinton 
>plan, Obama warned,  "Those who seek to block 
>any reform at all, any reform at any cost, will 
>not  prevail this time around." The U.S. system 
>is the world's costliest; the country spends 
>some $2.4  trillion a year on health care. It 
>leaves an estimated 48 million 
>people  uninsured, and many others lack adequate 
>insurance." As Chief Operating Executive for the 
>capitalist, President Obama is  extremely 
>astute, skilled in the art of politics and the 
>art of the  possible. Watching his presentation 
>on television and his skillful handling 
>of  diverse interest should serve as a training 
>manual for Marxist, who seek to make  sense of 
>today's new and crisis. Obama's attempt - 
>concerted push, to reform the  health care 
>system - today, is the result of crisis of the 
>system and a specific  alignment, intersection 
>of class interest. All of the interest of 
>intersecting  classes and class fragments and 
>their expression in political lobbies, 
>were  present at his "health care summit."  The 
>only interest absence was that of a coherent 
>communist political  polarity, in society and 
>the Health Care Summit. In America, at this time 
>there  is not a communist political lobby, 
>although there is forming a rather 
>large  communist contingent of American society. 
>Those who need and desire health care  coverage, 
>but have no money to pay for such are an 
>objective communists  contingent. This communist 
>contingent - an objective material configuration 
>in  the population, cuts across rigid concepts 
>of class as a fixed economic  category. Class 
>intersection of interest and how the communist 
>fight to articulate  the voice of the 
>proletariat, from the lens of the poorest 
>workers and how their  interest intersect with 
>various layers of the working class and 
>other  strata, is the political framework by 
>which communist operate and prevents us  from 
>being co opted by the bourgeoisie.   WL.



From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Mar  6 09:59:24 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 11:59:24 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama Health Care Plan/Push: class intersection
Message-ID: <bf2.4a673630.36e2b06c@aol.com>

>> Intersection of class interests explains Obama.  It's one  reason he can't 
be trusted, and another that he could be an engine of  significant reform if 
pushed hard enough from a mass social democratic  movement.<< 
 
 
Comment
 
I agree with this assessment. 
 
An important political sector of the social democratic movement, that  
constituted Obama's margin of victory, are workers primarily from the Mid West  who 
traditionally vote Republican.  These workers can only be "held in  place" on 
the basis of clear cut economic issues rather than pandering to  political 
ideology. 
 
A communist economic polarity has to be fought for and created. 
 
The working class, specifically those working and layers being ruined  cannot 
NOT drift to the right as a first impulse because of their connection to  
capital in the process of production. Specifically meaning the first impulse is  
to keep ones job or seek stability on the basis of programs to stabilize the  
system. This is a natural impulse that no one can change, but we can always  
explain sides in a fight  on the basis of economic interest. Even Big  Pharma 
wants health care reform and is throwing its weight in favor of total  coverage 
of the American people because such coverage theoretically and  practically 
expand their market. This does not mean one is obligated to swallow  Big 
Pharma's ideological and political pill. 
 
This penning away about how much Obama is doing for the working class for  
extending unemployment benefits is blind to all those workers who cannot receive 
 such benefits. Further, we have many precedents in the past concerning 
extension  of unemployment benefits, even under the Bush W. regime. In fact in the 
1970's  under the old Trade Readjustment Act of 1974 (or was it 1976) laid off 
and  displaced workers were bagging 10 - 20K and today, a few hundred bucks a 
week is  pathetic and unworthy of praise. 
 
Along with the workers spontaneous impulse for stabilization of the system,  
(restoration of the capital-labor unity) is also the spontaneous fight to 
expand  political liberties as the means to have a voice in the political and  
ideological sphere. This social democratic movement is the only game in town. 
 
However, to be  in the game does not require anyone to put of the  jersey of 
the bourgeoisie. We should never cheer on Obama and pretend he is  somehow the 
savior. Rather, we should cheer for our side and our demands and  learn how 
to articulate our demands clearly and precisely. 
 
WL. 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Mar  6 10:08:04 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 12:08:04 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] BLS
Message-ID: <bd5.45528bb5.36e2b274@aol.com>

BLS 
 
Nonfarm payroll employment continued to fall sharply in February  
(-651,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 7.6 to 8.1 percent. Payroll  
employment has declined by 2.6 million in the past 4 months. In February, job  
losses were large and widespread across nearly all major industry sectors. 
 
_http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf_ 
(http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf) 
 
 
Things are getting uglier. 
 
Auto sales running at an annualized rate of roughly 9.5 million and  falling. 
This is in the context of a 17 million new vehicle market between  2000 and 
2007. The social consequences of the past decade, and the decade before  that 
are being felt today. I might have to move in with my kids. Man, I hate the  
weather in Detroit. 
 
WL. 
**************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy 
steps! 
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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Mar  6 10:15:43 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 12:15:43 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?Cast_aside_illusions!=E2=80=9D?=
Message-ID: <d5e.453bcf6f.36e2b43f@aol.com>

?Cast aside illusions!? is the indispensable first step in grappling with  
crisis. An illusion is a false impression of reality. No problem can be solved  
that is not accurately described. Illusion prevents an accurate and objective 
 description of a problem. As our nation slips deeper into crisis, the main  
tactic of the ruling class has been to prevent the people from accurately  
describing the problem, offering them one illusion after another. 
 
The first and fundamental illusion is that the current crisis is within the  
system and caused by greed and mismanagement.  The reality is that this is  a 
crisis of the system. It is easier to accept a shallow and superficial  
illusion than to understand complex reality. However, the crisis is at such a  point 
that revolutionaries must master the complex way the system works or they  
cannot describe the problem. 
 
A fundamental characteristic of the capitalist system is that competition  
between capitalists produces more commodities than the market can absorb. If  
there is a market for ten cars, then ten capitalists will produce ten cars each. 
 The ensuing battle for the market compels every capitalist to cut the cost 
of  production. Labor saving machinery, speed-up and wage cuts lower the cost 
of  production, but also lower the purchasing power of the working class, 
increasing  the glut of products on the market. The result is the periodic slowing 
down or  stopping of production until the surplus is purchased or destroyed.  
Then  the race for the market starts again.  This is crisis within the system. 
 
What is different today?  The capitalist system rests on the buying  and 
selling of labor power  ? that is what creates value. In the struggle  for the 
market, new electronic productive equipment was developed that did not  simply 
make labor more efficient, it replaced it. As more and more capitalists  are 
forced to use robotics, jobs disappear and labor power becomes obsolete. As  a 
result more and more production is carried on with less and less labor.  
Inevitably more money flows into the hands of fewer and fewer capitalists while  the 
mass of the workers become poorer and poorer as their wages decline and jobs  
disappear. Finally the point is reached when the people of the world are too  
poor to consume what the world has produced.  Unsold products pile up,  
retailers cut orders, factories close down, and bills and mortgages are not  paid. 
Banks do not dare lend money to businesses than might fail or to workers  who 
may become unemployed.  Without the grease of credit the gears of the  system 
grind to a halt. 
 
Conventional wisdom has it that since the drying up of the market caused  the 
depression, then all that is needed is to create a market. This, it is said,  
can be done by guaranteeing business loans and putting spending money in the  
hands of the people.  This was the essence of Roosevelt?s ?New Deal.? 
 
It didn?t work. It took the destruction and gigantic market of World War II  
to again grease the gears and expand the market.  The Great Depression was  
the beginning of the final stage of the capitalist system. Today, the entire  
world is capitalist and there is nowhere to expand. The crisis within the system 
 becomes deadly as it is joined by the crisis created by new, labor-replacing 
 means of production that attack the very foundation of the system. The 
illusion  is we can spend our way out of the crisis. The reality is that this 
system, like  all those before it, is coming to an end. A new system of social 
control over  finance, production and distribution is already forming.  Will the 
new  system be shaped to the benefit of the billionaire ruling class or to the  
benefit of the mass of people? The question will be answered in our favor if  
millions of people become clear about the problem and their vision. They must 
 become socially active and impose a democratic economy that reflects a  
democratic political system. The first step is to cast aside illusion and  grapple 
with this difficult and dangerous reality.
 
_http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2009.02/PT.2009.02.03.html_ 
(http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2009.02/PT.2009.02.03.html) 
 
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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Mar  6 10:37:12 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 12:37:12 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A History of International Women's Day: Happy
	Birthday Coming
Message-ID: <cc1.4f1b6299.36e2b948@aol.com>

full: _http://www.cwluherstory.com/CWLUArchive/interwomen.html_ 
(http://www.cwluherstory.com/CWLUArchive/interwomen.html) 
 
A History of International Women's Day: "We Want Bread and Roses Too" from  
Womankind (March 1972.) 
 
(Editor's note: This is a historical look at the origins of International  
Women's Day in the USA and how it spread throughout the world.) 
 
International Women's Day, a holiday celebrated world wide, honors working  
women and women?s struggle everywhere. Taught that women's place in history is  
relatively undistinguished, it should be a real source of pride and 
inspiration  to American women to know that International Women's Day originated in 
honor of  two all women strikes which took place in the U.S. 
 
On March 8, 1857, garment workers in New York City marched and picketed,  
demanding improved working conditions, a ten hour day, and equal rights for  
women. Their ranks were broken up by the police. Fifty-one years later, March 8,  
1908, their sisters in the needle trades in New York marched again, honoring 
the  1857 march, demanding the vote, and an end to sweatshops and child labor. 
The  police were present on this occasion too. 
 
In 1910 at the Second International, a world wide socialist party congress,  
German socialist Clara Zetkin proposed that March 8th be proclaimed  
International Women's Day, to commemorate the US demonstrations and honor  working 
women the wor ld over. Zetkin, a renowned revolutionary theoretician who  argued 
with Lenin on women's rights, was considered a grave threat to the  European 
governments of her time; the Kaiser called her ?the most dangerous  sorceress in 
the empire." 
 
The labor struggle in the US is an exciting one, but it traditionally  
concentrates on men. A little examination shows that women carried their weight  and 
their share from the beginning, both supporting the men?s organizing and  
quite soon, after realizing that women's needs were ignored in the existing  
unions, forming women's caucuses or all women's unions. The first all women  
strikes took place in the 1820's in the New England tailoring trades. The idea  of 
women striking and demanding better conditions, decent wages, and shorter  
hours, apparently provided great amusement to the townsfolk of the peaceful mill  
towns. It would be interesting to know how our sisters a century and a half 
ago  felt about not having their lives and aspirations taken seriously. 
 
The most famous of the early strikes took place at the Lowell cotton mills  
in Massachusetts. Here young women worked eighty-one hours a week for three  
dollars, one and a quarter of which went for room and board at the Lowell  
company boarding houses. The factories originally opened at 7 am, but fore  
men,noticing that women were less "energetic" if they ate before working,  changed 
the opening hour to 5 am., with a breakfast break at 7 a.m. (for  one-half 
hour). In 1834, after several wage cuts, the Lowell women walked out,  only to 
return several days later at the reduced rates. They were courageous but  the 
company had the power; a poor record or a disciplinary action could lead to  
blacklisting. In 1836 they walked out again, singing through the streets of the  
town:
 
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From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Fri Mar  6 11:53:42 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 10:53:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Work Ethic 2.0: Attention Control
Message-ID: <619906.71665.qm@web180105.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


http://www.internetnews.com/commentary/article.php/3793561
Work Ethic 2.0: Attention Control
Commentary: A person who works with total focus has an enormous advantage over a workaholic who's "multi-tasking" all day, answering every phone call, constantly checking Facebook and Twitter, and indulging every interruption.????
?

December 29, 2008
By Mike Elgan: More stories by this author: 

The industrial revolution didn't arise out of nowhere, and it didn't arise 
everywhere. It was made possible by the emergence of a set of personal values that came to be known as the "work ethic." 
The idea behind this meme -- inconceivable 400 years ago -- is that 
hard work is good for its own sake. Hard work makes you a better person. With hard work, our parents told us, we could grow up to become anything. Work hard, and we
?could get good grades, elite-school acceptance and scholarships. We could invent things, launch businesses and change the world. "Genius," Thomas Edison told us,
?"is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." 
This industrial-age work ethic has its variants, including the "Protestant work ethic," the "American work ethic," and the "Asian work ethic" to name a few. The success or 
failure of regions, nations and subcultures has been massively influenced by the degree to which populations embrace the value of hard work. And that's why the
?idea is hammered into kids in school, and lauded and rewarded in the workplace. 
When the "information age" started replacing the "industrial age," hard work seemed more important than ever. Until the 1980s, to use a computer was to program it. Silicon 
Valley corporate culture, from tiny startups to the massive Googleplex, emphasizes long hours and feverish work. 
RELATED ARTICLES
Information Overload: Is There a Cure?
Is it Too Late to Pay Attention?
Is There a Cure for the 'Distraction Virus'?
Gates: Info Glut Killing Businesses


?? For more stories on this topic:
??
But since the turn of the new millennium, the nature of work has 
evolved to the point where hard work is becoming less important to a successful work ethic than another, more useful value: attention. 
The New Work Ethic 
Columnist David Brooks, commenting in the Dec. 16th New York 
Times about Malcolm Gladwell's latest book called "Outliers," made a statement as profound as it was accurate: "Control of attention is the ultimate individual power," 
he wrote. "People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them." 
But why is that truer now than ten or twenty years ago? Why 
will it be truer still ten or twenty years from now? As I wrote in May, Internet distractions evolve to become ever more "distracting" all the time -- like a virus. Distractions now "seek you out." 

Distractions mask the toll they take on productivity. Everyone finishes
?up their work days exhausted, but how much of that exhaustion is from real work, how much from the mental effort of fighting off distractions and how much from the 
indulgence of distractions? 
Pundits like me are constantly talking about Facebook, Twitter, 
blogs and humor sites, not to mention old standbys like e-mail and IM. One gets the impression that we should be "following" these things all day long, and many do.
?So when does the work get done? When do entrepreneurs start and manage their businesses? When do writers write that novel? When do IT professionals keep the 
trains running on time? When does anyone do anything? 
The need for "attention," rather than "hard work," as the centerpiece of the new work ethic has arisen along with the rise of distractions carried on the wings of Internet 
protocol. In one generation, we've gone from a total separation of "work" from "non-work" to one in which both work and play are always sitting right in front of us. 
Now, we find ourselves with absolutely nothing standing between
?us and a universe of distractions -- nothing except our own abilities to control attention. Porn, gambling, funny videos, flirting, socializing, playing games, shopping -- it's
?all literally one click away. Making matters worse, indulging these distractions looks just like work. And it's easy to work and play at the same time -- and call it work. These new, increasingly compelling distractions get piled on to older ones -- office pop-ins, e-mail, IM,
?text messages, meetings and others. 
Kids now grow up with the whole range of distractions, from big-screen TVs to video games to cell phones to PCs in their rooms. They're addicted to screens before they even start high school. Their attention spans have been whittled down to seconds, and their 
expectations for constant amusement are highly developed. 
In a world in which entire industries bet their businesses on gaining access to our attention, which value leads to better personal success: hard work or the ability
?to control attention? 
A person who works six hours a day but with total focus has
?an enormous advantage over a 12-hour-per-day workaholic who's "multi-tasking" all day, answering every phone call, constantly checking Facebook and Twitter, and 
indulging every interruption. 
It's time we upgraded our work ethic for the age we're living in, not our grandparents' age. Hard work is still a virtue, but now takes a distant second place to the new 
determinant of success or failure in the age of Internet distractions: Control of attention. 
Hard work is dead. Are you paying attention? 
In addition to writing for Datamation, where this column first 
appeared, Mike Elgan is a technology writer and former editor of Windowsmagazine. He can be reached at mike.elgan+datamation at gmail.com or his blog: http://therawfeed.com. 

TAGS: e-Mail, social networking, productivity, Twitter, information overload 




5 Comments?(click to add your comment)
ByTheProductGuy???January 9 2009 12:32 PMPDT
Dare I be the wisea** and say that reading your full blog post was 
also...technically...a distraction of sorts (though one I enjoyed!).

You're right. You can't lack dicipline. Had to force myself 
away from twitter (@nbajzek) and put other social stuff in the background. It's all necessary to follow, but you can't let yourself get sucked in.

And, for your own sanity's sake, don't do twitterberry. 
Your pocket will be vibrating all night.

Catch me at www.housingzone.com/blogs 
Reply to this comment
Bymjkelley, D.Phil.???January 12 2009 12:23 PMPDT
in my university teaching on cognition, I use a lot of Internet 
news articles about scientific findings and assertions, because the stories are typically very readable; but also I also ask the students to specifically look within the
?article for a citation of a peer-reviewed academic journal about the presumed finding, so as to make a distinction between whether the news content is only the opinion of the 
author or based upon scientific research.

Reply to this comment
ByBrent Haeseker???January 18 2009 2:14 PMPDT
Nice article Mike. I can't tell you how many times I have left work 
exhausted but not sure of how much work I really got done. Focusing long enough to handle one task at a time is a concept that has gotten lost in today's multi-tasking 
world. I'd rather have 10 things completed than 20 things half-way done. 
Reply to this comment
ByTubbytat???January 31 2009 4:52 AMPDT
This is very true, i see it happening all around me. More focus 
to the task in hand. quicker and more accurate results. nice article
http://www.topofthetubes.com 
Reply to this comment
Bymduchesn???February 2 2009 9:23 AMPDT
Since I've started working, back in the early 80's, I was used to be 
a typical multi-tasking / multi-projects fellow. I was proud to be able to manage (?) ten projects at a time, having tens of new ideas a day, etc.
Then, in the late 90's, I've got the chance to move to Germany,
?where I worked for 4 years for a US company. I was one of the many "foreigners" in a 60-people team. Due to my positions there, I had to get things done, quickly enough
?to resist the competition and make us visible.
When I left, back in 2003, I was no more a multi-tasking guy. I learned
?the German way: first thing first, one step at a time, the process is the process. It is the only way to be successful. See the Germany' s economy...


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Fri Mar  6 13:23:12 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 12:23:12 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] weather in Detroit
Message-ID: <68151.24243.qm@web180102.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


Man, I hate the? 
weather in Detroit. 

WL. 

^^^^^
CB: In the ex-motor city,it's been a really cold
winter, with record snow,
but today it's like spring !
Feels good


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Mar  6 13:27:25 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 15:27:25 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] weather in Detroit
Message-ID: <bef.40397284.36e2e12d@aol.com>



Yea, its kind of nice down here in Florida . .  .76. 
 
WL. 



In a message dated 3/6/2009 3:23:39 P.M. Eastern  Standard Time, 
cdb1003 at prodigy.net writes:

Man, I hate the   
weather in Detroit. 

WL. 

^^^^^
CB: In the ex-motor  city,it's been a really cold
winter, with record snow,
but today it's like  spring !
Feels good
 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Fri Mar  6 14:35:04 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 13:35:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Are you really a champion of the poorest sectors
	of the working class ?
Message-ID: <855722.72375.qm@web180111.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


?
This penning away about how much Obama is doing for the working class for? 
extending unemployment benefits is blind to all those workers who cannot receive 
such benefits. Further, we have many precedents in the past concerning 
extension? of unemployment benefits, even under the Bush W. regime. In fact in the 
1970's? under the old Trade Readjustment Act of 1974 (or was it 1976) laid off 
and? displaced workers were bagging 10 - 20K and today, a few hundred bucks a 
week is? pathetic and unworthy of praise. 

^^^^^
CB: It's not the only Obama
action in favor of the working class. 
Because some can't receive benefits
doesn't mean it's not worth noting
those who do benefit.?Your expression
here is? devisive and
sectarian. The idea is to promote
solidarity among people, not encourage
one group begrudge benefits to another
segment. And the amounts are small,
but $100 more a month can pay a monthly 
minimum health insurance or car
insurance bill for six to ten months.
six to 9 months of extended benefits
amounts to thousans of dollars.
A real champion of the poorest
sectors of the working class
wouldn't sneeze at these amounts
of money.


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Fri Mar  6 15:31:24 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 17:31:24 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Are you really a champion of the poorest
	sectors of the ...
Message-ID: <bfb.5139d8d7.36e2fe3c@aol.com>

The issue is always "what is wrong" rather than "who is wrong." 
 
Labeling people "haters" . . . "left haters," who do not support Obama the  
person and the Obama presidency in a country where the working class is so and  
"devisive and sectarian" that the majority refuse to vote at all, is "what is 
 wrong." I see no reason what so ever to praise (my exact word) Obama or his  
administration for extending unemployment benefits to the exact same degree 
and  the exact same way done under the Bush W. administration. 
 
The issue I wrote about was not an addition $100 a month, but deals with a  
completely different realm: a measure of what took place under the Bush W.  
administration, the precedence of the past and the art of the possible. It is  
imperative that communist always stay one step ahead along the path the working  
class must travel as its spontaneous movement and its self discovery of 
itself  as a class. The LENS to use in traveling this path is that if the lowest 
section  of the workers as their interest intersect and find expression in the 
political  sphere. 
 
What is wrong is praising the Obama administration and the one hand; and  
condemnation of comrades - "let haters,"  whose opinion might disagree with  
someone's else opinion. 
 
To begin with it is impossible to "save" capital without saving those  
workers connected to it as the unity of productive forces and production  relations. 
To preserve this unity it is necessary to increase demand and I shall  never 
approach or suggest negotiating from a standpoint that my enemies  are doing 
me or mine a favor,   . . with a concession, as  such. . 
. 
The real issue is over concentrating on "private sector jobs" - as  
government spending or socially necessary means of life. The pouring of  trillions of 
dollars down the rabbit hole of modern speculative finance is  designed to 
starve the workers of these needed funds. 
 
The issue is not "me" or "who I am," rather the issue is how are  comrades to 
frame the current struggle of the working class. Towards this end a  doctrine 
is being put forth as the strategy and tactics of using "class  intersection" 
as a measure of the complex fight unfolding. This is what is  missing in 
assessments of the Obama administration and the existing correlations  of forces 
in the Senate. 
 
Further comrades cannot be sectarian for fighting to establish a communist  
polarity in the political sphere. Which side are you on is not a conception of  
Democrats or Republicans but workers and capitalist. 
 
WL. 
 


In a message dated 3/6/2009 4:35:33 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
cdb1003 at prodigy.net writes:

This penning away about how much Obama is  doing for the working class for  
extending unemployment benefits is  blind to all those workers who cannot 
receive 
such benefits. Further, we  have many precedents in the past concerning 
extension  of unemployment  benefits, even under the Bush W. regime. In fact 
in the 
1970's  under  the old Trade Readjustment Act of 1974 (or was it 1976) laid 
off 
and   displaced workers were bagging 10 - 20K and today, a few hundred bucks 
a  
week is  pathetic and unworthy of praise. 

^^^^^

CB: It's not the only Obama action in favor of the working class. Because  
some can't receive benefits doesn't mean it's not worth noting those who do  
benefit. Your expression here is  devisive and sectarian. The idea is to  promote 
solidarity among people, not encourage one group begrudge benefits to  
another segment. And the amounts are small, but $100 more a month can pay a  monthly 
minimum health insurance or car insurance bill for six to ten months.  six to 
9 months of extended benefits amounts to thousans of dollars. A real  
champion of the poorest sectors of the working class wouldn't sneeze at these  
amounts of money.
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Fri Mar  6 16:18:54 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:18:54 -0500
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Are you really a champion of the poorest
 sectors of the ...
In-Reply-To: <bfb.5139d8d7.36e2fe3c@aol.com>
References: <bfb.5139d8d7.36e2fe3c@aol.com>
Message-ID: <E1LfjM1-0004Qt-Rz@elasmtp-curtail.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Charles lost his mind a long time ago. But he has gotten really bad 
in recent months. After you have partaken too much of what the CP is 
serving, you get the itis.

A lot of words are wasted wrangling in sectarian environments. 
Perhaps some people feel the need to prove they're not being fooled, 
by denouncing bourgeois politicians.  Others, proving they are not 
sectarian, act as if self-deception and confusion is the way to act 
practically and make necessary compromises. But once one knows a 
bourgeois politician is a bourgeois politician, one can move on to 
delineate clearly and precisely the situation to be dealt with.

At 05:31 PM 3/6/2009, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote:
>The issue is always "what is wrong" rather than "who is wrong."
>
>Labeling people "haters" . . . "left haters," who do not support Obama the
>person and the Obama presidency in a country where the working class 
>is so and
>"devisive and sectarian" that the majority refuse to vote at all, is "what is
>  wrong." I see no reason what so ever to praise (my exact word) 
> Obama or his
>administration for extending unemployment benefits to the exact same degree
>and  the exact same way done under the Bush W. administration.
>
>The issue I wrote about was not an addition $100 a month, but deals with a
>completely different realm: a measure of what took place under the Bush W.
>administration, the precedence of the past and the art of the 
>possible. It is
>imperative that communist always stay one step ahead along the path 
>the working
>class must travel as its spontaneous movement and its self discovery of
>itself  as a class. The LENS to use in traveling this path is that 
>if the lowest
>section  of the workers as their interest intersect and find 
>expression in the
>political  sphere.
>
>What is wrong is praising the Obama administration and the one hand; and
>condemnation of comrades - "let haters,"  whose opinion might disagree with
>someone's else opinion.
>
>To begin with it is impossible to "save" capital without saving those
>workers connected to it as the unity of productive forces and 
>production  relations.
>To preserve this unity it is necessary to increase demand and I shall  never
>approach or suggest negotiating from a standpoint that my enemies  are doing
>me or mine a favor,   . . with a concession, as  such. .
>.
>The real issue is over concentrating on "private sector jobs" - as
>government spending or socially necessary means of life. The pouring 
>of  trillions of
>dollars down the rabbit hole of modern speculative finance is  designed to
>starve the workers of these needed funds.
>
>The issue is not "me" or "who I am," rather the issue is how are  comrades to
>frame the current struggle of the working class. Towards this end a  doctrine
>is being put forth as the strategy and tactics of using "class  intersection"
>as a measure of the complex fight unfolding. This is what is  missing in
>assessments of the Obama administration and the existing 
>correlations  of forces
>in the Senate.
>
>Further comrades cannot be sectarian for fighting to establish a communist
>polarity in the political sphere. Which side are you on is not a 
>conception of
>Democrats or Republicans but workers and capitalist.
>
>WL.
>
>
>
>In a message dated 3/6/2009 4:35:33 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
>cdb1003 at prodigy.net writes:
>
>This penning away about how much Obama is  doing for the working class for
>extending unemployment benefits is  blind to all those workers who cannot
>receive
>such benefits. Further, we  have many precedents in the past concerning
>extension  of unemployment  benefits, even under the Bush W. regime. In fact
>in the
>1970's  under  the old Trade Readjustment Act of 1974 (or was it 1976) laid
>off
>and   displaced workers were bagging 10 - 20K and today, a few hundred bucks
>a
>week is  pathetic and unworthy of praise.
>
>^^^^^
>
>CB: It's not the only Obama action in favor of the working class. Because
>some can't receive benefits doesn't mean it's not worth noting those who do
>benefit. Your expression here is  devisive and sectarian. The idea 
>is to  promote
>solidarity among people, not encourage one group begrudge benefits to
>another segment. And the amounts are small, but $100 more a month 
>can pay a  monthly
>minimum health insurance or car insurance bill for six to ten months.  six to
>9 months of extended benefits amounts to thousans of dollars. A real
>champion of the poorest sectors of the working class wouldn't sneeze 
>at these
>amounts of money.

From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Sat Mar  7 10:07:44 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 09:07:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] weather in Detroit
Message-ID: <667984.29618.qm@web180102.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>



Yea, its kind of nice down here in Florida . .??.76. 

WL. 

^^^^^^
CB?: My bad. When you said you
hated the weather in Detroit,
I thought you were in it visiting.
(smile)



In a message dated 3/6/2009 3:23:39 P.M. Eastern??Standard Time, 
cdb1003 at prodigy.net writes:

Man, I hate the?? 
weather in Detroit. 

WL. 

^^^^^
CB: In the ex-motor??city,it's been a really cold
winter, with record snow,
but today it's like??spring !
Feels good



From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Sat Mar  7 10:37:54 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 09:37:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Are you really a champion of the poorest sectors
	of the ...
Message-ID: <675782.21163.qm@web180104.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


Waistline2 
________________________________

The issue is always "what is wrong" rather than "who is wrong." 

Labeling people "haters" . . . "left haters," who do not support Obama the??
person and the Obama presidency in a country where the working class is so and??
"devisive and sectarian" that the majority refuse to vote at all, is "what is 
wrong."

^^^^^^
CB: I was responding to you writing about
me ( who) was penning away about Obama's 
increasing unemployment benefits.
One good criticism of "who" deserves another (smile)

As far as left-haters, on these lists the issue of
motive in interpreting the events since O's
election is pertinent.? I regularly read posts
that interpret the glass as half empty
when it could be interpreted as half-full.



^^^^^

?I see no reason what so ever to praise (my exact word) Obama or his??
administration for extending unemployment benefits to the exact same degree 
and??the exact same way done under the Bush W. administration. 
^^^^^^^
CB: I do. It's what's going on on these
'left lists these days.??It's just another praise added to 
opening up stem cell research, pay equity
for women, the budget reversing Reaganism, announcement
of the withdrawal of the troops from Iraq, stimulus package.
That's the context. The unemployment thing is not isolated.
Also, O's admin did two things Bush didn't do. $25 more
per week, and no tax on first $2,500. Plus, they did it
right away. 

And it is very important to keep up popular support
for Obama, counter the propaganda from Kramer
and the Wall Street mouthpieces, Limbaugh.
We're in an ongoing struggle, campaign. It
didn't end with the election campaign.

The "little" things are like little pieces
of campaign literature handed out
at the polls or door to door. 

So, I'd say you're wrong on what is do be
done right now.

^^^^

^^^

The issue I wrote about was not an addition $100 a month, but deals with a??
completely different realm: a measure of what took place under the Bush W.??
administration,

^^^^
CB: So, why would you criticize the praise
of the $100 a month and the tax break , which
was more than what Bush did. Plus, I don't
think Bush did it at the beginning of his
presidency.? I have to check.
No reason to criticize the praise of Obama
for doing something good 'cause Bush did it.

^^^

?the precedence of the past and the art of the possible. It is??
imperative that communist always stay one step ahead along the path the working??
class must travel as its spontaneous movement and its self discovery of 
itself??as a class. The LENS to use in traveling this path is that if the lowest 
section??of the workers as their interest intersect and find expression in the 
political??sphere. 

^^^^^
CB: In this case. one step ahead along
that path is to rally the working class to
support Obama. In case you didn't notice
the bourgeoisie are rallying against his
first pro-working class moves.

The ultra-left is stumbling into
joining Kramer, Santelli and Limbaugh

^^^^^^

What is wrong is praising the Obama administration and the one hand; and??
condemnation of comrades - "let haters,"??whose opinion might disagree with??
someone's else opinion. 

^^^^^^
CB: See above. See discussion several
weeks ago posts on Lenin's polemics
against the ultra-left. We have the same
task today.? 

^^^^^^

To begin with it is impossible to "save" capital without saving those??
workers connected to it as the unity of productive forces and production??relations. 
To preserve this unity it is necessary to increase demand and I shall??never 
approach or suggest negotiating from a standpoint that my enemies??are doing 
me or mine a favor,?? . . with a concession, as??such. . 

^^^^^
CB:? You have a different attitude toward
the Obama "event"?than I do. I think we should
rally the working class in support of him.
It's true it's because it's the best we
have right now, but , there you?go.
It's sort of like supporting?Coleman
Young as Mayor.

^^^^^?

^^^^^
. 
The real issue is over concentrating on "private sector jobs" - as??
government spending or socially necessary means of life. The pouring of??trillions of 
dollars down the rabbit hole of modern speculative finance is??designed to 
starve the workers of these needed funds. 

^^^^^
CB: Well, yeah, that more later

The issue is not "me" or "who I am," rather the issue is how are??comrades to 
frame the current struggle of the working class. Towards this end a??doctrine 
is being put forth as the strategy and tactics of using "class??intersection" 
as a measure of the complex fight unfolding. This is what is??missing in 
assessments of the Obama administration and the existing correlations??of forces 
in the Senate. 

Further comrades cannot be sectarian for fighting to establish a communist??
polarity in the political sphere. Which side are you on is not a conception of??
Democrats or Republicans but workers and capitalist. 

WL. 


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sat Mar  7 11:59:10 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 13:59:10 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Are you really a champion of the poorest
	sectors of the ...
Message-ID: <bdb.3e7055b4.36e41dfe@aol.com>

 
In a message dated 3/7/2009 12:38:24 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
cdb1003 at prodigy.net writes:


Waistline2 
________________________________

The issue is  always "what is wrong" rather than "who is wrong." 

Labeling people  "haters" . . . "left haters," who do not support Obama  the  
person and the Obama presidency in a country where the  working class is so 
and  
"devisive and sectarian" that the  majority refuse to vote at all, is "what 
is 
wrong."

^^^^^^
CB: I  was responding to you writing about
me ( who) was penning away about  Obama's 
increasing unemployment benefits.
One good criticism of "who"  deserves another (smile)

As far as left-haters, on these lists the  issue of
motive in interpreting the events since O's
election is  pertinent.  I regularly read posts
that interpret the glass as half  empty
when it could be interpreted as  half-full.



^^^^^

I see no reason what so ever to  praise (my exact word) Obama or his  
administration for  extending unemployment benefits to the exact same degree  
and  the exact same way done under the Bush W. administration.  
^^^^^^^
CB: I do. It's what's going on on these
'left lists these  days.  It's just another praise added to 
opening up stem cell  research, pay equity
for women, the budget reversing Reaganism,  announcement
of the withdrawal of the troops from Iraq, stimulus  package.
That's the context. The unemployment thing is not  isolated.
Also, O's admin did two things Bush didn't do. $25 more
per  week, and no tax on first $2,500. Plus, they did it
right away. 

And  it is very important to keep up popular support
for Obama, counter the  propaganda from Kramer
and the Wall Street mouthpieces, Limbaugh.
We're  in an ongoing struggle, campaign. It
didn't end with the election  campaign.

The "little" things are like little pieces
of campaign  literature handed out
at the polls or door to door. 

So, I'd say  you're wrong on what is do be
done right  now.

^^^^

^^^

The issue I wrote about was not an addition  $100 a month, but deals with a  
completely different realm: a  measure of what took place under the Bush  W.  
administration,

^^^^
CB: So, why would you  criticize the praise
of the $100 a month and the tax break , which
was  more than what Bush did. Plus, I don't
think Bush did it at the beginning  of his
presidency.  I have to check.
No reason to criticize the  praise of Obama
for doing something good 'cause Bush did  it.

^^^

the precedence of the past and the art of the  possible. It is  
imperative that communist always stay one step  ahead along the path the 
working  
class must travel as its  spontaneous movement and its self discovery of 
itself  as a  class. The LENS to use in traveling this path is that if the 
lowest  
section  of the workers as their interest intersect and find  expression in 
the 
political  sphere. 

^^^^^
CB: In  this case. one step ahead along
that path is to rally the working class  to
support Obama. In case you didn't notice
the bourgeoisie are rallying  against his
first pro-working class moves.

The ultra-left is  stumbling into
joining Kramer, Santelli and  Limbaugh

^^^^^^

What is wrong is praising the Obama  administration and the one hand; and  
condemnation of comrades -  "let haters,"  whose opinion might disagree  with 
 
someone's else opinion. 

^^^^^^
CB: See above.  See discussion several
weeks ago posts on Lenin's polemics
against the  ultra-left. We have the same
task today.  

^^^^^^

To  begin with it is impossible to "save" capital without saving  those  
workers connected to it as the unity of productive forces  and production  
relations. 
To preserve this unity it is  necessary to increase demand and I shall  never 
approach or  suggest negotiating from a standpoint that my enemies  are doing 
 
me or mine a favor,   . . with a concession, as  such.  . 

^^^^^
CB:  You have a different attitude toward
the Obama  "event" than I do. I think we should
rally the working class in  support of him.
It's true it's because it's the best we
have right now,  but , there you go.
It's sort of like supporting Coleman
Young  as Mayor.

^^^^^ 

^^^^^
.. 
The real issue is over  concentrating on "private sector jobs" - as  
government spending  or socially necessary means of life. The pouring of  
trillions of  
dollars down the rabbit hole of modern speculative finance  is  designed to 
starve the workers of these needed funds.  

^^^^^
CB: Well, yeah, that more later

The issue is not "me"  or "who I am," rather the issue is how are  comrades 
to 
frame  the current struggle of the working class. Towards this end  a  
doctrine 
is being put forth as the strategy and tactics of  using "class  
intersection" 
as a measure of the complex fight  unfolding. This is what is  missing in 
assessments of the Obama  administration and the existing correlations  of 
forces 
in the  Senate. 

Further comrades cannot be sectarian for fighting to establish  a communist  
polarity in the political sphere. Which side are  you on is not a conception 
of  
Democrats or Republicans but  workers and capitalist. 

WL.  

_______________________________________________
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


 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)

From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sat Mar  7 14:46:29 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 16:46:29 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Are you really a champion of the poorest
	sectors of the ...
Message-ID: <d00.4ea65160.36e44535@aol.com>


>> CB:  You have a different attitude toward the Obama  "event" than I do. I 
think we should rally the working class in support of him.  It's true it's 
because it's the best we have right now, but , there you go. It's  sort of like 
supporting Coleman Young as Mayor.<< 
 

Reply
 
What is the Marxist perspective of our current economic, social and  
political environment of which Barack Obama is a part? What correlation of class  
forces and intersection allowed for Obama to be elected president? What is the  
practice of the working class movement forming the framework by which Obama the  
person as President to be weighed, measured and assessed? What are the  
spontaneous demands of that section of the working class in motion that  President 
Obama and the entire institutional political sphere responding to?  What phase 
of the process of social revolution currently exists? What is the  role of 
communists in the social process? 
 
America is undergoing a profound political, economic and social collapse.  
Collapse does not mean "no one is working" or that the political system and  
social relations have been shattered and no longer operate. When a society  
undergoes collapse . . . . revolutionary collapse, this means the old ways of  
doing things and the old social relations of the previous period is undergoing  
transformation. Specifically the old "platform" or infrastructure relations that 
 held society together is straining and collapsing as society attempts to 
leap to  a new infrastructure relations.  
 
This was the case with the Civil rights movement, which in the first and  
last instance, had as its impetus the tractor or the mechanization of  
agriculture and pushing 11 million sharecroppers off of the land and first into  
Southern small towns and cities and then to the North where these folks would  take 
their place in the industrial social order. The tractor was introduced by  
International Harvester in 1939. One can shift backwards through history and see  
- in retrospect, how every deepening quantitative boundary in the 
mechanization  of agriculture had its corresponding and intensifying advance in the 
political  struggle as the Civil Rights Movement.  The Civil Rights movement was a  
social movement for economic and social justice; for the expansion of 
political  liberty. The old society constituted on the basis of Jim Crow segregation  
collapsed. First this old society was breached, then shattered and finally 
swept  away by a cross section of American society (class intersection), but all 
of  this was dependent upon and corresponded with changes in the means of  
production. 
 
The Marxist conception of "collapse" and "revolutionary collapse" is not  the 
ideology of "any damn thing can happen" or "one damn thing after another"  
but transformation; the dialectic of the leap or the transition from one kind of 
 society configuration to another. This Marxist understanding gives us the  
ideological conviction to wage the never ending struggle with the bourgeois  
power.  
 
America is undergoing the early stages of revolutionary collapse. 
 
Specifically, incremental qualitative changes in the productive forces  begin 
polarizing and unraveling all classes and class fragments as society  strains 
to adjust and reorient itself around a new technological regime. This  
reorientation appears as fight and attack by all classes and class fragments  
against the existing regime. Each class and class fragment is seeking to achieve  
reorganization and stability on a new basis, but this stability cannot be  
achieved because the property relations prevent the completion of the leap.  
Further, the private ownership of socially necessary property, prevents the  fullest 
development of the new technological regime in servicing the socially  
necessary means of life for the masses. Consequently, a spontaneous series of  chain 
reactions by various sectors of society, from various points of view, is  
destroying - unraveling, the society political infrastructure and social  
relations created during the industrial era. 
 
That is why the fascist and Republican have becomes so outspoken and  adamant 
in their condemnation of any change. The real political fascist in  
government very well understand the social process. 
 
What emerges in the political sphere is the competing of different classes  
and class fragments with intersecting interest and this clash and struggle is  
called the "class struggle" that drives society forward. This class struggle  
revealed itself in a tiny way during the campaign phase of the Presidential  
election. It was a historically specific alignment of social forces that 
allowed  Obama to best Senator Clinton as the Democratic Party nominee for President 
and  then best Senator John McCain. Some view this alignment as "white people 
doing  the right thing" - "one damn thing after another," or waging the 
"heroic  struggle against racism." 
 
I do not. 
 
What is wrong (not who is wrong) with most of the discussions is the utter  
lack of an ounce of class unraveling of social forces and painting America in  
the most primitive concepts of race. 
 
That is what is wrong. 
 
Obama was able to cement his victory over Senator Clinton and Senator  McCain 
on the basis of winning over a vast segment of proletarians in the Mid  West 
who traditionally voted Republican or as Red States. This layer of our  
working class has been undergoing systematic economic ruin for the past decade  and 
Senator Obama carefully appealed  to their economic interest and  specific 
sense of morality; its meaning as society ethics and demands for  liberty and 
justice. This was spelled out in the ideological realm as "I - the  individual, 
have a right to the means by which I can support myself and my  family." 
 
In other words the American ideology and conception of liberty. 
 
This layer of workers that constituted Obama victory cannot be held in  place 
and prevented from drifting to the right on the basis of praising Obama.  The 
only strategy opened to communists is to lean how to fight and articulate  
their economic interest in terms that express how people think things out  and 
in a way not in antagonism with their morality. Without the fight for sides  as 
a class concept, we are going to face a populist movements that leads to  
political fascism. The only way to talk about class interest is to speak of  
class as an interest. We have to say the words and not rely upon some kind of  
mental telepathy. 
 
The historic comparison between Obama and Detroit Mayor Coleman Young seems  
to be a comparison limited to the color factor in American history. Coleman  
Young - "a real man," was elected as the shattering and destruction of the  
system of Jim Crow, as part of the rising curve of the Black Power Movement. The  
Black Power Movement grew out of the Civil Rights Movement as social process 
of  getting blacks elected into public office or integrating the national 
electoral  sphere. The Civil Rights Movement was the broad social movement to 
change the  social sphere as Jim Crow and enact legislation to safeguard the new 
social  relations. The Black Power movement was more limited and focused on 
electoral  politics and various off shoots of economic nationalism. 
 
For those of us in Detroit this period of the Black Power Movement began  
closing the moment Coleman Young was elected and we immediately passed over to  
our Vote Communist Campaigns. However, the close of this period in Detroit did  
not make it so throughout all of America. 
 
In respects to the election of Coleman Young, our pre-election negotiations  
with him was straight forth and to the point.  In addition to demanding the  
dismantling of the extra legal organization of the police violence/department 
as  the STRESS unit, our support and campaigning was contingent upon agreement 
to  dismantle the other extra legal terrorist police organization: "The Red 
Squad"  and the surrender of all the police and surveillance files of all groups 
 throughout the city. We support and praised Coleman Young who carried out 
his  agreements to the letter and beyond. Plus, Coleman Young was always a 
fighter  alongside the communists, with an impeccable track record as State  
representative, and before that as "the man who opposed The House UnAmerican  
Activity Committee." 
 
Such is the praxis of dealing with political officials by some communists  in 
our country. We negotiate on behalf of our political pole and the needs of  
the forward moving sector of the working class. 
 
While it is true that there is no national political structure to establish  
a communist political pole, as the political basis for negotiations with the  
President; a communist pole - polarity in America, must be fought for. This  
means grouping anyone and everyone around the simple idea and demand that says: 
 
"the only way for people with little or no money to receive socially  
necessary means of life, is for government to provide them." 
 
Victory to the workers in that struggle. 
 
I personally believe Obama to be an unusually astute, profoundly  theoretical 
and political genius in his battles with his sectarian opponents,  many who 
are outright fascists. 
 
However, I will die, go to hell and run through fire with gasoline panties  
on, before I praise some mutherf***ker over extending unemployment insurance 
and  a $25 f**king dollars a week raise. 
 
Concessions are to be treated in the Marxists way. 
 
We fight for concession because we want them or we would not fight for  them. 
 To begin with even Obama does not treat the Obama stimulus package  as his 
package. The stimulus package is a complex compromise of competing  economic 
interest in which various classes and class fragments go what they  wanted in 
varying degrees. That is why no distinct political current likes the  bill, but 
the bill expresses this moment of class intersection. 
 
There is no need to praise Obama, when he himself is not praising this  
compromise. Look, Obama is good - very good, and is just in the process of  
unraveling a strategy for the next few years and beyond. 
 
Without question there is going to areas of the Obama administration  
legislative mandates and perhaps political policies that intersect with the  interest 
of the working class and its various layers. For instance the Obama  
administration is facing a need for political shift in international relations,  not 
just international diplomacy. In respects to the Palestinian issue, raised a  
couple of thread ago, our government supports the state of Israel to the tune 
of  roughly $10 million a day. I do not take a position that this economic 
support  should be totally eliminated, but a real reduction to say the same $25 a 
fu**ing  week raise the Obama administration is extending to the unemployed 
seems fair to  me. If one must give the state of Israel money about $900 a month 
seems  reasonable to me. 
 
Obviously if it was left up to me, which it is not, I would not give them a  
dime. 
 
Not even a food stamp. 
 
The question of Afghanistan was raised in the same thread. 
 
I am aware that there are dangers in the world and to suggest dismantling  
the entire American military is silly thinking. However, in Afghanistan we can  
close all our military bases, withdraw all our troops and drones and then spy 
on  the country from outer space. Those who feel a moral duty to help the 
country  economically can send hard goods in the form of infrastructure things and 
food.  Those who feel strongly about the treatment of Afghan women should be 
able to  submit their programs of help to our government to ascertain how to 
help without  military force. One can of course emigrate to Afghanistan.  
 
Rather, it seems to me that communist should figure out how to fight to  
rally the working class around and in support of its own self interest; and then  
extend support to those in the political sphere who support achieving our  
interest in the legislative arena.  
 
WL. 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sat Mar  7 14:51:04 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 16:51:04 EST
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Are you really a champion of the poorest
	sectors of the ...
Message-ID: <d11.47242789.36e44648@aol.com>

CB: In this case. one step ahead along that path is to rally the working  
class to support Obama. In case you didn't notice the bourgeoisie are rallying  
against his first pro-working class moves. 

The ultra-left is stumbling  into joining Kramer, Santelli and Limbaugh


Comment
 
Simply produce one piece of the "ulta left" that stumbles into  supporting  . 
. . "joining Kramer, Santelli and Limbaugh." 
 
If you can not produce any evidence then stop fighting straw men of your  own 
creation to justify your endless attack against the left. 
 
Produce the evidence. 


WL. 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Sat Mar  7 17:58:15 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 16:58:15 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] How Cash Starved States Can Create their Own Credit
Message-ID: <786606.53159.qm@web180104.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


How Cash Starved States Can Create their Own Credit

by Ellen Brown

Global Research (March 03 2009)

"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils;
for time is the greatest innovator". --- Francis Bacon


On February 19 2009, California narrowly 
escaped bankruptcy, when
Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger put on
?his Terminator hat and held the
state senate in lockdown mode until they signed a very controversial
budget {1}. If the vote had failed, the state 
was going to be reduced to
paying its employees in IOUs. California avoided bankruptcy for the time
being, but 46 of fifty states are insolvent
?and could be filing Chapter
Nine bankruptcy proceedings in the next two years {2}.

One of the four states that is not 
insolvent is an unlikely candidate
for the distinction - North Dakota. As Michigan management consultant
Charles Fleetham observed last
?month in an article distributed to his
local media:

"North Dakota is a sparsely
?populated state of less than 700,000, known
for cold weather, isolated farmers and a hit movie - Fargo. Yet, for
some reason it defies the 
real estate cliche of location, location,
location. Since 2000, the state's GNP has grown 56%, personal income has
grown 43%, and wages 
have grown 34%. This year the state has a budget
surplus of $1.2 billion!"

What does the State of North Dakota
?have that other states don't? The
answer seems to be: its own bank.
?In fact, North Dakota has the only
state-owned bank in the nation. 
The state legislature established the
Bank of North Dakota in 1919. Fleetham writes that the bank was set up
to free farmers and small businessmen 
from the clutches of out-of-state
bankers and railroad men. By law, 
the state must deposit all its funds
in the bank, and the state guarantees its deposits. Three elected
officials oversee the bank: the governor,
?the attorney general, and the
commissioner of agriculture. The bank's stated mission is to deliver
sound financial services that promote 
agriculture, commerce and industry
in North Dakota. The bank operates as a bankers' bank, partnering with
private banks to loan money to farmers,
?real estate developers, schools
and small businesses. It loans money 
to students (over 184,000
outstanding loans), and it purchases 
municipal bonds from public
institutions.

Still, you may ask, how does that 
solve the solvency problem? Isn't the
state still limited to spending only
?the money it has? The answer is no.
Certified, card-carrying bankers are 
allowed to do something nobody else
can do: they can create "credit" with 
accounting entries on their books.

A License to Create Money

Under the "fractional reserve" lending system,
?banks are allowed to
extend credit (create money as loans)
?in a sum equal to many times their
deposit base. Congressman Jerry Voorhis,
?writing in 1973, explained it
like this:

"[F]or every $1 or $1.50 which people - 
or the government - deposit in a
bank, the banking system can create 
out of thin air and by the stroke of
a pen some $10 of checkbook money 
or demand deposits. It can lend all
that $10 into circulation at interest just 
so long as it has the $1 or a
little more in reserve to back it up". {3}

That banks actually create money with
?accounting entries was confirmed
in a revealing booklet published by the
?Chicago Federal Reserve titled
Modern Money Mechanics {2}. The 
booklet was periodically revised until
1992, when it had reached fifty pages 
long. On page 49 of the 1992
edition, it states:

"With a uniform ten percent reserve
?requirement, a $1 increase in
reserves would support $10 of additional
?transaction accounts [loans
created as deposits in borrowers' accounts]" {4}.

The ten percent reserve requirement is
?now largely obsolete, in part
because banks have figured out how to
?get around it with such devices as
"overnight sweeps". What chiefly limits 
bank lending today is the eight
percent capital requirement imposed 
by the Bank for International
Settlements, the head of the private global central banking system in
Basel, Switzerland. With an eight 
percent capital requirement, a state
with its own bank could fan its revenues
?into 12.5 times their face
value in loans (100 ? 8 = 12.5). And
?since the state would actually own
the bank, it would not have to worry about shareholders or profits. It
could lend to creditworthy borrowers 
at very low interest, perhaps
limited only to a service charge covering
?its costs; and it could lend
to itself or to its municipal governments 
at as low as zero percent
interest. If these loans were rolled over
?indefinitely, the effect would
be the same as creating new, debt-free money.

Dangerously inflationary? Not if the 
money were used to create new goods
and services. Price inflation results only 
when "demand" (money) exceeds
"supply" (goods and services). When they 
increase together, prices
remain stable.

Today we are in a dangerous deflationary 
spiral, as lending has dried up
and asset values have plummeted. The
?monopoly on the creation of money
and credit by a private banking fraternity 
has resulted in a
malfunctioning credit system and monetary 
collapse. Credit markets have
been frozen by the wildly speculative 
derivatives gambles of a few big
Wall Street banks, bets that not only destroyed those banks' balance
sheets but are infecting the whole private 
banking system with toxic
debris. To get out of this deflationary debt
?trap requires an injection
of new, debt-free money into the economy, 
something that can best be
done through a system of public banks
?dedicated to serving the public
interest, administering credit as a public utility.

Some experts insist that we must tighten
?our belts and start saving
again, in order to rebuild the "capital"
?necessary for functioning
markets; but our markets actually functioned 
quite well so long as the
credit system was working. We have 
the same real assets (raw materials,
oil, technical knowledge, productive 
capacity, labor force, et cetera)
that we had before the crisis began. 
Our workers and factories are
sitting idle because the private credit 
system has failed.

A system of public credit could put them 
back to work again. The notion
that "money" is something that has to
?be "saved" before it can be
"borrowed" misconstrues the nature of 
money and credit. Credit is merely
a legal agreement, a "monetization" of 
future proceeds, a promise to pay
later from the fruits of the advance. Banks
?have created credit on their
books for hundreds of years, and this 
system would have worked quite
well had it not been for the enormous 
tribute siphoned off to private
coffers in the form of interest. A public 
banking system could overcome
that problem by returning the interest to the 
public purse. This is the
sort of banking system that was pioneered
?in the colony of Pennsylvania,
where it worked brilliantly well.

Restoring Michigan to Solvency

Among other advantages to a state of 
owning its own bank are the
substantial sums it could save in interest. 
As Fleetham notes of his own
ailing state of Michigan:

"According to recent financial reports 
(available online), the State of
Michigan, the City of Detroit, the Detroit 
Water and Sewerage
Department, the Wayne County Airport, 
the Detroit Public Schools, the
University of Michigan, and Michigan State
?University pay over $800
million a year in interest on long term debt.
?If you add interest paid
by Michigan cities, school districts, and
?public utilities, the cost to
our taxpayers easily tops a billion [dollars] 
a year. What does Wall
Street do with our billion plus dollars? 
They decorate their offices
like kings."

Interestingly, the projected state budget 
deficit for 2009 is also $1
billion. If Michigan did not have to pay
?over a billion dollars in
interest to Wall Street, the budget could 
be balanced and the state
could be restored to solvency. A state-owned
?bank could not only provide
interest-free credit for the state but could
?actually generate revenues
for it. Fleetham notes that in 2007, the 
Bank of North Dakota earned a
net profit of $51 million on a loan volume 
of $2 billion. He comments:

"Last year, Michigan citizens paid over
?$5 billion dollars in personal
income tax. With a state bank like North 
Dakota's we could reduce this
burden, fund new businesses, and restore 
our crumbling water and sewer
systems. And we don't have to feel sorry 
about Wall Street losing our
business. They didn't 'earn' the money 
they lent us. They created it in
computers and charged us interest to boot. 
Let's follow North Dakota's
lead and get free from Wall Street's web."

Taking the Initiative in California

California could do this as well. Robert Ellis
?is a Tucson talk show
host who once worked on Wall Street and 
has been involved in setting up
several banks and financial institutions. In 
January of this year, he
proposed in a letter to Governor Schwarzenegger
?that California could
resolve its financial woes by setting up a bank 
on the model of the Bank
of North Dakota. Ellis wrote to the governor:

"I admire your tenacity in dealing with 
California's financial problems.
Your idea of using IOUs was ingenious 
but there is a better way. The
State of California can charter its own bank
?and issue its own checks to
all state employees ... It can also pay all
?its vendors, contracts and
contractors through the bank ... Additionally, 
once the bank is
operational, you can fund your own state 
projects and you determine the
interest rate paid as opposed to being at 
the mercy of the banks you
currently deal with or the interest rates the
?investment bankers make
you pay to issue bonds. By doing this, you 
will put the state in control
of its own destiny and make it the benefactor
?of its own money.

"... What I am proposing is not new. It has 
been done by one other state
in the nation [North Dakota]. Why should 
you continue to pay the banks
for services and interest on loans when 
you can receive that interest
for the benefit of the state of California??
?Wouldn't it be better if
you could fund your own infrastructure
?projects without having to get
the approval of independent banks or
?investment bankers? Additionally,
you set the interest rate on your own projects.
?You can even set it at
zero if you deem the project worthy enough."

Ellis offered his services in setting up
?the bank, which he thought
could be chartered in a few short months.
?The Governor has not replied,
but some pressure from constituents might 
encourage a response.

Failing that, there is the initiative and
?referendum process pioneered
in California. It allows state laws to be
?proposed directly by the
public, and the state's Constitution to
?be amended either by public
petition (the "initiative") or by the legislature
?submitting a proposed
constitutional amendment to the electorate
?(the "referendum"). The
initiative is done by writing a proposed 
constitutional amendment or
statute as a petition, which is submitted 
to the California Attorney
General along with a submission fee, 
which was a modest $200 in 2004.
The petition must be signed by registered 
voters amounting to eight
percent (for a constitutional amendment) 
or five percent (for a statute)
of the number of people who voted in the
?most recent election for
governor. {5}

As Gandhi said, "When the people lead,
?the leaders will follow". We the
people can beat the Wall Street bankers 
at their own game, by moving our
legislators to set up publicly-owned banks 
that create credit using the
same banking principles that are accepted
?as standard and usual in the
trade by bankers themselves.

_____

Ellen Brown developed her research skills as 
an attorney practicing
civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt (2007), her latest book,
she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and "the
money trust". She shows how this
?private cartel has usurped the power to
create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get
it back. Her earlier books focused on 
the pharmaceutical cartel that
gets its power from "the money trust". Her eleven books include
Forbidden Medicine (2008), Nature's
?Pharmacy (1998), co-authored with Dr
Lynne Walker, and The Key to Ultimate 
Health (2000), co-authored with Dr
Richard Hansen. Her websites are
?www.webofdebt.com and www.ellenbrown.com.

Notes:

{1} Anne Davies, "Lockdown Vote Saves California from Bankruptcy",
theage.com.au (February 21 2009).
http://www.theage.com.au/world/lockdown-vote-saves-california-from-bankruptcy-20090220-8do1.html?page=2

{2} John Mitchell, "46 of 50 States Could File Bankruptcy in 2009-2010",
Freedom Arizona (January 30 2009).

{3} Jerry Voorhis, The Strange Case of Richard Milhous Nixon (1973),
excerpted at
http://www.sonic.net/~doretk/ArchiveARCHIVE/ECONOMICSPOLITICS/FEDERAL%20RESERVE/Jerry%20VoorhisFedReserve.html.


{4} Modern Money Mechanics: A Workbook on Bank Reserves and Deposit
Expansion (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Public Information Service,
1992, available at
http://www.rayservers.com/images/ModernMoneyMechanics.pdf ).

{5} "California Ballot Proposition", Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_ballot_proposition

_____

Ellen Brown is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BRO20090303&articleId=12522



From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Sat Mar  7 22:27:21 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 21:27:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama says US may reach out to Taliban
Message-ID: <69370.17170.qm@web180114.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>



Obama Says US May Reach Out to Taliban

http://news.aol.com/article/obama-afghanistan-taliban/373693

CB:If I was Obama , I'd say to the Taliban "look bros, obviously, you are 
some bad motherfuckers? because even Alexander couldn't conquer y'all, 
or was it that Alexander was the only one who conquered y'all. Whatever. 
But look , don't you realize that chimpanzees have more 
sense than you do in that they know that you can't disrespect
?females like you are. You dig ? You are dumber than apes 
when it come to the girls. So why not drop the extraordinary anti-women 
total bullshit and peace out ?"


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Sat Mar  7 22:39:55 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 21:39:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Are you really a champion of the poorest sectors
	of the
Message-ID: <710596.9755.qm@web180113.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


?...Ralph Dumain 
Charles lost his mind a long time ago. But he has gotten really bad 
in recent months. After you have partaken too much of what the CP is 
serving, you get the itis.

A lot of words are wasted wrangling in sectarian environments. 
^^^^^^^
CB: Ah Ralph has been caused to take up the
issue of sectarianism. Guess where his mind
got to that. (smile)

^^^^^^^^

Perhaps some people feel the need to prove they're not being fooled, 
by denouncing bourgeois politicians.??Others, proving they are not 
sectarian, act as if self-deception and confusion is the way to act 
practically and make necessary compromises. But once one knows a 
bourgeois politician is a bourgeois politician, one can move on to 
delineate clearly and precisely the situation to be dealt with.


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Sat Mar  7 22:49:55 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 21:49:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Which side are you on ?
Message-ID: <164626.4668.qm@web180104.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


The real issue is over concentrating on "private sector jobs" - as??
government spending or socially necessary means of life. The pouring of??trillions of 
dollars down the rabbit hole of modern speculative finance is??designed to 
starve the workers of these needed funds. 

^^^^^
CB: Well, yeah, that more later

WL: The issue is not "me" or "who I am," rather the issue is how are??comrades to 
frame the current struggle of the working class.


^^^^^^
CB: Well, yeuuuh.? Is you is or is you ain't ain't
the issue.? I figured that out 30 years ago. 
And some comrades around here are not
framing the current struggles of the working 
class correctly.? when they fail to see
that Obama is the leader of the working 
class right now.? Stuff like "O is the
CEO of the capitalists is bad framing.
Hisotric, maybe world historic erroneous 
framing.

^^^^^
?Towards this end a??doctrine 
is being put forth as the strategy and tactics of using "class??intersection" 
as a measure of the complex fight unfolding. This is what is??missing in 
assessments of the Obama administration and the existing correlations??of forces 
in the Senate. 

^^^^^
CB: Reiterate

^^^^^

Further comrades cannot be sectarian for fighting to establish a communist??
polarity in the political sphere. 

^^^^^^
CB:? Yes they can. A "communist" polarity
is premature and sectarian right now. We
need a popular front, all peoples front.

^^^^^^

Which side are you on is not a conception of??
Democrats or Republicans but workers and capitalist. 

WL. 

^^^^^^^
CB: Wrong. Right now the Democrats of Obama
is the side to be on. Which side are you on ?


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Sat Mar  7 23:41:01 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 22:41:01 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Are you really a champion of the poorest sectors
	of the
Message-ID: <732018.98980.qm@web180109.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


?...Waistline2 at aol.com Waistline2 at aol.com 
Sat Mar 7 14:46:29 MST 2009 
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????* Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] 
________________________________

>> CB:??You have a different attitude toward the Obama??"event" than I do. I 
think we should rally the working class in support of him.??It's true it's 
because it's the best we have right now, but , there you go. It's??sort of like 
supporting Coleman Young as Mayor.<< 


Reply

What is the Marxist perspective of our current economic, social and??
political environment of which Barack Obama is a part?

^^^^^
CB: It's do what you can to help O.

^^^^^

?What correlation of class??
forces and intersection allowed for Obama to be elected president?

^^^^^^
CB: A significant anti-racist,?White , Brown and Black,
?pro-working people ( working
class and middle class) coalition. An anti-war, anti-rightwing, 
anti-Bush, anti-Reaganite
coalition.


?What is the??
practice of the working class movement forming the framework by which Obama the??
person as President to be weighed, measured and assessed?

^^^^^^^
CB: Electoral practice, which must be converted
to People's lobbyist practice. Not so much
the person but the leader , the emblem can be
weighed as "heavy", measured as breaking
through a quantitative barrier , and capable 
of breaking through more. Assessed as
high reformist potential.

^^^^^6

^^^^^^


?What are the??
spontaneous demands of that section of the working class in motion that??President 
Obama and the entire institutional political sphere responding to?

^^^^^
CB: Anti-war, anti-racist, the rational kernel
of American humanism.

^^^^^^


??What phase 
of the process of social revolution currently exists?

^^^^^
CB: Very early social rev, ?moderate reformism
but potentially radical because of deep 
pentup contradictions for at least 30 years,
with few reformist resolutions in at least 30 years.

^^^^^

^^^^


?What is the??role of 
communists in the social process? 

^^^^^
CB: In the concrete circumstance
join the Obama crowd and don't
stand out. Mingle and go with O-flow

^^^^^^

America is undergoing a profound political, economic and social collapse.??
Collapse does not mean "no one is working" or that the political system and??
social relations have been shattered and no longer operate. When a society??
undergoes collapse . . . . revolutionary collapse, this means the old ways of??
doing things and the old social relations of the previous period is undergoing??
transformation. Specifically the old "platform" or infrastructure relations that 
held society together is straining and collapsing as society attempts to 
leap to??a new infrastructure relations.??

^^^^^^
CB Uhhuh

^^^^^

This was the case with the Civil rights movement, which in the first and??
last instance, had as its impetus the tractor or the mechanization of??
agriculture and pushing 11 million sharecroppers off of the land and first into??
Southern small towns and cities and then to the North where these folks would??take 
their place in the industrial social order. The tractor was introduced by??
International Harvester in 1939. One can shift backwards through history and see??
- in retrospect, how every deepening quantitative boundary in the 
mechanization??of agriculture had its corresponding and intensifying advance in the 
political??struggle as the Civil Rights Movement.??The Civil Rights movement was a??
social movement for economic and social justice; for the expansion of 
political??liberty. The old society constituted on the basis of Jim Crow segregation??
collapsed. First this old society was breached, then shattered and finally 
swept??away by a cross section of American society (class intersection), but all 
of??this was dependent upon and corresponded with changes in the means of??
production. 

^^^^^^
CB: And executed in the last especially
by the Johnson Democratic Party.

^^^^^^

The Marxist conception of "collapse" and "revolutionary collapse" is not??the 
ideology of "any damn thing can happen" or "one damn thing after another"??
but transformation; the dialectic of the leap or the transition from one kind of 
society configuration to another. This Marxist understanding gives us the??
ideological conviction to wage the never ending struggle with the bourgeois??
power.??

^^^^^
CB: Well, at some point we aim to end it...
in the "final conflict"

^^^^^^

America is undergoing the early stages of revolutionary collapse. 


^^^^
CB: Revolutions are not collapses.
Collapses hold potential for revolution
to be made out of them, if the ruling
class can't rule in the old way and
the ruled won't be ruled any longer in
the old way.? We aren't there yet.
But the masses are mulling over the 
situation in ways that are no reflected
much in the television news and media.The People
respect Obama more than Limbaugh.

^^^^

^^^^^^^

^^^^^^^^

Specifically, incremental qualitative changes in the productive forces??begin 
polarizing and unraveling all classes and class fragments as society??strains 
to adjust and reorient itself around a new technological regime. This??
reorientation appears as fight and attack by all classes and class fragments??
against the existing regime. Each class and class fragment is seeking to achieve??
reorganization and stability on a new basis, but this stability cannot be??
achieved because the property relations prevent the completion of the leap.??
Further, the private ownership of socially necessary property, prevents the??fullest 
development of the new technological regime in servicing the socially??
necessary means of life for the masses. Consequently, a spontaneous series of??chain 
reactions by various sectors of society, from various points of view, is??
destroying - unraveling, the society political infrastructure and social??
relations created during the industrial era. 

^^^^^^^
CB: Maybe . What's the evidence of that ?

^^^^^

That is why the fascists and Republican have become so outspoken and??adamant 
in their condemnation of any change. The real political fascist in??
government very well understand the social process. 

^^^^^
CB: mmmmmmmmmmuhhuh

^^^^^

What emerges in the political sphere is the competing of different classes??
and class fragments with intersecting interest and this clash and struggle is??
called the "class struggle" that drives society forward. This class struggle??
revealed itself in a tiny way during the campaign phase of the Presidential??
election. It was a historically specific alignment of social forces that 
allowed??Obama to best Senator Clinton as the Democratic Party nominee for President 
and??then best Senator John McCain. Some view this alignment as "white people 
doing??the right thing" - "one damn thing after another," or waging the 
"heroic??struggle against racism." 

^^^^^^
CB: That was a big chunk of it. 
Race and class? intersection
are critical in the US. Now 
we are beyond that, somewhat
post-racial , like O said.

^^^^^

I do not. 

What is wrong (not who is wrong) with most of the discussions is the utter??
lack of an ounce of class unraveling of social forces and painting America in??
the most primitive concepts of race. 

^^^^^^^^
CB: Wrong. The Obama unravelling
of race in the election was critical
to getting to cleancut class struggle 
now.

^^^^^^^

^^^^^^

That is what is wrong. 

^^^^
CB: What I just said is right.

^^^^^^

Obama was able to cement his victory over Senator Clinton and Senator??McCain 
on the basis of winning over a vast segment of proletarians in the Mid??West 
who traditionally voted Republican or as Red States. This layer of our??
working class has been undergoing systematic economic ruin for the past decade??and 
Senator Obama carefully appealed??to their economic interest and??specific 
sense of morality; its meaning as society ethics and demands for??liberty and 
justice. This was spelled out in the ideological realm as "I - the??individual, 
have a right to the means by which I can support myself and my??family."

^^^^^^^
CB: To analyze that episode?in a colorblind
way is to be oblivious to the centrality
of racial equality in the class struggle
in the US. However, now, that O?
did so well, on that , race is not
a prime issue?in the post election
struggles. O has neutralized race
and we can deal more directly with
class but the struggle is fierce and 
rapid, the next class battle is
rising,?with the bourgeosie?represented by Limbaugh,
Kramer, Santelli, the?Dem chair
of?the Senate finance committee , and
the rear guard of the kkK.

^^^^^^?

In other words the American ideology and conception of liberty. 

This layer of workers that constituted Obama victory cannot be held in??place 
and prevented from drifting to the right on the basis of praising Obama.

^^^^^^
CB: To not praise and support Obama
right now is extreme betrayal of the
working class. Profound treachery
to our class. Sectarian, left infantilism
of the worst sort.

^^^^^^^^^


^^^^^

??The 
only strategy opened to communists is to lean how to fight and articulate??
their economic interest in terms that express how people think things out??and 
in a way not in antagonism with their morality. Without the fight for sides??as 
a class concept, we are going to face a populist movements that leads to??
political fascism. The only way to talk about class interest is to speak of??
class as an interest. We have to say the words and not rely upon some kind of??
mental telepathy. 

^^^^^^

CB: The only strategy to c's is to support
O but not as named c's

^^^^^

The historic comparison between Obama and Detroit Mayor Coleman Young seems??
to be a comparison limited to the color factor in American history. 

^^^^^^
CB: Coleman Young was a member
of the CPUSA, and labor radical, who
became an executive of the bourgeoisie's
government. Ultra-leftists didn't understand
how his role changed. See "The Friends
Among Us" chapter in his autobio
_Hardstuff_

^^^^^^

Coleman??
Young - "a real man," was elected as the shattering and destruction of the??
system of Jim Crow, as part of the rising curve of the Black Power Movement. The??
Black Power Movement grew out of the Civil Rights Movement as social process 
of??getting blacks elected into public office or integrating the national 
electoral??sphere. The Civil Rights Movement was the broad social movement to 
change the??social sphere as Jim Crow and enact legislation to safeguard the new 
social??relations. The Black Power movement was more limited and focused on 
electoral??politics and various off shoots of economic nationalism. 

^^^^^^
CB: Coleman Young was _not_ a
?nationalist, but a Black
and White unite and fightist, a uniter not a divider
of the working class.? He was pragmatic in
dealing with the powersthatbe like O.

^^^^^^^

For those of us in Detroit this period of the Black Power Movement began??
closing the moment Coleman Young was elected and we immediately passed over to??
our Vote Communist Campaigns. However, the close of this period in Detroit did??
not make it so throughout all of America. 

In respects to the election of Coleman Young, our pre-election negotiations??
with him was straight forth and to the point.??In addition to demanding the??
dismantling of the extra legal organization of the police violence/department 
as??the STRESS unit, our support and campaigning was contingent upon agreement 
to??dismantle the other extra legal terrorist police organization: "The Red 
Squad"??and the surrender of all the police and surveillance files of all groups 
throughout the city. We support and praised Coleman Young who carried out 
his??agreements to the letter and beyond. Plus, Coleman Young was always a 
fighter??alongside the communists, with an impeccable track record as State??
representative, and before that as "the man who opposed The House UnAmerican??
Activity Committee." 

^^^^^^
CB: Yeah member of the CPUSA..Sounds alright. 

^^^^^

Such is the praxis of dealing with political officials by some communists??in 
our country. We negotiate on behalf of our political pole and the needs of??
the forward moving sector of the working class. 

^^^^^^^
CB: Now's not the time to negotiate, 
but to join the ranks in support
of O.

&&&&&&&&&&&

While it is true that there is no national political structure to establish??
a communist political pole, as the political basis for negotiations with the??
President; a communist pole - polarity in America, must be fought for. This??
means grouping anyone and everyone around the simple idea and demand that says: 

"the only way for people with little or no money to receive socially??
necessary means of life, is for government to provide them." 

^^^^^^
CB: That's one plank of a larger program


Here's a model for c's
'operate
Video of Sam Webb taking on conservative host Glenn Beck
by CPUSA, 03/04/2009
Communist Party National Chair Sam Webb holds his own with Fox News' conservative host Glenn Beck. Check out the video below. 
http://www.cpusa.org/

^^^^^^^^

Victory to the workers in that struggle. 

I personally believe Obama to be an unusually astute, profoundly??theoretical 
and political genius in his battles with his sectarian opponents,??many who 
are outright fascists. 

However, I will die, go to hell and run through fire with gasoline panties??
on, before I praise some mutherf***ker over extending unemployment insurance 
and??a $25 f**king dollars a week raise. 

^^^^^^^
CB:? Ironically, you make a silly,sectarian
declaration after praising O's
anti-sectarianism.

^^^^^^^

Concessions are to be treated in the Marxists way. 

We fight for concession because we want them or we would not fight for??them. 
To begin with even Obama does not treat the Obama stimulus package??as his 
package. The stimulus package is a complex compromise of competing??economic 
interest in which various classes and class fragments go what they??wanted in 
varying degrees. That is why no distinct political current likes the??bill, but 
the bill expresses this moment of class intersection. 

There is no need to praise Obama, when he himself is not praising this??
compromise. Look, Obama is good - very good, and is just in the process of??
unraveling a strategy for the next few years and beyond. 

^^^^^
CB; The thing is to find ways
to rally the masses in support
of O, includinga, but not limited to?"praising" him.

^^^^^^^

Without question there is going to areas of the Obama administration??
legislative mandates and perhaps political policies that intersect with the??interest 
of the working class and its various layers. For instance the Obama??
administration is facing a need for political shift in international relations,??not 
just international diplomacy. In respects to the Palestinian issue, raised a??
couple of thread ago, our government supports the state of Israel to the tune 
of??roughly $10 million a day. I do not take a position that this economic 
support??should be totally eliminated, but a real reduction to say the same $25 a 
fu**ing??week raise the Obama administration is extending to the unemployed 
seems fair to??me. If one must give the state of Israel money about $900 a month 
seems??reasonable to me. 

^^^^^^
CB: This is childish . There's no contradiction
between supporting one aspect of O's
actions and others.? This is a childish
personal and petty personal attack, but
not matter about three people will
read it, so it won't effect O's charge for the People.

^^^^^^^^^

Obviously if it was left up to me, which it is not, I would not give them a??
dime. 

Not even a food stamp. 

The question of Afghanistan was raised in the same thread. 

I am aware that there are dangers in the world and to suggest dismantling??
the entire American military is silly thinking. However, in Afghanistan we can??
close all our military bases, withdraw all our troops and drones and then spy 
on??the country from outer space. Those who feel a moral duty to help the 
country??economically can send hard goods in the form of infrastructure things and 
food.??Those who feel strongly about the treatment of Afghan women should be 
able to??submit their programs of help to our government to ascertain how to 
help without??military force. One can of course emigrate to Afghanistan.??

Rather, it seems to me that communist should figure out how to fight to??
rally the working class around and in support of its own self interest; and then??
extend support to those in the political sphere who support achieving our??
interest in the legislative arena.?

^^^^^^^
CB: Uhhuhhh?

WL. 
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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Mar  8 08:39:17 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 10:39:17 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama says US may reach out to Taliban
Message-ID: <ca1.50324429.36e53295@aol.com>

Obama Says US May Reach Out to Taliban  

http://news.aol.com/article/obama-afghanistan-taliban/373693  

CB:If I was Obama , I'd say to the Taliban "look bros, obviously, you  are 
some bad motherfuckers  because even Alexander couldn't conquer y'all,  or was 
it that Alexander was the only one who conquered y'all. Whatever. But  look , 
don't you realize that chimpanzees have more sense than you do in that  they 
know that you can't disrespect females like you are. You dig ? You are  dumber 
than apes when it come to the girls. So why not drop the extraordinary  
anti-women total bullshit and peace out ?"

Comment
 
"If I was Obama . . . ." 
 
"because even Alexander couldn't conquer y'all, or was it that Alexander  was 
the only one who conquered y'all. Whatever. "
 
(means)  = Since American imperialism and the militarized state cannot  
conquer the people of Afghanistan, the state department wants a policy shift to  
begin negotiations with the fascist cleric the intelligence agencies of  the US 
installed decades ago.   
 
"you can't disrespect females like you are. You dig ? You are dumber than  
apes when it come to the girls. So why not drop the extraordinary anti-women  
total bullshit and peace out ?"
 
(means) = The problem with Afghanistan is the Women Factor and the  treatment 
of women by one of the political factions in the country. 
 
What is wrong with such analysis, is the failure to take into account and  
ascend to the level of the domestic peace movement, which demands the withdrawal 
 of the American military machine from Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
*****
 
CB:  Yes they can. A "communist" polarity is premature and sectarian  right 
now. We need a popular front, all peoples front.
 
Reply (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) 
 
 
A communist polarity was defined as uniting anyone and everyone around an  
economic program of survival. This program  - platform, can be summed up as  
"the only way to provide people socially necessary means of life, who have  
little or no money, is for the government to provide them these things." This  
platform is the "peoples program" and the people are wage earners or  
proletarians. 
 
How and why is it premature to fight for what people are already fighting  
for? People are being evicted and walking away from high mortgages and  
homelessness is growing. Fighting for shelter is not premature. Advocacy for  
expansion of section 8 and food stamps for the entire working class is not  premature. 
Advocacy for health care for all Americans are not premature. 
 
"If I was Obama . . ." is probably the worse way possible to approach the  
practical and theoretical question of the meaning of a Popular Front in America. 
 In fact what is a "Popular Front" in practice? A Popular Front is a concept 
of  organizations on the left preserving their political independence and 
working  towards a goal. What is the goal of the Popular Front in which you speak? 
 
 
Truly sad . . . such is the result of race theory and seeking unity of the  
working class on the basis of uniting people around a concept of skin color,  
rather than economic facts of life. 
 
WL. 



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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Mar  8 08:47:35 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 10:47:35 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Are you really a champion of the poorest
	sectors of the
Message-ID: <cbe.37520c93.36e53487@aol.com>

What are the  spontaneous demands of that  section of the working class in 
motion that  President 
Obama and the  entire institutional political sphere responding to?

^^^^^
CB:  Anti-war, anti-racist, the rational kernel
of American  humanism.

^^^^^^  


Reply
 
Apparently the poorest section of the working class was not driven by or  
responding to being poor but anti-racism. Race theory and race ideology blinds  
one to class and economic impulses. 
 
Here is the crux of the dispute. I strongly believe the American people,  
that section of the working class in motion, responded to economic demands and  
needs which they voiced clearly, rather than an abstract rational kernel of  
American humanism. People were losing their jobs, were tired of the wars, tied  
of the Bush W. economic policy and wanted changed. 
 
Denial of the economic demands of the American people is in my estimate  
short sighted. 
 
WL. 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Mar  8 09:19:11 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 11:19:11 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Are you really a champion of the poorest
	sectors of the
Message-ID: <d62.2dc2fbc0.36e53bef@aol.com>

Reply
 
WL: What is the Marxist perspective of our current economic, social  and  
political environment of which Barack Obama is a part?
 
^^^^^
CB: It's do what you can to help O.
 
 
Comment
 

Last week on several lists an article indicating an up tick in sales of  Marx 
capital was run. Surely anyone interest in purchasing Capital and actually  
reading it indicates a political stirring and yearning within the working class 
 itself. This political yearning is part of the political and ideological  
landscape, of which Barack Obama is a part of. 
 
The perspective of Marxists and communists should be to "do what  you can to 
help O." What is wrong with this political projection is everything,  because 
it means abandoning the literary aspect of our task as communists.  Social 
democracy has no shame. 
 
WL. 
 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Sun Mar  8 11:21:00 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 13:21:00 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] rural my poverty
Message-ID: <bdf.49017d0b.36e5587c@aol.com>

The numbers of homeless children are climbing here in rural southern  
Vermont, as they are everywhere.  As stated in the article Lou posted,  though, the 
numbers of homeless children "do not begin to paint a complete  picture of the 
problem." 
 
In every school that I know of, children arrive daily with hunger pangs and  
financial fears.  We can feed them breakfast, but can't assure them that  
their parents will find a new job or that the landlord won't evict them. In one  
kindergarten class that I'm familiar with, children help the teacher choose a  
question each afternoon to be written on the board and answered as they arrive 
 the next morning.  One day in December, a boy asked if the next day's  
question could be "Do you have a home?" 
 
This lack of financial security translates into anxiety that's felt by all  
family members, not just parents.  We know that anxiety disrupts working  
memory, thus affects students' ability to learn.  We also know that health  care is 
increasingly unaffordable for many families and know the debilitating  
effects of illness on learning.  It's quite clear that the material  conditions in 
which many of our students live are not condusive to learning. 
 
We do our best to feed children, bring in clothing for them, arrange  medical 
care when possible, and generally create safe classroom environments to  
minimize the anxiety that children bring to school with them every day.  Oh  yes, 
and we do still teach, in spite of the increasing amount of time devoted to  
standardized tests for NCLB. 
 
Yet teachers all over the country hear that it's our fault that students  
aren't learning.  We read that schools must be reformed, or closed and  replaced 
by charter schools.   We're subjected to "professional  development" 
presentations from  Ruby Payne's for-profit business, aha!  Process Inc., in which 
we're told that the "culture of poverty"  is a  mindset that causes poverty and 
prevents  students who come from  economically disadvantaged homes from 
learning.  If we can just help these  students to adopt middle class values about 
education, they will succeed. 
 
Interestingly, I'm hearing more teachers (generally a conservative group)  
say that capitalism just doesn't work. 
 
Karen 
 
(WL. note:  the last sentence means it is time to establish a  communist pole 
- polarity, and the masses are yearning for such explanations of  the current 
crisis.) 

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From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Mon Mar  9 11:42:14 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 10:42:14 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama says US may reach out to Taliban
Message-ID: <896271.47062.qm@web180114.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


at aol.com Waistline2 at aol.com 
________________________________

Obama Says US May Reach Out to Taliban??

http://news.aol.com/article/obama-afghanistan-taliban/373693??

CB:If I was Obama , I'd say to the Taliban "look bros, obviously, you??are 
some bad motherfuckers??because even Alexander couldn't conquer y'all,??or was 
it that Alexander was the only one who conquered y'all. Whatever. But??look , 
don't you realize that chimpanzees have more sense than you do in that??they 
know that you can't disrespect females like you are. You dig ? You are??dumber 
than apes when it come to the girls. So why not drop the extraordinary??
anti-women total bullshit and peace out ?"

Comment

"If I was Obama . . . ." 

"because even Alexander couldn't conquer y'all, or was it that Alexander??was 
the only one who conquered y'all. Whatever. "

(means)??= Since American imperialism and the militarized state cannot??
conquer the people of Afghanistan, the state department wants a policy shift to??
begin negotiations with the fascist cleric the intelligence agencies of??the US 
installed decades ago.??

^^^^
CB:?Well it's a joke, but 
?You clipped out
:?"look bros, obviously you are some 
bad motherfuckers because...etc"
making?yours a?distortng,?half-quote,??
twisting the meaning into its opposite.

"look bros, obviously you are some 
bad motherfuckers because...etc"
?(means) = you have an?ancient?legacy of
fierce self-determination and resistence
to Western colonialism. 

As to your formulation, true?that the proto-Taliban?
groups?may never
have defeated the Red Army protecting the socialist
government without hi tech weapons and other support
from the US and Pakistani ISI, but? how?is that?
pertinent now ??And it's not clear
that since the US ( a "militarized
state" beyond compare in history)is now
fighting them instead of arming them,
and the Pakistani ISI's energies are
diverted to its own challenges,
that, there might not be a different 
outcome this time.? So, no not
the US can't defeat them this time,
(Did Alexander defeat them or not ?)
but "lets see if we can both avoid
trying to find out." and get to "Peace
out " .? Lets look forward instead
of backward.

Obama?strives to break with
the Reaganite/Bush legacy and?policies, 
which break could be
of?interest?to the Taliban, who likely don't 
want to keep fighting either.


?"you can't disrespect females like you are. You dig ? You are dumber than??
apes when it come to the girls. So why not drop the extraordinary anti-women??
total bullshit and peace out ?"

(means) = The problem with Afghanistan is the Women Factor and the??treatment 
of women by one of the political factions in the country. 

^^^^^
there is a profound issue of 
principle here concerning
the status of women,and the
principle is not Western decadence.

^^^^^^

What is wrong with such analysis, is the failure to take into account and??
ascend to the level of the domestic peace movement, which demands the withdrawal 
of the American military machine from Iraq and Afghanistan.

^^^^^
CB:? Iraq and Afghanistan are not identical
in that the?9/11 attackers were based in
the latter. ?Although Bush distorted and
exaggerated the response in the response
to Afghanistan, that aspect is not a nothing.
Obama has expressed a sense that is
a basis for paring down Bush's overreaction
to that legitimate aspect.

*****

CB:??Yes they can. A "communist" polarity is premature and sectarian??right 
now. We need a popular front, all peoples front.

Reply (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) 


A communist polarity was defined as uniting anyone and everyone around an??
economic program of survival. This program??- platform, can be summed up as??
"the only way to provide people socially necessary means of life, who have??
little or no money, is for the government to provide them these things." This??
platform is the "peoples program" and the people are wage earners or??
proletarians. 

^^^^^
CB: Best to include middle strata in a 
coalition and not call it a communist
polarity, but an all people's coalition.
Secondly, more importantly,
it's best to propose combining
work and government provided income
as the masses of the people, including
most wage-earners/proletarians are not
going to go for just giving a whole bunch
of other people welfare; since a lot
of the money for welfare comes from
taxing them. Get real. Reaganism just
got over like a political 
fat rat?for 30 years playing this. 

^^^^^^^

How and why is it premature to fight for what people are already fighting??
for? People are being evicted and walking away from high mortgages and??
homelessness is growing. Fighting for shelter is not premature. Advocacy for??
expansion of section 8 and food stamps for the entire working class is not??premature. 
Advocacy for health care for all Americans are not premature. 

^^^^
CB: 
And unemployment benefits .how ridiculous not
to praise a raise in unemployment benefits.

I didn't say it's premature to fight
for those things. I said a "_communist_ polarity"
is premature.? Communists' goal is
abolition of private property, not
what you want?redefine it as. Expanded
welfare is not communism. It's not
even socialism.

^^^^^^



"If I was Obama . . ." is probably the worse way possible to approach the??
practical and theoretical question of the meaning of a Popular Front in America.

^^^^^
CB: No it's definitely not the worse
way possible to approach it.

^^^^^
?
In fact what is a "Popular Front" in practice? A Popular Front is a concept 
of??organizations on the left preserving their political independence and 
working??towards a goal. What is the goal of the Popular Front in which you speak? 

^^^^
CB: The emphasis in a Popular
Front is lefts uniting with centers.The 
goal of a popular front today is
a reform of Reaganism.

^^^^


Truly sad . . . such is the result of race theory and seeking unity of the??
working class on the basis of uniting people around a concept of skin color,??
rather than economic facts of life. 

WL. 

^^^^^
CB:??Wrong again, one?, two, three, four ways
from?Sunday??(smile)


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Mon Mar  9 16:11:38 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 18:11:38 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama says US may reach out to Taliban
Message-ID: <d0d.4c59b206.36e6ee1a@aol.com>

"you can't disrespect females like you are. You dig ? You are dumber than  
apes when it come to the girls. So why not drop the extraordinary anti-women  
total bullshit and peace out ?" 
 
(means) = The problem with Afghanistan is the Women Factor and the   
treatment of women by one of the political factions in the country. 
 
^^^^^ there is a profound issue of principle here concerning the status of  
women,and the principle is not Western decadence.
 
 
Comment
 
How does the Obama administration seeking a new alliance - to reform its  
relationship with the Taliban, change the status of women in Afghanistan? When  
their status is the direct expression of the rule of the Taliban? 
 
The name of this thread is "Obama says US may reach out to Taliban" - a  
political faction. 
 
The issue of this thread is the Taliban rather than the status of women in  
Afghanistan. If you were Obama, which you are not, you still could not do  much 
about the status of women in Afghanistan because their status is governed  by 
the Taliban and the Taliban as a political faction - institution, is the  
result of American policy shifts and supported by our bourgeoisie. 
 
Here is the problem: the crux missile liberals scream bloody murder about  
the treatment of women in Afghanistan and Iraq as the ideological reason for  
invasion of these countries by our government. Surely all communists  understand 
this. Inasmuch as you have not written anything even remotely  suggesting 
closing US basis in Afghanistan and withdrawing US military forces, I  am 
assuming you support current American policy as Obama, in Afghanistan. 
 
Do you? 
 
On the contrary the issue of the status of women in Afghanistan - right now  
today, is in fact a question of Western decadence and the direct result of 
first  the British Indian Empire in contest and conflict with the old Russian 
Empire  and currently American imperial policy. How can this not be obvious? Are 
you not  aware that the people who financially and militarily helped the 
Taliban into  power live in our country and have government positions and was 
carrying out  American imperialist policy? Perhaps, there is a misunderstanding of 
what drives  American foreign policy, wherein one moment policy supports the 
Taliban, then  overthrow the Taliban government, through invasion and now seeks 
realignment  with the Taliban. 
 
Perhaps there is a need to more thoughtfully think out this penning away  
over the status of women in Afghanistan as the sharpest ideological hypocrisy of  
the bourgeoisie. What seems to be wrong is mistaking the Taliban for  
Afghanistan. 
 
********************
 
CB:  Iraq and Afghanistan are not identical in that the 9/11 attackers  were 
based in the latter.  Although Bush distorted and exaggerated the  response in 
the response to Afghanistan, that aspect is not a nothing. Obama has  
expressed a sense that is a basis for paring down Bush's overreaction to that  
legitimate aspect.
 
Reply
 
It is agreed that Iraq and Afghanistan are not identical. The comment above  
are disturbing. Me think the destruction of Iraq was "distorted and 
exaggerated"  and invading Afghanistan was nothing less than imperialist intrusion. It 
would  seem you do in fact support the invasion of Afghanistan, but favor a 
"paring  down" under the Obama administration, as the voice of American  
communists.  And the voice of this Marxist list serv, rather than  the voice calling 
for withdrawal of all American troops and the closing of  American military 
bases - a goal of an important segment of the anti-war  movement in our country. 
 
Me think that a paring down of US military troops anywhere on earth, is  best 
driven by the voice in our domestic politics as the unconditional  demand for 
the removal of our troops from specific countries.  
 
Perhaps I have again misunderstood your meaning . . . again. 
 
"Obama has expressed a sense that is a basis for paring down Bush's  
overreaction to that legitimate aspect."
 
Is "that legitimate aspect" the invasion of Afghanistan? 
 
Trying to view the world through Obama eyes, rather than communist morality  
and vision is fraught with danger and in the end drives one into the camp of 
the  imperialist bourgeoisie. 
 
Tragic. 
 
 
WL. 
 
 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Mon Mar  9 16:32:40 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 18:32:40 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Demands advanced by communists are demands of the
	proletariat.
Message-ID: <cdf.47ae5c3f.36e6f308@aol.com>


WL: How and why is it premature to fight for what people are already  
fighting for? People are being evicted and walking away from high mortgages and  
homelessness is growing. Fighting for shelter is not premature. Advocacy for  
expansion of section 8 and food stamps for the entire working class is not   
premature. Advocacy for health care for all Americans are not premature.  

^^^^ CB: And unemployment benefits .how ridiculous not to praise a  raise in 
unemployment benefits. 

I didn't say it's premature to  fight for those things. I said a "_communist_ 
polarity" is premature.   Communists' goal is abolition of private property, 
not what you want redefine it  as. Expanded welfare is not communism. It's not 
even  socialism.


Comment

In what relation do the  Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?
 
The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other  
working-class parties. 
 
They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as  a 
whole. 
 
They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape  
and mould the proletarian movement. 
_http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm_ 
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm) 
 

The communist goal is first and above all "victory to the workers in  their 
current struggle." That is the communist goal - Job 1, at all times. To  make 
the immediate and long term goal of communists the abolition of private  
property outside the field of victory to the workers in their current struggle  is 
just silly thinking. Communists do not have separate demands from various  
segment of the working class. IN fact it is these real world demands that  creates 
the line of march. Here is how Marx and Engels defined the task and role  of 
communists. 

"In the various stages of development which the  struggle of the working 
class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they  always and everywhere 
represent the interests of the movement as a whole.  
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most  
advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country,  that 
section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically,  
they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly  
understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general  results 
of the proletarian movement." (End quote) 
 
Here is where Marx deploy the communist concept of "the line of  march."  
 
What is wrong with formulating the goal of communists as abolition of  
private property, is a failure to advance on the basis of the here and now. If  
comrades are involved in the struggle for unemployment, and they are, that is  the 
goal. For instance, when communist are involved in a strike, the goal is not  
abolition of private property but to resolve the strike in favor of the 
workers  on strike. When the communist fought for Civil Rights and industrial 
unions the  goal was not to abolish private property but the realization of Civil 
Rights and  industrial unions. Why would this not be the case today? 
 
The idea that establishing a communist polarity means fighting for the  
abolition of private property makes no sense and is hopelessly sectarian. As if  
communist have interest outside the proletariat.  
 
The real issue is my refusal to praise winning a concession. I see no need  
for genuflecting. There are far to many other concessions to be fought for and  
won, than to pause and praise the Obama administration for unemployment 
benefit  extensions. Now that not taxing a portion of unemployment has been put 
into  effect, we might consider abolition of all taxes on unemployment, a policy  
change that begin under the Carter administration. We communists opposed  
taxing unemployment checks back when the Carter administration implemented this  
new taxation. We still oppose such. We have not changed our attitude in favor 
of  somehow fighting - detached from the mass of proletarians, a fight to 
abolish  private property. 
 
I find such thinking absolutely bizarre and outside the historical  
experience of American communism. 
 
Taxing unemployment was absurd then and is absurd today.   
 
Now is the time to push to reform the social safety net - welfare, to  expand 
to cover ever larger segments of the proletariat. Here is the meaning of  a 
communist polarity. A communist polarity is not a concept of ideology but  
fighting for needs from the standpoint of the proletariat.   
 
Expanding welfare is a communist demand and issue, but it is not an issue  
that only communists support. We are simply the most resolute championing on  
this issue. When did fighting for socially necessary means of life somehow  
become a non-communist demand and issue? 
 
When Clinton reformed "welfare as we know it" the communists were in the  
forefront and the most resolute fighters against this reform! The liberals  
deserted the fight for the expansion of the social safety net! The liberals said  
"welfare is no good because it makes people lazy" and we communists screamed  
bloody murder to the high heavens. 
 
I really do not understand the thinking that says we communists are not the  
most resolute fighters for the needs and demands of various segments of our  
working class, in the here and now. 
 
The 30 year battle for welfare expansion, which the communists have been at  
the forefront as the most unwavering and resolute fighters, can be advanced 
anew  - today, due to the widening dimensions of the crisis and the intersection 
of  class interests. Now it the time to push harder, for this communist 
demand,  and win individuals over to the vision and cause of communism. 
 
Obviously I believe in every fiber of my being that it is wrong and a  
disaster to try and win workers over to Obama and the Obama administration. What  I 
write is geared to winning the individual over to the cause of communism and  
the study of Marxism because we have answers and a superior way to look at and 
 understand the system of capitalist production, and why it is coming to an 
end. 
 
On a list that bills itself as Marxists I am going to write about modern  
communism and our history of fighting for immediate demands of the working class  
without compromising our vision of emancipation. Simply because we have a  
black democrat president, does not mean we should abandon our outlook as  
communist and students of Marx. In fact, the Obama administration and its fights  
with other sectarian capitalist interest opens up the playing field for  
communists and this is a good time to be a communists.  
 
The genuflecting to Mr. Obama, something he himself would find repulsive,  is 
positively disgusting and unwarranted.  
 
WL. 
 
 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Mon Mar  9 17:09:49 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 19:09:49 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?Obama=E2=80=99s_Interview_Aboard_Air_F?=
 =?utf-8?q?orce_One_3/8/09?=
Message-ID: <bc0.4ec69d22.36e6fbbd@aol.com>

New York Times March 8, 2009 
 
Transcript Obama?s Interview Aboard Air Force One 
 
President Obama spoke in a 35-minute interview aboard Air Force One on  
Friday afternoon as he traveled from Columbus, Ohio to Andrews Air Force Base.  
This is an edited transcript, as recorded by The New York Times. 
 
Q. You said it?s going to take a long time to get out of this economic  
crisis. Can you assure the American people that the economy will be growing by  the 
summer, the fall or the end of the year? 
 
A. I don?t think that anybody has that kind of crystal ball. We are going  
through a wrenching process of de-leveraging in the financial sectors ? not just 
 here in the United States, but all around the world ? that have profound  
consequences for Main Street. What started off as problems with the banks, led  
to a contraction of lending, which led in turn to both declining demand on the 
 part of consumers, but also declining demand on the part of business. So it 
is  going to take some time to work itself through. 
 
Our job is to do a couple of key things. Number one, to put in place key  
investments that will cushion the blow. Our recovery plan had provisions for  
unemployment insurance, for food stamps, what we just saw today, grants and  
assistance to states so layoffs aren?t compounded. The second thing we?ve got to  
do is we?re going to have to strengthen the financial system. We?ve taken 
some  significant steps already to do that ? just for example this week, opening 
up a  trillion-dollar credit line. But there?s going to be more work to be 
done there  because there are some banks that are still limping along and we?ve 
got to  strengthen their capital bases and get them lending again. 
 
We?ve got to be able to distinguish in the marketplace between those banks  
that have real problems and those banks that are actually on pretty solid  
footing. We?ve still got the auto situation that we?re going to have to address.  
And finally, we?ve got to make the investments for long-term economic growth  
around energy, education and health care. I?m not trying to filibuster, it 
was a  big question. 
 
Our belief and expectation is that we will get all the pillars in place for  
recovery this year. Those are the things we have control over and we have  
confidence that working with Congress we can get the pillars of recovery in  
place. How long it will take before recovery actually translates into stronger  
job markets and so forth is going to depend on a whole range of factors,  
including our ability to get other countries to coordinate and take similar  actions 
because part of what you?re seeing now is weaknesses in Europe that are  
actually greater than some of the weaknesses here, bouncing back and having an  
impact on our markets. 
 
Q. Can you envision allowing a major institution to fail? Can you say with  
certainty that you won?t need to ask Congress for any more money beyond the 
$250  billion placeholder in your budget. 
 
A. I am absolutely committed to making sure that our financial system is  
stable. And so I think people can be assured that we?ll do whatever is required  
to keep that from happening. For example, that would mean preventing  
institutions that could cause systemic risks to the system being just left on  their 
own. We?re going to make sure that the financial system is stabilized and  in 
terms of the resources that are involved. We think the $250 billion  
placeholder is a pretty good estimate. We have no reason to revise that estimate  that?s 
in the budget. One of the benefits I think of this budget was we tried to  
surface as honestly and as forthrightly as possible, all the costs of this  
crisis, all the costs of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, all the potential  costs 
of things like fixing the AMT, which historically have been left off the  
budget. Something that I don?t think people recognize is that had we used the  
same gimmicks that had been used previously, we could have driven down our  
budget projections over the next 10 years, down to point where debt was only 1.3  
or 1.5 percent of G.D.P. We could have made ourselves look really good, but I  
felt very strongly that part of what got us in trouble in the first place, 
both  in the private sector and the public sector, was a failure to do honest  
accounting about what risks are out there, about what costs are out there and  
factoring those in, and that?s something that we?ve tried to change. 
 
Q. Have you figured out how you would draw the lines against endless  
rescues? 
 
A. Part of the function of the stress test that is being conducted by  
Treasury right now is to make a determination using some worst-case scenario ?  what 
that would mean for a bank?s balance sheet. And I think that what you  should 
see emerging there is an awful lot of banks that are in decent shape  
considering the circumstances. They?ve been managed well. They didn?t take undue  
risks. Obviously, they?re being hit like every business is being hit by the  
recession, but they can recover, and if they do need help, it?s going to be  
short-term help. There may be a handful of institutions that have more serious  
problems. And what we want to do is to cauterize the wound. 
 
Q. And they?ll have to fail, the ones that had more serious problems? 
 
A. No, no, no, no. But what we?ll have to do is, we?ll probably have to  
take more significant action to deal with those institutions. 
 
But the point is that our commitment is to make sure that any actions we  
take to maintain stability in the system, begin to loosen up credit and lending  
once again so that businesses and consumers can borrow. And if they can, then  
you?re going to start seeing businesses invest once again and you?re going 
to  see people hired once again, but it?s going to take some time. 
 
Q. The first six weeks have given people a glimpse of your spending  
priorities. Are you a socialist as some people have suggested? 
 
A. You know, let?s take a look at the budget ? the answer would be no. 
 
Q. Is there anything wrong with saying yes? 
 
A. Let?s just take a look at what we?ve done. We?ve essentially said that,  
number one, we?re going to reduce non-defense discretionary spending to the  
lowest levels in decades. So that part of the budget that doesn?t include  
entitlements and doesn?t include defense ? that we have the most control over ?  
we?re actually setting on a downward trajectory in terms of percentage of 
G.D.P.  So we?re making more tough choices in terms of eliminating programs and 
cutting  back on spending than any administration has done in a very long time. 
We?re  making some very tough choices. 
 
What we have done is in a couple of critical areas that we have put off  
action for a very long time, decided that now is the time to ask. One is on  
health care. As you heard in the health care summit yesterday, there is uniform  
belief that the status quo is broken and if we don?t do anything, we will be in  
a much worse place, both fiscally as well as in terms of what?s happening to  
families and businesses than if we did something. 
 
The second area is on energy, which we?ve been talking about for decades.  
Now, in each of those cases, what we?ve said is, on our watch, we?re going to  
solve problems that have weakened this economy for a generation. And it?s 
going  to be hard and it?s going to require some costs. But if you look on the 
revenue  side what we?re proposing, what we?re looking at is essentially to go 
back to  the tax rates that existed during the 1990s when, as I recall, rich 
people were  doing very well. In fact everybody was doing very well. We have 
proposed a cap  and trade system, which could create some additional costs, but 
the vast  majority of that we want to give back in the form of tax breaks to 
the 95  percent of working families. 
 
So if you look at our budget, what you have is a very disciplined, fiscally  
responsible budget, along with an effort to deal with some very serious 
problems  that have been put off for a very long time. And that I think is exactly 
what I  proposed during the campaign. We are following through on every 
commitment that  we?ve made, and that?s what I think is ultimately going to get our 
economy back  on track. 
 
Q. So to people who suggested that you are more liberal than you suggested  
on the campaign, you say, what? 
 
A. I think it would be hard to argue, Jeff. We have delivered on every  
promise that we?ve made so far. We said that we would end the war in Iraq and  we?
ve put forward a responsible plan. 
 
Q. In terms of spending. 
 
A. Oh, in terms of spending. Well, if you look at spending, what we said  
during the campaign was, is that we were going to raise taxes on the top five  
percent. That?s what our budget does. We said that we?d give a tax cut to 95  
percent of working Americans. That?s exactly what we have done. That?s the 
right  thing to do. It provides relief to families that basically saw no growth 
in  wages and incomes over the last decade. It asks for a little bit more for 
people  like myself who benefited greatly over the last decade and took a  
disproportionate share of a growing economy. I actually don?t think that anybody  
who examines our budget can come away with the conclusion that somehow this is 
a  ? that this is in any way different than what we proposed during the 
campaign. 
 
But more to the point, it is what?s needed in order to put this economy on  a 
more stable footing. One of the problems that we?ve had is that we have put  
off big problems again and again and again and again. And as I?ve said in my  
speech to the joint session of Congress, at some point there is a day of  
reckoning. Well, that day of reckoning has come. 
 
What I?m refusing to do and what I?ve instructed my staff that we will not  
do is to try to kick the can down the road, to try to paper over problems, try 
 to use gimmicks on budgets, try to pretend that health care is not an issue, 
to  continue with a situation where we are exporting ? importing ? more and 
more oil  from the middle east, continuing with a situation in which average 
working  families are seeing their wages flat line. At some point, we?ve got to 
take on  these problems. 
 
Q. Is there one word name for your philosophy? If you?re not a socialist,  
are you a liberal? Are you progressive? One word? 
 
A. No, I?m not going to engage in that. 
 
Q. Mr. President, we need to turn it to foreign policy. I know we have a  
review going on right now about Afghanistan policy, but right now can you tell  
us, are we winning in Afghanistan? 
 
A. No. I think that we are ? we are doing an extraordinary job, or let me  
say it this way: Our troops are doing an extraordinary job in a very difficult  
situation. But you?ve seen conditions deteriorate over the last couple of 
years.  The Taliban is bolder than it was. I think the ? in the southern regions 
of the  country, you?re seeing them attack in ways that we have not seen 
previously. The  national government still has not gained the confidence of the 
Afghan people.  And so it#8217;s going to be critical for us to not only, get 
through these  national elections to stabilize the security situation, but we?ve 
got to recast  our policy so that our military, diplomatic and development 
goals are all  aligned to ensure that al Qaeda and extremists that would do us 
harm don?t have  the kinds of safe havens that allow them to operate. 
 
At the heart of a new Afghanistan policy is going to be a smarter Pakistan  
policy. As long as you?ve got safe havens in these border regions that the  
Pakistani government can?t control or reach, in effective ways, we?re going to  
continue to see vulnerability on the afghan side of the border. And so it?s 
very  important for us to reach out to the Pakistani government, and work with 
them  more effectively. 
 
Q. Do you see a time when you might be willing to reach out to more  moderate 
elements of the Taliban, to try to peel them away, towards  reconciliation? 
 
A. I don?t want to pre-judge the review that?s currently taking place. If  
you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success 
in  Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic  
fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been  
completely alienated by the tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq. 
 
There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani  
region. But the situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex. You 
have  a less governed region, a history of fierce independence among tribes. 
Those  tribes are multiple and sometimes operate at cross purposes, so figuring 
all  that out is going to be a much more of a challenge. 
 
Q. In a post-9/11 world, when it comes to employing American power in that  
world, including at home and abroad, and the balance between securities and  
civil liberties, what do you think now that you?ve been in office, that  
President Bush, if anything, got right, in figuring out that balance? 
 
A. I think that I would distinguish between some of the steps that were  
taken immediately after 9/11 and where we were by the time I took office. I  think 
the C.I.A., for example, and some of the controversial programs that have  
been a focus of a lot of attention, took steps to correct certain policies and  
procedures after those first couple of years. I think that Admiral Hayden and  
Mike McConnell at D.N.I. were capable public servants who really had America?
s  security interests in mind when they acted, and I think were mindful of 
American  values and ideals. 
 
Q. Are we closer to that balance right now? 
 
A. I think we?ve still got work to do in dealing with those initial steps.  
Guantanamo being Exhibit A. As a consequence of a series of early decisions, we 
 now have people in Guantanamo who have not been tried, have not had an  
opportunity to answer charges, many of whom are dangerous, some of whom are very  
difficult to try, will be ? some of whom will be difficult to try because of 
the  manner in which evidence was obtained. 
 
So there?s a clean-up operation that has to take place, and that?s  
complicated. As I said when I announced my decision to close Guantanamo, for us  to 
have tried to have done that in less than a year would have been completely  
unrealistic. And even doing it within a year is requiring an enormous amount of  
attention and focus on the part of our ... 
 
Q. Is it within the realm of possibility that some of these Guantanamo  
detainees might have actually been released into the United States, the Uighurs,  
or somebody like that? 
 
A. I don?t want to, again, prejudge the reviews. We are being very  
deliberate, very careful to make sure that we get this right. There are still  going to 
be some balancing ? there is still going to be some balancing that has  to be 
done and some competing interests that are going to have to be addressed.  
But what I?m confident about is moving forward we can create a national security 
 operation and set of procedures that keep us safe and secure and are also 
true  to our traditions. That I?m increasingly confident of. 
 
Q. Leon Panetta has said that we?re going to continue renditions, provided  we
?re not sending people to countries that torture. Why continue them at all? 
 
A. Well, I think that you?re giving a slightly more definitive response  than 
Director Panetta provided, but what I?ll say is this: We are now conducting  
a review of the rendition policy, there could be situations, and I emphasize ? 
 could be ? because we haven?t made a determination yet, where let?s say we 
have  a well-known Al Qaeda operative, that doesn?t surface very often, 
appears in a  third country, with whom we don?t have an extradition relationship, or 
would not  be willing to prosecute him, but we think is a very dangerous 
person. I think we  will have to think about how do we deal with that scenario in 
a way that  comports with international law and abides by my very clear edict 
that we don?t  torture, and that we ultimately provide anybody that we?re 
detaining an  opportunity through habeas corpus. to answer to charges. 
 
How all that sorts itself out is extremely complicated because it?s not  just 
domestic law it#8217;s also international law, our relationship with  various 
other entities. And so, again, it will take this year to be able to get  all 
of these procedures in place and on the right footing. 
 
Q: Turning to other matters, when it comes to race relations, do you agree  
that we?re a nation of cowards? 
 
A: I think it?s fair to say that if I had been advising my attorney  general, 
we would have used different language. I think the point that he was  making 
is that we?re oftentimes uncomfortable with talking about race until  there?s 
some sort of racial flare-up or conflict, and that we could probably be  more 
constructive in facing up to the painful legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and  
discrimination. 
 
But what I would add to that is the fact that we?ve made enormous progress  
and we shouldn?t lose sight of that. And I?m not somebody who believes that  
constantly talking about race somehow solves racial tensions. I think what  
solves racial tensions is fixing the economy, putting people to work, making  
sure that people have heath care, ensuring that every kid is learning out here.  
I think if we do that, then we?ll probably have more fruitful conversations. 
 
Q: Speaking of the economy, what advice would you give ordinary Americans  
who are struggling through these times? You?ve asked people for their patience.  
What should people do now? 
 
A: Well, obviously, you?ve got 300 million Americans so I don?t think you  
can generalize across the board. I think that people would feel confident that  
every time we?ve had an economic challenge like the one that we?re having ?  
although this is one of the bigger ones ? that we?ve gotten through it, that 
the  pillars of recovery will be in place this year. 
 
Q: What should the unemployed in particular ... 
 
A: Well, hold on a second. There are still groceries to be bought and kids  
to send to school and cars in need of repair and young families that need to  
find homes. And so what I would say to people is, obviously, be prudent. I 
think  that ordinary families should have learned from the last few years and 
recent  history that if something sounds too good to be true ? whether it?s stock 
market  returns or appreciating housing prices ? that sometimes they are too 
good to be  true, and that what we should be looking for is steady growth, 
steady  accumulations of savings, steady and prudent investing. And that I think 
is what  you?re going to see emerging after we?ve gotten through the worst of 
this  crisis. 
 
What I don?t think people should do is suddenly stuff money in their  
mattresses and pull back completely from spending. I don?t think that people  should 
be fearful about our future. I don?t think that people should suddenly  
mistrust all of our financial institutions because the overwhelming majority of  
them actually have managed things reasonably well. But I think that coming out  
of this crisis what you?re going to see is, you know, a return to the  
fundamentals ? hard work, investing for reasonable returns over time, saving  steadily 
for your kids? college education and for your retirement. All of us,  
thinking about our purchases and making sure that we?re taking care of the  
necessities before we go after the luxuries. And I think that?s true not only  for 
individual families but I think that?s going to be true for government as  well. 
And if we take those steps, if we return to the fundamentals, if we go  back to 
that ad that used to run, where they say, you know, ?we earn money the  old 
fashioned way? -- or what is it? 
 
(Cross talk) 
 
A: ?We make money the old fashioned way, we earn it.? If we go back to that  
philosophy and we finally tackle some problems we?ve been putting off, like  
health care, like energy, like education, then I think we?re going to come out 
 of this stronger. 
 
Q: Sir, we?re landing here, but what are you reading these days? What kind  
of newspapers do you read, do you read the clips, do you read actual papers, do 
 you watch television? 
 
A: Other than The New York Times? 
 
Q: Other than The New York Times. Do you read Web sites? What Web sites do  
you look at? 
 
A: I read most of the big national papers. 
 
Q. Do you read them in clips or do you read them in the paper? 
 
A. No, I read the paper. I like the feel of a newspaper. I read most of the  
weekly newsmagazines. I may not read them from cover to cover but I?ll thumb  
through them. You know, I spend most of my time these days reading a lot of  
briefings. 
 
Q: And television? Do you watch? Web sites? 
 
A: I don?t watch much television, I confess. 
 
Q: And Web sites? 
 
Q: No blogs? 
 
A: I rarely read blogs. 
 
Q: No reality shows with your girls? 
 
A: No. They watch them, but I don?t join them. I watch basketball. That?s  
what I watch. 
 
Q: Have you gotten a new appreciation at all, or maybe a little sympathy  for 
what your predecessors went through in terms of a president can?t control  
all the events? 
 
A: Oh, absolutely. Look, I actually appreciated that before I took office.  I 
always felt that a president is accountable for making the best decisions, 
but  that there are going to be a lot of unexpected twists and turns along the 
way.  And as I said recently, this is still a human enterprise and these are 
big,  tough, complicated problems. Somebody noted to me that by the time 
something  reaches my desk, that means it?s really hard. Because if it were easy, 
somebody  else would have made the decision and somebody else would have solved 
it. So  typically, if something?s in my folder, it means that you?ve got some 
very big,  difficult, sticky, contradictory issues to be wrestled with. 
 
Q: Has anybody said to you, No, sir, you can?t do that? Has there been a  
moment in these last six weeks where you tried to do something and somebody  
said, Sorry, sir, it doesn?t work that way? 
 
A: Well, I mean, I think what we were talking about earlier in terms of  
Guantanamo. People didn?t have to tell me, No you can?t do that. It was simply,  
Well, sir, here are the challenges that we face in terms of making a decision  
about that. In the entire banking sector ? we spend every day, myself, Rahm  
Emanuel, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Christina Romer, every single day, we 
will  spend at least an hour of my time just talking through how we are 
approaching  the financial markets. 
 
And part of the reason we don?t spend a lot of time looking at blogs is  
because if you haven?t looked at it very carefully then you may be under the  
impression that somehow there?s a clean answer one way or another ? well, you  
just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they?ll be  
fine, or this or that or the other. The truth is this is a very complex set of  
problems and bad decisions can result in huge taxpayer expenditures and poor  
results. 
 
And so what I expect from my team is to constantly be guided by evidence,  
facts, talking through all the best arguments, drawing from all the best  
perspectives, and then talking the best course of action possible given the fact  
that there are some big uncertainties and that sometimes what people may want  
may actually be contradictory. So, for example, lately, people have been  
concerned ? understandably ? about the decline in the market. Well, the reason  
the market?s declining is because the economy?s declining and it?s generating a 
 lot of bad news, not surprisingly. And so what I?m focused on is fixing the  
underlying economy. That?s ultimately what?s going to fix the markets, but 
in  the interim you?ve got some folks who would love to see us artificially 
prop up  the market by just putting in more taxpayer money which in the short 
term could  make bank balance sheets look better, you know, make creditors and 
bondholders  and shareholders of these financial institutions feel better and 
you could get a  little blip. But we?d be in the exact same spot as we were six, 
eight, 10 months  from now. So what I?ve got to do is make sure that we?re 
focused on the  underlying economy and if we do that right, if we do that well, 
and I?m  confident that we will, then after some very tough times, and after 
a lot of  hardship on the part of some of the people that I hear from every 
day who?ve  lost their jobs or don?t have health insurance or what have you, 
that we?re  going to get this economy moving again. And I think over the long 
term we?re  going to be much better off. 
 
Q. Are you sleeping sir or is it hard to sleep? 
 
A. Ohhhhh, I always sleep because when I?m not sleeping I?m working. 
 
Q. You never feel burdened by it, though? You?ve come into ? there are so  
many problems that the country faces. Do you feel the weight of that now as  
president? 
 
A. As I said feel as if I?ve got a great team and we are making the best  
decisions under the circumstances. Do I wish that I had the luxury of maybe  
dealing with one monumental problem at a time during the course of the year? Of  
course and in fact, you know, you?ve been hearing sort of our opposition lately 
 saying, ?Well, he?s trying to do this and that and the other, and he shouldn
?t ?  ?Look, I wish I had the luxury of just dealing with a modest recession 
or just  dealing with health care or just dealing with energy or just dealing 
with Iraq  or just dealing with Afghanistan. I don?t have that luxury and I 
don?t think the  American people do either. We?ve got to use this moment to 
solve some big  problems once and for all so that the next generation is not 
saddled with even  worse problems than we have right now. All right? Thanks. 
 
****** 
 
At 2:30 p.m., President Obama called The New York Times, saying he wanted  to 
clarify a point from the interview. Here is a transcript of that brief call: 
 
President Obama: Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on  the 
copter. It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about  
that socialist question. I did think it might be useful to point out that it  
wasn?t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn?t 
on  my watch. And it wasn?t on my watch that we passed a massive new 
entitlement ?  the prescription drug plan without a source of funding. And so I think it?
s  important just to note when you start hearing folks through these words 
around  that we?ve actually been operating in a way that has been entirely 
consistent  with free-market principles and that some of the same folks who are 
throwing the  word socialist around can?t say the same. 
 
Q. So who?s watch are we talking about here? 
 
A. Well, I just think it?s clear by the time we got here, there already had  
been an enormous infusion of taxpayer money into the financial system. And the 
 thing I constantly try to emphasize to people if that coming in, the market 
was  doing fine, nobody would be happier than me to stay out of it. I have 
more than  enough to do without having to worry the financial system. The fact 
that we?ve  had to take these extraordinary measures and intervene is not an 
indication of  my ideological preference, but an indication of the degree to 
which lax  regulation and extravagant risk taking has precipitated a crisis. 
 
I think that covers it. 
 
Link: _http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/us/politics/08obama-text.html_ 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/us/politics/08obama-text.html)  
 
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From Waistline2 at aol.com  Mon Mar  9 17:53:09 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 19:53:09 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Which side are you on ?
Message-ID: <c5d.4525ad1a.36e705e5@aol.com>

^^^^^ CB: Well, yeah, that more later 
 
WL: The issue is not "me" or "who I am," rather the issue is how are   
comrades to frame the current struggle of the working class. 
 

^^^^^^ CB: Well, yeuuuh.  Is you is or is you ain't ain't the  issue.  I 
figured that out 30 years ago. And some comrades around here are  not framing the 
current struggles of the working class correctly.  when  they fail to see that 
Obama is the leader of the working class right now.   Stuff like "O is the 
CEO of the capitalists is bad framing. Hisotric, maybe  world historic erroneous 
framing.
 
Comment
 
The issue is not what you figured out 30 years ago. The issue of  framing 
Obama as CEO of the capitalist class versus a refusal to articulate  class and 
class, is the issue of the purpose of this list serv and why it calls  itself 
Marxist-Theory-Practice.  Marxism-Thaxis
 
The problem in my estimate is seeking whose is wrong rather than what is  
wrong. 
 
*****************
 
Which side are you on is not a conception of  
Democrats or  Republicans but workers and capitalist. 
 
WL. 
 
^^^^^^^
CB: Wrong. Right now the Democrats of Obama
is the side to be  on. Which side are you on ?
 
*************
 
Reply
 
It is wrong not to be on the side of the Democratic party, is asmuch as  
President Obama is the head Democrat. 
 
The side of the proletariat as it spontaneous strives to realize and  express 
itself as a class, is the side I am on and have been on for a  while.  Simply 
because I advocate for say welfare and a part of the  political establishment 
expand welfare does not mean I am on their side. What  has happened is called 
the intersection of class interest. Even my voting for  Obama does not mean I 
am on the Democrat of Obama side. Momentary identity of  intersecting class 
interest always occur in any field of politics. Anyone  elected to any office 
understands this plain most common aspect of politics. 
 
8 years from now and then 12 years from now, the evidence is that I stand a  
good chance of being found on the side I have been on for the past 40 years. 
 
The side to be on is always the issues dear to the working class and on  this 
basis various segments of the political establishment line up. 
 
I am not on the side of the Democrats of Obama. You are free to become a  
democrat. Actually, brother you write as a social democrat and not a communist  
or Marxist. Your criticisms is basically against my use of the word class and  
capitalist. 
 
WL. 





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From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Mon Mar  9 20:36:23 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 19:36:23 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama opens up stem cell work, science inquiries
Message-ID: <110250.24864.qm@web180115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


Obama opens up stem cell work, science inquiries
By SETH BORENSTEIN and BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writers Seth Borenstein And Ben Feller, 
AP???President Barack Obama signs an Executive Order on stem cells and a Presidential Memorandum on scientific?? 
WASHINGTON ? From tiny embryonic cells to the large-scale
?physics of global warming, President Barack Obama urged researchers on Monday to follow science and not ideology as he abolished contentious Bush-era 
restraints on stem-cell research. "Our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values," Obama declared as he 
signed documents changing U.S. science policy and removing 
what some researchers have said were shackles on their work.
"It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda ? and that we make scientific decisions based on facts,
?not ideology," Obama said.
Researchers said the new president's message 
was clear: Science, which once propelled men to the moon, again matters in American life.
Opponents saw it differently: a defeat for 
morality in the most basic questions of life and death.
"The action by the president today will, 
in effect, allow scientists to create their own guidelines without proper moral restraints," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said.
In a crowded ornate East Room, there were
?more scientists in the White House than Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science had seen in his 
30 years in Washington. "More happy scientists than I've seen," he added.
The most immediate effect will allow federally
?funded researchers to use hundreds of new embryonic stem cell lines for promising, but still long-range research in hopes of creating better treatments,
?possibly even cures, for conditions ranging from diabetes to paralysis. Until now, those researchers had to limit themselves to just 21 stem cell lines
?created before August 2001, when 
President George W. Bush limited funding because of "fundamental questions about the beginnings of life and the ends of science."
Science, politics and religion have long intertwined 
and conflicted with each other. In his actions Monday, especially with the stem cell decision, Obama is emphasizing more the science than the
?religion, when compared with his predecessor, science policy experts say. But they acknowledged politics is still involved.
Don't expect stem cell cures or treatments anytime soon. One company this summer will begin the world's first study of a treatment using
?human embryonic stem cells, in people
?who recently suffered spinal cord injuries. Research institutions on Monday were gearing up to ask for more freely flowing federal money, and
?the National Institutes of Health was creating guidelines on how to hand it out and include ethical constraints. It will be months before the
?stem cell money flows; the average NIH stem cell grant is $1.5 million spread out over four years.
Scientists focused on a new sense of freedom.
"I think patients everywhere will be cheering us on,
?imploring us to work faster, harder and with all of our ability to find new treatments," said Harvard Stem Cell Institute co-director Doug Melton, father
?of two children with Type I diabetes who could possibly be treated with stem cells. "On a personal level, it is an enormous relief and a time for 
celebration. ... Science thrives when there is an open and collaborative exchange, not when there are artificial barriers, silos, constructed by the government."
Opponents framed their opposition mostly, 
but not exclusively, on moral grounds and the scientifically contested claims that adult stem cells work just as well.
Said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned
?Women for America: "President Obama's order places the worst kind of politics above ethics. Politics driven by hype makes overblown promises,
?fuels the desperation of the suffering and financially benefits those seeking to strip morality from science."
In Congress, Reps. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., 
and Mike Castle, R-Del., said they would seek a quick vote on legislation to codify Obama's order in federal law, after failing twice in the past to 
overturn Bush's restrictions. DeGette said she doesn't want stem cell research to become "a pingpong ball going back and forth between administrations."
But Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., chairman of the
?Republican study committee, said the president's new policy would "force taxpayers to subsidize research that will destroy human embryos." 
De Gette and Castle said their legislation tries to minimize destruction of embryos.
Stem cells are typically derived from fertility 
clinic surplus, destined for destruction.
Obama also said the stem cell policy is designed
?so that it "never opens the door to the use of 
cloning for human reproduction." Such cloning, 
he said, "is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society or any society."
In addition to the stem cell order, Obama issued 
a memo designed to ensure openness about 
scientific research and give whistleblower protection to scientists. 
Promoting science "is about letting scientists
?like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient ? especially 
when it's inconvenient," Obama said. 
Science and politics often conflict, said 
Granger Morgan, professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and a former science advisory board chairman for the 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ? perhaps illustrated no more wildly than in 1897 when the Indiana legislature attempted to change the
?mathematical concept of pi to 3.2. Science should provide the facts that politicians use for their decisions, Morgan and Leshner said. 
Many scientists and environmental activists 
complained that the Bush administration had
?censored and marginalized science. That's a 
perception that Bush science adviser John Marburger
?repeatedly called untrue and unfair, as
?he addressed a series of occurrences that troubled critics. 
In 2006, the White House edited out congressional 
testimony about public health effects of global 
warming by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Julie Gerberding. A 2003 EPA global warming document was edited by 
nonscientists at the White House. A NASA 
political appointee tried ? and failed ? to 
silence the agency's top climate scientist. 
Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona resigned in 2006, complaining about White House interference on global health issues: "The 
problem with this approach is that in public health, as in democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science or marginalizing the voice of 
science for reasons driven by changing political winds." 
Obama advisers contend that all has changed. The government has already put on hold rules about scientific input on endangered species, reinstating
?advice that had been excised during the Bush administration. 
Public policy must "be guided by sound scientific 
advice," said Dr. Harold Varmus, the Nobel Prize-winning co-chairman of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The new
?memo Obama signed is "mainly a way of trying to
?prevent tampering with any advice," Varmus told MSNBC. 
___ 
Associated Press writers Lauran Neergaard, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Philip Elliott contributed to this report.


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Mon Mar  9 22:29:22 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 21:29:22 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Backlash Against Obama's Budget ;
	which side are you on
Message-ID: <758062.2194.qm@web180109.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


There's a big class battle brewing.
Which side are you on ?


http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_11/b4123016507664.htm 



BusinessWeek 
BusinessWeek Exchange 
Search all of BusinessWeek.com: 

NEWS MarBusinessWeek 
BusinessWeek Exchange 
Search all of BusinessWeek.com: 

NEWS March 5, 2009, 5:00PM EST 
A Backlash Against Obama's Budget 
Businesses from startups to global giants to drugmakers and farmers 
are gearing up to fight the President's spending plan with ad 
campaigns and public protests 
ch 5, 2009, 5:00PM EST 
A Backlash Against Obama's Budget 
Businesses from startups to global giants to drugmakers and farmers 
are gearing up to fight the President's spending plan with ad 
campaigns and public protests 



From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Mon Mar  9 23:14:54 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 22:14:54 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama gets high marks in the latest NEWSWEEK poll, 
Message-ID: <468194.94620.qm@web180114.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


It's the People vs the Business class.
Which side are you on ?

CB

^^^^^^^

Newsweek 
Honeymoon In Hell 
Amid all the gloom, Obama gets high marks in the latest NEWSWEEK poll, 
with the GOP in the doghouse. 

Michael Hirsh 
Newsweek Web Exclusive 

Despite the tumbling economy,
?Barack Obama continues to enjoy a 
honeymoon with the American public 
in the face of the most trying 
crisis any newly inaugurated president
?has encountered since Franklin 
Delano Roosevelt. The GOP, 
meanwhile, is viewed by a majority of 
Americans as the party of "no," 
without a plan of its own to fix the 
economy, and even rank-and-file
?Republicans are concerned about the 
party's direction, according to the
?first NEWSWEEK Poll taken since 
Obama assumed office. 

"People give Obama credit for 
reaching out to Republicans, but they 
don't see Republicans reciprocating,"
?says pollster Larry Hugick, 
whose firm conducted the survey. 
"A surprising number said 
bipartisanship is more important
?than getting things done." 

Overall, 58 percent 
of Americans 
surveyed approve of the job Obama is 
doing, while 26 percent
?disapprove 
and one in six (16 percent) has no 
opinion. Although his approval ratings
?are down from levels seen a few 
weeks ago in other polls, 72 percent 
of Americans still say they have 
a favorable opinion of Obama?
a higher rating than he received in 
NEWSWEEK Polls during the
?presidential campaign last year. The 
president's rating in this poll is 
consistent with estimates provided 
by other national media polls in the last week. 

On the most important issue 
of the day, the NEWSWEEK Poll shows that 
close to two thirds (65 percent) 
of the public say they are very or 
somewhat confident that Obama
?will be successful in turning the 
economy around. That's down 
just a little from the 71 percent who felt 
that way before he took office.
?Still, overall perceptions of the 
economy remain solidly negative,
?with 84 percent saying the national 
economy is in poor shape and 
just 3 percent viewing things positively. 

The public is also dubious about 
some of the president's programs. 
Majorities of Americans think too 
much has been spent so far to help 
rescue large banks in danger of
?failing and domestic auto companies 
facing bankruptcy. A somewhat 
surprising majority (56 percent) 
supports nationalizing large banks
?at risk of failing?a policy the 
Obama administration has shied
?away from. And fewer than half of those 
polled (49 percent) say they support 
Obama's proposal to allow the 
expiration of tax cuts for those with
?incomes above $250,000 at the 
end of next year. (Forty-two percent 
say they oppose ending these 
cuts.) 

Even so, faith in Obama personally
?has apparently carried over into 
optimism about the future. More 
than a third (37 percent) of the 
public expect economic conditions 
to improve in the next 12 months, 
compared with 29 percent who 
think things will be worse. Another big 
plus for the president's policies 
is that a huge majority of Americans 
(73 percent) favor his plan to remove
?most U.S. troops from Iraq by 
the end of next year. 

The biggest problem for the GOP,
?according to the poll, may be that 58 
percent of Americans believe that Republicans
?who have opposed Obama's 
economic-rescue plans have no plan of their 
own for turning the 
economy around. With the Republicans
?having lost the White House and 
both houses of Congress, public
?identification with the party has 
dropped to a recent low point of 26 
percent, after running at or near 
30 percent for most of the last 15 years.
?That's the lowest level 
since the Watergate era and a
?striking loss of stature for the party, 
considering that self-described 
conservatives continue to outnumber 
liberals in the country by nearly two to 
one (39 percent vs. 20 
percent). 

Many Republicans express concern
?about where their party is headed and 
whether GOP leaders in Congress are
?in touch with their constituents. 
Asked about the direction of their party,
?45 percent of rank-and-file 
Republicans say it is moving in the 
right direction, while more than a 
third (35 percent) think it is going in
?the wrong direction. This is 
in sharp contrast to what a NEWSWEEK
?Poll found in 1999 after the 
Clinton impeachment hearings. 
At that time, 65 percent of Republicans 
said their party was headed in the right direction. 

Some of these results spring from 
discontent over Republican 
leadership; other survey respondents
?indicate the party is 
ideologically lost. More than half 
of Republicans today (52 percent) 
say they don't think GOP congressional 
leaders are in touch with what 
the average Republican thinks. While four 
in 10 Republicans (39 
percent) think the GOP is about right
?in terms of ideology, another 38 
percent believe it is not conservative 
enough, and only 20 percent 
think it is too conservative. 

Apart from Obama himself, however, 
the Democratic Party can hardly 
crow about these results. The public's
?general disdain for 
Congress?including the Democratic leadership?hasn't changed much since 
the Democrats took over in 2006. More people have an unfavorable 
opinion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
?than a favorable one (41 percent 
vs. 35 percent). Senate Majority Leader 
Harry Reid fares little 
better, with 28 percent viewing him 
unfavorably and 23 percent with a 
favorable opinion. One reason for Pelosi's 
and Reid's low numbers is 
that by a large margin?51 percent to 40 percent?
Americans say they 
value bipartisanship in Washington over 
getting things done quickly. 
And the public doesn't see Democratic congressional leaders acting in 
a bipartisan manner nearly as much as Obama,
?who is given credit for 
trying: 71 percent feel that the president 
has made a reasonable 
effort to work with and listen to Republicans on Capitol Hill. 

The results are based on telephone
?interviews conducted March 4-5 with 
a nationally representative sample of 
1,203 adults, age 18 and over. 
The overall margin of sampling error is
?plus or minus 3.5 percentage 
points. 

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/188002 



From Waistline2 at aol.com  Tue Mar 10 00:49:25 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:49:25 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Task and responsibility of communists
Message-ID: <d1e.41ebace4.36e76775@aol.com>

Most folks less than 60 years old have grown up under a steady and  
relentless barrage of anti-communist propaganda. This attack was powerful and  
unyielding because it was tightly linked to a steadily rising standard of living  
throughout the country. When thinking and activity are linked with economic  
rewards to all classes and various layers within classes, we all become more or  
less, like Pavlov's dog.  _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov)  
 
The American peoples are caught in the conditional reflex of Pavlov's dog.  
Anti-communism fed a generation and economic crisis is undoing the past 60 
years  of conditional reflex at a remarkable pace. Pavlov would hit his dog and 
fed him  and the dog came to associate being hit with being fed.  When the dog 
was  hit once and not fed he returned to be hit again. The American working 
class  knows it is being hit and hurt and are not being fed. They are still at a 
stage  of understanding where they attempt to salvage what they might have by 
blaming  anything or anyone for the ills of capitalism. 
 
The populist clamoring and penning away about the banks and greedy bankers  
is designed to obscure the question of class and teaching our class why it must 
 slowly but surely look at all things from the lens of the interest of the  
working class. 
 
At the pace the crisis is deepening in our country, a growing rate of job  
loss running as high as 650,000 newly unemployed for the past 6 months, our  
country will be in serious crisis, if this rate continues for the rest of the  
year. Further, if the crisis continues for the next 24 - 36 months we are  
talking about a fundamental dislocation of American society. 
 
This crisis is different according to every single analysis on the left and  
right. Today, 3-9-09, the UAW agreed to freezing wages at the Ford Motor 
Company  and cutting retiree benefits. Upwards of 20,000 people a day lose their 
job.  Today we are facing the social consequence of the revolution in the 
productive  forces and the permanent displacement of another layer of the working 
class. We  must understand that the new American Revolution is already underway. 
The  economic, objective side is already in revolution. No one can stop the  
application of more efficient means of production replacing the less 
efficient.  In the case of auto the development of new plants and retooling is slated 
to cut  the workforce in half, along with cutting wages in half. 
 
The people are asking themselves and their leaders, "What has gone wrong  
with the country?" The leaders have no answers other than to blame the victims  
or to finger point at Wall Street greed and individuals. Thus, we find the  
people themselves blaming the victims. 
 
This time around, however, provides conscious revolutionaries with a window  
of opportunity, through which we can struggle for the hearts and minds of the  
people. Understanding the this crisis is different and the fundamentals have  
changed is of decisive importance.  Anti-communist ideology united with a  
rising standard of living is one thing. Anti-communism linked with a declining  
standard of living is a different matter altogether. Since advanced robotics 
and  the new technological regime has become an obvious fixture of the American 
 society, and the capitalist must fire people permanently to realize profits, 
the  recover of profitability will only add another layer of the unemployed 
and  homeless to the last period of crisis of 2000. Roughly 10 years ago the  
restoration of profitability was officially called "the jobless recovery." 
 
"Jobless recovery" and returning veterans from the war against the people  of 
Iraq is a volatile combination. 
 
This understanding lays dormant within the heart and minds of the American  
people, waiting to be awakened and kindled by the communists. 
 
In a remarkable way we, at a higher level, the various leaders in the mass  
movement today, and the communists propagandists, find themselves in much the  
same situation that faced the same folks of the 1946-7 period. At that time a  
new economic era was dawning. American imperialism could and did dominate a  
world devastated by war. The established leaders - communists of all kinds,  
didn't and couldn't understand the significance of the new period. It was a  
political shock to see the great movement for civil and labor rights that had  
been built up during 1930's and during WW II collapse and be taken over by  
forces hostile to the former aims of the movement. Irresistible forces were  
coming into play and the leadership had to either adapt to the new era or be  
crushed by it. The communists did not change and was crushed  and  marginalized. 
 
The strength of degenerate trade union leaders like Walter Reuther was not  
in his oratory or organizing skill, but rather the strength of American  
imperialism and the unheard of expansion of productive capacity. Reuther could  
bring home the bacon and did. 
 
By the time the magnificent struggles of the Negro masses broke forward in  
the mid 1950s, a tremendous political and ideological vacuum existed and out of 
 this movement would emerge a new student movement and then a "young 
Communists  Movement" more than less detached from the past. Some - not all, of the 
fault  resided clearly with the communists who could not change and fight for 
the unity  of their political pole on the basis of the daily struggles of the 
Negro masses.  Yes, powerful social forces were aligned against all of us, but 
there is never  an excuse for abandoning the Marxist standpoint. Even the 
countless sectarian  errors was of a historical character and unavoidable, given 
the passivity of a  huge section of the workers. 
 
Further, an entire section of communism went over to a section of the  
movement buttressed and expressing the Negro bourgeoisie. This in turn deepened  the 
political vacuum in the Negro Peoples Movement at the exact moment that the  
movement shifted into what was then called "the black worker insurgency."   
Out of this insurgency emerged various political grouping and what is now today  
and 50 ish and 60 ish generation of communists. 
 
Today is fundamentally different. Capitalism has reached its historical  
limit, and the American people intuitively sense something is drastically wrong. 
 
Today we are in a new epoch of social revolution. A new qualitative stage  of 
history is unfolding in front of us. The reason the bourgeois economists, and 
 no one else knows how deep the rabbit hole of crisis goes down, is because 
"no  one knows." Talk about recovery is nonsense. Restoration of profitability 
does  not = recovery for the working class. 
 
This is not a quantitative stage of the old process or old period or a  
repeat of the Roosevelt era. The mills of history sometimes grind slowly, but  this 
changed situation we face today is fundamental and bound up with the  changes 
in the productive forces. First the slow grind and then the leap, or  
transition in the social struggle and the emergence of new social forces in the  
blink of an eye . . . 12 months or 24 months or 36! 
 
The Obama campaign unto itself and then his election shock the entire  
country and the world. The working class right now is ready for its next  advance. 
No one knows exactly what to do. Except the communists and what we must  do is 
be communists and steer clear of social democratic demagogy. 
 
Whether we like it or not or fully understand it or not, the movement will  
falter and fail and not even achieve its present limited goals without us  
discovering the means to bring the theoretical and ideological clarity to the  new 
emerging revolutionaries. This is the only link in the chain of events that  
will not and cannot develop spontaneously.  Conscious revolutionaries have  to 
bring in the conscious link, and when we do so, we will have become an  
integral part of the new American revolution. 
 
And we will do the very thing all of us were born to do. 
 
Unite or Perish! 
 
But  . . . unite as communists. 
 
WL. 
 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From ballistanc at yahoo.com  Tue Mar 10 04:45:56 2009
From: ballistanc at yahoo.com (juan De La Cruz)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:45:56 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?b?Rnc6IFtjb211bmlzbW9fZ2NpXSBDQVTDgVNU?=
 =?utf-8?q?ROFE_Y_LUCHAS_PROLETARIAS_-_TERCERA_PARTE=3A_ESTO_CONTIN=C3=9AA?=
 =?utf-8?q?=2C_GRECIA?=
Message-ID: <416341.81039.qm@web35505.mail.mud.yahoo.com>






















CAT?STROFE Y LUCHAS PROLETARIAS 
TERCERA PARTE: ESTO CONTIN?A, GRECIA
http://gci-icg. org
?
??la condici?n indispensable de una insurrecci?n victoriosa es que se extienda??[1]?
Internacionalmente y durante los ?ltimos meses, la revuelta del proletariado, contra el capitalismo mundial, tal como afirm?ramos en la primera parte de este art?culo, se sigui? concretando, en la misma medida en que la sociedad burguesa segu?a queriendo descargar toda su catastr?fica situaci?n sobre la pauperizada poblaci?n del globo. La misma asumi? en Grecia la forma de lucha en las c?rceles, lucha de lo sin papeles, luchas de estudiantes, revueltas de marginales.. ., durante muchos meses, hasta generalizarse en diciembre de 2008, anticipando as? lo que puede y debe suceder en otros pa?ses europeos y al mismo tiempo indicando elementos del camino a seguir. Es decir que esa protesta proletaria internacional e internacionalista contra el capitalismo, (que cuando escribimos estas p?ginas vuelve a manifestarse en Guadalupe, Martinica, La Reuni?n?) fue adquiriendo cada vez m?s fuerza en Grecia, hasta el estallido generalizado que se
 produce en diciembre, a la ocasi?n del asesinato del joven Alexis? Grigoropoulos por parte de los esbirros de este oprobioso sistema social.
Las c?lulas, las casillas, los compartimentos, que en todas partes el capitalismo hab?a construido, gracias a todo tipo de alcahuetes que niegan la lucha proletaria, fueron hecho a?icos por el propio movimiento, aunque m?s no sea en ese pa?s y durante los momentos m?s ?lgidos de la lucha. No solo ah?, en las calles, estaban los proletarios como tales (desocupados y obreros, locales y extranjeros, estudiantes y favelizados, precarios y temporales, j?venes -?y hasta ni?os!- y viejos, mujeres y hombres, sin papeles y legales, presos y sueltos, encapuchados y a cara descubierta, escolares y maestros, ?campesinos?-trabajadores agr?colas- y ?ciudadanos?-trabajadores urbanos?) peleando contra su enemigo, sino porque el movimiento mismo, por todos los medios a su alcance (volantes, Internet, publicaciones, revistas?) denunci? expl?citamente todas esas descalificaciones con que los enemigos de siempre insultaron y trataron de
 aislar/liquidar a ese extraordinario y generoso movimiento social. 
?De quien son las acciones que le mantienen y extienden la llama...Los anarquistas? los estudiantes? los inmigrantes? los desempleados y humillados? la juventud de los suburbios ricos del norte y del sur? los gitanos? los "hooligans"? los trabajadores? A todos ellos pertenecen las acciones que dan forma a la lava imparable del volc?n que despert? cuando el impensable asesinato de Alexandros sacudi? toda Grecia el pasado s?bado...? Proclaman las primeras expresiones del movimiento que llegan a todo el mundo[2]. M?s all? de los l?mites de esas primeras manifestaciones escritas del movimiento, las mismas se contraponen a todo lo que se trata de trasmitir por los medios, porque expresa que la revuelta es de todos.
Si en la revuelta de los suburbios franceses la descalificaci? n e insulto tuvieron total impunidad y hasta en nombre del proletariado se insult? a los proletarios que luchaban, en Grecia intentaron de todo pero la fuerza del movimiento logr? ridiculizar, y hasta escrachar, como defensores del Estado, a todos los que quisieron descalificarla y reducirla a una categor?a. Enemigos y medios dijeron, como siempre, que se trataba ?s?lo? de anarquistas, de hooligans, de j?venes... que solo quer?an romper, pero la extensi?n y generalizaci? n de la revuelta a todo el pa?s y los propios comunicados que proclamaron el car?cter proletario y revolucionario de la revuelta no dejaron lugar a dudas a los otros proletarios, no s?lo en Grecia, sino en otros pa?ses. Al mismo tiempo las proclamas dejaban clarito que no se trataba, como dec?a la prensa del mundo de querer cambiar a la derecha por la izquierda, de rechazar un programa gubernamental para
 adoptar otro, o de cambiar el gobierno para volver a la normalidad. Bien por el contrario, hasta la misma normalidad, el mismo tren cotidiano, era denunciado por la revuelta proletaria como lo que es: esclavitud asalariada y chantaje permanente. Contra cada una de las falsificaciones de siempre de la contrarrevoluci? n el movimiento grita su/nuestra verdad.
Hac?a mucho tiempo que el proletariado en alguna parte del mundo y en pleno combate no proclamaba tan clara y precisamente sus objetivos revolucionarios: ?Somos parte de la revuelta de la vida contra la muerte cotidiana que nos imponen las relaciones sociales existentes? se puede leer en un comunicado compa?ero[3] El mismo agrega a continuaci?n: ?Erigimos una barricada inquebrantable contra la repugnante normalidad del ciclo de producci?n y distribuci?n. En la situaci?n actual, nada es m?s importante que consolidar esta barricada frente al enemigo de clase. Incluso aunque nos repleguemos ante la presi?n de la escoria (para-) estatal y la insuficiencia de la barricada, sabemos que ya nada volver? a ser igual en nuestras vidas?.
?Qu? formidable afirmaci?n del proletariado como clase! ?Qu? terror?fica (para la burgues?a) reafirmaci?n de la lucha proletaria por la abolici?n del sistema social, para toda la clase dominante! ?Vivimos adem?s una situaci?n hist?rica en la que se recompone un nuevo sujeto de clase, que porta desde hace mucho la responsabilidad de asumir el rol de enterrador del sistema capitalista. Creemos que el proletariado nunca ha sido una clase por su posici?n, sino que m?s bien al contrario, se constituye como clase para s? misma en el enfrentamiento contra el capital, primero en la pr?ctica para tan s?lo despu?s adquirir conciencia de sus propios actos?[4]
Es en la calle que el proletariado renace, es en la contraposici? n al capital que el proletariado se delimita y redefine, la misma teor?a revolucionaria es reafirmada por expresiones de vanguardia. Hasta el concepto mismo de proletariado, siempre falsificado, sociologizado, a menudo reducido al obrero industrial e invariantemente sacado de su din?mica de contraposici? n social[5], por todas las fuerzas contrarrevolucionar ias, es afirmado por compa?eros: ?el proletariado?se constituye ?en el enfrentamiento contra el capital! El proletariado se afirma como fuerza contra ?el trabajo asalariado (que) siempre ha sido un chantaje??? (idem).
Cuando ya no se pod?a ocultar ni nacional, ni internacionalmente, la generalizaci? n de la revuelta, nuestro enemigo de siempre explic? por todos los medios de difusi?n, que el ?gobierno de derecha hab?a hecho errores?, que ?debiera renunciar?. Pero llovieron los comunicados y las proclamas que denunciaban tremenda mentira. ?Los pol?ticos y periodistas se burlan de nuestro movimiento, tratando de imponer en ?l su propia carencia de racionalidad. Seg?n ellos, nos rebelamos porque nuestro gobierno es corrupto, o porque nos gustar?a tener acceso a m?s dinero, m?s empleo. Destrozamos los bancos porque reconocemos el dinero como causa central de nuestras penas, si rompemos los vidrios de los escaparates no es porque la vida sea cara sino porque la mercanc?a nos impide vivir a cualquier precio. Si atacamos a la escoria policial, no es s?lo en venganza por nuestros compa?eros muertos sino porque entre este mundo y el que deseamos,
 siempre van a constituir un obst?culo?.[6]
?Que importante que es para la lucha que el proletariado reconozca que su enemigo no es tal o tal gobierno, tal o cual partido y ni siquiera todos los gobiernos y todos los partidos, sino el dinero, el capital, las relaciones sociales de producci?n actuales! Y que a pesar de todas las campa?as antiterroristas organizadas por todos los Estados del mundo, para consolidar su propio monopolio del terror, los proletarios griegos en plena pelea hayan proclamado y escrito en las calles griegas: ??Terrorismo es el trabajo asalariado! Ninguna paz para los jefes (patrones)?[7]
Es verdad que al lado de esta escalofriante comprensi?n de la necesidad de la revoluci?n social, es decir de que es indispensable destruir totalmente el sistema capitalista, el movimiento se afirma tambi?n en base a expresiones mucho menos claras, modestas, turbias. 
?Se nos acusa a menudo de que nuestra revuelta es ciega, desarticulada, meramente reactiva... que aun no sabemos lo que queremos y lo que no, que somos ladrones y destructores. Pero si que sabemos de sobra que queremos y por supuesto que no queremos. No queremos polic?as pagados para aterrorizar adolescentes, ni guerra qu?mica que bloquea nuestros pulmones y bloquea nuestros ojos. No queremos polic?as antidisturbios, guardaespaldas, chulos de putas, par?sitos, seguratas, profesiones todas ellas basadas en la fuerza y la violencia. No queremos aire polucionado, bosques quemados, hormig?n que tape el cielo. No queremos prisiones que aniquilen al individuo, leyes absurdas sobre el canabis, videocamaras que supervisan todo para defender la propiedad de objetos inanimados. Por eso, en este borrador de manifiesto para una nueva vida despu?s de la revuelta, exigimos e impondremos lo que a continuaci?n sigue:
1) Liberar el centro de Atenas de los coches. La ciudad para los ciclistas, peatones y los ni?os.
2) Transformaci? n de los bancos quemados en asilos para los pobres, bibliotecas, locales gratuitos de internet y "coffe shops" al estilo de Amsterdam.
3) Convertir las comisar?as destruidas en cocinas populares que ofrecer?n comida natural y gratis a quien quiera que la necesite y la pida.
4) Fin de la propiedad intelectual. Circulaci?n libre y gratuita de material intelectual e informativo, conexiones a internet gratuitas con moderna fibra ?ptica.
5) Reemplazar el uso de gasolina y gas natural por placas de energ?a solar y fuentes de energ?a completamente reciclables.
6) Asaltar todos los burdeles que se hallan defendidos por la polic?a y liberaci?n inmediata de todas las prostitutas forzadas. Reconocimiento de la sexualidad femenina y el derecho a ser expresado libremente y sin coacciones. Ninguna piedad para violadores y ped?filos. Ninguna humillaci?n para todos aquellos que vivan su sexualidad de una manera diferente siempre y cuando no usen la imposici?n de la fuerza para conseguirlo.
7) Asaltar las prisiones y liberar a todos excepto aquellos relacionados con cr?menes de pederastia, violaci?n y racismo.
8) Prioridad total para los ni?os y sus necesidades de amor, juego y ternura.
9) Infraestructuras educativas y medicas libres con la simultanea eliminaci?n de la arbitrariedad y poder de ciertas profesiones. Relaciones responsables, abiertas, igualitarias y amigables entre pacientes y m?dicos, profesores y alumnos.
10) Medios de transporte libres y uso generalizado de la bici. Expansi?n del ferrocarril por todo el pa?s. 
Esto son "grosso modo" las 10 puntos aprobados hasta ahora. LO QUE QUEREMOS Y CONSEGUIREMOS. Quiz?s otros puntos tambi?n esenciales est?n ausentes pero los ya decididos son innegociables?. 
Ser?a muy f?cil re?rse de tales propuestas o ridiculizar lo limitado de tales puntos. Sin embargo en esa enumeraci?n de medidas surgidas de discusiones y asambleas nosotros subrayamos, antes que nada, tanto el rechazo total del mundo actual, como la enumeraci?n de lo ?que no queremos?. El rechazo, la negaci?n, constituye el punto de partida de todo movimiento revolucionario. Reafirmemos adem?s que esa negaci?n, no mendiga, no le pide nada a nadie (ni siquiera al Estado), sino que quiere imponer. Que adem?s esas expresiones tienen el m?rito enorme de partir de la base fundamental de que para cambiar algo hay que reventar la autoridad del Estado e imponer por la violencia otra cosa. Siempre es saludable que el movimiento quiera transformar los centros de especulaci?n y represi?n (bancos, comisar?as?) en algo que sirva para el ser humano, aunque todav?a no se sepa bien como pueden obtenerse objetivos similares. Por ?ltimo, merece
 subrayarse, que los protagonistas tienen consciencia de que eso (?que es en realidad sumamente poco!) es s?lo lo que quieren imponer enseguida. Que adem?s proclaman que esos puntos no son negociables y que hay otros puntos tambi?n esenciales que ver?n despu?s. 
Si, si es verdad que ese manifiesto contiene un conjunto de ilusiones propias de proletarios muy j?venes que quieren cambiar lo que los afecta m?s en la vida inmediata, sin ir a la ra?z del sistema social de explotaci?n.. Si tambi?n es cierto, que en esas expresiones se nota la influencia nefasta de ideolog?as a la moda de la izquierda y de los ecologistas que, como no pod?a ser de otra forma, limitan reformistamente el horizonte de todo movimiento. Fueron y ser?n l?mites en los pr?ximos movimientos proletarios que la revoluci?n deber? enfrentar, pero lo importante no son esas t?midas (y muchas veces reformistas) medidas inmediatas (aunque algunas resulten muy simp?ticas), sino la afirmaci?n de la negaci?n de lo que existe, la contraposici? n violenta contra todo el mundo del capital defendido por la izquierda, el centro y la derecha. 
Por ?ltimo subrayemos que el punto 7, asaltar las prisiones para liberar a los presos, no corresponde a los otros puntos, porque no es algo que se busca conseguir, sino que expresa una necesidad crucial del movimiento, que el mismo todav?a no tiene la fuerza de asumir. Lo que se expresa es, por lo tanto, un deseo importante, pero todav?a inasumable.
El estallido del proletariado en Grecia alumbra al mundo, no son las propuestas positivas, sino la radicalidad de la cr?tica de la sociedad actual sin justamente formular demandas hacia el poder, lo que evidentemente es lo que m?s aterroriz? a todo el poder burgu?s a nivel internacional. Como dicen expresiones revolucionarias de los proletarios en lucha:? ?La insurrecci?n de diciembre no lleva consigo ninguna demanda concreta, precisamente porque los sujetos que en ella participan sufren d?a a d?a la negativa de la clase dominante a aceptar cualquier demanda, y por lo tanto la conocen a la perfecci?n. Los susurros de la izquierda, que en un comienzo ped?a la retirada del gobierno, se transformaron en un terror mudo y un intento desesperado por calmar la incontrolable ola insurreccional. La ausencia de demandas reformistas refleja una subyacente (aunque a?n inconsciente) disposici?n a la subversi?n radical y a la superaci?n de las
 relaciones mercantiles existentes, y la creaci?n de relaciones cualitativamente nuevas?[8].
La fuerza del movimiento en Grecia est? basada adem?s, en oposici?n a otros pa?ses (en donde el proletariado no sale a la calle como debiera cuando se reprime a los sin papeles, a los presos, o se cometen actos abiertamente racistas), en el hecho de que la burgues?a y sus diferentes aparatos no lograron aislar a las capas del proletariado que, bastante antes de diciembre, hab?an llevado luchas ejemplares que tuvieron repercusi?n en todo el pa?s y tambi?n internacionalmente. Nos referimos en general a las fracciones m?s cotidianamente reprimidas abiertamente por el Estado, como los presos, los sin papeles, inmigrantes, los j?venes?, pero en general a todos los proletarios irregulares, precarios y peor pagados, que sin duda fueron las que iniciaron el movimiento:? 
?Somos la generaci?n de los 400 euros. De los programas ?stage? del organismo de empleo, del trabajo flexible, de la eterna capacitaci?n (siempre con nuestros gastos), de la precariedad, de la carest?a, de los dos diplomas que no sirven para nada. De la eliminaci?n de nuestros derechos laborales, de nuestra humillaci?n por parte de patrones, pol?ticos y los dem?s. Somos la generaci?n que la encierran en escuelas, intentando meter en nuestras cabezas sus nacionalismos, sus prejuicios, su lujuria por la patria, su mentira, su subordinaci?n. Somos los chavos[9] a los que humillan y provocan los antidisturbios, los polic?as secretos, o los guardias especiales y todos los dem?s polic?as que hizo su democracia (y puso por todos lados como otro ej?rcito de ocupaci?n) cuando nos encontramos en su camino, los objetos diarios de su abuso del poder. Somos los heridos de las marchas de los estudiantes y de los alumnos, nuestras cabezas fueron
 golpeadas contra el asfalto, nuestra dignidad fue eliminada bajo sus botas, nuestras manos fueron quebradas por los toletes, nuestras caras fueron machacadas por sus pu?etazos, nuestros pulmones todav?a contienen los gases que nos echaron, que est?n prohibidos seg?n acuerdos internacionales. Moriremos prematuramente porque no estuvimos de acuerdo con las leyes que nos est?n robando la vida. Somos los detenidos que nos arrastramos en juicios por a?os, Panagiotis que llevaba zapatos de un color equivocado y se qued? 40 d?as en la c?rcel, Dimitrios Augustinos que pas? por el lugar equivocado en el momento equivocado, los 50 heridos en el hospital Evangelismos el 8 de marzo de 2007.Nosotros incendiamos sus bancos. Nosotros nos enfrentamos con la polic?a. Nosotros destruimos la paz social que est?n construyendo d?a y noche lavando el cerebro de los ciudadanos para que obedezcan y se callen. Nosotros seguimos iluminando las noches fr?as que nos
 trajeron?[10].
La fuerza del proletariado en Grecia es no haberle negado la solidaridad a aquellas capas que estaban en enfrentamiento mucho m?s declarado con el capitalismo y el Estado. Si, fueron las luchas de los presos, de los marginales, de los sin papeles,?que reson? como propia en todo el proletariado y el origen real del movimiento. Ya en noviembre de 2008 cuando la lucha en las c?rceles se generaliz? y m?s de 7000 de los 12000 presos participaron de un conjunto de medidas de protesta (entre las cuales la huelga de hambre comenzada el 3 de ese mes[11]), la lucha no pudo ser encerrada y la protesta se hizo sentir en las calles, como en la radicalizaci? n de la manifestaci?n del 17 de noviembre[12]. La acci?n directa organizada de peque?os grupos se hace sentir durante todo el mes de noviembre 2008. Se hacen acciones contra represores y tambi?n contra formas de vigilancia ciudadana, por ejemplo se destruyen c?maras de vigilancia. Ya en ese momento
 esa lucha repercuti? afuera y constituy? un primer llamado a la solidaridad internacional con el proletariado en ese pa?s. En ese mismo movimiento se inscribi? la lucha de diferentes grupos de inmigrantes y sin papeles que tambi?n entraron en huelga de hambre, junto con otras manifestaciones y acciones (ejemplo la ocupaci?n del ayuntamiento de la ciudad de Jani?) lo que a la vez suscit? un nuevo impulso a todo el movimiento proletario que se expresar? violentamente en varias ciudades y particularmente en la manifestaci?n del 5 de diciembre en Atenas. La lucha se fue haciendo cada vez m?s cotidiana, as? como la respuesta represiva de la democracia ateniense, hasta el asesinato de Alexis, que fue la gota que derram? el vaso. 
Desde ese momento nada ser? como antes. No podemos hacer una cr?nica del movimiento s?lo subrayar algunos elementos sint?ticos: el domingo ?desde Internet y tel?fonos celulares se trama un invisible tejido de comunicaci?n entre miles y miles de estudiantes de secundaria en toda Grecia. Nadie se da cuenta. El hecho es que el lunes en la madrugada las secundarias est?n cerradas? los j?venes? en las calles. Bloquean calles y carreteras, y enfocan toda la rabia que les provoca el asesinato de Alexis contra las sedes polic?acas. No queda casi ni una comisar?a que no est? bloqueada por los alumnos, lo mismo en ciudades peque?as, peque??simas, que en barrios de Atenas y de Sal?nica, que no han conocido a lo largo de su existencia manifestaci?n alguna o algo parecido. Y amanece con hijos e hijas fuera de las sedes policiales quemando patrullas o tirando naranjas, piedras, huevos y pinturas a los edificios de las fuerzas del orden. Son
 j?venes de 13, 15 o 16 a?os que enfocan su rabia hacia ese objetivo? (El) martes en la noche (ya) los noticiarios de la televisi?n ya no saben qu? decir primero y qu? despu?s. Todos los centros de las ciudades de Grecia son devorados por las llamas. Una informaci?n sobresale: en un suburbio de Atenas, donde viven gitanos, 600 de ellos ocuparon el cuartel policial, le prendieron fuego e hirieron con escopetas a dos gendarmes. En 23 c?rceles del pa?s todos los presos se niegan a cenar, en apoyo y solidaridad a la revuelta. Despu?s de las palabras provocadoras del abogado que defiende al polic?a asesino, diciendo que Alexis muri? a causa de una bala perdida, los estudiantes de secundaria vuelven a cerrar las escuelas. Cercan 25 comisar?as de Atenas y 20 m?s del interior. Cortan el tr?nsito de 20 avenidas. Ocupan 190 secundarias en Grecia. En la mayor?a de las universidades no hay clases. En unas 20 ciudades los bancos y las tiendas de
 lujo son devoradas por el fuego?[13]
Otras descripciones del movimiento, que se hacen circular por Internet, describen lo imparable de la hermosa rabia proletaria y el significado de lo que se ataca: ?La gente se enoja. No, no es cierto. No es s?lo un enojo. Es una rabia acumulada. Una rabia que ya quiso salir a las calles y arrastrar todo lo que hay en ellas. Y sali?. La gente con su rabia sali? a las calles y pusieron Atenas, y tambi?n casi todas las ciudades de este pa?s, en estado de emergencia. J?venes en su mayor?a, con piedras en sus manos y rabia en sus corazones, salieron a la calle. Y lo arrastraron todo. Junto con los basureros, los pavimentos, los edificios, las tiendas, los bancos, los coches arrastraron tambi?n las promesas rotas y el presente que les niegan. Arrastraron la mala educaci?n, la falta de empleo, la inseguridad del futuro, el presente que nos oprime, el pasado que se olvid?. Arrastraron los s?mbolos que el sistema les ofrece mirar de lejos porque
 tocarlos cuesta mucho. Arrastraron los s?mbolos que adem?s ni siquiera necesitan. Arrastraron los lujosos anuncios, espejos de una vida encarcelada dentro de las cuatro paredes del trabajo, de la escuela, de la universidad, obedeciendo ?rdenes de gente que chupa toda su energ?a a cambio de migajas? M?s de 400 escuelas secundarias en todo el pa?s est?n ocupadas hasta el d?a de hoy. Igual que muchas universidades y ya existe una coordinadora de acciones de estudiantes y alumnos. Todos los d?as alumnos y alumnas de secundaria llegan a diferentes sedes de la polic?a, las rodean, gritan a los polic?as, les tiran piedras, queman sus coches, los enfrentan. Los enfrentan a diario en las calles sin pensar en el riesgo ni en? las consecuencias. Rabia pura y hermosa. Los j?venes en este pa?s ya gritaron su ?ya basta?. Y piden de la sociedad entera que est? a su lado, que grite su ?ya basta? igual que ellos y ellas, que tomemos nuestras
 vidas en nuestras manos. Y la gente en los barrios de Atenas y de otras ciudades en algunos casos los escuch?. En varios barrios se organizan ocupaciones de edificios municipales y en general hay un intento de organizarse m?s y coordinar acciones. Hay protestas generalizadas. Barricadas se arman todas las noches alrededor de la universidad polit?cnica de Atenas y resisten toda la noche contra la polic?a. Los m?s reprimidos encontraron tambi?n su oportunidad de expresar su rabia. Los gitanos que sufren la represi?n polic?aca y la impunidad, los migrantes que a diario matan de diferentes maneras salieron tambi?n a las calles y agarraron las piedras igual que l at s j?venes?[14] 
En este per?odo hist?rico de tanta divisi?n adentro del proletariado lo m?s importante de la lucha en Grecia es, como ya dijimos, la fuerza que tuvo la clase para hacer estallar los compartimentos y casillas que son fundamentales en la dominaci?n burguesa. Contra todo el desprecio oficial, contra el racismo propio al capital y al buen ciudadano?, el proletariado asumi? sus intereses peleando unido y los presos, los inmigrantes, los j?venes y otras capas siempre discriminadas?, si bien en momentos se enfrentaron solos a toda la burgues?a coaligada, en diciembre al unificarse y afirmarse en la calle hicieron brillar a todo el pa?s y la irradiaci?n luminosa lleg? a ser tan potente que alumbr? a proletarios de todo el mundo. 
Lejos de ignorar el problema del racismo y otros compartimentos que funcionan en permanencia para mantener la dominaci?n y opresi?n capitalista[15], el movimiento lo asumi? como tal y no faltaron las discusiones y las proclamas que trataron la cuesti?n de los inmigrados y extranjeros. La consciencia de clase se afirm? incluso contra las separaciones de siempre, los protagonistas reivindicaron abiertamente que en la lucha se encontraban codo a codo con los proletarios locales, proletarios inmigrados y tambi?n proletarios refugiados. 
?En el cuadro de esta movilizaci?n ampliada, detr?s de las manifestaciones de los estudiantes de vanguardia, hay una participaci?n masiva de la segunda generaci?n de inmigrados e igualmente numerosos refugiados. Estos se lanzan a la calle en peque?o n?mero, con poca organizaci?n pero con gran espontaneidad e impetuosidad. Son actualmente los m?s activos entre los extranjeros que viven en Grecia... Los hijos de los inmigrados se movilizan en masa y din?micamente?se trata de un segundo noviembre 2005 franc?s?Estos d?as son tambi?n los nuestros. Estas jornadas son tambi?n por las centenas de inmigrados y refugiados asesinados en las fronteras, en las comisar?as, en los lugares de trabajo. . .Estas jornadas son tambi?n por GRAMOZ, PALOUSI, LOAN, MPERNTELIMA, ENTISON, GIAXAI, TONI, ONOUXA, AMNPTOURAKIM, INTRIZ, MONTASER, MOXAMENT ASTRAF, y tantos otros que nosotros no olvidamos?Estas jornadas son por la violencia policial cotidiana que
 queda impune y sin respuesta. Son por las humillaciones en la fronteras y en los centros de detenci?n de inmigrados? Estos d?as son por la explotaci?n continuada y sin parar?Estos d?as son por el precio que nos hacen pagar solamente por existir y respirar, por todos los momentos que hemos tenido que apretar los dientes frente a los insultos, son por todos los momentos en que no reaccionamos aunque ten?amos las mejores razones del mundo de hacerlo porque nuestros muertos y nuestra rabia no correspond?an a las formas admitidas, ni juntaba votos, ni eran titulares en las primeras p?ginas de los medios? Estos d?as pertenecen a todos los marginales, a los excluidos, a las personas castigadas de nombres dif?cilmente pronunciables y de historias incomprensibles. Estos d?as pertenecen a los que mueren todos los d?as en el Mar Egeo y el R?o Evros, a todos los asesinados en la frontera o en la calle en pleno Atenas. Pertenecen a la comunidad Rom
 de Zefyri, a los toxic?manos de Eksarhia. Estos d?as pertenecen a los ni?os de la calle Mesollogiu, a los no integrados, a los estudiantes incontrolables. Gracias Alexis, estos d?as nos pertenecen a todos nosotros?[16]
La lucha del proletariado en Grecia afirma as? el internacionalismo del proletariado como clase, justamente en Europa, centro hist?rico mundial del colonialismo y el racismo. La contraposici? n entre el mundo presente y el futuro no pod?a ser m?s clara, entre el mundo del capital, su racismo, sus guerras, sus esclavismos y sus masacres y una sociedad sin toda esa inhumanidad llevada adelante por el proletariado en su lucha revolucionaria.?? 
Si, es verdad que, como tantas otras veces, el movimiento comenz? con sectores particulares del proletariado, que luego cuando se radicaliz? partiendo de la muerte de un joven, lo que m?s se ve?a en las calles, reconocen los propios compa?eros en lucha, eran j?venes, casi ni?os (como hab?a sucedido con los suburbios y luego con la lucha anti CPE en Francia). Claro que como en otras ocasiones, eso se vivi? al principio como un problema, por parte de los ?ni?os? protagonistas, pero hubo una relativa superaci?n de la cuesti?n por la continuidad y mayor generalizaci? n (tambi?n geogr?fica a muchas otras ciudades). Dicha reafirmaci?n del proletariado como clase tuvo un simp?tico intercambio generacional de comunicados, del cual subrayamos en recuadro algunos elementos, adonde los ?ni?os? hacen una buena y saludable cr?tica del conformismo y del ciudadanismo de los adultos, de sus propios padres.? 
QUEREMOS UN MUNDO MEJOR. ?AY?DENNOS! 
No somos terroristas, "encapuchados" ni "desconocidos conocidos" 
?SOMOS VUESTROS HIJOS! 
Esos conocidos desconocidos. .. 
Queremos so?ar - ?no nos maten los sue?os! 
Tenemos pasi?n - ?no nos paren! 
?ACU?RDENSE! 
Hace tiempo que ustedes eran j?venes tambi?n. 
Ahora est?n persiguiendo el dinero, solo les interesa la "fachada" de las cosas. 
Se hicieron gordos y calvos. 
?OLVIDARON! 
Esper?bamos que nos apoyaran, que tuvieran un poco de inter?s, 
que nosotr at s por una vez nos enorgulleci?semos de ustedes 
?EN VANO! 
Ustedes viven vidas falsas. Tienen la cabeza inclinada, 
los pantalones abajo y est?n esperando el d?a que se van a morir 
?No tienen imaginaci?n, no se enamoran, no crean nada! 
S?lo venden y compran: 
TODO MATERIAL - AMOR POR NINGUNA PARTE - VERDAD POR NINGUNA PARTE ?D?nde est?n los padres? ?D?nde est?n los artistas? ?Por qu? no salen a 
las calles para protegernos? 
?NOS EST?N MATANDO. AY?DENNOS! 
LOS NI?OS 
PD: No nos hacen falta m?s lacrim?genos para llorar. Lo podemos conseguir solos. 
? 
Este comunicado circul? mucho, tanto al interior de Grecia, como internacionalmente y por supuesto, no faltaron quienes denigraron a los autores, pero tambi?n hubo respuestas que iban en ese mismo sentido, llamando a la participaci?n de todos los proletarios y son las que queremos subrayar. Ver m?s adelante la: Carta a los estudiantes escrita por trabajadores atenienses? firmada por Proletarios. 
Evidentemente que como en otras partes, hubo sectores del proletariado que no se movieron, que siguieron impert?rritos frente a su televisi?n digiriendo toda el veneno ideol?gico necesario a la reproducci?n del buen ciudadano. Siempre habr? proletarios que traicionan a su clase y se hacen silenciosos part?cipes de su represi?n como denuncia el volante de los ?ni?os?. No son los burgueses, los que salen a matar y reprimir a los proletarios que luchan. Los burgueses temblaban y se escond?an. Toda la dominaci?n de clases se basa en la capacidad de la clase dominante de hacer que una parte de los proletarios reprima a la otra.
En Grecia los protagonistas no s?lo denunciaron, como vimos, al ciudadano c?mplice en general, sino tambi?n a quienes no tomaban partido o que no rompen con las manifestaciones ciudadanas dirigidas por la izquierda y los sindicatos: ?Los propietarios de la mercanc?a llamada fuerza de trabajo, que la han invertido en el mercado a cambio de seguridad social y con la esperanza de ver a su prole escapar de su condici?n mediante el ascenso en la escala social, contin?an observando a los insurrectos sin tomar parte, pero tambi?n sin llamar a la polic?a para disolverlos. Junto con la sustituci?n de la seguridad social por la seguridad policial y el colapso del mercado de la movilidad social, muchos trabajadores, bajo la carga del fracasado universo de la ideolog?a peque?o burguesa y la econom?a mixta, se mueven hacia una (socialmente importante) justificaci?n moral del levantamiento juvenil, pero sin unirse a?n a su ataque contra este mundo
 asesino .Siguen arrastrando sus cad?veres en las letan?as de tres meses de los sindicalistas profesionales, y defendiendo un triste derrotismo sectorial contra la rabiosa agresividad de clase que r?pidamente pasa a primer plano. Estos dos mundos se encontraron el lunes, 8 de diciembre, en las calles, y el pa?s al completo prendi?.. El mundo del derrotismo sectorial tom? las calles para defender el derecho democr?tico de los roles separados del ciudadano, el trabajador, el consumidor, a participar en manifestaciones sin que les disparasen. Muy cerca de all?, el mundo de la agresividad de clase tom? las calles en forma de peque?as ?bandas? organizadas que rompen, queman, saquean y rompen las aceras para lanzar adoquines a los asesinos. El primer mundo (al menos tal y como lo expresa el discurso de los sindicalistas profesionales) tem?a tanto la presencia del segundo, que el mi?rcoles 10 de diciembre, trat? de manifestarse sin la molesta
 presencia de los ?riff-raff?. Ya estaba sobre la mesa el dilema acerca de c?mo estar en la calle: bien con la seguridad democr?tica de los ciudadanos, o bien con el enfrentamiento solidario del grupo, el bloque agresivo, la marcha que defiende la existencia de cada uno mediante barricadas y rotundos ataques?[17].
Muchas expresiones del movimiento denuncian, con raz?n y violencia, a todos esos sectores que si bien se indignan de la muerte de Alexis y manifiestan pac?ficamente contra ello, se encuentran totalmente sometidos a la ideolog?a dominante y se hacen c?mplices del poder en su vida cotidiana: ?Los que eligen hablar s?lo de la "inhumanidad" del asesinato de un chico de 16 a?os, los que no pueden contener las salivas que les provoca el placer oculto de ver una serie m?s verdadera en la televisi?n, son los que no encuentran razones para percibir este acontecimiento de una manera "guerrerocivilopol? mica"?son los que no pueden sentirse la seguridad por ellos mismos y su propiedad y buscan la dicha en el Estado, son los que llenan las tiendas con c?maras de vigilancia, los que creen que las de las calles no son bastantes?Y los que creen que son esas mismas que les salvar?n?son los que apuntan sus escopetas contra los inmigrantes, ah? donde
 las fuerzas del complejo ejercito-policial no bastan?son los telespectadores que ante el asesinato de Mondaser Mohammed Ashraf en la comisar?a de c/Petru Ralli, tan s?lo cambian de canal?son los que bajaron en la calle tan s?lo para contar las p?rdidas materiales de los enfrentamientos extendidos que siguieron los pr?ximos d?as...?[18]
Los compa?eros describen una realidad. Los sectores del proletariado que tienen m?s seguridad de empleo, que son muchas veces los m?s sindicalizados por esa misma raz?n, son los sectores m?s conservadores. Una gran mayor?a de ellos, con sus ilusiones e ideas, constituyen un freno a la solidaridad y lucha proletaria. Incluso m?s all? de los que ocupan un lugar ?privilegiado? en el aparato productivo, el ciudadanismo tiene un importante peso contrarrevolucionar io. Los partidos de izquierda de la burgues?a son fundamentales en el desarrollo de esa ideolog?a y tienen en Grecia, como en otros pa?ses, en aquellos sectores de la producci?n,? un baluarte importante que se sit?a siempre contra la lucha comunista. Una excelente acci?n, contra ello, fue la ocupaci?n implementada por la Asamblea General de Trabajadores Insurrectos de Atenas [19] de la sede central de la ?Confederaci?n General de Trabajadores de Grecia?, porque permiti?
 denunciar muchas mentiras medi?ticas, poner, al menos durante ese breve per?odo ese local pagado por los proletarios y siempre al servicio del orden burgu?s al servicio del movimiento y? enfrentar el encuadramiento contrarrevolucionar io de los sindicatos. M?s all? de la utilidad misma de ese local central la ocupaci?n fue todo un s?mbolo de lucha y denuncia del aparato sindical y de su burocracia, como lo subraya el mismo comunicado: 
?Para desenmascarar el rol de la burocracia sindical y su trabajo de sapa contra la insurrecci?n, y no s?lo ah?. El GSEE e integralmente todo el mecanismo sindical que lo ha apoyado durante d?cadas y d?cadas, menosprecia las luchas, negocia nuestra fuerza de trabajo por migajas y perpet?a el sistema de explotaci?n y esclavitud asalariada. La postura del GSEE del pasado mi?rcoles es bastante reveladora: el GSEE cancel? la manifestaci?n de trabajadores que estaba programada, imponiendo en su lugar la organizaci?n de una peque?a reuni?n en la plaza de Syntagma, asegur?ndose de este modo que la gente se marchase cuanto antes de la plaza, ya que tem?an que los trabajadores nos vi?ramos infectados del virus de la insurrecci?n?
A pesar de todos estos esfuerzos debemos reconocer que el trabajo de nuestros enemigos sigui? dando resultados y que de la enorme cantidad de proletarios que se encontraron en la calle, no fueron muchos los que en esos d?as de lucha ven?an de romper o rompieron con el encuadramiento sindical y burgu?s. Muchos trabajadores de la gran industria fueron m?s espectadores que protagonistas, es decir que no asumieron la lucha que, sus compa?eros de vanguardia les indicaban, lo que fue un l?mite real de la revuelta. Sin embargo cuando la crisis se agudiza m?s, hasta aquella seguridad de empleo, que tanto alimenta el conformismo, se tambalea y los proletarios de las grandes empresas tambi?n rompen con el encuadramiento sindical y de la izquierda burguesa y pueden desempe?ar un papel important?simo en la lucha. Al respecto nos parece clarificante hacer una comparaci?n con la revuelta proletaria en Argentina en 2001/2002, en donde la crisis hab?a
 llegado a un nivel de profundidad tal, que hasta esos sectores tambi?n salieron a la calle, lo que no fue tan general en Grecia. Sin dudas en Europa todav?a el capitalismo no ha atacado de frente a todos esos sectores, lo que posibilita la acci?n de todos los aparatos del Estado para dividir al proletariado (y muy particularmente de los sindicatos). A pesar de lo que hoy llaman crisis, la cat?strofe del capital en Europa se ha descargado principalmente sobre las franjas m?s recientes del proletariado (j?venes, inmigrantes, precarios, temporales, marginales, sin papeles?) que consecuentemente son las que han estado a la cabeza en todas las grandes luchas en ese continente. Tal vez, por eso mismo, las caracter?sticas son diferentes que las que fueron ayer en Argentina. En Grecia en el estallido y en la tendencia insurreccional el proletariado parece jugarse el todo por el todo, mientras en Argentina el movimiento ten?a una duraci?n mucho mayor
 pero estaba m?s infectado por las ilusiones politicistas (Asamblea Constituyente, reformismo cl?sico, banderitas argentinas,?) y sobretodo por las salidas gestionistas (autogesti?n, emprendimientos productivos organizados por desocupados?) que en el fondo fueron la fuerza principal al interior del movimiento para su liquidaci?n. En Grecia por ejemplo casi no tuvo fuerza (contrarrevoluciona ria) en el movimiento la ideolog?a Negrista (o de Holloway) o del tan mentado subcomandante Marcos de querer cambiar al mundo sin plantear la cuesti?n del poder. En Grecia el movimiento plante? desde el principio un desaf?o generalizado al poder (al estilo del ??que se vayan todos!? de los proletarios en Argentina) y afirm? abiertamente su objetivo insurreccionalista y s?lo se detuvo ante su aislamiento, o mejor dicho, ante el hecho de que, sin la lucha abierta del proletariado de los otros pa?ses (al menos de los otros pa?ses Europeos, dicen los
 volantes) no se pod?a ir (todav?a) mucho m?s lejos.
Tambi?n en esto hubo una gran lucidez de los sectores de vanguardia: ?Sabemos que ha llegado el momento de pensar estrat?gicamente. En este momento tan importante sabemos que la condici?n indispensable de una insurrecci?n victoriosa es que se extienda, al menos, a nivel europeo. Los pasados a?os hemos visto y hemos aprendido: las contracumbres a lo largo del mundo, los disturbios estudiantiles y en los suburbios de Francia, el movimiento anti-TAV en Italia, la Comuna de Oaxaca, los disturbios de Montreal, la agresiva defensa de Ungdomshuset en Copenague, los disturbios contra la Convenci?n Nacional Republicana en los Estados Unidos, y la lista contin?a. Nacidos en la cat?strofe, somos los hijos de una crisis global: pol?tica, social, econ?mica y ecol?gica. Sabemos que este mundo es un callej?n sin salida. Hay que estar loco para agarrarse a sus ruinas. Hay que ser acertado para autoorganizarse?[20].
? 
Los llamados desde Grecia se multiplicaron y en el mundo entero se hizo sentir la solidaridad con la revuelta proletaria en Grecia. ?Los efectos internacionales son palpables. Se han registrado manifestaciones de solidaridad y ataques a las embajadas griegas en todo el mundo, desde Mosc? a Nueva York y desde Copenhague a Ciudad de M?xico. Las declaraciones y manifiestos de las asambleas de estudiantes en Grecia son pr?cticamente traducidos al instante y subidos a la Red en ingl?s, franc?s, italiano, turco y serbio. Durante los primeros d?as de la revuelta, los?bloggers?trataron de reunir una lista de todas las muestras de solidaridad que estaban teniendo lugar, pero la tarea se demostr? imposible: hab?a, literalmente, cientos de ellas; miles de personas hab?an tomado las calles. El ?ltimo s?bado, d?a mundial contra la violencia policial, hubo sonadas manifestaciones en m?s de 30 ciudades de todo el mundo?[21] 
? 
Como repercusiones y muestras de solidaridad es mucho m?s de lo que ha habido en otras ocasiones y revueltas en estos ?ltimos a?os. Esperemos que ello est? indicando que por m?s dormido que estaba el proletariado internacional,? en cuanto a la lucha en otra parte, la cat?strofe actual de la sociedad burguesa y la respuesta contundente de los proletarios en Grecia, hayan sido una sacudida vital que comience a hacerlo despertar (contra la voluntad de toda la burgues?a).? ?Es que estamos ante un punto de inflexi?n en la inconsciencia de clase y ya nadie podr? ser indiferente ante la cat?strofe que se hace cada vez m?s cotidiana y esa valerosa lucha contra el sistema?: ?La noche del 10 de diciembre echaron un c?ctel Molotof en el consulado griego de Mosc?, mientras que en el de Nueva York romp?an un cristal y escribieron con un spray ?asesinos, Alexis estuvo aqu??.Y naturalmente hubo manifestaciones as? como ocupaciones de
 consulados, entre las que pude contar: Londres, Par?s, Edimburgo, Barcelona, Florencia, Roma, Berna, Zagreb, Bratislava, La Haya, Melbourne, San Francisco, Dubl?n, Glasgow, en casi todas las ciudades de Alemania. Aqu?, en Bruselas, tambi?n nosotros organizamos una??[22] 
? 
Claro que, esas acciones directas internacionales deben ser saludadas como ejemplo y contraponerlas, a las propuestas de siempre de la izquierda burguesa que caricatura la solidaridad (o mejor dicho trata de desviarla, impedirla?), impulsando manifestaciones pac?ficas, peticiones, carnavales inofensivos, o campa?as humanitarias y caritativas. Pero es b?sico recordar que todav?a no hay una verdadera solidaridad, que es totalmente insuficiente lo que hacemos los proletarios de otras partes con respecto a un extraordinario movimiento como ese, que la verdadera solidaridad es la intensificaci? n de la lucha contra la burgues?a en todas partes, que la m?s profunda solidaridad es cuando simult?neamente en todas partes se sale a la calle a pelear contra el mismo enemigo, que s?lo as? el triunfo de la revoluci?n social ser? posible. 
? 
?Compa?eros, sigamos el ejemplo de nuestros hermanos en Grecia que est? desbordando toda tentativa de integraci?n democr?tica. No nos creamos las artima?as con las que nos quieren enredar. Todos los pol?ticos, en el gobierno o en la oposici?n, los de izquierda o de derecha, los cuerpos represivos, los periodistas y dem?s voceros del capital? Todos ellos son expresiones de la bestia capitalista, recambios, falsas oposiciones y herramientas para aplastarnos. Es todo este mundo el que queremos cambiar desde sus cimientos. Y para ello solo contamos con nosotros mismos, organizados fuera y contra todos los aparatos del Estado (partidos, sindicatos, ONGs?), rompiendo las divisiones que quieren imponernos (j?venes/viejos, trabajadores/ estudiantes/ parados, emigrantes/aut? ctonos?)?[23] 
? 
Desde Rosario, Argentina tambi?n se afirma esa posici?n de que la verdadera solidaridad es luchar contra el capitalismo en todas partes, enfrentar a ?su propia burgues?a?: ??Por qu? reaccionar frente estos hechos, algo que est? sucediendo a tantos kil?metros de donde intentamos vivir? Porque los explotados y oprimidos no tenemos patria: el patriotismo sirve a la clase dominante para ocultar el antagonismo social en el que vivimos, es la excusa para separarnos como dominados, para que no logremos una identidad de clase. Porque nosotros fuimos, somos y seremos quienes atentan contra esta forma de no-vida. Por esto, nos solidarizamos con las personas que llevan adelante las revueltas en Grecia afirmando la vida, destruyendo lo que les destruye (y lo que nos destruye). Recuperando los alimentos hechos por nuestros hermanos, tomando las universidades para reunirse, enfrent?ndose a la polic?a, recuperando las calles, actuando fuera y contra
 partidos o sindicatos, mostr?ndonos que la verdadera organizaci?n es desde abajo.?Trabajadores, desocupados, estudiantes, encapu-chados? categorizan los medios de informaci?n burgueses, para aislar y dividir: ??Proletarios todos!! Decimos nosotros. En consecuencia, luchemos y organic?monos contra ?nuestra? propia burgues?a en ?nuestra? propia regi?n??[24] 
? 
La inconsciencia de clase del proletariado en Europa y en general en el mundo, sigue pesando contra esa indispensable salida a la calle masiva en todas partes que es tan vital e indispensable para la transformaci? n de la revuelta en revoluci?n social internacional. Evidentemente que sin ello, como dicen los compa?eros de la ASOEE (ver comunicado ya citado), aunque nos entristezca la idea realista de que tarde o temprano tendremos que volver a la normalidad y se luche por mantener y extender la revuelta llega un momento en que la correlaci?n de fuerzas impide seguir. Y es importante decirlo con toda claridad, porque eso de que en Grecia la ?insurrecci?n debiera ser mantenida todo el tiempo posible?, seg?n comunicados que se hacen circular sobre Internet, nos parece una total falta de perspectiva revolucionaria. Ese pretendido ?insurreccionalismo? desconoce lo m?s decisivo que tiene una insurrecci?n proletaria que es la concentraci?n, la
 organizaci?n y la centralizaci? n de la fuerza proletaria para liquidar el poder del capital y todas sus fuerzas represivas organizadas [25]. 
El internacionalismo del proletariado todav?a se limita entonces a esas acciones, de todas maneras ejemplares e imprescindibles, de grupos proletarios muy minoritarios que en diferentes pa?ses salieron a la calle a brindar apoyo a la revuelta en Grecia, a atacar s?mbolos y representaciones del poder en todas partes, a difundir manifiestos, proclamas y llamadas a la lucha al endormecido proletariado que en otros pa?ses ?ve? lo que (le dicen nuestros enemigos que) ?pasa en Grecia?? a trav?s la imagen caricaturizada y castrante de la televisi?n. Lamentablemente los somn?feros y otras drogas ideol?gicas todav?a funcionan e impiden que el fuego se extienda. Si, esta vez hubo m?s de lo que hubo por otras revueltas proletarias, como la de Irak, Argelia, Argentina,?pero no se puede hablar todav?a de extensi?n internacional de la revuelta proletaria.? 
No es la falta de internacionalismo del proletariado en Grecia que impide la extensi?n, sino al contrario es la inconsciencia de internacionalismo del proletariado en los otros pa?ses que marca los l?mites objetivos de la revuelta Griega. Desde Grecia el proletariado hizo, todo lo que a su alcance estaba, para no quedar aislado y su acci?n misma fue internacionalista e ilumin? a todos los hermanos proletarios, que quer?an ver la grandeza de la revoluci?n posible que aquella revuelta indica. M?s a?n, el proletariado en Grecia no s?lo con su acci?n y sus proclamas y manifiestos llamaba a sus hermanos a largarse a la batalla, sino que en plena revuelta actu? pr?cticamente en solidaridad con el proletariado de otros pa?ses y no s?lo con los proletarios de otros or?genes que estaban peleando en Grecia. As? hubo volantes y acciones en Grecia que denunciaban y luchaban contra la represi?n terrorista efectuada, justamente en esos d?as, por el
 Estado de Israel (y de Estados Unidos) del proletariado que habita en la banda de Gaza. Ello muestra que frente al terrorismo de Estado internacional s?lo con la fuerza y la acci?n directa se puede ser solidario. 
Queremos subrayar al respecto algo sumamente importante. En pleno movimiento los proletarios en Grecia se enteraron de que Estados Unidos abastec?a militarmente a los criminales del Estado Jud?o pasando por el puerto de Astakos y lucharon por todos los medios por impedirlo. As? informa de la situaci?n "Voces of resistance from an occupied London?[26]:"Reportajes de la prensa mayoritaria han revelado que la armada norteamericana est? tratando de fletar 250 contenedores de unos 20 pies,?, llenos de munici?n (unas 3000 toneladas) desde el puerto privado de Astakos hacia Israel en un env?o especial de armas para ayudar y seguir alimentando los cr?menes de guerra contra la gente de Gaza. Las informaciones sobre cuando se intentara llevar a cabo el transporte son contradictorias. Las posibles fechas son el 15, 25 o 31 de Enero. .. grupos e individuos ?se encuentran organizando un bloqueo a nivel nacional el puerto de Astakos. El movimiento
 anti-autoritario, el movimiento internacional contra la guerra y las asambleas locales de grupos e individuos del pueblo de Astakos ya han lanzado llamamientos para una concentraci?n en el puerto de esta ciudad el dia 15 de Enero".
Unos d?as despu?s el Estado de Estados Unidos comunicaba a sus pares de Israel que el env?o hab?a sido cancelado aduciendo no se sabe bien que tipo de razones; pero los luchadores sociales en Grecia, en Palestina y en el mundo sab?amos bien de que nuestros enemigos prefirieron parar el env?o (y tal vez hacerlo de otra forma o utilizando otra v?a) que hacerlo en contra de la solidaridad proletaria internacional, pues esto ?ltimo hubiese provocado una violencia muy clara de clase contra clase a nivel general que, a su vez, hubiese sido un elemento objetivamente concientizador del proletariado a nivel internacional. Eso es lo que m?s miedo les da: que quede en evidencia que la lucha revolucionario del proletariado es lo ?nico que puede parar las guerras y las represiones y masacres Estatales, dejando en rid?culo todos los discursos y manifestaciones pacifistas.
Queda preguntarnos ?qu? queda de la revuelta de Grecia? Citemos una vez m?s la lucidez de los protagonistas: ?Todo comienza y madura en la violencia -pero nada se queda ah?. La violencia destructora que se desat? en los acontecimientos de diciembre ha causado el par?n de la normalidad capitalista en el centro de la metr?polis, una condici?n necesaria pero insuficiente para la transformaci? n de la insurrecci?n en un intento de liberaci?n social. La desestabilizaci? n de la sociedad capitalista es imposible sin paralizar su econom?a -esto es, sin interrumpir la funci?n de los centros de producci?n y distribuci?n, mediante el sabotaje, las ocupaciones y las huelgas. La ausencia de una propuesta positiva y creadora de una nueva manera de organizar las relaciones sociales era -hasta ahora- algo m?s que evidente. No obstante, la insurrecci?n de diciembre debe entenderse en el contexto hist?rico del endurecimiento de la lucha de clases que
 se est? dando a nivel internacional?[27]
Cuando cerramos este n?mero la lucha del proletariado en Grecia sigue. Evidentemente que en forma m?s reducida, luego de una ola de piquetes en rutas y autopistas protagonizada principalmente por el proletariado agr?cola, siguen una serie de ocupaciones y sobretodo perduran asambleas, estructuras, grupos que hacen un balance de lo sucedido y extraen lecciones y directivas para la pr?xima explosi?n que es tan segura como que la cat?strofe del capital seguir? concret?ndose. 
Nada ser? igual, ni en Grecia ni en ninguna parte. Los compa?eros que estuvieron en la calle en Grecia tienen mucho que sintetizar y trasmitir para los combates que se avecinan en toda Europa, en todo el mundo. Esperamos que esta recapitulaci? n, efectuada gracias a ellos sirva tambi?n como contribuci?n en ese sentido. 
EL PROLETARIADO EN GRECIA MUESTRA EL INDISPENSABLE CAMINO A SEGUIR AL PROLETARIADO EN TODAS PARTES.

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Grecia: Destruimos el presente porque venimos del futuro 
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Comunicado de proletarios de la facultad ocupada ASOEE (Universidad de Econom?a de Atenas)

La primera luz del alba viene tras la oscuridad m?s profunda.
Hasta el s?bado 6 de diciembre de 2008 por la noche podr?amos decir que jusqu? ici tout va bien, observando la ca?da individual de cada uno de nosotros en el desierto del sistema capitalista. En ese momento lleg? la grieta, y la locura destructora de buena parte de la juventud del pa?s. En un primer momento, como tantas veces en la historia, fueron los hechos los que tomaron la palabra.
Primero, el arma del polic?a, reivindicando como suya la repulsa del fen?meno de la vida por parte de cualquier tipo de Autoridad. Se derram? la sangre de un adolescente, e inmediatamente el llanto se transmiti? de forma instant?nea desde Exarhia hasta el centro econ?mico de la metr?polis y otras grandes ciudades, un llanto de llamas y cristales rotos, que transformaba bancos y centros comerciales en una nube de rabia con la inscripci?n: VENGANZA.
Dos d?as m?s tarde los centros navide?os de las ciudades parec?an haber sido objetivos de bombardeos de guerra, mientras que la econom?a de crisis recib?a otro soplo de muerte en su coraz?n por hordas de ?hooligans? destrozando mercanc?as. ?El Tratado de Varkiza se ha roto, estamos en guerra de nuevo?. Hablamos del regreso de la lucha de clases al primer plano, hablamos de la soluci?n a la crisis: Para nosotros. Y tan s?lo estamos empezando. Vamos hacia delante?
Somos parte de la revuelta de la vida contra la muerte cotidiana que nos imponen las relaciones sociales existentes. Con la fuerza destructora que lat?a dentro de nosotros, llevamos a cabo un salvaje (aunque contradictorio) ataque a la instituci?n de la propiedad privada. Ocupamos las calles, respiramos libres a pesar del gas lacrim?geno, atacando la peor parte de nosotros mismos: nuestra imagen como esclavos de nuestros jefes, cuya forma m?s extrema y repugnante es el polic?a.
Erigimos una barricada inquebrantable contra la repugnante normalidad del ciclo de producci?n y distribuci?n. En la situaci?n actual, nada es m?s importante que consolidar esta barricada frente al enemigo de clase. Incluso aunque nos repleguemos ante la presi?n de la escoria (para-) estatal y la insuficiencia de la barricada, sabemos que ya nada volver? a ser igual en nuestras vidas.
Vivimos adem?s una situaci?n hist?rica en la que se recompone un nuevo sujeto de clase, que porta desde hace mucho la responsabilidad de asumir el rol de enterrador del sistema capitalista. Creemos que el proletariado nunca ha sido una clase por su posici?n, sino que m?s bien al contrario, se constituye como clase para s? misma en el enfrentamiento contra el capital, primero en la pr?ctica para tan s?lo despu?s adquirir conciencia de sus propios actos. La recomposici?n est? teniendo lugar por parte de grupos de sujetos que se dan cuenta de que no tienen ning?n control sobre sus propias vidas, provenientes de estratos sociales que han sido -o est?n siendo- exprimidos en el fondo del barril, y que se est?n adentrando en una contradictoria trayectoria hacia la unificaci?n.
El trabajo asalariado siempre ha sido un chantaje. Actualmente lo es con m?s intensidad, en tanto que aumenta el n?mero de trabajadores empleados tan s?lo circunstancialmente y con contratos precarios en sectores que, mientras que son necesarios para la reproducci?n de la dominaci?n capitalista, no tienen utilidad social en absoluto. En estos sectores, las luchas de clase, desterradas del campo de la autogesti?n de la producci?n, se mueven en el del bloqueo y el sabotaje generalizados.
De manera simult?nea, la automatizaci? n de la producci?n y el abandono de las pol?ticas de pleno empleo crean grandes reservas de proletarios en paro empujados al margen de la sociedad, que recurren a trabajos inseguros o a la econom?a sumergida e ilegal para sobrevivir. Parados, trabajadores precarios, estudiantes de instituto y universidad destinados a ser futuros esclavos asalariados, trabajadores inmigrantes de la primera o de la segunda generaci?n que diariamente viven la marginalizaci? n y la represi?n constituyen, junto con las minor?as de trabajadores radicales, la comunidad de insurrectos de diciembre, una comunidad basada en la com?n condici?n de la alienaci?n y la explotaci?n que define a una sociedad basada en el trabajo-mercanc? a.
Recordemos que la v?spera de estos d?as festivos la celebraron aquellos que est?n en un escal?n a?n inferior, los que han perdido todo disfrute en el martirio de la democracia, los presos de las c?rceles griegas.
Los propietarios de la mercanc?a llamada fuerza de trabajo, que la han invertido en el mercado a cambio de seguridad social y con la esperanza de ver a su prole escapar de su condici?n mediante el ascenso en la escala social, contin?an observando a los insurrectos sin tomar parte, pero tambi?n sin llamar a la polic?a para disolverlos. Junto con la sustituci?n de la seguridad social por la seguridad policial y el colapso del mercado de la movilidad social, muchos trabajadores, bajo la carga del fracasado universo de la ideolog?a peque?o burguesa y la econom?a mixta, se mueven hacia una (socialmente importante) justificaci?n moral del levantamiento juvenil, pero sin unirse a?n a su ataque contra este mundo asesino.
Siguen arrastrando sus cad?veres en las letan?as de tres meses de los sindicalistas profesionales, y defendiendo un triste derrotismo sectorial contra la rabiosa agresividad de clase que r?pidamente pasa a primer plano. Estos dos mundos se encontraron el lunes, 8 de diciembre, en las calles, y el pa?s al completo prendi?.. El mundo del derrotismo sectorial tom? las calles para defender el derecho democr?tico de los roles separados del ciudadano, el trabajador, el consumidor, a participar en manifestaciones sin que les disparasen. Muy cerca de all?, el mundo de la agresividad de clase tom? las calles en forma de peque?as ?bandas? organizadas que rompen, queman, saquean y rompen las aceras para lanzar adoquines a los asesinos. El primer mundo (al menos tal y como lo expresa el discurso de los sindicalistas profesionales) tem?a tanto la presencia del segundo, que el mi?rcoles 10 de diciembre, trat? de manifestarse sin la molesta presencia
 de los ?riff-raff?.
Ya estaba sobre la mesa el dilema acerca de c?mo estar en la calle: bien con la seguridad democr?tica de los ciudadanos, o bien con el enfrentamiento solidario del grupo, el bloque agresivo, la marcha que defiende la existencia de cada uno mediante barricadas y rotundos ataques.
Los acontecimientos de diciembre de 2008 (?Dekemvriana?) son el ?ltimo cap?tulo de una serie de insurrecciones que recorren todo el mundo capitalista. En su fase decadente, la sociedad capitalista ni puede, ni tiene como objetivo lograr el consentimiento de los explotados mediante la aceptaci?n de demandas parciales.
Tan s?lo queda su represi?n. Con la restructuraci? n comenzada a mediados de los setenta (para repeler el mot?n proletario llamado ?movimiento del 68?), el capital se encontr? con la siguiente contradicci?n: mientras que por un lado pose?a la habilidad de crear una masa humana de pasivos telespectadores y consumidores de mercanc?as, de manera simult?nea deb?a negarles (mediante la reducci?n de salarios) la posibilidad de adquirir estas mercanc?as.
Desde este punto de vista, no deber?a sorprender el saqueo de un centro comercial en la calle Stadiou por parte de gente que diariamente comparte las promesas de una falsa felicidad de consumo mientras ve c?mo se le niegan los medios para cumplir estas promesas.
La insurrecci?n de diciembre no lleva consigo ninguna demanda concreta, precisamente porque los sujetos que en ella participan sufren d?a a d?a la negativa de la clase dominante a aceptar cualquier demanda, y por lo tanto la conocen a la perfecci?n. Los susurros de la izquierda, que en un comienzo ped?a la retirada del gobierno, se transformaron en un terror mudo y un intento desesperado por calmar la incontrolable ola insurreccional. La ausencia de demandas reformistas refleja una subyacente (aunque a?n inconsciente) disposici?n a la subversi?n radical y a la superaci?n de las relaciones mercantiles existentes, y la creaci?n de unas relaciones cualitativamente nuevas.
Todo comienza y madura en la violencia -pero nada se queda ah?. La violencia destructora que se desat? en los acontecimientos de diciembre ha causado el par?n de la normalidad capitalista en el centro de la metr?polis, una condici?n necesaria pero insuficiente para la transformaci? n de la insurrecci?n en un intento de liberaci?n social.
La desestabilizaci? n de la sociedad capitalista es imposible sin paralizar su econom?a -esto es, sin interrumpir la funci?n de los centros de producci?n y distribuci?n, mediante el sabotaje, las ocupaciones y las huelgas. La ausencia de una propuesta positiva y creadora de una nueva manera de organizar las relaciones sociales era -hasta ahora- algo m?s que evidente. No obstante, la insurrecci?n de diciembre debe entenderse en el contexto hist?rico del endurecimiento de la lucha de clases que se est? dando a nivel internacional.
Una serie de pr?cticas de lucha -algunas de la cuales han salido a la superficie de forma elemental en muchos pa?ses donde han tenido lugar importantes conflictos de clase- proponen y desarrollan a un nivel embrionario la comunidad humana que va a abolir y trascender de manera creativa las relaciones mercantiles alienadas: las escuelas ocupadas pueden emplearse como centros donde organizarse para tomar las calles y el espacio p?blico en general; las anti-lecciones organizadas en el contexto del reciente movimiento de estudiantes/ trabajadores precarios en Italia, poniendo el conocimiento al servicio de la comunidad que se est? formando; expropiaciones colectivas en supermercados y librer?as, y la vida colectiva en las ocupaciones como modo de auto-cumplimiento de las promesas de alimentaci?n, vivienda y libros gratis; una contestaci?n radical a las relaciones de propiedad, la cooperaci?n en vez de la apropiaci?n personal (y a veces la reventa)
 de las mercanc?as expropiadas, la conexi?n de asambleas de barrio, comenzando por los asuntos locales, prefigura pues una sociedad donde las decisiones son tomadas y ejecutadas sin la mediaci?n de ning?n poder separado (sf. Oaxaca); transporte gratuito con los medios de transporte p?blicos, las d?m?nages (invadir las agencias de empleo y tirar todo su material a la calle) como se hicieron en el movimiento anti-CPE en Francia.
Estas (y muchas otras, que resultan de la inteligencia personal y colectiva), son las pr?cticas que pueden enriquecer y fertilizar las fuerzas de la negaci?n, para que en medio de la confusi?n de la insurrecci?n, comience a tomar forma la sociedad libre y comunista.
Hacemos todo lo que est? a nuestro alcance para no abandonar las ocupaciones y las calles, porque no queremos irnos a casa. Nos entristece la idea ?realista? de que tarde o temprano tendremos que volver a la normalidad. Nos llenamos de alegr?a con la idea de que estamos en el comienzo de un proceso hist?rico de auge de la lucha de clases, y de que si queremos, si luchamos por ello, si creemos en ello, lo que nos puede sacar de la crisis, es la salida revolucionaria del sistema.
Diciembre 24, 2008
Proletarios de la ocupada ASOEE (Universidad de Econom?a de Atenas) 
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Desde Grecia: Llamada a una nueva internacional
Martes 23 de diciembre de 2008 
Los pol?ticos y periodistas se burlan de nuestro movimiento, tratando de imponer en ?l su propia carencia de racionalidad. Seg?n ellos, nos rebelamos porque nuestro gobierno es corrupto, o porque nos gustar?a tener acceso a m?s dinero, m?s empleo. 
Destrozamos los bancos porque reconocemos el dinero como causa central de nuestras penas, si rompemos las lunas de los escaparates no es porque la vida sea cara sino porque la mercanc?a nos impide vivir a cualquier precio. Si atacamos a la escoria policial, no es s?lo en venganza por nuestros compa?eros muertos sino porque entre este mundo y el que deseamos, siempre van a suponer un obst?culo. 
Sabemos que ha llegado el momento de pensar estrat?gicamente. En este momento tan importante sabemos que la condici?n indispensable de una insurrecci?n victoriosa es que se extienda, al menos, a nivel europeo. Los pasados a?os hemos visto y hemos aprendido: las contracumbres a lo largo del mundo, los disturbios estudiantiles y en los suburbios de Francia, el movimiento anti-TAV en Italia, la Comuna de Oaxaca, los disturbios de Montreal, la agresiva defensa de Ungdomshuset en Copenague, los disturbios contra la Convenci?n Nacional Republicana en los Estados Unidos, y la lista contin?a. 
Nacidos en la cat?strofe, somos los hijos de una crisis global: pol?tica, social, econ?mica y ecol?gica. Sabemos que este mundo es un callej?n sin salida. Hay que estar loco para agarrarse a sus ruinas. Hay que ser acertado para autoorganizarse. 
Hay una obviedad en el rechazo total a los partidos y organizaciones pol?ticas; son parte del viejo mundo. Somos los hijos engre?dos de esta sociedad y no queremos nada de ella. Ese es el pecado que nunca nos perdonar?n. Tras las m?scaras negras, somos vuestros hijos. Y nos estamos organizando. 
No nos esforzar?amos tanto en destruir lo material de este mundo, sus bancos, sus supermercados, sus comisar?as, si no supi?ramos que en al mismo tiempo socavamos su metaf?sica, sus ideales, sus ideas y su l?gica. 
Los medios describir?n todo lo ocurrido las pasadas semanas como una expresi?n de nihilismo. Lo que no entienden es que en el proceso de asalto y acoso a su realidad, hemos experimentado una forma de comunidad superior, de reparto, una forma superior de organizaci?n alegre y espont?nea que establece la base de un mundo distinto. 
Cualquiera podr?a decir que nuestra revuelta encuentra su propio fin en que se limita a la destrucci?n. Esto ser?a cierto en caso de que junto a las los enfrentamientos callejeros, no hubi?semos establecido la necesaria organizaci?n que requiere un movimiento a largo plazo: cantinas provistas por saqueos regulares, enfermer?as para sanar a nuestros heridos, los medios para imprimir nuestros propios peri?dicos, nuestra propia radio. A medida que liberamos territorio del imperio del Estado y su polic?a, debemos ocuparlo, llenarlo y transformar sus usos de manera que sirvan al movimiento. De este modo, el movimiento nunca para de crecer 
Por toda Europa, los gobiernos tiemblan. Seguro que lo que m?s temen no es que se reproduzcan los disturbios locales sino la posibilidad real de que la juventud occidental encuentre sus causas comunes y se levante como una sola para darle a esta sociedad su golpe final. 
Esta llamada va dirigida a todo el que quiera escucharla: 
Desde Berl?n a Madrid, de Londres a Tarnac, todo es posible. 
La solidaridad debe transformarse en complicidad. Los enfrentamientos deben expandirse. Deben declararse las comunas. 
De esta manera, la situaci?n nunca retornar? a la normalidad. De esta manera las ideas y pr?cticas que nos unen ser?n lazos reales. 
De este modo seremos ingobernables. 
Un saludo revolucionario a los compa?eros de todo el mundo. A los detenidos, ?os sacaremos! 
Extra?do de?Indymedia Barcelona 
Traducido por?Klinamen 
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O O O 
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DECLARACI?N DE LA ASAMBLEA GENERAL DE TRABAJADORES INSURRECOS DE ATENAS 
O decidimos nuestra historia o dejamos que la decidan por nosotros 
Desde las ocho de la ma?ana del d?a de hoy mi?rcoles 17 de diciembre de 2008, trabajadores de base hemos ocupado la sede de GSEE (Confederaci? n General de Trabajadores de Grecia) en Atenas. Es el momento de acabar con la mediaci?n de los sindicatos amarillos que no representan a nadie. 
Acabemos con la mentira medi?tica de los 500 encapuchados: La revuelta sigue viva. 
Declaramos la sede de GSEE en Espacio liberado para todos los trabajadores del pa?s.
?Huelga General ya!
?Inmediata puesta en libertad de todos los presos de la revuelta! 
Nosotros, trabajadores manuales, empleados, parados, trabajadores temporales, locales o inmigrantes, no somos pasivos telespectadores. Desde el asesinato de Alexandros Grigoropoulos la noche del s?bado hemos participado en las manifestaciones, en los enfrentamientos con la polic?a, las ocupaciones del centro y de los barrios. Una y otra vez hemos tenido que dejar el trabajo y nuestras obligaciones diarias para tomar las calles con los estudiantes, los universitarios y los dem?s proletarios en lucha. 
HEMOS DECIDIDO OCUPAR LA SEDE DEL GSEE (?Confederaci?n General de Trabajadores de Grecia) 
-Para convertirlo en un espacio de libre expresi?n y un punto de encuentro para los trabajadores 
-Para desmentir la falacia extendida por los medios que nos sit?a a los trabajadores al margen de los enfrentamientos, y que define la rabia de estos d?as como el asunto de unos 500 ?encapuchados?, ?hooligans? o cualquier otro cuento, mientras las pantallas de televisi?n nos presentan como v?ctimas del enfrentamiento, mientras la crisis capitalista en Grecia y en todo el mundo da lugar a incontables despidos que los medios y sus directivos tratan como un ?fen?meno natural?.
-Para desenmascarar el rol de la burocracia sindical y su trabajo de sapa contra la insurrecci?n, y no s?lo ah?. El GSEE e integralmente todo el mecanismo sindical que lo ha apoyado durante d?cadas y d?cadas, menosprecia las luchas, negocia nuestra fuerza de trabajo por migajas y perpet?a el sistema de explotaci?n y esclavitud asalariada. La postura del GSEE del pasado mi?rcoles es bastante reveladora: el GSEE cancel? la manifestaci?n de trabajadores que estaba programada, imponiendo en su lugar la organizaci?n de una peque?a reuni?n en la plaza de Syntagma, asegur?ndose de este modo que la gente se marchase cuanto antes de la plaza, ya que tem?an que los trabajadores nos vi?ramos infectados del virus de la insurrecci?n. 
-Para abrir este espacio por primera vez -como una continuaci?n de la apertura social generada por la insurrecci?n en s?-, un espacio construido con nuestras contribuciones, y del que hemos sido excluidos. Durante todos estos a?os hemos confiado nuestros destinos en salvadores de todo pelaje, y terminamos perdiendo nuestra dignidad. Como trabajadores debemos comenzar a asumir nuestras responsabilidades, y dejar de ceder nuestras esperanzas a buenos l?deres o representantes ?aptos?. Debemos hacernos con nuestra propia voz, encontrarnos y reunirnos, hablar, decidir, y actuar. Contra el ataque generalizado que soportamos. La creaci?n de resistencias colectivas ?de base? es el ?nico camino. 
-Para propagar la idea de la auto-organizaci? n y la solidaridad en los puestos de trabajo, los comit?s de lucha y las pr?cticas colectivas desde abajo, aboliendo a los bur?cratas sindicalistas. 
-Todos estos a?os hemos tragado con la miseria, la complacencia, la violencia en el trabajo. Llegamos a acostumbrarnos a contar los lisiados y nuestros muertos -los mal llamados ?accidentes laborales?. Nos acabamos acostumbrando a mirar a otro lado ante la muerte de los inmigrantes -nuestros compa?eros de clase-. Estamos cansados de vivir con la ansiedad de tener que asegurarnos un sueldo, unos ingresos, y una pensi?n que ahora parece un sue?o lejano. 
Igual que luchamos para no abandonar nuestras vidas en manos de los jefes y los representantes sindicales, de la misma manera no abandonaremos a los rebeldes arrestados en manos del estado y el sistema jur?dico. 
INMEDIATA LIBERACI?N SIN CARGOS DE LOS DETENIDOS 
AUTOORGANIZACI?N DE LOS TRABAJADORES 
HUELGA GENERAL 
ASAMBLEA DE TRABAJADORES DEL EDIFICIO ?LIBERADO? DEL GSEE 
Mi?rcoles, 17 de diciembre de 2008, a las 18 horas 
? 
O O O 
? 
Carta a los estudiantes escrita por trabajadores atenienses? 
Nuestra diferencia de edad y el distanciamiento general nos dificulta discutir con vosotros en las calles; esta es la raz?n por la que os mandamos esta carta. 
La mayor?a de nosotros a?n no nos hemos quedado calvos ni nos ha salido barriga. Somos parte del movimiento de 1990-91. Hab?is tenido que o?r hablar de aquello. En aquel entonces, cuando hab?amos ocupado nuestras escuelas durante 30-35 d?as, los fascistas mataron a un profesor porque fue m?s all? de su rol natural (el de ser nuestro guardi?n) y cruz? la l?nea hacia el lado opuesto: vino con nosotros, a nuestra lucha. Entonces, hasta el m?s duro de nosotros fue a la calle a los disturbios. Sin embargo, nosotros ni siquiera pensamos en hacer lo que tan f?cilmente hac?is vosotros hoy: atacar comisar?as (aunque cant?bamos aquello de "quemar comisar?as... "). As? pues, hab?is ido m?s all? que nosotros, como ocurre siempre en la historia. Las condiciones son diferentes, por supuesto. En los 90 nos compraron con la excusa del ?xito personal y algunos de nosotros nos lo tragamos. Ahora la gente no se cree este cuento de hadas. Vuestros
 hermanos mayores nos lo demostraron durante el movimiento estudiantil de 2006-07; vosotros ahora les escup?s su cuento de hadas a la cara. 
Todo bien hasta el momento 
Ahora comienzan las buenas y dif?ciles cuestiones 
Para empezar, os decimos que lo que hemos aprendido de vuestras luchas y de nuestras derrotas (porque mientras el mundo no sea nuestro siempre seremos perdedores) y pod?is emplear lo que hemos aprendido como quer?is: 
No os qued?is solos. Llamadnos; llamad a tanta gente como sea posible. No sabemos c?mo pod?is hacerlo, encontrar?is la manera. Ya hab?is ocupado vuestras escuelas y nos dec?s que la raz?n m?s importante es que no os gustan.. Bien. Ya que las hab?is ocupado, invertidle el rol. Intercambiad vuestras ocupaciones con otra gente. Dejad que vuestras escuelas sean el primer hogar para nuestras nuevas relaciones. Su arma m?s potente es nuestra divisi?n. Tal y como vosotros no tem?is atacar las comisar?as porque est?is unidos, no tem?is llamarnos para cambiar nuestras vidas todos juntos. 
No escuch?is a ninguna organizaci?n pol?tica (ni anarquista ni ninguna). Haced lo que necesit?is. Confiad en la gente, no en esquemas e ideas abstractas. Confiad en vuestras relaciones directas con la gente. Confiad en vuestros amigos: haced vuestra lucha de cuanta m?s gente posible, vuestra gente. No les escuch?is cuando os digan que vuestra lucha no tiene contenido pol?tico y que deber?a obtenerlo. Vuestra lucha es el contenido. Tan s?lo ten?is vuestra lucha y est? en vuestras manos asegurar su avance. Tan s?lo ella puede cambiar vuestra vida, a vosotros y las relaciones reales con vuestros compa?eros. 
No tem?is actuar cuando os enfrent?is a cosas nuevas. Cada uno de nosotros, ahora que nos hacemos mayores, tiene algo sembrado en su cerebro. Vosotros tambi?n, aunque se?is j?venes. No olvid?is la importancia de este hecho. En 1991, nos enfrentamos al olor de un nuevo mundo y, creednos, lo encontramos dif?cil. Hab?amos aprendido que siempre debe haber l?mites. No tem?is la destrucci?n de mercanc?as. No os asust?is ante los saqueos de tiendas. Lo hacemos porque es nuestro. Vosotros (como nosotros en el pasado) hab?is sido criados para levantaros todas las ma?anas con el fin de hacer cosas que m?s tarde no ser?n vuestras.. Recuper?moslas y compart?moslas. Tal y como hacemos con nuestros amigos y el amor. 
Os pedimos disculpas por escribir esta carta tan r?pidamente, pero lo hacemos al ritmo del trabajo, en secreto para evitar que se entere el jefe. Somos prisioneros en el trabajo, como vosotros en la escuela. Ahora mentiremos a nuestro jefe y dejaremos el trabajo: nos reuniremos con vosotros en Syntagma con piedras en las manos. 
Proletarios 
? 
O O O 
? 
Texto repartido en el funeral de Alexis Grigoropoulos. 
? 
No nos critiqu?is antes de entendernos. 
No nos apunt?is con el dedo antes de vernos. 
No nos censur?is antes de hablarnos. 
No nos mat?is antes de dejarnos vivir. 
Somos vuestros hijos y nietos, vuestros vecinos o amigos... 
Somos la sociedad que hab?is creado... Somos el resultado de las generaciones de indiferencia, de no creer en nada, del pasotismo, de la apat?a... 
? 
Ahora...Quemamos para que no nos quememos, 
Rompemos para que no nos rompan, 
Nos Rebelamos porque ya estamos hart at s de este mundo 
?Estamos con vosotr at s! 
?Estas noches son de Alexis! 
Hay que cambiar el mundo, y si no lo conseguimos al menos lo habremos intentado. 
Que se extienda la revuelta, 
? 
O O O 
? 
No tenemos ilusiones. No tenemos ninguna esperanza. Por eso somos peligrosos. 
Se acabaron sus noches tranquilas. 
Les escuchamos cada d?a en los noticieros de la tele.. Declaraciones, contra declaraciones y despu?s comentarios y todo lo dem?s para lo que ustedes llaman nuestra informaci?n ?objetiva?. 
Basta ya. 
Ahora nos van a escuchar a nosotros. 
Somos la generaci?n de los 400 euros. De los programas ?stage? del organismo de empleo, del trabajo flexible, de la eterna capacitaci?n (siempre con nuestros gastos), de la precariedad, de la carest?a, de los dos diplomas que no sirven para nada. De la eliminaci?n de nuestros derechos laborales, de nuestra humillaci?n por parte de patrones, pol?ticos y los dem?s. 
Somos la generaci?n que la encierran en escuelas, intentando meter en nuestras cabezas sus nacionalismos, sus prejuicios, su lujuria por la patria, su mentira, su subordinaci?n. 
Somos los chavos a los que humillan y provocan los antidisturbios, los polic?as secretos, o los guardias especiales y todos los dem?s polic?as que hizo su democracia (y puso por todos lados como otro ej?rcito de ocupaci?n) cuando nos encontramos en su camino, los objetos diarios de su abuso del poder. 
Somos los heridos de las marchas de los estudiantes y de los alumnos, nuestras cabezas fueron golpeadas contra el asfalto, nuestra dignidad fue eliminada bajo sus botas, nuestras manos fueron quebradas por los toletes, nuestras caras fueron machacadas por sus pu?etazos, nuestros pulmones todav?a contienen los gases que nos echaron, que est?n prohibidos seg?n acuerdos internacionales. Moriremos prematuramente porque no estuvimos de acuerdo con las leyes que nos est?n robando la vida. Somos los detenidos que nos arrastramos en juicios por a?os, Panagiotis que llevaba zapatos de un color equivocado y se qued? 40 d?as en la c?rcel, Dimitrios Augustinos que pas? por el lugar equivocado en el momento equivocado, los 50 heridos en el hospital Evangelismos el 8 de marzo de 2007. 
Nosotros incendiamos sus bancos. Nosotros nos enfrentamos con la polic?a. Nosotros destruimos la paz social que est?n construyendo d?a y noche lavando el cerebro de los ciudadanos para que obedezcan y se callen. Nosotros seguimos iluminando las noches fr?as que nos trajeron. Nosotros seguimos ensuciando las paredes con consignas que aunque sus ojos vean nunca llegar?n a sus o?dos. Nosotros nos vengamos por Alexis en las barricadas, el mismo s?bado en que los buenos ciudadanos burlaban otra vez sus conciencias con la violaci?n semanal. No es que nuestras palabras sean crueles. Cruel es su realidad. Alexis fue la gota que hizo desbordar el vaso. Cada noche va a ser de ?l de aqu? en adelante. 
Se acabaron sus noches tranquilas. 
P?guennos, ?chennos gases, det?ngannos, t?rennos balas de goma como las que llevan tirando desde el s?bado, ap?ntennos con sus pistolas o den tiros al aire (?o a nosotros tal vez?). Alisten al paraestado, como est?n haciendo ahora en Patras o a esos periodistas siempre dispuestos, la mano larga real del poder. A Pretenteris, Evangelatos, Triantafilopulos, Kapsis, Tremi, Pavlopulos, Papajelas. Y a todos los dem?s. De ellos depende su ?xito. Escondan las im?genes de la brutalidad policial, tapen los esc?ndalos que apestan, aprueben sus medidas antipopulares con ?consenso social?. 
El lunes en Atenas pusieron a sus agentes a destruir los peque?os comercios. Nosotros los vimos saliendo de las filas de la polic?a. Hay incluso fotos. Las van a ocultar a esas tambi?n, con mucho ?xito. Ya sus papagayos, despu?s de los primeros disturbios, repiten bien los que ustedes les ense?aron. 
El martes no respetaron ni siquiera el funeral de Alexis. Mandaron a los antidisturbios a su funeral para provocar a ni?os de 15 a?os. Tiraron gases lacrim?genos y detuvieron a ni?os. Ustedes profanaron al mismo chico que asesinaron. 
?Ya basta con las mentiras! No somos los encapuchados ni los conocidos-desconoci dos. Somos muchos y estamos furiosos. Ya paren de repetir tonter?as. Desde Komotini hasta Jani?, de norte a sur nuestra rabia se desborda. Cayeron con todos los medios que su monstruoso poder dispone para eliminarnos. Con toletes, balas, lacrim?genos, medios de comunicaci?n masiva, provocaciones, paraestado. 
No tenemos ilusiones. No tenemos ninguna esperanza. Por eso somos peligrosos. 
No nos hacemos ilusiones que van a tomar todo eso en cuenta. Todos los d?as entierran nuestros gritos en su mentira. 
Adi?s. Nos van a ver desde sus sof?s en sus televisiones. 
"Historia ah? vamos. Mira arriba hacia el cielo" 
? 
Texto an?nimo que alcanz? gran difusi?n 
? 
O O O 
? 
LA LUCHA SOCIAL EN GRECIA ES NUESTRA LUCHA 
La muerte de Alexandros en Grecia, los violentos disturbios en respuesta y la detenci?n de cientos de manifestantes en ese pa?s, las movilizaciones en diversas ciudades europeas, las recientes detenciones y palizas policiales en Madrid y Barcelona, la operaciones policiales contra compa?eros en Francia acusados de los sabotajes a las catenarias del tren, los registros en viviendas y locales de solidarios en B?lgica, las recientes huelgas de hambre en numerosas c?rceles del mundo, el asesinato en Chile de Juan Cruz y la militarizaci? n de poblaciones en ese pa?s, los motines en los suburbios? Todo esto compa?eros, forma parte de la lucha entre quienes queremos derribar la sociedad de clases y quienes la defienden. 
Ante la extensi?n de la lucha, el Estado multiplica en todo el mundo sus golpes represivos para neutralizarla. Pero en estos d?as los proletarios estamos respondiendo a la violencia del estado con la violencia revolucionaria. Grecia est? siendo el pulm?n de la lucha. 
Compa?eros, sigamos el ejemplo de nuestros hermanos en Grecia que est? desbordando toda tentativa de integraci?n democr?tica. No nos creamos las artima?as con las que nos quieren enredar. Todos los pol?ticos, en el gobierno o en la oposici?n, los de izquierda o de derecha, los cuerpos represivos, los periodistas y dem?s voceros del capital? Todos ellos son expresiones de la bestia capitalista, recambios, falsas oposiciones y herramientas para aplastarnos. Es todo este mundo el que queremos cambiar desde sus cimientos. Y para ello solo contamos con nosotros mismos, organizados fuera y contra todos los aparatos del Estado (partidos, sindicatos, ONGs?), rompiendo las divisiones que quieren imponernos (j?venes/viejos, trabajadores/ estudiantes/ parados, emigrantes/aut? ctonos?) 
Compa?eros, organicemos con inteligencia nuestra lucha, extend?mosla, estructuremos de manera eficaz la violencia organizada de nuestra clase. Evitemos el enfrentamiento cuerpo a cuerpo que facilita la labor policial, golpeemos donde les duele, discutamos conjuntamente los aspectos de la lucha. 
Los disturbios que hoy inquietan a los burgueses pueden agudizarse. Sin embargo tambi?n pueden refluir hoy o ma?ana, pero lo que no podemos es desestructurar los lazos de uni?n que hemos tejido en las calles. Si la lucha decae, mantengamos las estructuras, hagamos balance de los aciertos y los errores para pr?ximos envites, convirtamos este episodio de lucha en una potencia para el futuro. Y sobre todo no olvidemos a los reprimidos en Grecia, Madrid, Barcelona, o donde sea, no dejemos que sean triturados por la maquina represiva del capitalismo, hagamos frente al terrorismo estatal. Es hora de que el miedo cambie de campo. 
? A LA CALLE, A LUCHAR! 
?A DESTRUIR LO QUE NOS DESTRUYE! 
Comit? de Asturias en solidaridad con las luchas en Grecia 
solidariosg@ gmail.com 
? 
O O O 
? 
Estamos contra el sistema capitalista que nos condena a trabajar 10-12 horas por un sueldo de mierda, que destruye nuestro entorno y la poca naturaleza que nos queda, que condena a millones como nosotros a morir de hambre, agotamiento o asesinados en el mal llamado ?tercer mundo?, o en su intento de llegar a este aun peor llamado ?primero?, que ha transformado la sociedad en una agregado de personas que s?lo se relacionan para quitarse el sitio en el metro. Estamos contra el estado y contra la democracia en la que un pu?ado de pol?ticos profesionales se encargan de gestionar nuestras vidas, de decirnos qu? hacer y qu? no hacer en funci?n de sus intereses y de su clase social. 
De http://www.solidari osgrecia. org/Comunicado- Asamblea- Solidarixs. html
Comunicado Asamblea Solidarixs Grecia (Espa?a)
? 





[1] ?Desde Grecia: Llamada a una nueva Internacional? Se trata de ?textos repartidos en Grecia? en http://www.solidari asgrecia. org/Desde- Grecia-Llamada- a-una-nueva

[2] Extracto traducido de Indymedia London de uno de los primeros volantes surgido de las asambleas y que muestra un gran nivel de espontaneidad e inocencia sobre los objetivos del movimiento que comentamos m?s adelante.

[3] ?Destruimos el presente porque venimos del futuro? Comunicado de proletari at s de la facultad ocupada de ASOEE (Universidad de Econom?a de Atenas). Ver texto ?ntegro m?s adelante.

[4] Idem.

[5] Ver ?Proletario yo??: en Comunismo No. 57 

[6] ?Desde Grecia: Llamada a una nueva Internacional?.

[7] De varios comunicados, pintadas y rayadas en diferentes ciudades griegas. Subrayamos que la palabra jefe con la que esta consigna se hizo conocer en Europa, no tiene mucho sentido en griego nos dice un compa?ero. En todo caso, parecer?a ser m?s bien una traducci?n ideol?gica (dominante en los materiales de circulaci?n Indiymedia) y sumamente empobrecedora de la realidad, al lado de la condenaci?n del trabajo asalariado que, en vez de cuestionar s?lo la jefatura o el aspecto pol?tico de la relaci?n, proclama la necesidad de destruir toda la relaci?n social capitalista.? 

[8] De ?Destruimos el presente porque venimos del futuro? ya citado.

[9] Peque??sima cosa (viene de centavo), ?ni?o? pero muy despectivamente c?mo ?cholito?, ?pendejo? ?guacho?, ?

[10] Del documento titulado ?No tenemos ilusiones. No tenemos ninguna esperanza. Por eso somos peligrosos. Se acabaron sus noches tranquilas? que publicamos integralmente en recuadro al final.

[11] ?Nosotrxs lxs presxs en los centros de exterminio del estado griego, cansados de las falsas promesas de todos los ministros de justicia de los ?ltimos diez a?os sobre la mejora de las condiciones penitenciarias, decidimos movilizarnos y exigir nuestras justas reivindicaciones? declara un comunicado. La prensa internacional informa: ? A? partir del 3 de Noviembre 08, m?s de 8000 presos y presas de las c?rceles del estado griego empezaron un ayuno masivo que culmin? con una huelga de hambre que se han ido juntando m?s de 7000 presxs?.

[12] En todos los aniversarios de la ?ca?da de la dictadura? se hace una manifestaci?n, pero este a?o por la lucha de los presos la misma se radicaliz? y se proclam? la solidaridad con los presos y su lucha que estaba en un momento culminante.

[13] ?La revuelta en Grecia, obra de los j?venes que vieron asesinado su horizonte? publicado por Eugenia Apostolou; La Jornada
? 

[14] ?La rabia de la juventud? Colectivo ALANA 
? 

[15] El racismo real, que tantas veces utiliza un discurso supuestamente antirracista, siempre trata la cuesti?n c?mo si no fuese un problema, o como si s?lo lo fuese en el caso del racismo c?mo ideolog?a. En realidad el peor de los racismos es el que existe en la esencia misma de las relaciones sociales capitalistas, por el cual la fuerza de trabajo de un obrero nacional y blanco vale mucho m?s que la de un negro y/o extranjero y el mismo es tanto m?s pernicioso cuando se lo trata como si no existiese y se lo acompa?a de un discurso ideol?gico ?antirracista?

[16] Dicho comunicado fue distribuido el 15/12/2008 y al final tiene la aclaraci?n y firma siguientes:? ?Este texto fue distribuido por la Asociaci?n de Inmigrados Albaneses a los estudiantes que rodean la sede central de Polic?a? 

[17] De ?Destruimos el presente porque venimos del futuro? ya citado

[18] 15/12/08 Panfleto firmado ?local autogestionado de la escuela arquitect?nica?

[19] Ver m?s adelante el recuadro correspondiente.

[20] De ??Desde Grecia: Llamada a una nueva Internacional? ya citado.

[21] Uri Gordon: ?Grecia: ?pre?mbulo de una revoluci?n??

[22] Akis Gavriilidis: ?Grecia: Por qu? estoy con los encapuchados? de donde subrayamos adem?s: Lo que est? ocurriendo esta ?ltima semana es la segunda revoluci?n griega, y en mi opini?n es quiz?s m?s importante que la primera -y en cualquier caso, seguramente m?s masiva. Tambi?n es quiz?s la primera vez en mi vida que me siento orgulloso de ser griego.?Estos d?as constituyen la mayor contribuci?n de la Grecia contempor?nea a la civilizaci?n mundial, y es la primera vez -tal vez la segunda despu?s de 1821, pero con una dimensi?n geogr?fica y demogr?fica mucho mayor que entonces, que las miradas del mundo entero se dirigen hacia Grecia con admiraci?n y esperanza
? 

[23] Del llamado efectuado por el? Comit? de Asturias en solidaridad con las luchas en Grecia solidariosg@ gmail.com. Ver al final texto completo en recuadro..

[24] El llamado es titulado: ???VAMOS A ILUMINAR LA OSCURIDAD!!? y est? firmado: Anarquistas Rosario www.anarquistasrosa rio.cjb.net anarquistasrosario@ yahoo.com. ar

[25] No pretendemos aqu? tratar la compleja cuesti?n de quienes se autodenominan ?insurreccionalistas?. Quienes proclamamos la necesidad de la dictadura de la revoluci?n, somos partidarios de la insurrecci?n proletaria y, en esa medida,? (como todos los revolucionarios) somos insurreccionalistas . Aqu? s?lo tratamos de denunciar una corriente que se autoproclama ?insurreccionalista? sin serlo, una corriente? que en el fondo no s?lo no act?a por la insurrecci?n sino que desvirt?a la misma asimil?ndola a cualquier tipo de acci?n directa.

[26] Ver al respecto el art?culo completo en ingl?s en: http://www.occupied london.org/ blog/

[27] De ?Destruimos el presente porque venimos del futuro? ya citado.
? 
A FURTHER TRANSLATION IN ENGLISH WILL COME LATER...

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From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Tue Mar 10 07:27:27 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:27:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] rah, rah team fight
Message-ID: <614751.61561.qm@web180108.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


Comment

In what relation do the? Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?

The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other? 
working-class parties. 

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as? a 
whole. 

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape? 
and mould the proletarian movement. 
_http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm_ 
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm) 

^^^^^^^
CB: So, don't aim for a communist polarity.

^^^^^
?

The communist goal is first and above all "victory to the workers in? their 
current struggle." That is the communist goal - Job 1, at all times. To? make 
the immediate and long term goal of communists the abolition of private? 
property outside the field of victory to the workers in their current struggle? is 
just silly thinking.

^^^^^
CB: To make it the immediate goal is silly.
To make it the long term goal is right
out of the manifesto you just quoted.

^^^^

?Communists do not have separate demands from various? 
segment of the working class. IN fact it is these real world demands that? creates 
the line of march. Here is how Marx and Engels defined the task and role? of 
communists. 

^^^
CB: So, stop talking about a communist polarity

^^^^^^

"In the various stages of development which the? struggle of the working 
class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they? always and everywhere 
represent the interests of the movement as a whole.?

^^^^^
CB: i.e. including the poorest
sections of the working class
but not only the poorest sections
of the working class

^^^^
?
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most? 
advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country,? that 
section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically,? 
they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly? 
understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general? results 
of the proletarian movement." (End quote) 

Here is where Marx deploy the communist concept of "the line of? march."? 

What is wrong with formulating the goal of communists as abolition of? 
private property, is a failure to advance on the basis of the here and now.
^^^^^^
CB: Correct. Don't raise aboltion of 
private property now. That's the
ultimate goal,not the current
line of march

^^^^^^

?If? 
comrades are involved in the struggle for unemployment, and they are, that is? the 
goal. For instance, when communist are involved in a strike, the goal is not? 
abolition of private property but to resolve the strike in favor of the 
workers? on strike. When the communist fought for Civil Rights and industrial 
unions the? goal was not to abolish private property but the realization of Civil 
Rights and? industrial unions. Why would this not be the case today? 

^^^^^^
CB: Correct?: do not raise abolition
of private property today. Support
the trade union's aims, which are
united behind the?O admin.

^^^^^^
?
The idea that establishing a communist polarity means fighting for the? 
abolition of private property makes no sense and is hopelessly sectarian. As if? 
communist have interest outside the proletariat.?

^^^^
CB:? The idea of establishing a communist
polarity separate from the current struggles
of the working class is sectarian. "Polarity" means
separation from some other pole, like the social
democratic pole, or the DP pole. No polarity, unity.

^^^^^?

The real issue is my refusal to praise winning a concession. I see no need? 
for genuflecting. 

^^^^
CB: It's not genuflecting. It's cheerleading.
?It's expressing
support, rallying the working class in
each of its little victories. Comrades and
workers , come rally. not genuflecting.
cheerleading for each first down, each 
basket.

^^^^^

There are far to many other concessions to be fought for and? 
won, than to pause and praise the Obama administration for unemployment 
benefit? extensions.

^^^
CB: First of all this is not the
only one to cheer. There's
stem cell research. I don't know
why you never have anything to 
say about pay equity for working
women. There's? declaration of
out of Iraq, etc, etc. Part of winning
the future battles is rallying and
cheering for the wins we have already.
As Ravi on Pen-l said it's "rah,rah !"
rah rah we want a touchdown


^^^^^^

?Now that not taxing a portion of unemployment has been put 
into? effect, we might consider abolition of all taxes on unemployment, a policy? 
change that begin under the Carter administration. We communists opposed? 
taxing unemployment checks back when the Carter administration implemented this? 
new taxation. We still oppose such. We have not changed our attitude in favor 
of? somehow fighting - detached from the mass of proletarians, a fight to 
abolish? private property. 

^^^^^
CB; Sure but, we aren't
there yet. The agenda of
what is doable now is
being set by O. 

And by the way, over the
last 30 years, the other "team"
has built up a 49 to?0 lead.
So, we have?to make a 
lot of touchdowns. You can't
score 7 touchdowns on one
play.

^^^^^
?
I find such thinking absolutely bizarre and outside the historical? 
experience of American communism. 

^^^^^^
CB:??(insert here clever retort
and reciprocal insult)

^^^^^
?
Taxing unemployment was absurd then and is absurd today.?? 

Now is the time to push to reform the social safety net - welfare, to? expand 
to cover ever larger segments of the proletariat. Here is the meaning of? a 
communist polarity. A communist polarity is not a concept of ideology but? 
fighting for needs from the standpoint of the proletariat.??

^^^^^^^
CB:?To the extent that you 
go far outside the O 
coalition, right now this would be?

? setting up? sectarian principles of?your own, by which to shape? 
and mould the proletarian movement. 

It's ok to make proposals, and suggestions
to the admin. , but not as a "communist polarity".

^^^^^^^^

Expanding welfare is a communist demand and issue, but it is not an issue? 
that only communists support. We are simply the most resolute championing on? 
this issue. When did fighting for socially necessary means of life somehow? 
become a non-communist demand and issue? 

^^^^^^
CB:?Ok when did it??

^^^^^
?
When Clinton reformed "welfare as we know it" the communists were in the? 
forefront and the most resolute fighters against this reform! The liberals? 
deserted the fight for the expansion of the social safety net! The liberals said? 
"welfare is no good because it makes people lazy" and we communists screamed? 
bloody murder to the high heavens. 

^^^^
CB; That was then.
This is now.?It's a diversion
to fight Clinton right now.
Find ways to support O,
unite behind O

^^^^^^
?
I really do not understand the thinking that says we communists are not the? 
most resolute fighters for the needs and demands of various segments of our? 
working class, in the here and now. 

^^^^
CB: I don't understand it either.

^^^^^
?
The 30 year battle for welfare expansion, which the communists have been at? 
the forefront as the most unwavering and resolute fighters, can be advanced 
anew? - today, due to the widening dimensions of the crisis and the intersection 
of? class interests. Now it the time to push harder, for this communist 
demand,? and win individuals over to the vision and cause of communism. 

^^^^^
CB:?This sounds a little
like setting up? sectarian principles of
?your own, by which to shape? 
and mould the proletarian movement.

^^^^^^
?
Obviously I believe in every fiber of my being that it is wrong and a? 
disaster to try and win workers over to Obama and the Obama administration. What? I 
write is geared to winning the individual over to the cause of communism and? 
the study of Marxism because we have answers and a superior way to look at and 
understand the system of capitalist production, and why it is coming to an 
end. 

^^^^^^
CB: This is sectarian.

^^^^^^
?
On a list that bills itself as Marxists I am going to write about modern? 
communism and our history of fighting for immediate demands of the working class? 
without compromising our vision of emancipation. Simply because we have a? 
black democrat president, does not mean we should abandon our outlook as? 
communist and students of Marx. In fact, the Obama administration and its fights? 
with other sectarian capitalist interest opens up the playing field for? 
communists and this is a good time to be a communists.?

^^^^^^
CB:?You aren't?writing about
the immediate demands of the
working class. You are writing
about the immediate demands of
your "polarity"?or? "separate party ".
The immediate demands of the working
class are things like the pay equity bill,
expanded unemployment benefits, 
Employee Free Choice Act, tax breaks
'for the middle class, end the war in
Iraq, stop bailing out the banks ( that's
one you could boo Obama on ), health'
care for all, protect workers' pensions
? These are why?masses of workers?voted
for Obama.
^^^^^^

The genuflecting to Mr. Obama, something he himself would find repulsive,? is 
positively disgusting and unwarranted.? 

WL.?

^^^^^^^
CB: Not genuflecting. cheerleading
and rallying people to support
his?pro-working class actions.
Like he said?, "I can't make change.
You all have to make change. It comes
from the bottom up". 


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Tue Mar 10 12:27:29 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:27:29 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] rah, rah team fight
Message-ID: <cef.50ad12af.36e80b11@aol.com>

Communists do not have separate demands from various   
segment of the working class. IN fact it is these real world demands  that  
creates 
the line of march. Here is how Marx and Engels defined  the task and role  of 
communists. 
 
^^^
CB: So, stop talking about a communist polarity
 
 
Comment
 
Do you support the American invasion of Afghanistan? Do you support the  
demand of the antiwar movement to remove US troops from Afghanistan?
 
To speak of unemployment and the fight against it as the cornerstone of the  
communist polarity and will always be talked about on a Marxist list serv. On  
the other hand I deeply respect those who are not communist and the  
non-communists have just as much of a right to put forth their views. I believe  the 
dividing line on a Marxist List serv is between communism and  anti-communism. 
 
The communist polarity in American society is objective. It is not a  
subjective disposition or ideology. Those sectors of the working class more than  
less shut out of the civic society of the bourgeoisie are an objective communist  
formation, because their spontaneous demands are for socially necessary means 
of  life. In a word welfare. The fight for welfare is the communist polarity 
in  American society with a huge section of the working class slowly warming 
to the  idea that government must provide for the people when the free market 
capitalist  fails and it is failing big time. That is the communist polarity 
and it is going  to be talked about on a Marxist List serv. Communism is not to 
be understood as  an ideology but rather the historic movement of people - 
real human beings, that  emerged with the emergence of classes as a property 
expression, in human  history. As long as communism is understood as some kind of 
conspiracy on the  part of individuals  . . . the bourgeois point of view, the 
deepening  revolution in the mode of production makes no sense. 
 
We have entered an era of revolution. 
 
*************
 
CB: Correct. Don't raise aboltion of private property now. That's the  
ultimate goal,not the current line of march
 
Comment
 
"Don't raise abolition of private property now?"  I have absolutely no  idea 
what you are talking about. Abolition of private property is not a demand,  
reform or a concession to be sought from the bourgeoisie. . 
 
The line of march, in my opinion. is as I have described it for the  past 10 
years. The demands of the poorest workers is the line . . . as these  demands 
intersect with various layers of the working class. 
 
Now, discussion of all of Marx projection and thinking is appropriate for a  
Marxist List serv. 
 
There is of course a deeper issue and that is the communist approach to  work 
in the legislative and electoral arena. I have some direct experience in  
this arena, as well as negotiation with the representatives of institutional  
capital. Communist most certainly must volunteer or be assigned to this arena of  
struggle. Most of our communist work is however non-electoral. 
 
 
***************
 
CB; Sure but, we aren't there yet. The agenda of what is doable now is  being 
set by O. 
 
And by the way, over the last 30 years, the other "team" has built up a 49  
to 0 lead. So, we have to make a lot of touchdowns. You can't score 7 
touchdowns  on one play.
 
 
Comment
 
Interesting analogy.
 
We are to understand that the extension of unemployment benefit is not a  
concession but a touchdown.
 
Brother, not very long ago you were cheerleading for communist to support  
the bank bailout plan and schemes to nationalize the banks, only to back off  
this position. No matter how hard communists on various list screamed against  
the idea of nationalizing the banks you refused to listen. Apparently, in a  
moment of spiritual awakening to decided that maybe nationalizing banks is not a 
 bright idea, given the fact that there is no mathematical way to value 
assets or  even determine a rational model to stabilize the Ponzi schemes of the  
bourgeoisie. Further, when asked how will this help the working class, no one  
could answer the question. 
 
What is wrong is a misunderstanding of capitalism, this moment of deepening  
crisis and the meaning of concessions; and fights in the legislative and  
electoral arena. Simply defining what is taking place in the legislative arena  as 
the legislative arena, allows communists and Marxist to understand there is a 
 larger field of social struggle. 
 
There is a profound misunderstanding of the legislative and electoral  arena. 
  First of all Obama does not set the agenda for what is  doable. Here does 
not even set the agenda. Even the most backwards trade union  leader knows that 
real life sets and creates the need for an agenda. What sets  the framework 
for what is doable is a complex intersection of class needs or  identity of 
interest. 
 
The needs of capital and the workers connected to capital as the social  
process, are expressed in the political sphere as the agenda that various  
sectarian factions within the ruling class address. What is doable arises as a  
social response to economic and social strife expressing the widening breach  
between the productive forces and the social relations of production as the  latter 
is destabilized by the former. Maintaining the unity between the latter  and 
the former dictates what is on the agenda as short term and long term goals  
for the ruling class. 
 
I am not bragging to state that early, the day after Obama was elected I  
wrote extensively on matters of unemployment, health care, housing and other  
needs of the working class - all layers, and what specific points are doable  
based on class intersection. The archives of this list and Pen-L: will prove  
this. 
 
The point is that the working class has not scored a touchdown at all. In  
fact the working class is being pushed back. One year form now we shall see why  
we have to redouble are efforts in and most certainly outside the legislative 
 arena just to stand still. 
 
Your logic is tragic. 
 
 
WL. 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Tue Mar 10 16:51:12 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:51:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] rah, rah team fight
Message-ID: <492294.8740.qm@web180108.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>





Waistline2
Communists do not have separate demands from various?? 
segment of the working class. IN fact it is these real world demands??that??
creates 
the line of march. Here is how Marx and Engels defined??the task and role??of 
communists. 

^^^
CB: So, stop talking about a communist polarity


Comment

Do you support the American invasion of Afghanistan? Do you support the??
demand of the antiwar movement to remove US troops from Afghanistan?

^^^^^^
CB: No, I'm for urging the O admin
to modify their position, and
move to withdrawing from Afghanistan.

^^^^^^^

To speak of unemployment and the fight against it as the cornerstone of the??
communist polarity and will always be talked about on a Marxist list serv.

^^^^
CB: No. I didn't say anywhere cornerstone
I specifically said as one of many

Here's what I said, explicitly _not_
unemployment comp as a "cornerstone":
"First of all this is not the
only one to cheer. There's
stem cell research. I don't know
why you never have anything to 
say about pay equity for working
women. There's? declaration of
out of Iraq, etc, etc. Part of winning
the future battles is rallying and
cheering for the wins we have already.
As Ravi on Pen-l said it's "rah,rah !"
rah rah we want a touchdown

^^^^^^

the other hand I deeply respect those who are not communist and the??
non-communists have just as much of a right to put forth their views. I believe??the 
dividing line on a Marxist List serv is between communism and??anti-communism. 

The communist polarity in American society is objective. It is not a??
subjective disposition or ideology. Those sectors of the working class more than??
less shut out of the civic society of the bourgeoisie are an objective communist??
formation, because their spontaneous demands are for socially necessary means 
of??life. In a word welfare. The fight for welfare is the communist polarity 
in??American society with a huge section of the working class slowly warming 
to the??idea that government must provide for the people when the free market 
capitalist??fails and it is failing big time. That is the communist polarity 
and it is going??to be talked about on a Marxist List serv.

^^^^^
CB: Staking out a communist polarity in
only one sector of the working class
contradicts the sections of the Manifesto
that _you_ quoted.
?You are "?setting up? sectarian principles of?your own, by which to shape? 
and mould the proletarian movement."
Exactly what you pointed out Marx and
Engels recommended against.

^^^^^^


?Communism is not to 
be understood as??an ideology but rather the historic movement of people - 
real human beings, that??emerged with the emergence of classes as a property 
expression, in human??history. As long as communism is understood as some kind of 
conspiracy on the??part of individuals??. . . the bourgeois point of view, the 
deepening??revolution in the mode of production makes no sense. 

We have entered an era of revolution. 

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

CB: Correct. Don't raise aboltion of private property now. That's the??
ultimate goal,not the current line of march

Comment

"Don't raise abolition of private property now?"??I have absolutely no??idea 
what you are talking about. 


^^^^^^
CB: 
The statement is quite clear.

^^^^^^

Abolition of private property is not a demand,??
reform or a concession to be sought from the bourgeoisie. . 

^^^^^^^
CB: It's a fundamental goal and aim of the
movement.?Here it is in the Manifesto.

The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the
?abolition of property generally, but the abolition of 
bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property
?is the final and most complete expression of the 
system of producing and appropriating products,
?that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation 
of the many by the few. 
?
_In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be 
summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. _
(emphasis added -CB)
?
We Communists have been reproached with the
?desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring 
property as the fruit of a man?s own labour,
?which property is alleged to be the groundwork 
of all personal freedom, activity and independence. 
Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! 
Do you mean the property of petty artisan and 
of the small peasant, a form of property that
?preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need
?to abolish that; the development of industry has 
to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily. 
Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property? 
But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? 
Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property 
which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase
?except upon condition of begetting a new supply
?of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its 
present form, is based on the antagonism of capital
?and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism. 
To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, 
but a social status in production. Capital is a 
collective product, and only by the united action of
?many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the
?united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. 
Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power. 
When, therefore, capital is converted into common property,
?into the property of all members of society, personal 
property is not thereby transformed into social property. 
It is only the social character of the property that is changed.
?It loses its class character.

^^^^^^

The line of march, in my opinion. is as I have described it for the??past 10 
years. The demands of the poorest workers is the line . . . as these??demands 
intersect with various layers of the working class. 

^^^^^^
CB: It's one aspect of the line of march
The demands of the trade unions is
another.? Pay equity for women
workers is another.?anti-war is another
Today, so is the profound need
to stop global warming.

^^^^^

^^^^^

Now, discussion of all of Marx projection and thinking is appropriate for a??
Marxist List serv. 

^^^^^
CB: Yes it is.? 

^^^^^^

There is of course a deeper issue and that is the communist approach to??work 
in the legislative and electoral arena. I have some direct experience in??
this arena, as well as negotiation with the representatives of institutional??
capital. Communist most certainly must volunteer or be assigned to this arena of??
struggle. Most of our communist work is however non-electoral. 

^^^^^^
CB: Well, it's electoral and lobbying. I wouldn't
say most of it is _not_ electoral, as
lobbying is linked to electoral.


^^^^^^


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

CB; Sure but, we aren't there yet. The agenda of what is doable now is??being 
set by O. 

And by the way, over the last 30 years, the other "team" has built up a 49??
to 0 lead. So, we have to make a lot of touchdowns. You can't score 7 
touchdowns??on one play.


Comment

Interesting analogy.

We are to understand that the extension of unemployment benefit is not a??
concession but a touchdown.

^^^^
CB: A first down on the way to a
touchdown. You? are, for some
reason , ignoring that I nowhere
said extension of unemployment
?benefits is the only task for 
working class struggle. That is
a fairly obvious strawman argument
on this thread. I've repeatedly mentioned
other issue goals before and after
mentioning unemployment benefits,
but for some reason you are fixating
on that and pretending liike it's
the only issue goal I have mentioned.
With everything recorded, it's
so easy to go back and show that
I have not at all

^^^^^^

Brother, not very long ago you were cheerleading for communist to support??
the bank bailout plan and schemes to nationalize the banks, only to back off??
this position. 
^^^^^^^
CB: No I haven't cheerleaded the
bailout plan.?In this context bailouts
are the opposite of nationalization.
So, you are mixing things up here.
I pointed out that nationalization is
part of the program of the Manifesto.
But it's a bit too good to be true
to think the current bailout proposals
are the same thing the Manifesto 
suggests.

^^^^^^^^^

^^^^^




No matter how hard communists on various list screamed against??
the idea of nationalizing the banks you refused to listen. Apparently, in a??
moment of spiritual awakening to decided that maybe nationalizing banks is not a 
bright idea, given the fact that there is no mathematical way to value 
assets or??even determine a rational model to stabilize the Ponzi schemes of the??
bourgeoisie. Further, when asked how will this help the working class, no one??
could answer the question. 

^^^^^
CB: Nope. You aren't talking 
about me above; and?you are mixing up?bailouts
with nationalization.?

What I said specifically was?if they can
give?$8 trillion to the big banks,
they can give?$8 to $16?trillion to
the People.? I proposed giving'
money to the people with mortgages.
I proposed marches on Wall Street.
And I haven't changed my mind 
on that.

You are?thorooughly misremebering 
and misrepresenting what I said,
for the?convenience of argument
You just beat another strawman.

You are trippin' bro.

^^^^^^
?

What is wrong is a misunderstanding of capitalism,

^^^^^^
CB: Not I

^^^^
?this moment of deepening??
crisis and the meaning of concessions; and fights in the legislative and??
electoral arena. Simply defining what is taking place in the legislative arena??as 
the legislative arena, allows communists and Marxist to understand there is a 
larger field of social struggle. 

There is a profound misunderstanding of the legislative and electoral??arena. 

^^^^^
CB: Not by me. You
must be talking to someone else.

^^^^

??First of all Obama does not set the agenda for what is??doable.

^^^^^^
CB: Yeah, he and?his
allies are the ?main
ones who do that right now.

^^^^^

?Here does 
not even set the agenda. Even the most backwards trade union??leader knows that 
real life sets and creates the need for an agenda. What sets??the framework 
for what is doable is a complex intersection of class needs or??identity of 
interest. 

^^^^^^
CB: Right now O has
demonstrated that he is
the best interpreter and
artculator of that.? It is
not you and your polarity.

^^^^

The needs of capital and the workers connected to capital as the social??
process, are expressed in the political sphere as the agenda that various??
sectarian factions within the ruling class address. What is doable arises as a??
social response to economic and social strife expressing the widening breach??
between the productive forces and the social relations of production as the??latter 
is destabilized by the former. Maintaining the unity between the latter??and 
the former dictates what is on the agenda as short term and long term goals??
for the ruling class. 

I am not bragging to state that early, the day after Obama was elected I??
wrote extensively on matters of unemployment, health care, housing and other??
needs of the working class - all layers, and what specific points are doable??
based on class intersection. The archives of this list and Pen-L: will prove??
this. 

^^^^
CB: How would that
be something to brag about
anyway.?

The point is that the working class has not scored a touchdown at all. In??
fact the working class is being pushed back. One year form now we shall see why??
we have to redouble are efforts in and most certainly outside the legislative 
arena just to stand still. 

^^^^^
CB: more like a couple of first downs.
Plus we need to score a score of
touchdowns. We have to win
a couple of regular season championships
and Super Bowls. 

^^^^^
Your logic is tragic. 

^^^^
CB: You haven't demonstrated
the competence to make
that judgment.
^^^^


WL. 



From Waistline2 at aol.com  Tue Mar 10 17:56:13 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:56:13 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] rah, rah team fight
Message-ID: <c74.493acd6d.36e8581d@aol.com>


Abolition of private property is not a demand, reform or a concession  to be 
sought from the bourgeoisie. . 

^^^^^^^ CB: It's a fundamental goal  and aim of the movement. Here it is in 
the Manifesto. 

The distinguishing  feature of Communism is not the abolition of property 
generally, but the  abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private 
property is the  final and most complete expression of the system of 
producing and appropriating  products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the 
exploitation of the many by  the few. 

_In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up  in the single 
sentence: Abolition of private property. _ 
(emphasis added  -CB)


Comment 

Apparently we understand the word theory  different. The theory of communism 
is not a demand. Nor is the theory of  communism a reform or the fight for a 
concession. 

"In this sense, the  theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single 
sentence: Abolition of  private property. "
 
To me this sentence could not be clearer. What seems to be wrong is a  
misreading of the word theory. 

Further, you fight straw men of your own  creation. No communist I know has 
ever raised the abolition of private property  as a demand, concession or 
reform. You suggest that I have when in fact you must  know I have not. 

Simply show where anyone . . . . including myself   . . . have over the past 
40 years raised the abolition of private property as a  demand? 


*********

WL: There is of course a deeper issue and  that is the communist approach to  
work 
in the legislative and  electoral arena. I have some direct experience in  
this arena, as well  as negotiation with the representatives of institutional 
 
capital.  Communist most certainly must volunteer or be assigned to this 
arena of   
struggle. Most of our communist work is however non-electoral.  

^^^^^^
CB: Well, it's electoral and lobbying. I wouldn't
say most  of it is _not_ electoral, as
lobbying is linked to  electoral.


Comment

If most of communist work is electoral and  not educational then what have 
you been doing the past 30 years as evidence that  you actually believe this? 
Share your electoral experience. I most certainly  have over the years. I ask 
because it seems you are not thinking out what you  write and simply respond our 
of passion. 

Electoral work means lobbying  by definition. I really don't understand why 
mentioning lobbying as linked to  electoral work is important when electoral 
work means Lobbying, someone and  groups as the precondition to do anything. 

Bizarre. 

90% of  communist work is education. For instance when we recruit say a 
worker in the  plant active in the union, or with her fellow workers, our Job 1 is 
to help them  do better what they are already doing and to educate them as 
communists. When we  recruit someone involved in electoral work our Job 1 is to 
help them better do  what they are already doing and to educate them. What we 
bring as communists to  the game is vision, leadership and class outlook. 

For instance a  tremendous legislative battle is underway right now over 
expanding the unions  ability to recruit union supporters and form a union. While 
all communists I  know and all the lists I participate in support such 
legislation, our task as  communists remains to talk about class and class outlook. 
Especially on Marxist  List servs. 


*******

WL. We are to understand that the  extension of unemployment benefit is not a 
 
concession but a  touchdown.

^^^^
CB: A first down on the way to a touchdown. You   are, for some reason , 
ignoring that I nowhere said extension of unemployment  benefits is the only task 
for working class struggle. That is a fairly obvious  strawman argument on 
this thread.

Comment

Well of course I agree  with the above. A first down is a more realistic 
assessment. Cheering for a  first down is realistic but that is not how any of 
this discussion about  concessions, reforms and demands have been shaped. That is 
what was wrong.  

There are a lot of issues on the table. I do not think you have limited  any 
of the discussion to one issue. For instance both of us are "big" on health  
care reform; expansion of public education, expansion of the welfare system for 
 all, not just the poorest workers. For instance food stamps should be made  
available to anyone with a need, regardless of economic layer of the working  
class. 

Even the issue of mortgage should proceed from the standpoint of  the poorest 
workers but extend to all layers of the working class, as their  economic 
need intersects with the poorest workers. For instance every layer of  the 
working class should have an opportunity to refinance at a 4% rate, an issue  that 
has been raised in the national dialogue. Why? Because the more stable  
sections of the working class will rebel and not support legislation and  programs 
that exclude them. 

This matter of the meaning of class  intersection means working class because 
what is intersecting is the various  layers of the working class. 

WL. 
 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From Waistline2 at aol.com  Tue Mar 10 18:18:24 2009
From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:18:24 EDT
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] rah,
	team fight - talkin' to American people about class
Message-ID: <c12.4e7122c7.36e85d50@aol.com>

I am currently working on several projects at the same time dealing with  
class in American society and the vision of communists (Marxists). Hopefully by  
the end of the year a series of Workers pamphlets will take shape. 
 
Here is an example: 
 
Class, Class Struggle and Class Outlook 
 
For most of my life it has been a ?no-no? to speak of class because  
economic classes in America, while fixed and permanent did not stop the  individual 
and millions of people from working hard, acquiring education or  getting lucky 
in the lottery and moving from one economic class to another.  Economic class 
was something in England or the Middle Ages where you had a  Nobility, King, 
Queen and serfs - peasant masses. 
 
Last year something good happened during the primary and run-up to the  
Presidential election. Something that changed the way we talk about class  in our 
country.  The outpouring of support for the Obama candidacy forced a  different 
kind of discussion into our national dialogue. A new class of people  entered 
into American politics last year; a class of young people who felt the  older 
generation spends to much time talking about old concepts of race, rather  
than the quality of ones character and economic program. Young people were the  
driving force that forced a different kind of dialogue on the national agenda. 
 
American politics is a healthier ?body politic? thanks to our younger  
citizens. 
 
To make sense of the election national media had to talk about class,  
economic categories of people, class interests, class feelings and frustration  and 
voting habits. At first media spokesperson?s talked about ?hard working  
people? meaning white members of our working class but this was quickly seen to  
be offensive because there are all shades of color amongst the working people 
of  America. Finally, to make sense of things most media spokespersons settled 
on  talking about the" working class voters" and that section of white working 
class  voters that had traditionally voted Republican. 
 
Class became popular to speak of as a way to describe economic categories  of 
within American society. Class became a popular way for us to make sense to  
each other. Most people who followed the election from primary to Nov. 4,  
witnessed a strange alignment of various classes from the most wealthy to the  
poorest, supporting the Obama candidacy. This common identity of classes  
striving in support of Obama or class intersection became the means by which  Obama 
defeated John McCain.  One section of our working class voted for  Senator 
John McCain and a larger section voted for Senator Obama. 
 
All sections of the working class, be they pro-Senator McCain or pro-Barack  
Obama are angry and scared. The financial and economic crisis is causing fear 
of  what tomorrow might bring and polarizing the working class.  The wealthier 
 classes in our society are economically stable and secure in their living 
while  the great American middle class is being destroyed layer after layer.  
All  classes are being polarized into ?for? or ?against? government programs 
to stop  or slow down the collapse of the economy. Why is this destruction 
taking place?  What is happening in America to the working class? 
 
copy write pending 
**************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Wed Mar 11 10:49:26 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:49:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What is the Crisis About? Fictitious Capital or
	the Destruction of Wealth?
Message-ID: <763798.76691.qm@web180116.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


What is the Crisis About? Fictitious Capital or the 
Destruction of Wealth?
michael perelman 
________________________________
This short essay briefly describes the financial side 
of my interpretation that the crash reflected a disconnect 
between the underlying investment in the economy 
and its financial representation -- what Marx called 
fictitious capital. The stock market people call this 
realignment, "destruction of wealth," even though what
?is destroyed is the illusion of wealth. The illusion may 
have been capable of purchasing valuable things so 
long as other people accept that illusion. 
Long ago people accepted the illusion as an illusion 
and went on with their business. Here is what a former
?governor of Illinois wrote: 
Ford, Thomas. 1854. History of Illinois (Chicago: S. C. Griggs and Co.). 
227: "Our Whig friends contended that the continual 
and violent opposition of the democrats to the banks
?destroyed confidence; which, by-the-bye, could only 
exist when the bulk of the people were under a delusion.
?According to their views, if the banks owed five times
?as much as they were able to pay and yet if the whole
?people could be persuaded to believe this incredible 
falsehood that all were able to pay, this was 'confidence'." 
Ordinary people understood what was happening. Here
?is an incident from Chicago about the same time. 
More at: 
http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/what-is-the-crisis-about-fictitious-capital-or-the-destruction-of-wealth/ 


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Fri Mar 13 10:38:12 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:38:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] As capitalism stares into the abyss,
	was Marx right all along? ( Yes)
Message-ID: <899963.53885.qm@web180101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


Does a bear s___ in the woods ?

^^^^^^

Stephen King: As capitalism stares into the abyss, was Marx right all along? 
We may avoid a 1930s Depression but the best we can hope for may be a 1990s Japan
Monday, 2 March 2009
?
http://us.mg204.mail.yahoo.com/dc/launch?.partner=sbc&.rand=c27i56kobk3ja

????"Modern bourgeois society ... a society that has conjured up
?such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the 
sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether
?world whom he has called up by his spells."

Those of you with revolutionary zeal will immediately recognise 
these words. Penned by Karl Marx in 1848, they form part of the 
Communist Manifesto. Marx, like Adam Smith before him, had
?a historical view of society's development. Capitalism, with its 
bourgeoisie, had replaced feudalism, but capitalism, according 
to Marx, would be replaced by communism. Capitalism was inherently 
unstable, as Marx noted later in the same paragraph:
".....the commercial crises... by their periodical return, 
put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, 
each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not 
only of the existing products, but also of the previously created 
productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises,
?there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would 
have seemed an absurdity ? the epidemic of over-production."
Whatever else one thinks of Marx, he certainly knew a thing
?or two about the business cycle. Were he alive now, he would
?surely claim his theories were being vindicated. We are, after all, 
witnessing the most remarkable collapse in economic activity 
around the world. Take Japan. In November, industrial production
?fell 8 per cent. That was bad enough. In December, production 
dropped another 9 per cent. That was even more remarkable. 
January's production figures, though, are simply eye-wateringly 
awful, showing a further 10 per cent decline. Production, then, 
is down almost 30 per cent in just three months, a pace of decline 
unprecedented in Japanese post-war economic history. 
Or how about the US, where we discovered last week that national 
income contracted in the final quarter of last year at an annual 
rate of more than 6 per cent, the biggest drop since the early 
1980s. Then there's Taiwan, where exports have been in freefall 
in recent months. Not to mention dear old Blighty, where the 
economy might end up shrinking by approaching 4 per cent this year.
The pace of decline in global economic output is extraordinary. 
On virtually any metric, we are seeing the worst global downturn
?in decades: worse than the aftermath of the first oil shock in the 
mid-1970s and worse than the early-1980s downswing, when the
?world economy had to cope with a doubling of the oil price, the
?tough love of monetarism and the onset of the Latin American 
debt crisis. Moreover, this time we cannot use the resurgence 
of inflation as an excuse for lost output: the credit crunch in all 
its many guises has seen to that. Instead, we have a world of 
collapsing output combined with falling prices: a world, then, of depression.
For many years, Marxist ideas appeared to be totally irrelevant.
?The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 brought to an end the era 
of Marxist-Leninist Communism, while China's decision to join the
?modern world at the beginning of the 1980s drew a line under its 
earlier Maoist ideology. In western economies, Marxist ideas were 
at their most potent after the First Word War when the likes of 
Rosa Luxemburg could smell revol-ution in the air and as the 
Roaring Twenties gave way to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
?I'm not suggesting we're entering revolutionary times. However, 
it seems increasingly likely that the economic landscape in 
the years ahead will be fundamentally different from the landscape
?that has dominated the working lives of people like me who entered 
the workforce in the 1980s. We've lived through decades of plenty, 
where incomes have risen rapidly, where credit has been all too 
easily available and where recessions have been mostly modest 
affairs. Suddenly, we're facing a collapse in activity on a truly 
Marxist scale. It's difficult to imagine the world's love affair with 
free markets being sustained under this onslaught. The extreme
?nature of this downswing will change our lives for decades to come.
The first change relates to the allocation of capital. Increasingly,
?policymakers are accepting that market forces, left to their own devices, 
will lead to a race to the bottom. The dangers are becoming greater 
by the day. Interest rates are close to zero while prices and wages
?are in danger of declining. If deflation takes hold, real interest rates
?on cash will start to rise, creating perverse incentives in capital 
markets. Why bother to buy equities or corporate bonds if you are 
nicely rewarded for hanging on to an entirely risk-free piece of paper?
The efforts to stop this vicious circle are increasingly focused on 
bypassing the banking and financial system. As central banks
?widen the assets they are prepared to purchase to maintain the 
flow of credit to the economy at large, they are increasingly getting
into the capital allocation game. They, and not the market, will at the 
margin decide whether companies and households are creditworthy.
?And as governments increase their spending plans to ward off a
?catastrophic loss of demand, they, rather than companies, will 
decide on how our savings should be allocated.
The second change relates to an increased national bias in the
?allocation of capital. As Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President,
?pushes to offer government funding to French car companies on 
condition they don't outsource French jobs abroad, as US Congress
?signs off a stimulus package with more than a hint of a "Buy American"
?policy, and as the UK Government pushes to encourage bailed-out 
banks to lend domestically as opposed to internationally, we appear
?to be turning our backs on the previous world of heightened 
cross-border trade and capital flows. While these flows have 
undoubtedly been volatile, they have nevertheless allowed emerging
?economies, in particular, to gain a foothold on the development ladder.
?Are we about to cast these countries asunder in our desperate 
attempt to fix our domestic problems?
The third change relates to interference in the price mechanism. 
When it comes to Sir Fred Goodwin's pension, this isn't so surprising, 
but the price mechanism extends far and wide. At the microeconomic
?level, we'll enter a world of subsidised loans with murky political
?undertones. At the macroeconomic level, countries may take the 
opportunity to manipulate their exchange rates in an attempt either to
?gain a competitive advantage or to "default" to foreign creditors.
Some of these changes may be absolutely necessary to prevent 
an outright collapse in global economic activity (although the rise
?in protect-ionist pressures is surely a retrograde step). They also 
suggest, though, that there will be no return to "business as usual" for
?market forces. The cost of avoiding depression is a heightened
?level of state intervention on a scale unimaginable for those who 
believe in the virtues of free markets. While such intervention may
?help prevent the worst ravages of economic collapse, it will ultimately 
do little to foster the entrepreneurial spirit and risk-taking behaviour 
which have, in the past, contributed so much to rising living standards.
?We may avoid a 1930s Depression but, increasingly, we may find the 
best we can hope for is a 1990s Japan. Not quite a Marxist revolution,
?then, but certainly a lasting sea-change in economic performance.


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Fri Mar 13 11:11:28 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:11:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The US Financial System is Effectively Insolvent
Message-ID: <709020.49961.qm@web180111.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


?Meaning , what ? Its firms?can't pay?their debts ?

depression = stag-deflation


CB

The US Financial System is Effectively Insolvent?
??
by Nouriel Roubini

Forbes.com (March 05 2009)


For those who argue that the rate of growth of 
economic activity is turning
positive - that economies are contracting but at
?a slower rate than in the
fourth quarter of 2008 - the latest data don't
?confirm this relative optimism.
In 2008's fourth quarter, gross domestic 
product fell by about six percent in
the US, six percent in the euro zone, eight
?percent in Germany, twelve percent
in Japan, sixteen percent in Singapore 
and twenty percent in South Korea. So
things are even more awful in Europe and 
Asia than in the US.

There is, in fact, a rising risk of a global
?L-shaped depression that would be
even worse than the current, painful U-shaped
?global recession. Here's why:

First, note that most indicators suggest that
?the second derivative of economic
activity is still sharply negative in Europe and 
Japan and close to negative in
the US and China. Some signals that the 

second derivative was turning positive
for the US and China turned out to be fake starts. 
For the US, the Empire State
and Philly Fed indexes of manufacturing are 
still in free fall; initial claims
for unemployment benefits are up to scary levels,
?suggesting accelerating job
losses; and January's sales increase is a 
fluke - more of a rebound from a very
depressed December, after aggressive 
post-holiday sales, than a sustainable
recovery.

For China, the growth of credit is only 
driven by firms borrowing cheap to
invest in higher-returning deposits, not 
to invest, and steel prices in China
have resumed their sharp fall. The 
more scary
?data are those for trade flows in
Asia, with exports falling by about forty
?to fifty percent in Japan, Taiwan and
Korea.

Even correcting for the effect of the Chinese 
New Year, exports and imports are
sharply down in China, with imports falling
?(minus forty percent) more than
exports. This is a scary signal, as Chinese 
imports are mostly raw materials and
intermediate inputs. So while Chinese exports
?have fallen so far less than in
the rest of Asia, they may fall much more 
sharply in the months ahead, as
signaled by the free fall in
imports.

With economic activity contracting in 2009's
?first quarter at the same rate as
in 2008's fourth quarter, a nasty U-shaped recession 
could turn into a more
severe L-shaped near-depression (or stag-deflation).
?The scale and speed of
synchronized global economic contraction is
?really unprecedented (at least since
the Great Depression), with a free fall of GDP, 
income, consumption, industrial
production, employment, exports, imports,
?residential investment and, more
ominously, capital expenditures around the world.
?And now many emerging-market
economies are on the verge of a fully
?fledged financial crisis, starting with
emerging Europe.

Fiscal and monetary stimulus is becoming 
more aggressive in the US and China,
and less so in the euro zone and Japan, 
where policymakers are frozen and behind
the curve. But such stimulus is unlikely 
to lead to a sustained economic
recovery. Monetary easing - even unorthodox - 
is like pushing on a string when
(1) the problems of the economy are of 
insolvency/credit rather than just
illiquidity; (2) there is a global glut of 
capacity (housing, autos and consumer
durables and massive excess capacity, 
because of years of overinvestment by
China, Asia and other emerging markets), 
while strapped firms and households
don't react to lower interest rates, as it
?takes years to work out this glut;
(3) deflation keeps real policy rates high and 
rising while nominal policy rates
are close to zero; and (4) high yield spreads
?are still 2,000 basis points
relative to safe Treasuries in spite of zero 
policy rates.

Fiscal policy in the US and China also 
has its limits. Of the $800 billion of
the US fiscal stimulus, only $200 billion will be 
spent in 2009, with most of it
being backloaded to 2010 and later.
?And of this $200 billion, half is tax cuts
that will be mostly saved rather than spent, 
as households are worried about
jobs and paying their credit card and 
mortgage bills. (Of last year's $100
billion tax cut, only thirty percent was spent 
and the rest saved.)

Thus, given the collapse of five out of six 
components of aggregate demand
(consumption, residential investment, capital
?expenditure in the corporate
sector, business inventories and exports),
?the stimulus from government spending
will be puny this year.

Chinese fiscal stimulus will also provide 
much less bang for the headline buck
($480 billion). For one thing, you have an 
economy radically dependent on trade:
a trade surplus of twelve percent of GDP, 
exports above forty percent of GDP,
and most investment (that is almost fifty percent of GDP) 
going to the
production of more capacity/machinery 
to produce more exportable goods. The rest
of investment is in residential construction
?(now falling sharply following the
bursting of the Chinese housing bubble) 
and infrastructure investment (the only
component of investment that is rising).

With massive excess capacity in the
?industrial/manufacturing sector and
thousands of firms shutting down, why would
?private and state-owned firms invest
more, even if interest rates are lower and credit
?is cheaper? Forcing
state-owned banks and firms to, respectively, 
lend and spend/invest more will
only increase the size of nonperforming loans 
and the amount of excess capacity.
And with most economic activity and fiscal 
stimulus being capital- rather than
labor-intensive, the drag on job creation will continue.

So without a recovery in the US and global economy, 
there cannot be a
sustainable recovery of Chinese growth. And with
?the US recovery requiring lower
consumption, higher private savings and lower 
trade deficits, a US recovery
requires China's and other surplus countries' 
(Japan, Germany, et cetera) growth
to depend more on domestic demand and less
?on net exports. But domestic-demand
growth is anemic in surplus countries for 
cyclical and structural reasons. So a
recovery of the global economy cannot occur 
without a rapid and orderly
adjustment of global current account imbalances.

Meanwhile, the adjustment of US consumption
?and savings is continuing. The
January personal spending numbers were up 
for one month (a temporary fluke
driven by transient factors), and personal savings
?were up to five percent. But
that increase in savings is only illusory. 
There is a difference between the
national income account (NIA) definition of 
household savings (disposable income
minus consumption spending) and the economic 
definitions of savings as the
change in wealth/net worth: savings as the change in wealth is equal to the NIA
definition of savings plus capital gains/losses 
on the value of existing wealth
(financial assets and real assets such as housing wealth).

In the years when stock markets and home values 
were going up, the apologists
for the sharp rise in consumption and 
measured fall in savings were arguing that
the measured savings were distorted downward 
by failing to account for the
change in net worth due to the rise in home prices 
and the stock markets.

But now with stock prices down over fifty percent
?from peak and home prices down
25% from peak (and still to fall another twenty percent), 
the destruction of
household net worth has become dramatic. 
Thus, correcting for the fall in net
worth, personal savings is not five percent, as 
the official NIA definition
suggests, but rather sharply negative.

In other terms, given the massive destruction 
of household wealth/net worth
since 2006-07, the NIA measure of savings will 
have to increase much more
sharply than has currently occurred to restore 
households' severely damaged
balance sheets. Thus, the contraction of real 
consumption will have to continue
for years to come before the adjustment is completed.

In the meanwhile the Dow Jones industrial average
?is down today below 7,000, and
US equity indexes are twentyb percent down from
?the beginning of the year. I
argued in early January that the 25% stock market 
rally from late November to
the year's end was another bear market suckers'
?rally that would fizzle out
completely once an onslaught of worse than 
expected macro and earnings news, and
worse than expected financial shocks, occurs. 
And the same factors will put
further downward pressures on US and global 
equities for the rest of the year,
as the recession will continue into 2010,
?if not longer (a rising risk of an
L-shaped near-depression).

Of course, you cannot rule out another bear 
market suckers' rally in 2009, most
likely in the second or third quarters. The drivers 
of this rally will be the
improvement in second derivatives of economic 
growth and activity in the US and
China that the policy stimulus will provide on a 
temporary basis. But after the
effects of a tax cut fizzle out in late summer,
?and after the shovel-ready
infrastructure projects are done, the policy 
stimulus will slacken by the fourth
quarter, as most infrastructure projects take
?years to be started, let alone
finished.

Similarly in China, the fiscal stimulus will 
provide a fake boost to
non-tradable productive activities while the 
traded sector and manufacturing
continue to contract. But given the severity 
of macro, household, financial-firm
and corporate imbalances in the US and 
around the world, this second- or
third-quarter suckers' market rally will fizzle
?out later in the year, like the
previous five ones in the last twelve months.

In the meantime, the massacre in financial 
markets and among financial firms is
continuing. The debate on "bank nationalization"
?is borderline surreal, with the
US government having already committed - 
between guarantees, investment,
recapitalization and liquidity provision - 
about $9 trillion of government
financial resources to the financial system 
(and having already spent $2
trillion of this staggering $9 trillion figure).

Thus, the US financial system is de facto 
nationalized, as the Federal Reserve
has become the lender of first and only resort 
rather than the lender of last
resort, and the US Treasury is the spender
?and guarantor of first and only
resort. The only issue is whether banks and
?financial institutions should also
be nationalized de jure.

But even in this case, the distinction is only
?between partial nationalization
and full nationalization: With 36% (and soon to be larger) 
ownership of Citi,
the US government is already the largest 
shareholder there. So what is the
non-sense about not nationalizing banks? 
Citi is already effectively partially
nationalized; the only issue is whether it should 
be fully nationalized.

Ditto for AIG, which lost $62 billion in the
?fourth quarter and $99 billion in
all of 2008 and is already eighty percent 
government-owned. With such staggering
losses, it should be formally 100% government-owned. 
And now the Fed and
Treasury commitments of public resources to 
the bailout of the shareholders and
creditors of AIG have gone from $80 billion
?to $162 billion.

Given that common shareholders of AIG are 
already effectively wiped out (the
stock has become a penny stock), the bailout 
of AIG is a bailout of the
creditors of AIG that would now be insolvent 
without such a bailout. AIG sold
over $500 billion of toxic credit default swap 
protection, and the
counter-parties of this toxic insurance are
?major US broker-dealers and banks.

News and banks analysts' reports suggested 
that Goldman Sachs got about $25
billion of the government bailout of AIG and that 
Merrill Lynch was the second
largest benefactor of the government largesse. 
These are educated guesses, as
the government is hiding the counter-party 
benefactors of the AIG bailout.
(Maybe Bloomberg should sue the Fed and 
Treasury again to have them disclose
this information.)

But some things are known: Goldman's 
Lloyd Blankfein was the only CEO of a Wall
Street firm who was present at the New York Fed
?meeting when the AIG bailout was
discussed. So let us not kid each other: 
The $162 billion bailout of AIG is a
nontransparent, opaque and shady bailout of 
the AIG counter-parties: Goldman
Sachs, Merrill Lynch and other domestic and
?foreign financial institutions.

So for the Treasury to hide behind the 
"systemic risk" excuse to fork out
another $30 billion to AIG is a polite way to say 
that without such a bailout
(and another half-dozen government bailout programs 
such as TAF, TSLF, PDCF,
TARP, TALF and a program that allowed $170 billion 
of additional debt borrowing
by banks and other broker-dealers, with a full
?government guarantee), Goldman
Sachs and every other broker-dealer and major 
US bank would already be fully
insolvent today.

And even with the $2 trillion of government support,
?most of these financial
institutions are insolvent, as delinquency and 
charge-off rates are now rising
at a rate - given the macro outlook - that means 
expected credit losses for US
financial firms will peak at $3.6 trillion.
?So, in simple words, the US
financial system is effectively insolvent.

_____

Nouriel Roubini, a professor at the Stern Business School at New York University
and chairman of Roubini Global Economics, is a weekly columnist for Forbes.com.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/04/global-recession-insolvent-opinions-columnists-roubini-economy.html


From rasherrs at eircom.net  Fri Mar 13 13:43:58 2009
From: rasherrs at eircom.net (Paddy Hackett)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:43:58 -0000
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] FW:  Fianna Fail's strategy
Message-ID: <003501c9a414$0d728540$28578fc0$@net>

The following is my opinion: 

The Fianna Fail party  has a strategy. It is my opinion that Brian Cowan, as
Taoiseach, is being increasingly viewed by the Fianna Fail Party as a
transitory leader of the Party. The Party will sacrifice him to save its
skin. He will be saddled, so it hopes, with all the blame concerning the
harsh decisions that are currently being made by the Fianna Fail led
government. Consequently, in true Stalinist fashion, he will be eventually
sacrificed to "the masses" to save the Party.

When he has done the "dirty work" he will be shouldered with the blame for
Fianna Fail's lack of popularity. He will then be replaced by a new and
"shining" leader. Since many of the nasty decisions will have already been
taken by Cowan, the new leader will appear as free from such blame --a
smiling and kinder figure -a people's person.
 
It is hoped in this way that any popular support lost by the party will be
recovered as a result of the election of its new leader. The mass media will
give her/him  the customary honeymoon period. In this way it is hoped that
the party will win the next general election. Fianna Fail hopes to be able
to claim too that it saved the nation from collapse under very adverse
global economic conditions. In this way Cowan, as a figure from Greek
tragedy, will have fallen on his own sword. The Party, by distancing itself
from Brian Cowan, will have saved the day by exclusively holding Cowan
responsible for having imposed harsh policies on the working class.

There is no better party than Fianna Fail to successfully appeal to
patriotism as a device for rallying the Irish people behind it. 


Paddy Hackett

htttp:\\patrickhackett.blogspot.com









From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Fri Mar 13 14:49:21 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:49:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Stirner, Feurbach,
	Marx and the Young Hegelians - David McLellan
Message-ID: <39850.18913.qm@web180105.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>



Stirner, Feurbach, Marx and the Young Hegelians - David McLellan
Submitted by Ret Marut on Feb 27 2009 

http://libcom.org/history/stirner-feurbach-marx-young-hegelians-david-mclellan

A summary of Stirner's ideas and their strong impact on his fellow Young Hegelians. McLellan asserts that Stirner's influence on Marx has been under-estimated and that he "played a very important role in the development of Marx's thought by detaching him from the influence of Feuerbach", his static materialism and his abstract humanism. Stirner's critique of communism (which Marx considered a caricature) also obliged Marx to refine his own definition. Stirner's concept of the "creative ego" is also said to have influenced Marx's concept of "praxis". 
Source; originally a chapter in The Young Hegelians and Karl Marx; David McLellan, MacMillan Press, UK, 1980.

^^^^^^
CB; Praxis is defined in the
First Thesis on Feuerbach
in which Marx activates
the subject -ego.


I
The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism ? that of 
Feuerbach included ? is that the thing, reality, sensuousness,
?is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, 
but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively.
?Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was 
developed abstractly by idealism ? which, of course, does not
?know real, sensuous activity as such. 
Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from the 
thought objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself 
as objective activity. Hence, in The Essence of Christianity, he 
regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, 
while practice is conceived and fixed only in its dirty-judaical manifestation. 
Hence he does not grasp the significance of ?revolutionary?, of ?practical-critical?, activity. 


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Fri Mar 13 16:07:14 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:07:14 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Fictitious capital and the transition out of
	capitalism - Loren Goldner
Message-ID: <11364.71526.qm@web180116.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>





Subject: Fictitious capital and the transition out of capitalism - Loren Goldner


Fictitious capital and the transition out of capitalism - Loren Goldner
Submitted by libcom on Nov 17 2005 


An exploration of the growing fictitious dimension of the 
economy and its implications for class struggle.
This text is from theBreak Their Haughty Power web site
?at http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner 
Fictitious Capital and the Transition Out of Capitalism
(Loren Goldner)
The following is a "thought experiment" which attempts 
to see fictitious capital in relation to the end of capitalism. 
By pursuing the concept of fictitious capital as far as we can,
?by illuminating the unbelievable distortions it has fomented in
?what is called "economic development" on a world scale, we 
can highlight the nature of contemporary struggles as well as 
explain why there are not more struggles. We can also address 
the reasons why a "society beyond capitalism" seems such a 
remote possibility at present.

In discussing fictitious capital, we must never forget that it is
?subordinate to, and derivative from, capital generally. It is
?important not to foment the illusion that the struggle is against 
"fictitious capital", leaving "real" capital itself unexamined. But 
at the same time, it is indispensable to sort out the fictitious 
dimension of the contemporary economy, if only conceptually.
?Many people today, including people on the radical left, regard 
contemporary capitalism as functioning normally, more or less
?the way it always has. I could not disagree more. Perhaps, 
as contemporary ideologies assert, capitalism has "reinvented" 
or is "reinventing" itself, as it has done several times in the past.
?Be that as it may, the post-1973 period presents one of the strangest,
?if not the strangest phases in the history of capitalism. 

What, then, is fictitious capital?
Fictitious capital is, on first approach, paper claims on wealth
?(in the form of profit, interest and ground rent) in excess 
of the total available surplus value, plus available loot from primitive accumulation.

There is $33 trillion in outstanding debt (Federal, state, local, 
corporate, personal) in the U.S. economy, three times GDP. 
(No one knows how much is tied up in the international hedge
?funds and derivatives.) The state (including Federal, state and 
local levels) consumes 40% of GDP. The net U.S. debt abroad
?is $3 trillion ($11 trillion held by foreigners minus $8 trillion in U.S. 
assets abroad) That amount is growing by $500 billion a year 
at current rates. Foreigners hold an increasing percent of U.S. 
government debt; the four major Asian central banks (Japan, China,
?South Korea, Taiwan) alone hold over $1 trillion. It is the Federal 
government's debt which makes possible the reflationary actions 
of the Federal Reserve Bank. If Doug Noland's notion of "financial 
arbitrage capitalism" is right, the old conceptualization of the role 
of the banking system and the Fed's (apparent) ability to expand 
and contract credit availability through it, is
superceded; increasing amounts of "virtual" credit are created
?by "securitized finance"
independent of banks. One must also consider the government-linked 
entities (Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae), which backed the reflation of mortgages 
of the past 4 years, leading to an incredible housing bubble. This 
entire edifice depends on 1) low inflation in the U.S., as higher inflation 
would scare off foreign lenders; 2) the willingness of U.S, "consumers" 
to go more and more heavily into debt (with debt service now taking 14%
?of incomes, as opposed to 11% a few years ago) 3) the willingness and 
ability of foreigners to go on re-lending U.S. balance-of-payments deficits
?back to the U.S.
Let's shift to another level altogether: the extent of unproductive labor 
and unproductive consumption in the U.S. economy. Marx defines the 
state debt as fictitious; he defines labor performed for revenue 
(as opposed to capital) as unproductive. Many Marxists would agree 
that military expenditure performed for the revenue of the state is
?unproductive labor, even if it produces a profit for an individual capitalist.
?One can extend that paradigm, I think, much farther in terms of other 
goods and services commanded by state revenue, and/or the
?fictitious capital of the state debt. To be productively consumed, 
surplus-value that is concretely means of production (Dept. I) or 
means of consumption (Dept. II) must RETURN to C or V for 
further expanded reproduction; by that criterion, it would seem that 
unproductive consumption in the U.S. economy must be enormous.
Now perhaps for the most controversial point: what do individual 
reported corporate profits mean in such a situation? Do they really
?correspond to a proportional amount of surplus-value? The amount of profit 
from interest and ground rent relative to profit from manufacture grows 
every year. Even within profit of "manufacture", what does this mean 
when companies like GE and GM are now earning more profits from
?their financial departments than from production? And if a significant 
amount of that production (with GE, a very significant amount)
?is for (unproductive) capitalists' consumption (i.e. military) then 
what does the expanded M' that returns to each corporation as profit mean?
?What does it correspond to in terms of C and V in their material 
form that must be productively consumed in further expansion for the 
capital circuit to continue?
We know the countervailing tendencies that must partly
?subsidize the circulation of so much fictitious capital and so
?much capitalist's consumption: primitive accumulation (non-payment of equivalents) 
for goods imported from the less advanced parts of the world, for labor power
?recruited from Third World petty producer economies; pushing labor power 
below its reproductive value; using fixed capital past its replacement time; 
looting of nature (non-replacement of resources) or destruction of
?the environment as a whole.
All of this adds up to a pretty grim picture, looking like nothing 
so much as a vast bankruptcy subsized by foreign creditors, who
?would themselves be bankrupted by the contraction of the debt 
pyramid sustaining the whole operation. This is far bigger than the
?biggest Spanish bankruptcy of the 16th century in terms of its current
?and potential impact on the world economy.
When Marx was writing Capital the trends described above 
were far less prominent. Fictitious capital was pretty much destroyed 
with each decennial crisis; the amount of unproductive consumption
?in the economies he studied was nothing compared to what is has 
become (though it was already surprisingly widespread) .
?I think his conceptual apparatus is still perfectly contemporary for sorting out what is what.

Historical Overview
Let us briefly review how things got to this state of affairs.
Capitalism in 1890-1914 was approaching the crisis of the
?British-dominated world system. While the "sterling standard" never 
came close to the levels of U.S. international indebtedness until the 
1914-1945 "Thirty Years War" and its aftermath,
?British industry no longer could back up Britain's financial 
role under the impact of U.S. and German competition. The 
extended single crisis of 1914-1945 must be understood as 
a "substitute depression", (punctuated by an actual depression
?from 1929 to ca. 1938) in which the classic bankruptcy proceedings 
were carried out on British capital's world hegemony.
Germany and the U.S. battled for the spoils; the U.S. won.
But "underneath" the financial and geopolitical transformation 
of that period"?one still the basis of current world arrangements"?a
?more fundamental transformation was occurring, namely the 
passage of world capitalism from its phase of "formal domination", with a preponderance of absolute surplus value based on the lengthening of the working day,
to its phase of "real domination", based on technological
?intensification of the labor process. This was accompanied by
?a revolution in agricultural productivity and transportation costs 
which reduced the cost of food in the average worker's consumption
?from 50% (in the mid-19th century) to a far smaller share, thereby 
opening the way to "mass consumer durables" which came on stream 
in the 1920's, symbolized first of all by the automobile.
This "automobile-oil-steel-rubber" complex of production 
and consumption was the heart of the world capitalist boom 
from 1945 to 1975. Beyond the immediate process of production,
?the automobile-centered economy had a huge impact on the 
development of cities, suburbs (and ultimately exurbs), hence 
of real estate, construction (including highways), and all the 
sectors that feed into construction, not to mention the 
environmental impact. Mass public transportation in countries
?such as the U.S. was gutted in the interests of this economy.
?Necessary travel time to and from work was significantly increased. 
Working-class urban culture, and public life, was weakened 
by the flight to the suburbs.
Fictitious capital played an important role in the 1945-1975
?boom phase, though still small by comparison with the role 
it has played since. U.S. government debt coming out of World War II 
was $250 billion, roughly 110% of GDP in 1945 dollars.
?(Today it is conservatively estimated at $11 trillion, or three times GDP.) 
The postwar arrangements that established the 
IMF, World Bank, GATT (predecessor to the WTO), 
and the Marshall Plan (cf. Michael Hudson's Super-Imperialism, 2nd ed. 2002) 
cannot concern us here. But the dismantling of the British and 
French empires and the subordination of Europe and Japan to 
U.S. hegemony created the global "economy of scale" 
necessary to accommodate the new productive forces
?that had been building up during the 1890-1945 period, 
setting the stage for the longest boom in capitalist history, 
based on a new standard of value expressing the increased
?average social productivity of labor. The reconstruction
?costs from World
War II in Europe and Asia, however, and the role of the 
U.S. in providing needed liquidity for both reconstruction 
and the later impressive development of Japan, Germany, 
France, and Italy largely concealed the problem of fictitious 
capital from view until the system began to sputter after 1958,
?and headed into real crisis after 1968 (March 1968 closing 
of foreign exchange markets), becoming official in 1970
?(Penn Central bankruptcy and liquidity crisis), 
1971 (U.S. tears up Bretton Woods) and 1973 
(final collapse of fixed exchange rates and emergence
?of an outright dollar standard, closely related oil crisis).

Theoretical Intermezzo
Where does fictitious capital originate?
?It is not discussed in the "pure capitalist" 
model of vols. I and II of Marx's Capital, 
centered for the most part on the single 
enterprise and the "immediate process of production", 
what Marx (at the end of vol. II) calls the "abstract"
?mode of presentation. It is introduced in a brief 
chapter in the middle sections of vol. III, and in 
scattered references to the fictitious nature of the 
state debt, etc.
Fictitious capital is also absent from the Byzantine 
academic debates, based on the first section 
of vol. III, about the so-called "transformation problem"
?(values into prices) and the rate of profit, a debate 
which abstracts entirely from the problematic set out 
above and specifically from Marx's repeated admonition that
"Accumulation requires the transformation of a portion 
of the surplus product into capital. But we cannot, except
?by a miracle, transform into capital anything but such 
articles as can be employed in the labor process 
(i.e. means of production), and such further articles as 
are suitable for the sustenance of the worker (i.e. means of subsistence).
(Capital, vol. I, 1976, p. 727)
This means that profits derived from such sectors as 
luxury goods and military production, when arriving at the 
general rate of profit and hence the total surplus value available
?for expanded reproduction, have to be treated differently 
than profit from the production of machine tools and bread. 
They cannot continue the cycle as expanded C and V, and 
therefore are a net deduction from the total profit available to 
the capitalist class for new investment. They represent objects of consumption of the CAPITALIST class; they are revenue.
In real capitalist practice, means of production and
?other income-producing assets are not valued in terms 
of their historic costs or in terms of their current replacement
?cost; they are valued as a CAPITALIZATION of an expected
?flow of income based on the asset. Capitalization means that
?in a general environment in which the rate of profit is 5%, 
an asset producing an annual profit of $5 will be "worth" $100.
?"Underneath" that surface, the distribution of the average 
rate of profit, plus or minus the higher or lower profits going to 
individual firms which are above or below the average social 
productivity of labor, does its work, and ultimately asserts
?itself in crisis and recomposition. But the capitalist class, 
the central bank and the capitalist state do everything in their 
power to preserve those capitalized"?fictitious"?values as long as
?possible, even at the price of gutting the "real" economy. The 
actual surplus value available to the
capitalist class as a whole to support those capitalized 
values comes not merely from the immediate process 
of production but also, once again, from non-replacement: 
the looting of nature, primitive accumulation of petty
?producer populations, and sometimes non-reproduction of C and V. 
Thus it is possible to refine the definition of fictitious capital offered 
initially; it is not merely the paper claims (stocks, bonds,
?income from the sale and rental of land and real property)
?in excess of total surplus value; it is the capitalized "current value" 
of total income-producing assets in excess of their value, defined 
as the socially necessary labor time of REproducing them today. 
The fundamental tendency of capitalism, through increased 
productivity of labor, is to cheapen all commodities, including 
the universal commodity labor power (the source of all value),
?while at the same time the capitalist class, central bank and 
capitalist state are mobilized to preserve existing capitalizations,
?at least for the class as a whole (while periodically sacrificing the weaker capitals) until they are overwhelmed by the next crisis.
We now get to the nub of the matter: has capitalism exhausted 
itself as a mode of production capable of expanding the material
?reproduction of humanity? Has capital, in Marx's formulation, 
become an obstacle to itself?
In the era of fictitious capital, where it is the drive to preserve
?existing capitalized values that dominates production rather 
than the expansion of production which (as in all the cycles prior to 1973)
?produced over time fictitious values capitalized in excess of 
current social costs of reproduction, (capitalized values that then, 
in the crisis, collapsed down to levels reflecting real costs, allowing a new cycle to begin), the classic cycle of boom-crisis-recomposition and new takeoff is deeply distorted.
?Instead of a 1929-style bust, capitalism since 1973 has 
undergone a "hidden depression", with a gradual wearing 
down of material reproduction under the weight of the managed 
mass of fictitious capital.
The fundamental question is: does this post-1973 reality express
?the "fact" that the socially necessary time of reproduction on 
a global scale can no longer serve as the "numeraire", the 
universal standard of exchange? Can global reproduction still 
be expanded in the value form? Or has global society become 
too productive to be contained within it? Capital since 1973 
seems to be trying to recompose the relationship between 
surplus-value, variable and constant capital into the foundations
?for a new expansion, but its main result, on the global scale of social reproduction, seems to be more large-scale destruction than expansion .
The answer to the above questions is inseparable 
(following the Theses on Feuerbach, namely that activity is objective)
?from the ability of the proletariat to supersede the value form and
?found a new mode of production. There is always the possibility
?of the "mutual destruction of the contending classes" as a mode of
?production exhausts itself (as Marx indicated in the Communist Manifesto).
My hypothesis is that since the appearance of a communist current in 
the working class (1848) every "classical" crisis of the pre-1914 period 
(the decennial crises of 1846, 1857, then the "great depression" of 1873-1896) has been, within the "core" of the system (the most advanced production and most 
advanced working class) a dress rehearsal for the end of capitalism,
?in which the proletariat "was compelled to do" (Marx) what was
necessary to dissolve its status as commoditized labor power: 
hence the appearance of a communist current, always a
?minority (1848, 1871, 1905, 1917-1921, to a lesser extent in 
1968-1976). It is not an exaggeration to say that ever since 1848
?every major development in capitalism (and no less true for the
?post-1973 period) must be understood within the framework of 
xorcising the "specter of communism". (It is also important to note 
that three of the four major historical upsurges of the proletariat 
occurred as a boom was
peaking: the formation of the First International in the 1860's run-up 
to the Franco-Prussian War, the Commune, and the 1873 depression; 
the formation of the Third International that emerged from the worldwide
?strike wave which preceded World War I and which continued in 
1917-1921, i.e. at the beginning of the "thirty-year crisis"; finally, the
?worldwide surge of 1968-1977 as the post-World War II boom 
was peaking. In counterpoint to this is the formation of the 
Second International after 1889, in the midst of the 1873-1896
?"great depression" or "great deflation" as it is sometimes called.
Capital can only be understood in relationship to its inseparable 
historical counterpart, the proletariat, and the proletariat is
?historically important, not as passive "variable capital" in
?capitalism's balance sheet, but as an ACTIVITY that tends 
to constitute the "class for itself", pointing beyond the capitalist 
mode of production. "The working class is revolutionary
?or it is nothing" (Marx).
The recovery from each capitalist crisis, once again, involves 
a vast "recomposition": fictitious capital is wiped out through
?bankruptcy, fixed capital is devalorized (often below its cost of 
reproduction), and the new "numeraire", or standard of value, 
unleashes commodities cheapened by the new generalized labor 
productivity. The working class "bill of consumption" (V) might 
contract in value terms (as a percentage of the total product), yet
?be larger in material terms because of an overall cheapening of 
consumer goods. Accumulation can resume with an adequate rate of profit.
Ever since 1973, world capitalism, without resort to full-blown 
depression or a Third World War, has been struggling to establish 
a new standard of value to supercede the exhausted one 
associated with the postwar boom. To do so, it must 
re-equilibrate the existing total paper claims on wealth 
(profit, interest, ground rent) with existing surplus value in a new, 
acceptable rate of profit, at the same time that it expands the 
reproduction of global society. Yet, because of the 
preservation of fictitious capital against devalorization, 
at the expense of material production, it has failed to find this new equilibrium. 
It has, of course, by opening up the Soviet bloc, China,
?and parts of the Third World through "globalization", 
increased the total volume of production; it has cheapened 
commodities; it has innovated new technologies and increased
?the productivity of labor (although more slowly than in the postwar boom).
?By the unceasing demand for the "reform" 
(the Orwellian word par excellence of our time)
?and "flexibilization" of the wealthy, more "mercantilist" 
economies of Europe and East Asia, it may succeed in
?extending this process. But it has not undergone the "clearing 
of the decks""?full-scale deflation of fictitious valuations in harmony 
with a prevailing rate of profit in the production of commodities 
which can "return" as expanded C and V. On the contrary, 
by the devastation it has wrought and is wreaking in Latin America, 
Africa, eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia and rural China,
?not to mention austerity in the U.S. and Europe, it has
compelled the world's working population and relative surplus
?population to bear the brunt of the crisis. American world power
?today stands as much in opposition to a new "healthy" phase 
of global capitalist expansion, (assuming one is possible)
?as British world power did in 1900. 

World Capitalism After 1973 
This process is essential to understanding the post-1973 period. 
One can, I think, "write the history" of the post-1973 era around the 
efforts to prop up the growing mass of "nomad dollars" or "hot air" 
which brought down Bretton Woods and to postpone (for over thirty years!) 
the inevitable deflationary crash. More specifically: the 1975 U.S. 
reflation (under Ford and continued by Carter) took the world into
?the 1979-1980 near-inflationary blowout (gold at $850 an ounce, 
oil at record levels after the Iranian revolution, a threatened world 
flight from the dollar). This was followed by the Reagan-Volcker 
super-austerity: U.S. interest rates hitting 20%, leading to a 
massive recovery of the dollar, the latter made possible by 
equally massive foreign lending to the U.S., particularly in the 
Japanese acquisition of Treasury bills. This "wringing out" 
of the 1970's inflationary economy -- provoking in 1981-1982 
the deepest recession of the entire post-1945
period to date,-- set off the stock market boom of 1982-2000.
I contend that the U.S. stock market boom of the 80's and 
90's was a continuation of the reflationary strategy begun in 
earnest with the 1968-1973 onset of crisis, a strategy which 
has not yet run its course (currently manifested in the mortgage 
refinancing boom) , and which constitutes in effect the largest
?"Ponzi scheme" in history. This paper boom has taken place,
?not in conjunction with a real global expansion as in 1945-1975
?(however qualified by some of the downside mentioned earlier)
?but large-scale DESTRUCTION on a world scale: the 
deindustrialization and downsizing of the U.S., extended mass
?unemployment in western Europe, absolute retrogression in
?Latin America, Africa, much of Asia, of Eastern Europe, 
and of the former Soviet bloc (both in Russia and Ukraine
?and even more so in Central Asia), and more recently for the 
900 million Chinese peasants and workers left out of the 
"Chinese miracle". The social "balance sheet"
?of this paper boom is to
be found in various phenomena of decay ranging from the 
destruction of the blue-collar world in many countries 
(even China has had a net loss of 22 million industrial jobs), 
the expansion of the parasitic FIRE (finance-insurance-real 
estate) sector (most recently in the preposterous world 
housing boom, centered once again in the U.S.), environmental 
destruction (most notably global warming), the growing role 
of international crime (e.g. the drug trade), ongoing 
economically-preventable epidemics, the disintegration
?of 60 economic basket cases into "failed states", and 
fundamentalism (Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Hindu). 
Having knocked down many of the economic "great walls of China"
?this circulation of fictitious dollars is apparent today in the
?growing pressure on Japan and Germany (in particular to?? "financialize" on the Anglo-American model, with the same effect of gutting the "real" economy, 

particularly as it affects working people. The instability
of this "dollarization" and "financialization" of the world economy 
has been apparent in the Japanese deflation (1990-present), U.S. 
recession and real estate collapse (1991), Mexican crisis (1994),
?the Asia crisis (1997-1998), the Russian default and collapse 
of LTCM (1998), the Brazil crisis (1999), the U.S. dot.com collapse 
(March 2000) the Argentine crisis (2001) and the 35% decline 
of the Dow Jones Industrial average from March 2000 to 
September 2002. All told, roughly $3 trillion is paper wealth
?was destroyed in 2000-2002. Since that time, the acceleration 
of "financial arbitrage capitalism" (the term is from Doug Noland, 
expanding on ideas of Hyman Minsky), with the mortgage 
refinancing boom, has preserved the "U.S. consumer" as the 
"buyer of last resort" in the world economy. (As one wag put
?it recently: "I've finally understood supply-side economics. 
Other countries supply the goods, and then they supply the
?money to buy them".)
It must also be mentioned that this circulation of fictititous 
capital has brought into existence new productive forces
?as companies compete in ever-tighter markets,
?expressing the pull of devalorization. In sum, on a world
?scale, a smaller percentage of production workers in
?the work force as a whole is producing a larger volume 
of goods, goods that have been cheapened by technological 
innovation. This is, as noted earlier, part of a classic pattern 
of capitalist crisis and recomposition. But it must equally
?be stressed that, in contrast to the 1945-1975 period, 
where expansion of the productive forces was driving the 
creation of fictitious capital (on a small scale compared 
to the present), today it is the necessity of
?circulating fictitious capital which is driving the 
development of production. The total deficits of the
?U.S. state from American independence to 1980 totaled $1 
trillion; since 1980, that total has increased to $4 trillion. (That total
does not include the "off-balance" sheet sums transferred
?through internal accounting from the Social Security 
system to smooth out the reported Federal deficit.)
?(It is also interesting that the post-1980 U.S.
?government debt is almost exactly equal to the $3 
trillion net indebtedness of the U.S. The U.S. government 
debt is the "totem" of the world system. This difference from 
the historical character of earlier capitalist expansions
?will matter terribly when the "debt-deflation" phase hits, 
and capital (not to mention debt-strapped workers and other 
"consumers") will have to pay off enormous debts
?(at historic cost) with the greatly depressed current 
prices and wages expressing current costs of reproduction 
(and in reality well below the latter). 
What has been presented thus far is basically
?a merely "economic" analysis, as critique of political 
economy. But to understand the weight of fictitious
?capital in the current context, it is necessary to
?look beyond the merely economic to the class struggle.
?Despite the colossal efforts of ideology to deny or trivialize
?social antagonism, everything today is shaped by class 
struggle, both the one-sided class struggle waged for 30
?years by the capitalist class, and even more so the potential
?threat of a two-sided struggle to re-emerge into the open, as
?it has already begun to do (Argentina 2001, Bolivia 2005, 
ongoing working-class ferment in China, the return of the 
wildcat in Italy, Germany and Britain). 
The classical workers' movement from ca. 1840 to 1945 

was fundamental in pushing capital into the phase of "real domination", above all in the century-long struggle for the 8-hour day. It had its finest hour in the
?1917-1921 period, in the Russian and German revolutions, 
in the Italian factory occupations, a pre-revolutionary situation 
in Britain (January 1919), and major strike waves in France, 
Spain and the U,S. But the 1917-1921 radical upsurge failed
?because capitalism still had a large colonial and underdeveloped
?world, barely under the formal domination of capital, into which 
to expand, as well as significant potential for recomposition 
(cheapened mass consumer goods) and primitive accumulation
?within the advanced sector itself (50% of the U.S. and French 
populations, for example, still lived in rural areas and small
?towns in 1918). The 1914-1945 "Thirty Years' War" and
?its immediate aftermath, through the New Deal/Keynesian welfare state (the
U.S., Britain), Social Democracy (northern Europe)
?Stalinism and then the Third World Bonapartism that 
emerged from de-colonization made the classical workers' 
movement, expressed most succinctly in the dominant 
Lassallean wing of German Social Democracy part of official
?society. Thereafter, in a way far more visible than in the pre-1945 period, progress in class struggle came from the unofficial workers' movement, 
most notably the growing wildcat strike wave
?(above all in the U.S., Britain and France) in the 1955-1973 period. 
A mere listing of the high points of social polarization and 
struggle on a world scale captures the climate of the end of the postwar boom:



From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Mon Mar 16 04:53:05 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 03:53:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Babel's dawn note
Message-ID: <989632.73982.qm@web180110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/
?
The Group and the Individual are mutually dependent. Is there a way to 
talk about the whole as a unit, or must we choose between them whenever 
we talk about social change?
This blog?s long-time emphasis on the role of cooperation and community
?in human evolution got some extra attention this week. My alma mater,
Washington University in St. Louis,? sponsored a conference on
??Man the Hunted? which presented evidence that human evolution 
owes much more to the lineage?s role as prey than as predator. I thought 
about covering the event, but did not because its focus was too far from 
speech. However, I have also read a provocative essay in the latest issue 
of Group Analysis by a psychotherapist, Claire S. Bacha, on ?Becoming
?Conscious of the Human Group? (abstract here). The paper is much too 
speculative to be received as the solution to any puzzles, but it is still
?important. I don?t believe I have ever read a more radical understanding
?of the nature of the ?Human Group.?
The paper?s most radical assertion comes from S.H. Foulkes, founder 
of group psychoanalytic therapy:
individual grow from groups; groups do not grow out of individuals. [65] 

Having just lived through thirty years of Republicanism and its 
counter-assertion that the individual creates society, I sat up. 
Bacha immediately interprets the statement in terms of interest to 
group therapists, but the remark is provocative enough to offer food for
?thought on this blog?s subject as well. After all, language too emerges
?from a group and the great mystery of language origins is that our 
ancestral group never spoke, but now all people do. How do you get from a 
silent group? to a speaking one?
The conservative temptation is to think of the transition from 
non-linguistic to linguistic groups entirely in terms of individuals.
?There was a mutation that led to mutant individuals who were selected 
and became a mutant group. Even with the introduction of multi-level 
selection (see: A Vote for Group Selection) the reason for the selection
?tends to be the benefit the individual brings to the group rather than 
what the group brings to the individual; e.g., the law-abiding individual 
benefits the group and therefore group survival favors law-abiding individuals.
But after all those years of Republican catastrophe, the radical reversal 
doesn?t seem so ridiculous: the law-giving group makes the law-abiding 
individual possible. When groups don?t form laws, it is impossible for group 
members to follow them or benefit from them. Similarly it is the
?language-speaking group that makes the individual poet or story-teller possible.
Both the conservative and the radical propositions seem to make sense.
?Bacha sums up? this relationship between group and individual nicely. 
She reports that according to Foulkes individuals and groups 

exist in a Gestalt where they are both always present but 
difficult to see at the same time. Sometimes the group is in 
the foreground and sometimes the individual [65] 

The speaker and the language, for example, are always together, but 
we can only pay attention to on one or the other at a time. Since language
?echoes perception (see: What I?ve Learned About Language) it is very 
hard to understand the two as a unit. It is like like the yin and the yang. 
We can visualize their mutual dependence and yet we look at one part 
or the other. Yet both are there. Thus, we may always have intellectual 
reversals in which we go from attending to the evolution of the speaker to 
focusing on the evolution of the speaking group without ever grasping the 
whole, the nut and its shell together.
Bacha approvingly quotes Ralph Stacey who says in his book 
Complexity and Group Process: A Radically Social Understanding of Individuals 
who? refers to 

? the paradox of individual minds forming and being formed 
by the social at the same time. [Stacey p. 327] 

Bacha refers several times to this paradox as ?irresolvable,? which is alright
?for her because she is a clinician and can work with a paradox, even an 
irresolvable one, but is alarming for this blog whose ultimate hope is to 
understand how we came to be speakers. If the explanation rests on an 
irresolvable paradox, that ambition is foredoomed. The best we can hope 
for is the mess physics has gotten into, where we have a series of extremely 
accurate equations that people can use, but not understand. 
Fortunately, I don?t have to despair because the paradox may not be irresolvable. 
First, a sentence like, ?At church the individual and the group sing hymns,? 
draws attention to the whole gestalt and its effect. It sounds a little funny 
and we may have to work out the meaning, but that may be because 
simultaneous attention to individual and group is novel. With practice we 
might work it out and find it easy to think this way.
Second, contrary to Chomsky?s suggestion, the ultimate form of language
?is not the sentence. Storytellers have more complex forms and long ago 
learned how to present two figures of equal importance. Their secret lies in 
the little word meanwhile. Thus, the storyteller can recount the adventure of 
a bank robber and then, with meanwhile, switch to telling of the behavior of the
?detective looking for the robber.
The story of speech origins might be able to make good use of meanwhile. 

e.g.: There was a genetic change to an individual?s FOXP2 gene.
?Meanwhile the group depended on its ability to make specific sounds.
Then at some point the storyteller brings the two parts together. Sometimes 
the two parts even kiss and become one.
The memorable storyteller brings the two together by focusing attention on 
the conventionally subordinate part of the pair. Jane Austin's tales take their 
strength from their strong women.? Similarly, since the conventional story
?has the human form the group, the? more memorable telling would use 
Foulkes? radical proposition and have the individual emerge from the group.
The routine way to tell the story is to say
t
here was a genetic change to an individual?s FOXP2 gene. Meanwhile the 
group depended on its ability to make specific sounds. So the individual 
gene?s was selected. Instead, g
oing at it from the group to individual direction, we get So the group enabled
?the individual to survive. 
When two possible conclusions are available, c
onservatives will demand to know which approach is true. Moderates will 
say either approach is equally true and ask which one works best. Radicals 
will say that the approaches are mutually dependent and no account can be
?complete that leaves either one out. 
Instead of using one dimentional time lines, scenarios need to include an 
awful lot of meanwhiles.


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Mon Mar 16 06:10:27 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:10:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Babel's dawn
Message-ID: <755319.76291.qm@web180110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/

A Tale Without Episodes

Radio transmitters provide a misleading metaphor for speech.
?They encourage the notion of a signal that must be encoded 
and then decoded rather than an active tool whose meaning 
comes from where it directs one's attention.
The pieces have fallen together in a position I did not anticipate 
when I began this blog. None the less, last week?s post has left
?me feeling that I now understand the basic outline of the story 
of speech origins. ?Basic outline? means I don?t have dates, but 
I do know the outline of what evolved and even how it happened. 
What Evolved
When I began this blog, I thought of language as a means of
?expressing ideas and emotions, but I now see that definition 
as too abstract to help think clearly about how speech works 
or how it evolved. Talk about ideas and emotions encourages
?mystical thinking in which words somehow contain a ?meaning?
?that carry an idea from speaker to listener. The technical analogy
?is a radio that transmits a signal to specific receivers. The evolution
?of a linguistic species requires the appearance of individuals able to
?pack meaning into words, transmit them as sentences, and then 
retrieve the meaning from the received signal. A great deal of
?philosophical and critical confusion has come from taking
?these abstractions literally.
Put more mundanely, but concretely, speech is a tool for 
directing attention. Instead of transmitting meanings it directs 
the joint attention of speaker and listener. In this view, understanding
?speech requires a perceiving, aware listener capable of joining 
in on the attention of another. The story of the evolution of 
language is not a tale of increasingly complex capacity to 
transmit and deconstruct meanings; it tells instead of an 
increasingly rich ability to share perceptions and to know 
what is on each other?s minds.
Last week?s post focused on episodic thinking (see Episodes 
on the Highway of Life) and suggested complex syntax might 
have evolved to describe episodes. The description of an 
episode can require more than one sentence. So you see 
the use of full paragraphs in speech. It is a very late development
?in the story of speech origins.

How it Evolved
Episodic thinking can lead to mistakes, For one thing, 
it makes us expect a story to occur in episodes instead of
?along a continuum. The story of speech evolution is a handy 
example. Episodic thinking encourages people to expect a 
series of episodes, or milestones, that went something like:
?first came words, then phrases, then simple sentences, and then
?rich sentences. Trust Noam Chomsky to show the logical limitations 
of that approach without finding the solution. Words alone, phrases
?alone, get you no closer to syntactically rich sentences, so why 
suppose there were such stages? But instead of getting rid of episodes
?this argument just reduces the number of milestones to one: thinking
?in syntactically rich (recursive) sentences.
Episodic thinking encourages before-and-after thinking. Before 
the episode things were one way and after they were another way. 
Thus we expect genes to introduce novelties so that we can say 
before the episode of the mutant gene our lineage talked this way; 
after the episode it talked this other way. We also expect a series 
of milestone to produce a series of distinct differences. Thus, it is 
not enough for speech itself to be unique to humans. It must have
?resulted from a series of distinct milestones, each of which introduced
?a novelty, such as recursive syntax, into the picture.
I am very much an episodic thinker myself, but the evidence does 
not support a story of evolution via milestones. For example, the one
?gene found so far that seems assuredly part of our tale, FOXP2, is not
?at all like one would expect as milestone.FOXP2 is indirect, it controls
?other genes, and its effects are not limited to speech. Speech does 
break down in cases without a normal FOXP2 gene, although cognitively
?there seems to be little damage. In FOXP2 mutants, the ability to
?coordinate muscular movements for proper speech seems deficient 
and there are problems in comprehension as well. Finding the gene
?has tangled the story instead of bringing the clarity you should expect
?from finding a milestone.
Also contrary to expectations is the issue of differences. It is clear that 
we talk and apes do not, but that very great difference seems to rest on 
a series of small similarities. Apes in some small degree have many 
of the traits that humans find useful for speech, and yet they don?t speak at all. 
It is difficult to account for this tangle of similarity and difference by referring to
?episodes that introduce unprecedented novelties. The chief solution has been
?to attempt to keep the episodes to a minimum.
Instead, I believe the story is very different. It is one of co-evolutions, the 
increasing dependence of traits on one another so that something novel 
emerges from the tangle of all those familiar traits. The outline of speech
?origins is probably not a story of milestones, but an increase of mutual 
dependencies on traits that have long evolutionary histories behind them.

The Outline
When we say that apes do not talk at all, we mean they do not have
?the capacity for using words to establish, maintain, or direct joint attention.
?Yet they do have the ability to pay attention, to perceive, to remember 
perceptions, and to attract attention to themselves. Michael Tomasello 
points out that chimpanzees sometimes make a sound to draw somebody?s
?attention. (See his book, The Origins of Human Communication.)
The co-evolution of I and we. So was ahem the first word? I?m joking, 
but a random sound is enough to direct attention to an individual. 
A slap on the ground or vocalized mmm can be sufficient to insert
?oneself into another?s attention. Infants are able to call attention
?to themselves by crying. Ape infants sometimes cry as well, I understand.
?Apes have a well evolved sense of themselves.
Apes have a much weaker sense of we, although it is not fully absent.
?Speakers can draw attention to themselves as members of a group.
?Starting with infants and who babble and get others to join them to
?toddlers who repeat what others say, to older speakers who sing, 
or chant, or shout as part of a group, humans? use speech to draw
?attention to themselves as members of a group. Without this process 
we could not have developed the trust necessary before people dare 
share their thoughts, but once begun the process continued so that 
increasing numbers of ways of expressing group identity developed.
The co-evolution of words and interests: The babbling sounds that
?promote a sense of we inevitably become names like mama.
?Apes are not much interested in neutral topics, but they do 
sometimes show a little curiosity about things. It?s a toe-hold
?for evolution to build on. Words point to the world and spark a 
curiosity that can be fed by further looking. Plainly this process 
continues to go on all around us today.
The co-evolution of perception and imagination: Presumably the
?first words had to do with present perceptions like mama, but very 
quickly people were probably talking about absent things. Even
?toddlers can say up as a request to be picked up. To speak, the 
child has to imagine being picked up, and the responder has to 
imagine that too. Attention can be directed inwardly, to imagination, 
as well as outwardly.
The story works this way. Traits build on one another and 
strengthen capacities by supporting one another. Instead of looking
?for milestones that break the after from the before, look for arches that
?support themselves and grow stronger through their mutual dependence.


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Mon Mar 16 06:33:44 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:33:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Man the hunted
Message-ID: <330549.21777.qm@web180104.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


Non-profit Charity Promotes Altruism as Key to Man's 
Evolution and Well-Being
ST. LOUIS, March 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The 
Anthropedia Foundation has teamed with the National
?Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for 
Anthropological Research, and Washington University 
Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values to present 
the conference "Man The Hunted: Sociality, Altruism, and 
Well-Being." Spanning Thursday, March 12 to Saturday,
?March 14, "Man The Hunted" includes panels and presentations 
by leaders in anthropology, psychiatry, ethnography, philosophy,
?education, biology, and healthcare. The conference highlights
?man's historical role as prey rather than predator, and human 
reliance on cooperation, altruism, and sociality for survival and
?healthy development. The conference will tackle many related 
questions: How is the negative paradigm of man as predator 
reflected in current research and institutions? What are the 
scientific and societal implications of the positive paradigm that
?man is altruistic? How can we translate theory into practice 
and have an impact on the community?
The event is co-chaired by Robert Sussman, Ph.D., Professor 
of Anthropology at Washington University, and Robert Cloninger, 
M.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Genetics, Director of the 
Center for the Psychobiology of Personality, and the Center for 
Well-Being at Washington University. Dr. Cloninger is also the
?Director for the Anthropedia Institute, the research body of the
?Anthropedia Foundation. 
Dr. Cloninger will co-present "Neurobiology of Human Temperament 
and Character" with Dr. Sita Kedia, Vice-President of the Anthropedia 
Foundation. Dr. Kedia received her M.D. from the University of Colorado.
?Dr. Cloninger will also deliver another presentation, "The Direction 
of Evolution: Growth toward Self-awareness, Altruism, & Well-Being." 
Addressing a bio-psycho-social approach to health promotion, Dr. 
Helen Herrman and Dr. Lauren Munsch will present "Promotion of 
Well-Being in Healthcare." Dr. Herrman is Director of the World 
Health Organization Collaborating Centre in Mental Health and 
Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne. Dr. Munsch
?earned her M.D. from St. Louis University and is founder, Chairman 
and CEO of the Anthropedia Foundation. 
Former President of the World Psychiatric Association, Dr. Juan Mezzich 
will introduce Friday's second session, "Human Altruism and Cooperation:
?
?Needs and the Promotion of Well-Being in Modern Life." Dr. Mezzich 
is Professor of Psychiatry and Director at the Division of Psychiatric 
Epidemiology and International Center for Mental Health at the Mount 
Sinai School of Medicine. The president of the Anthropedia Foundation,
?Dr. Kevin Cloninger, will present "Hope Rekindled: Well-Being, Humanism, and Education." Dr. Cloninger received his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at the 
University of Denver. 
Dr. Dan German Blazer, II will speak on "Moving Beyond the Nature/Nurture
?Distinction: Promotion of Transdisciplinary Research." A Geriatric Psychiatry 
expert, Dr. Blazer is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and 
Community and Family Medicine at Duke University. The conference 
ends by discussing current assumptions of man as predator, and the 
positive effects of re-examining man's development. Members of the 
Anthropedia Institute will discuss implications for education, healthcare, and quality of life. 
About Anthropedia 
As the rates of lifestyle and stress-related illness, depression, and 
anxiety rapidly increase, the Anthropedia Foundation recognizes the
?need for concrete strategies for improving mental, physical, and social 
health. Anthropedia is an educational foundation led by a council of 
experts in medicine, public health, psychiatry, and education who 
integrate the most effective practices from their fields into a comprehensive
?approach to health and happiness. 
Anthropedia creates personal development resources and health 
education programs that are simple, practical, and powerful. To learn
?more about Anthropedia, please visit www.anthropedia.org.
SOURCE Anthropedia Foundation
-0-


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Mon Mar 16 15:06:07 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:06:07 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?Read_the_big_four_to_know_capital?=
	=?utf-8?b?4oCZcyBmYXRl?=
Message-ID: <728872.20792.qm@web180102.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5e61e20c-0f44-11de-ba10-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=ae1104cc-f82e-11dd-aae8-000077b07658.html


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Tue Mar 17 16:00:19 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:00:19 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Notes on an Orientation to the Obama Presidency
Message-ID: <350072.50505.qm@web180103.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


Notes on an Orientation to the Obama Presidency

by Linda Burnham 
________________________________
http://alainet.org/active/29144&lang=es

The election of Obama, while enthusiastically embraced by 
most of the left, has also occasioned some disorientation and confusion.
?
Some have become so used to confronting the dismal
?electoral choice between the lesser of two evils that they
?couldn?t figure out how to relate to a political figure who 
held out the possibility of substantive change in a positive direction.
?
Others are so used to all-out, full-throated opposition to 
every administration that they wonder whether and 
how to alter their stance.
?
Still others sat out the election, for a variety of political 
and organizational reasons, and were taken by surprise 
at how wide and deep ran the current for change.
?
Now there?s an active conversation on the left about what 
can be expected of an Obama administration and what
?the orientation of the left should b e towards it. There are 
two conflicting views on this:
?
First, that Obama represents a substantial, principally
?positive political shift and that, while the left should
?criticize and resist policies that pull away from the
?interests of working people, its main orientation should 
be to actively engage with the political motion that?s underway.
?
Second, that Obama is, in essence, just another 
steward of capitalism, more attractive than most, 
but not an agent of fundamental change. He should 
be regarded with caution and is bound to disappoint. 
The basic orientation is to criticize every move the
?administration makes and to remain disengaged from 
mainstream politics. 
?
It is possible to grant that Obama is a steward of capitalism while also 
maintaining that his election has opened up the potential for substantive 
reform in the interests of working people and that his election to office is 
a democratic win worthy of being fiercely defended.
?
Obama is clear ? and we should be too ? about what he was elected to do.
?The bottom line of his job description has become increasingly evident as 
the economic crisis deepens. Obama?s job is to salvage and stabilize the
?U.S. capitalist system and to perform whatever triage is necessary to 
restore the core institutions of finance and industry to profitability.
?
Obama?s second bottom line is also clear to him ? and should also
?be to us: to salvage the reputation of the U.S. in the world; repair the
?international ties shredded by eight years of cowboy unilateralism; and
?adjust U.S. positioning on the world stage on the basis of a rational
?assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the changed and 
changing centers of global political, economic and military power ? 
rather than on the basis of a simple-minded ideological commitment 
to unchallenged world dominance.
?
Obama has been on the job for only a month but has not wasted a 
moment in going after his double bottom line with gusto, panache and 
high intelligence. In point of fact, the capitalists of the world ? or at
?least the U.S. branch ? ought to be building altars to the man and 
lighting candles. They have chosen an uncommonly steady hand to 
pull their sizzling fat from the fire.
?
For some on the left this is the beginning and the end of the story. 
Having established conclusively that Obama?s fundamental task 
is to govern in the interests of capital, there?s no point in adjusting 
one?s stance, regardless of how skillful and popular he may be. 
For the anti-capitalist left that is grounded in Trotskyism, 
anarcho-horizontalism, or various forms of third-party-as-a-point-of-principleism,
?the only change worthy of the name is change that hits directly 
at the kneecaps of capitalism and cripples it decisively. All else is
?trifling with minor reforms or, even worse, capitulating to the power elite. 
From this point of view the stance towards Obama is self-evident: 
criticize relentlessly, disabuse others of their presidential infatuation,
?and denounce anything that remotely smacks of mainstream politics. 
Though this may seem an extreme and marginal point of view, it has
a surprising degree of currency in many quarters.
?
The effective-steward-of-capitalism is only one part of the Obama story. 
Obama did what the center would not do and what a fragmented and 
debilitated left could not do. He broke the death grip of the reactionary
?right by inspiring and mobilizing millions as agents of change. 
If Obama doesn?t manage to do even one more progressive thing 
over the course of the next four years, he has already opened up far
?more promising political terrain. His campaign:

Revealed the contours, composition and potential of a broad 
democratic coalition, demographically grounded in the (overlapping)
?constituencies of African -Americans, Latinos, Asians, youth 
across the racial groups, LGBT voters, unionized workers, urban
?professionals, and women of color and single white women, and 
in the sectors of organized labor, peace, civil rights, civil liberties,
?feminism, and environmentalism.? Obama did not create this broadly 
democratic electoral coalition single-handedly or out of whole cloth,
?but he did move it from latency to potency and from dispirited, 
amorphous and unorganized to goal oriented, enthusiastic and organized;
?
???????Busted up the Republican?s southern strategy, the 
foundation of their rule for most of the last forty years, and the
?Democrat?s ignominious concession to this legacy of slavery; 
?
???????Wrenched the Democratic Party out of the clammy grip 
of Clintonian centrism. (Although he himself often leads from the 
center, Obama?s center is a couple of notches to the left of the 
Clinton administration?s triangulation strategies); and

???????Rescued political dialogue from its monopolization by hate-filled,
?xenophobic, ultra-nationalistic ideologues.
?
This is not change of the anti-capitalist variety, but certainly it is
?change of major consequence.
?
If the criterion is that the only change to be supported is that
?which strikes a decisive blow at capital, then the gap between
?where we are now and the realignment it would take to strike 
such a blow is completely and perpetually unbridgeable. 
?
A better set of criteria, in light of the weakness of the left and 
the decades of hyper-conservatism we are only now exiting,
?is change that: creates substantially better conditions for 
working people; broadens the scope of democratic rights for 
sectors of the population whose rights have been abrogated; 
limits the prerogatives of capital; constrains runaway militarism 
and perpetual war; takes seriously the prospect of environmental 
collapse; and creates better conditions for struggle. This is the 
potential for change that Obama?s presidency has generated. 
This is the democratic opening. It is potential that will only be
?realized and maximized if the left and progressives step up 
and stay engaged.

These are also the criteria to keep in mind as the Obama presidency
?unfolds, rather than flipping out over every appointment and policy
?move he makes. Far better to de-link from the 24-hour news cycle 
that feeds on micro-maneuvers, stop making definitive judgments 
based on parsing the language of every pronouncement, and 
keep our eyes on the broader contours of change. 

Besides the sectors of the anti-capitalist left that are stranded 
on Dogma Beach, there are those who see the tide running 
high but are still watching from the safety of the shore, hesitant
?to get in the water. There are those who have been so long 
alienated from mainstream political processes and so 
disgusted with both political parties and all branches
?of government that their default response is instinctive distrust. 
They view Obama?s?presidency through the lens of 
anticipatory disillusionment. Their basic orientation 
is to analyze the administration?s every move with the
?goal of concluding, ?See, we told you so. Obama?s gonna burn you.
?You?re gonna be disappointed.? ?This is a mindset for jilted lovers, 
not political activists. Let us grant without argument that, from the
?vantage point of the left, there are many disappointments in store. 
This is easy enough to predict based not only on Obama?s own 
politics but also on the alignment
of forces and institutions in which he is embedded. And so what? 
We can survive disappointment over this or that policy or concession 
as long as we are making headway on the broader criteria above.

There are also those who stayed on the shoreline during
?the campaign because they are wedded to localism as 
a matter of preference, principle or habit. Others were
?lodged in organizational forms that, for structural, 
political or legal reasons, could not articulate with the 
motion and structures of the presidential campaign. 
These are complicated issues, bound up as they 
are with questions of resources and patterns of philanthropy.
?But for those who missed interacting with the motion of 
millions against the right, against the white racial monopoly 
on the executive branch, and for substantive change, their 
absence should, at the very least, prompt a serious 
examination of political orientation and organizational form.

Finally, there are those who are struggling to negotiate 
the existential shoals of a commitment to anti-capitalist
?politics in a period when the system is manifestly dying 
but not nearly at death?s door (and there have been all too 
many chronicles of that death foretold); major alternative 
systems have only recently collapsed or capitulated; 
and the vision, values and program that might bind together
?an anti-capitalist left and win broad support are still frustratingly
?obscure. There?s no remedy for this dilemma except to live
?in the times we?re in meeting the challenges we?ve been 
given and making the most of every opportunity, rather 
than anticipating capital?s demise or pining for a past
?beyond recovery.

In this period, then, the left has three tasks.

Our first job is to defend the democratic opening. This is a job
?we share with broader progressive forces and with centrists. 
Obama won big and retains the favorable regard of a sizeable majority.
?And meanwhile the Republican Party is in glorious disarray. 
But in no way should we take this situation for granted. 
The new administration faces daunting challenges and 
outright crises on every front. And while the right is 
disoriented and weakened, it has not and will not leave 
the playing field. The principal players and institutions 
of the right are, at this very moment, plotting how to 
undermine the administration, challenge every initiative 
that moves in the direction of democracy, progress and
?peace, and regroup to seize control, once again, 
of the state apparatus. 

Defense of the democratic opening means many things 
and ought to be the subject for discussion and strategizing on the left.
?But in practical terms, first and foremost, it means consolidating 
and extending the electoral alliance that made the opening possible. 
Any work that strengthens and broadens the voter engagement 
of the constituencies and sectors that secured Obama?s election 
is work that defends the democratic opening. This kind of voter education,
?registration and mobilization work can be done in conjunction 
with an extremely broad range of local campaigns and initiatives.
?And anything that hastens the demise of the southern strategy, 
builds on the wins in Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia 
(along with the significant southwestern shifts in New Mexico, 
Colorado and Nevada), and challenges structural barriers 
to voter participation (e.g., felony disfranchisement, 
voter ID laws) is critical. All this is another way of saying
?that the electoral
arena is an essential site of struggle for left and progressive 
forces in a way it has not been in at least 20 years. And this work,
?in which we have unity of purpose with the centrists, is vital 
to widening the Democratic majority in the 2010 congressional races,
?winning a filibuster-proof Senate majority, ensuring the successful 
re-election of Obama in 2012, and shaping both the parameters 
of viable Democratic candidates in 2016 and the outcome of that election.

Our second job is to contribute to building more united, effective, 
combative and influential progressive popular movements. 
This places the highest premium on strengthening and 
extending our ties with broader progressive forces, both inside 
and outside the Democratic Party, with an eye towards 
building long-term relationships and alliances among individuals,
?organizations and sectors. Anything that thickens and enriches 
the relationships among left and progressive actors in labor, 
religious institutions, policy think tanks, grassroots organizations,
?academia etc. is to be supported in the interests of strengthening 
the capacity of the left-progressive alliance to influence policy, 
to encourage and shore up whatever progressive inclinations 
might emerge from within the administration, and to resist 
administration tendencies to accommodation and capitulation 
to center-right forces. At this early stage of Obama?s tenure it
?is already evident what some of
the most vital left-progressive alliance building ought to focus on.
?In foreign policy, on war and militarism in general and on Iraq,
?Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel/Palestine, Iran and non-proliferation
?in particular. ?In domestic policy, on health care and on solutions
?to the economic crisis that hold the financial sector accountable
?for reckless and predatory practices while addressing the 
particular vulnerabilities of working people, the poor, women, 
immigrants and communities of color. And, at the intersection 
of global and domestic policy, on oil dependency and global warming. 
All that enhances our capacity to constructively engage in debating
?and influencing policy on these issues is to the good. All that 
obstructs or distracts is highly problematic.

We?ve exited a period of collective psychic depression only
?to enter one of global economic depression. Each day, as 
the institutions of finance capital collapse, the corruption, 
greed and mismanagement of the nation?s economic system 
are further revealed. Broad sectors of the population have been 
shocked into a more skeptical and critical stance towards 
capitalism, and the need for some measure of structural change
?wins near-universal acceptance. The clash of rising expectations
?(encouraged by the hope and change themes of the Obama campaign) 
and a sinking economy will likely spark new levels and forms 
of popular resistance. In this political environment, alliance
?building will be complicated, messy and filled with political 
tensions and tactical differences. It is imperative nonetheless.

Our third job, and perhaps the trickiest, is to build the left. 
First let it be said that unless we are able to demonstrate 
a genuine commitment and growing capacity to take on the
?first two jobs, the third is a non-starter, and a prescription 
for political isolation. In other words, defending the democratic 
opening in conjunction with the center and building long-term
?relationships between the anti-capitalist left and broad progressive 
sectors in the context of the struggle over administration policy 
must be understood as critical tasks in their own right, 
not simply as arenas in which to advance an independent left line
?or to recruit new adherents to an anti-capitalist perspective. 
Realizing the progressive potential of the Obama win requires the
?most committed involvement with the twists and turns of politics 
on the most pressing issues on the administration?s agenda.

This same engagement is critical to rebuilding the left, 
a long-term process that can be advanced significantly
?in the context of Obama?s presidency if, and only if, the 
left can skillfully manage the relationship and distinction 
between its own interests, dynamics and challenges and
?those of broader political forces. Why is this the case? 
On the tell no lies front, the left is more isolated and fragmented 
than it has been in forty years. Truly fine work is being done
?by leftists in every region of the country and on every social issue. 
But the left qua left is barely breathing. This is not the place 
to go into the historical (world historical and U.S. historical),
?ideological, theoretical and organizational reasons why this is so.
?But let us, at the very least, frankly acknowledge that it is so. 
The current political alignment provides an opportunity to break 
out of isolation, marginalization and the habits of 
self-marginalization accumulated during
the neo-conservative ascendancy. It provides
?the opportunity
?to initiate and/or strengthen substantive relationships
?with political actors in government, in the Democratic Party,
?and in independent sectors, as well as within the left itself 
? relationships to be built upon long after the Obama presidency 
has come to an end. It provides the opportunity to accumulate
?lessons about political actors, alignments and centers 
of power likewise relevant well beyond this administration. 
And it provides the opportunity for the immersion of the leaders,
?members and constituencies of left formations in a 
highly accelerated, real world poli-sci class.

In these circumstances, among our biggest challenges 
is how to attend to building the capacity of the left without 
succumbing to the siren songs of dogma, the old addictions 
of premature platform erection, or the self-limiting pleasures 
of building parties in miniature. ?For the anti-capitalist left, 
this is a period of experimentation. There is no roadmap;
?there are no recipes. Those organizational forms and initiatives 
that enable us to synthesize experience, share lessons and 
develop broad orientations and approaches to seriously undertaking
?our first two tasks should be encouraged. Those that would 
entrap us in the hermetic enclosures of doctrinal belief should 
be avoided at all cost.

The Obama presidency is a rare confluence of individuals and events. 
There is no way to predict how things will unfold over the next 4-8 years.
?But this much we can foresee: if the opportunity at hand is
?mangled or missed, the takeaway for the left will be deepened
?isolation and fragmentation. If, on the other hand, the left engages
?with this political opening skillfully and creatively, it will emerge
?as a broader, more vibrant force on the U.S. political spectrum, 
better able to confront whatever the post-Obama world will bring.


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Fri Mar 20 11:49:45 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:49:45 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] sarkozy-under-pressure-as-millions-take-to-streets-
Message-ID: <240204.89077.qm@web180113.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sarkozy-under-pressure-as-millions-take-to-streets-1648608.html


From rdumain at autodidactproject.org  Fri Mar 20 14:34:44 2009
From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain)
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:34:44 -0500
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why Oprah Deserves to Be Rich and the Wall Street
	moguls not
Message-ID: <E1Lkl2d-0007U6-LY@elasmtp-masked.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Why Oprah Deserves to Be Rich and the Wall Street Moguls Deserve...
by Jed Diamond
Posted March 14, 2009
http://www.thirdage.com/today/giving-back/why-oprah-deserves-to-be-rich-the-wall-street-moguls-dont?utm_medium=email&utm_source=nl_community-connections_20090319&utm_campaign=thirdage

Kinda typical stupidity, no?

Speaking of hype and BS, I saw Obama on Jay Leno last night. He's 
charming and slick, but he's basically covering up how the capitalism 
system operates, perpetuating universally accepted illusions.



From rasherrs at eircom.net  Wed Mar 25 02:36:06 2009
From: rasherrs at eircom.net (Paddy Hackett)
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:36:06 -0000
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] IMPACT Union and the workers
Message-ID: <002301c9ad24$bdac8dc0$3905a940$@net>

The action was voted down because many of its members are unhappy with the
way 
in which the IMPACT official leadership and the official leadership of the
trade 
union movement as a whole is leading its membership. There is little
confidence 
in the existing union leadership. The character of the trade union
leadership is 
such as to obstruct the working class in the struggle to defend living 
standards. They have failed miserably to effectively engage in the
propaganda 
war against the working class. Trade union representatives hardly exploit
the 
media to get the correct message across. Consequently they let diverse 
opposition elements take over tv, radio and print. Just listen to the Joe
Duffy 
show to get a evidence of this.

Leading up to the big march in Dublin the ICTU had hardly did much to
actively 
publicise and encourage attendance at the march. They prefer to engage in
secret 
talks with government and employer representatives concerning so called
social 
partnership. Social partnership is merely a means to restrain wages and
force 
workers to work more intensively. The union leadership has been deliberately

damping down opposition against the government in the hope that it will
reward 
them with a privately negotiated deal to effectively betray workers.

Neither Fianna Fail, the Green Party, Fine Gael nor The Labour Party are
against 
making workers pay for the economic depression. Each only differ as to how
to 
make them pay. Even the trade union leadership is not against the imposition
of 
taxes on workers nor cuts in wages. They merely call for fairness. But 
"fairness" means nothing. It is merely a word designed to fool the workers
into 
accepting cuts in living standards.

The working class needs to break with the union leadership replacing it with
a 
leadership that advances its class interests.



Paddy Hackett
htttp:\\patrickhackett.blogspot.com





From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Thu Mar 26 09:27:22 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:27:22 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Administration unveils financial system overhaul
Message-ID: <249204.87454.qm@web180110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


Administration unveils financial system overhaul
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer 
?
WASHINGTON ? The Obama administration on
?Thursday unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the 
financial system designed to impose greater
?regulation on major players like hedge funds.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told lawmakers 
that the changes are needed to fix the flaws exposed by
?the current financial crisis, the worst to hit the country
?in seven decades.
The goal is to repair a system that has proven
?"too unstable and fragile," he said.
"Over the past 18 months, we have faced the most
?severe global financial crisis in generations," Geithner 
said in testimony to the House Financial Services Committee. 
"To address this will require comprehensive reform. Not 
modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the game."
The administration's proposal, which will require congressional 
approval, would represent a major expansion of federal 
authority over the financial system. It would impose tougher 
standards on financial institutions judged to be so big that their
?failure would represent a risk to the entire system.
It also would extend federal regulations for the first time to
?all trading in financial derivatives, exotic financial instruments
?such as credit default swaps that were blamed for much of the
?damage in the meltdown.
The administration also wants larger hedge funds to be required 
to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In addition, the administration proposed the creation of a systemic
?risk regulator to monitor the biggest institutions. Geithner did not 
designate where such authority should reside, but the administration
?is expected to support awarding this power to the Federal Reserve.
The plan also includes a measure that Geithner and Fed Chairman 
Ben Bernanke discussed before the committee on Tuesday to give the 
administration expanded powers to take over major nonbank financial
?institutions, such as insurance companies and hedge funds that were 
teetering on the brink of collapse.
That power was aimed at preventing a repeat of the problems surrounding
?insurance giant American International Group Inc., which sparked a furor
?last week when it was revealed the company had distributed $165 million 
in bonuses to employees of its financial products group. The unit specialized 
in trading credit default swaps, the instruments that drove the company to 
near-collapse last fall.
"Let me be clear," Geithner told the committee. "The days when a major 
insurance company could bet the house on credit default swaps with no 
one watching and no credible backing to protect the company or taxpayers must end."
The administration, pushing for quick action on its reform agenda, sent 
Congress a 61-page bill dealing with the expanded powers to seize control 
of nonbank institutions late Wednesday.
The House committee, chaired by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., has
?indicated it could move on the measure as early as next week.
However, it was unclear how fast the rest of the financial reform agenda
?might move through Congress. Geithner on Thursday provided only a
?broad outline of the other proposals. Many thorny details will need to 
be worked out.
Administration officials promised that the remaining issues would be 
hammered out in consultation with Congress with the goal of getting 
legislation approved as quickly as possible.
The administration wants hedge funds and other private pools of capital,
?including private equity funds and venture capital funds, to be required 
to register with the SEC if their assets exceed a certain size. The 
threshold amount has yet to be determined.
The proposal on credit default swaps and other derivatives would require
?the markets on which they are traded to be regulated for the first time,
?and for the buying and selling of these instruments to be conducted in 
ways that will foster greater oversight.
Credit default swaps, which trade in a $60 trillion global market 
without government oversight, are contracts to insure against the 
default of financial instruments like bonds and corporate debt. They
?played a prominent role in the credit crisis that brought the downfall
?of investment banking giant Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. last fall 
and nearly unraveled AIG, forcing the government to provide more than 
$180 billion in support. 
Hedge funds, vast pools of capital holding an estimated $1.5 trillion in 
assets, operate mostly outside of government supervision. As the market 
crisis deepened last fall, hedge fund selling was widely cited as one of the 
reasons for increased volatility that pounded stocks and bonds. Hedge 
funds also suffered huge losses last year, notably from investments in 
securities tied to subprime mortgages. 
The outline of the regulatory reform was unveiled a week before President
?Barack Obama is scheduled to meet for discussions among the Group 
of 20 major industrialized and developing countries in London to assess
?what needs to be done to deal with the global financial crisis. 
While the administration is pushing other nations to follow the U.S. lead
?in putting together sizable economic stimulus programs to jump-start 
global growth, many in Europe are resisting those calls and arguing that 
the U.S. needs to do more to toughen financial regulations. They believe 
the current troubles can be traced to lax regulation in the U.S. over such 
key areas as hedge funds and credit default swaps. 
Requiring hedge funds to register would open their books to inspection 
by regulators. The SEC sought that authority several years ago but was
?stymied by a federal appeals court in 2006. 
Hedge funds have grown explosively in recent years while operating 
secretively. They have lured an increasing number of ordinary investors,
?pension funds and university endowments ? meaning millions of people
?now unwittingly invest in hedge funds indirectly.


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Mon Mar 30 14:10:27 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:10:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Babel's
Message-ID: <12972.64697.qm@web180113.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


when did human mothers become so social they trusted 
others to hold their babies?
^^^^
They trusted midwife/sisters to catch the baby when it
?was born, which is holding the baby. So, somebody else
?held the baby before the mother did.
The notion of possession and "ownership" and individuality 
of the baby implied by the above question is probably an 
anachronism from the present projected back upon those 
societies which were much more social in consciousness 
than ours is.? Sociality is the critical and central characteristic
?of the human species at its inception. It differentiates us from ancestoral species.


From cdb1003 at prodigy.net  Mon Mar 30 14:12:25 2009
From: cdb1003 at prodigy.net (Charles Brown)
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:12:25 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Babel's dawn
Message-ID: <660385.80125.qm@web180109.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


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